Memories of Larry & Susie Fisher, by Pete McCollum
I got to know Larry and Susie Fisher in the summer of 1977, when I was 17. The previous summer my family had moved to Marble, Colorado, to finish building our house after Dad retired the year before. I don’t remember for sure, but I probably met the Fishers first at the little community church. A fellow named McBurney was building a “retreat” facility up on a slope about a mile outside of town. The Fishers were hired to live on the property to keep an eye on things during construction and such, and they chose to live in a tent. Larry was a ski instructor at Aspen Highlands in the winter, but they needed some basic income for the summer months. I had a Honda XL125 dirt bike, and many times in the early evening I would ride my bike up to their campsite to visit with them. They were, of course, very cordial and friendly, and we had many long conversations about their plans and activities, and they gave me teenage dating advice, etc. Lots of teasing and laughter!
Larry’s primary sports activity in those days was training as a marathon runner. Marble is at 8000 feet, so perhaps a good environment to get into condition. Almost every day Larry would run down the road from their campsite, and along the main road between Marble and Redstone. But roughly the year before, Larry had become interested in bow hunting. He told me a story about his first bow hunt for elk. As I recall the story (I hope I’ve got it right), he successfully approached an elk at a suitable distance, and launched his arrow on target. Larry described how an elk wounded by an arrow will typically not run, because they don’t quite understand the danger since there was no loud noise like with a gunshot. The elk lay down, and would have bled to death right there. But Larry was impatient, and started to approach the wounded elk, thinking it might already be dead. The elk became aware of him, got up, and ran. Larry spent several hours trying to track it, but never found it.
Another “elk story” comes to mind. One day the nearby Slate Creek had a mud flow after a period of heavy rain, something that happened several times over the years that I was in the area. We found the carcass of an elk that had been caught in the mud. It had been there a few days, and was very bloated, about twice normal size around the midsection. Larry decided it would be fun to poke a hole in it to let the pressure out. He found the trunk of a sapling, several feet long, and sharpened the end with a knife. Susie and I thought this was a “bad idea”, imagining spoiled entrails being sprayed everywhere, so she and I moved back to a safe distance. Larry threw the sharp stick like a spear, hitting the carcass several times, but it never punctured the hide. Perhaps that was fortunate.
A couple of times I joined Larry and Susie on a hike. We made a plan to hike to the top of Mt. Sopris, the fourteener that is just south of Carbondale. Larry and Susie had a Ford Pinto, which we drove up the road to the trailhead. Unfortunately, the Pinto had rather low clearance, and we hit a rock on the road, puncturing the oil pan. It made it to the trailhead before we knew there was a problem. We embarked on the hike, but after a few hours Susie and I were ‘spent’, so she and I started back down to the car. Larry continued on (at a jog, of course), and eventually reached the summit. The next day Larry acquired a replacement used oil pan, and replaced it so that he could drive the car back down.
After the summer camping weather was finished, Larry and Susie moved down to Basalt, presumably so that he could be closer to the Aspen ski areas for the winter. One winter day they invited my parents and I to come to their place for dinner – I still remember that Susie made a taco salad. Larry had decided to try selling Amway products as a side-job, so he gave us his presentation on Amway. That was probably the last time I saw them, although years later I spoke to them on the phone briefly after they moved to Pagosa Springs.
Pete McCollum
Colorado Springs
A personal memory
Last Sunday pure evil came into Pagosa Springs. It tried to burglarize The Ski and Bow Rack. The owner, Larry Fisher, was there and confronted the man in the back of the shop. There was a struggle and the man evidently didn’t want to take on a seventy-one-year-old and pulled out a gun and shot Larry in the chest.
I knew Larry for a quarter century. We started with Larry as a customer for a paper recreation magazine I published for a couple decades. He bought the inside front page for the shop three times a year. We became friends and I became a fixture visiting the shop for many years. I started a nightly radio show for hunters and Larry was an on-air expert talk personality for years.
Larry was an excellent businessman and became the number one hunting licenses sales agent in Colorado along the way. Larry stayed on top of the sports and outdoors business traveling to many trade shows. He loved new gadgets from expensive to the simplest of new socks. He gave time to customers going over gear of all types. Most of what I know about hunting and skiing came from sitting nearby and listening to him talk.
He gave of himself sitting on many committees in an effort to make Pagosa Springs a better place. Over the years Larry and other volunteers made the town and area the place it is today. Along the way, we improved recreation and tourism and we had amazing growth during that time. We once joked that the drawback was, in the mid-1990s, the tourists stopped going home!
People across the area and country will miss Larry Fisher for all his positive attributes. In all our years I never knew of anyone who disliked him. He was charming, positive and made the best chocolate ice cream around. I will miss him.
