by Paul Gibb
Which of our members is a likable, smiling, outgoing person who loves singing, skiing, climbing fourteeners, cycling, and most of all his wife Amy? And who, along with Amy, survived and is climbing back from one of the most tragic occurrences in Boulder County history?
Of course I’m talking about Paul Austin, who discovered the Boulder Valley UU Fellowship just four years ago, after 61 years as a somewhat skeptical Episcopalian.
He was born in North Adams, MA. His dad grew up on a farm in Vermont and went to agricultural school, but then married a woman who didn’t want him to be a farmer, so he became a mailman and then a bus driver. Paul’s mom worked as an executive assistant for 25 years and then retired and became a bus driver also, and both parents drove school buses for about 25 years. Paul has never aspired to drive a bus, however.
Paul refers to himself as a “cradle Episcopalian” – as someone who was an Episcopalian from early childhood. He was baptized in the Episcopal Church in North Adams and until age 61 was Episcopalian. During his childhood he was an altar boy. And he and his brother helped paint the inside of a church and did a lot of yard work as volunteers. He doesn’t consider himself to have been very religious, but he attended each week because his mom and dad wanted to be sure he had a “faithful upbringing.”
After he moved to Boulder 35 years ago, he attended St. Ambrose Episcopal Church for 31 years, until he found our Boulder Valley UU Fellowship four years ago, just shortly before Lydia announced the one million dollar anonymous donation for the expansion and reconstruction of our building.
Here’s what he has to say about the Fellowship: “I like that it’s a very liberal religion. I felt comfortable here, even though for 61 years I had said the Nicene Creed. For many years I didn’t believe much of what the Nicene Creed said, but you’re constantly instructed to say that every week. I used to just mouth it, and then I stopped saying it at all. And my wife’s spiritual journey changed and I started to think we should just start going to church together. The welcoming words were what just hooked me completely. I went hook, line, and sinker for that because I had never heard that in any other church – ever. It’s a welcoming church and I really love that. And I love Lydia’s sermons.”
Apparently Amy discovered the ‘Ship three years before and said to him “you should just come sometime.” And he has never stopped coming.
Paul’s career history is quite interesting. After high school he went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and got a degree in Exercise Physiology. After graduating from UMass, his roommate told him he had an apartment in San Diego and said, “You want to come live with me?” And so Paul drove 3000 miles across the country with his really big record collection and lived there for a little over four years. He worked as a tour guide at SeaWorld for many months and often guided children into a penguin exhibit and “other behind-the-scenes things you couldn’t see as an ordinary visitor.”
Then he became a paramedic for three and a half years, until the chiropractor he was working with said “have you ever considered becoming a chiropractor?” And Paul replied “that’s a good idea” and applied to the chiropractic program at Sunnydale in Silicon Valley. That was where he met Amy. After his graduation the two of them got married and moved to Boulder, where he found a job as a chiropractor, in 1987. Paul was attracted to Colorado because he had visited here many times and had gone skiing almost every winter. In addition he had a number of aunts, uncles, and cousins who were living here. And Amy had visited Colorado once and also really loved it.
Since moving here, Paul has climbed 46 of the 54 fourteeners in Colorado. And he’s played tennis – in five leagues this summer. He’s also singing tenor with the well-known Generations Choir, led by Ron Revere. He has been a chiropractor for the last 35 years, and also specializes in functional neurology, which includes conditions like concussions, vertigo, dizziness, balance disorders, ADHD, and declining memory in seniors.
1987 was the year the two of them bought the property in Louisville where their house would be built – the house that would burn to the ground during the Marshall Fire on December 30, 2021. The house was built and ready for them to occupy in June of 1988.
Here is what Paul has to say about the experience of his and Amy’s house burning down:
“I saw the smoke from my office in Lafayette in the early morning. Amy was in the house with our daughter Emily and Emily’s fiancé Jesse with their dog and ours. Our son Kevin who lives in Louisville came over and told them they had to evacuate. Amy had collected a few framed pictures (very precious ones) into a box but didn’t take anything else. They called me and said they were being evacuated and I immediately drove over to the house to see if I could put some water on it. At the time I got there our neighborhood was not on fire yet. There was lots of smoke and my next door neighbors were yelling at me from their car to leave the neighborhood. I had lots of time to go in and get things but somehow the brain just doesn’t put it together that your house could burn. I fully expected the fire to go east and not north into our neighborhood and also believed the fire dept had it under control. Boy was I wrong. We lost everything. The worst losses to me were the videos of the kids growing up, and their births were on tape as well. I had been wanting to get them digitized and just procrastinated. Luckily we have been able to replace some pictures and my sister found our wedding video. The new pictures are now digitized and the video is in process. I also lost family heirlooms like my grandma Austin’s writing desk and my maternal grandmother’s Singer sewing machine. We had done a huge remodel in 2018 and got to enjoy it for a couple of years.
“After the evacuation we stayed with our goddaughter and her family at their house. Their house had 17 people and 8 dogs for about 3-4 days and then we had to leave to get some peace. We were the only ones who had lost a house but the others were all friends who had to evacuate. So then we moved to a hotel in Boulder and then a couple weeks later into a friend’s house in Arvada for several weeks and then to our current house in late Feb of 2022. We didn’t know for several months that Allstate was going to cover all of our losses, but once we found out it felt like a gigantic weight had been lifted off our backs. We hope to move in in August. Right now my biggest priority is rebuilding the house and getting moved in. I can’t think of anything else right now except trying to expedite that process by putting all my energy into it.”
Let us all thank Paul and Amy for their wonderful presence at our Fellowship. And send our best wishes to them for a happy return to their rebuilt home.
Originally published March 26, 2020
