Brad Hoekenga
My sisters, brother and I have a lot of wonderful memories of our dad and mom. Here are some.
Our mom’s family was from Denver, Colorado and dad got two weeks of vacation each year so those two weeks were spent in Colorado. Back in the 1950s and 60s traveling was challenging as the interstate highway system was still under construction and we had to travel on two lane highways most of the way. Despite the challenges of changing and managing cloth diapers, listening to a squeaky styrofoam chest and traveling with no air conditioning- dad and mom were faithful in getting us to Colorado.
Us kids sure enjoyed these trips. We got to go an amusement park called Elitch Gardens to eat our picnic dinner and go on the rides. We got to go fishing with dad and grandpa in Estes Park and come back to grandpa and grandmas house and dad would help us clean the fish and we got to eat them that night. We got to watch Black Bart get shot by the sheriff and fall into a pool while eating our burritos and sopapillas at a Mexican restaurant called Casa Bonita. Dad and mom would take us to Glenwood Springs with our uncles and aunts and cousins for the weekend. We got to play mini golf, go swimming in the huge hot sulfur springs pool and stay at the Ponderosa cabins. Dad and mom always tried to make these Colorado trips special and and they were.
Dad loved to go boating. He had an old small wooden Wagemaker boat that I guess was leaking. During one winter when us kids were young dad put a vinyl coating on the bottom of this boat. The boat had a ten horse power Johnson motor and one day dad asked if I wanted to try water skiing. I was a skinny ten year old and that boat pulled me out of the water. I still remember that day being one of the funnest days of my life. Dad saw how much us kids enjoyed boating so he got a bigger boat. He got a 16 foot Glastron with a 60 horse power Evinrude motor. We had so much fun with that boat. We went to Mona Lake to water ski quite often and on the way home we would stop for ice cream. Sometimes we would get up early on a Saturday and go to Silver Lake. Dad would grab a jar of peanut butter and on the way up there we would stop at an old farm house and pick up some fresh homemade bread and fruit at a fruit stand for our picnic lunch. When we were old enough to drive, dad and mom would let us take the boat out on our own. This taught us a lot about responsibility- we took really good care of that boat because we appreciated dad and mom’s confidence in us to do this.
Dad and mom were also faithful in the spiritual part of our lives. We had devotions at our evening meal. We went to the Christian school. They made sure we went to Sunday school and catechism. We went to church twice on Sunday. They made sure that we knew that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. We are so grateful for their loving faithfulness in teaching us about Jesus.
We have many more wonderful memories of our dad like our Saturday night grilled burgers and homemade shakes and our birthday call when dad would sing “Happy Birthday” over the phone. We will all miss our dad very much but we find comfort and peace knowing that dad is safely in the arms of Jesus. Praise God!
Son Brad
