50 Years, 50 Stories – Rick Haskins

Today’s “50 Years, 50 Stories” installment comes from Rick Haskins, Imagine!’s Assistant Director of Case Management and its longest tenured current employee. I well remember the “well” Rick refers to in his reminiscence.

 

Well Being At Imagine!

By Rick Haskins

 

Rick Haskins looks out his "office window." Note the
hash marks on the bottom right - they track Rick's
years at Imagine!

In 1963 I was in 9th grade and certainly not a part of Imagine!. However, in 1977 I came to the Boulder County Board for Developmental Disabilities (BCBDD). I fondly remember the building -- or should I say, the basement -- we inhabited at that time on the corner of Iris & Broadway in Boulder. The upstairs was the Ruth Wood School and the basement was "us." I remember that the day services for adults at that time were the Sheltered Workshop and the Life Enrichment Program, both located on the same "old hospital" grounds as us but in a building across the walkway. Residentially, BCBDD owned Kelwood, an 8-bed group home on "the Hill" off Broadway near CU. The majority of our clients came from Carmel, the 80 or so bed facility also on the Hill.

Life seemed simpler in those days, with clients of the workshop taking RTD down Broadway, and those in the Life Enrichment Program being transported by van. IPs were simple three-page documents with the first page being for signatures, the second for a summary, and the third for two or three Goals and three or four Objectives. What more did you need?

The basement had three exits: one door at the top of a staircase leading to the school and two leading to the outside. One of the doors to the outside was a solid metal door at the top of a staircase, the other with clear glass leading to a "well" at the bottom of a staircase. With no windows in any of the offices it was this last glass door that allowed us to see if we had inclement weather as we could look down the hallway and see rain or snow coming down into the open well. It was this lack of windows that lead Leslie Brossman (now Rothman) to get me, on my 20th Anniversary at Imagine!, a window taken out of some old barn or house and painted white. It was a lovely window. I hung it from the ceiling in my office, right next to one of my inside walls, put a painting or picture behind it (it changed over the years), and I was proudly able to say I had the first -- and only -- window in the basement of the BCBDD. Thank you, Leslie.
 

Bonus picture - Rick Haskins from days gone by!



Bonus picture #2 - Rick's very first check stub from the BCBDD.
Check out Mr. Moneybags! (You can click on the image for
a better view).

Are you interested in sharing your story for “50 Years, 50 Stories?” If so, contact Caroline Siegfried at caroline@imaginecolorado.org or 303-926-6405. We’d love to hear from you!