Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The drive from Yellowstone to my uncle Richard and Aunt Ann O’Leary’s home was beautiful. I was a little wiped out from having driven over the pass in Shoshone national park and through Yellowstone. The Teton mountain range was on my right the whole way. I've never seen the Grand Tetons before. They do not look like the Rockies. When you see them, you understand immediately why the French gave them the name that they bear today. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, Google it. Once I got into Jackson I immediately thought that the residents of this town have well selected a nearly perfect place to live that offers beautiful views to admire in any season. To top it off - n the winter they have a ski hill right downtown.

My aunt and uncle live in a development tucked up high into hills, just a couple of miles outside of Jackson. The view of the Tetons off their main raised deck is just spectacular; we arrived just in time to see the sun shinning full force on the range, but I was too tired to take a photo. The guest room Teddie and I crashed in during my visit has its own walled stone patio with stairs that lead out onto the side of a hill offering a good view and great place for Teddie to do her business. Early the next morning after I arrived, just before 6 AM, we were all awakened by an elk. Dogs ‘bay’, crows ‘caw’, and for the uninitiated, elks ‘bugle.’ I learned that when I lived in Evergreen, Colorado across from Elk Meadow. This time of the year that meadow was filled with elk, herds of them. Once, when I lived there during the early 1990s, three or four elk, including a bull elk, kept me from being able to leave my driveway for about a half an hour. Those darned elk made me late for work. After trying to shoo them out of the driveway, the bull elk started to come towards me, so I hopped back in the car and hunkered down to wait them out. It was like they hung out, still like statues, until they got some mysterious signal from the head elk- and suddenly, they just drifted away. At any rate, I totally forgot that elk bugle. If one has never heard it before, it is a really weird sound. My first thought, when I heard the elk bugle, while lying in bed at my uncle’s house was, “. . . my uncle Dick sure has one weird alarm clock.” Of course, once I heard it the second time I knew what I was listening to.

I've always been a little confused about whether his community is called Jackson Hole, Wyoming or Jackson, Wyoming. I made sure to ask my cousin Lynn O'Leary-Pieron what the difference is; if I have this right, the whole geographic area is referred to as Jackson Hole, in which one will find the town of Jackson, Wyoming. I must admit that I was very happy that Lynn and her husband Olivier were visiting uncle Dick and aunt Ann while I was there. Their presence really helped the visit go smoothly. He's 85 years old now, and frankly, suffers from dementia. He has flashes of lucidity, but he lives his life in the moment now, often forgetting what's happening on the timeline, he is frequently confused by the sequence of events that unfold around him.

Richard O’Leary has been the patriarch of our family ever since my grandfather passed away in the 1980s. He had an accomplished business career, following an education in the law, which he studied after serving his country as a lieutenant commander in the navy. At one point he was head attorney for Monsanto Corporation; then he purchased a company called Studebaker Worthington and he and his partners purchased and operated many companies over the years. Up until recently, he has been very active running all those companies and actively serving as chair of its board. It is my uncle Dick who taught me that it is a socially redeeming activity of a committed capitalist to create jobs. But that’s not all. Among the many charitable and arts organizations that he has assisted over the years he chaired the board of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, that my uncle did not know who I was. I made sure to be patient and point out that I am the son of his sister Patricia O’Leary. He tried to indicate that I'd gotten through with that piece of information, but I'm not confident that he ever really knew who I was the whole time I was there. I think at some point he just thought I was a pleasant interloper that everybody else in the house approved of having around. That's OK. My uncle has been a great source of pride for the whole family, for so long, that I'm just sorry I didn't get to see more of him, that is, the real Richard O’Leary, while I stayed in his Wyoming home.

On our second day, Lynn and I took a five-mile walk on the hiking and mountain bike trails at the Old Pass Road in the Grand Teton National Park. At one point we found ourselves on a trail called the ‘jump trail.’ It was aptly named. There were a couple of mountain bike jumps that looked more like ski jumps. Suddenly, a couple of guys on mountain bikes came flying down the path and went up those hills, into the air, just missing Teddie as she stepped out of their way before they got ready to launch.

Later, Lynn took me on a tour of Jackson and we made a visit to the wildlife art museum. We did not tour the exhibits, instead we walked around the lobby and the exterior of the building. Subsequently, we went to dinner at my uncle’s country club, where it was quite clear that they were used to serving him and catering to his special needs; now, that is, that he is less present.