The Setting Sun: a Life's Adventure William R. Cotton Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science Colorado State University 1

The Setting Sun: A Life’s Adventure William R. Cotton Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science Colorado State University If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of my students 1.0 Introduction As I am now retired I am reflecting on my life and think about how my life tracked the way it has. How much is due to genetics? How much is due to my early up-bringing? How much is due to my own personal drive? How much is simply due to chance? These are questions which I seek to answer by documenting my life to this day. I begin by reviewing my early years followed by my college years and then life in Miami. From there I move to my life as a professor at Colorado State University and the directions that my scientific investigations have taken me. I also talk about non-science or pseudo science issues that I have explored. I discuss life in the mountains including building a cabin and life surrounding that era, followed by the yurt days, our cabin on the western slope of Colorado and life in Arizona. I discuss some of the fun things I have done, some kind of weird I must admit. I write each chapter beginning with my science/professional work and then go into the “fun stuff”. For those readers who are not into the “science stuff”, I encourage you to skip those parts and jump into the “fun stuff”. On the other hand, if you are mainly interested in the “science stuff”, I will not feel bad if you skip the “fun stuff”. 2.0 My Early Years I grew up in Upstate New York outside the small town of Little Falls, N.Y. My parents were Ernest and Marian Cotton. My father was an auto mechanic specializing in body and fender work, and an all around Mr. Fix-it type of person. My mother took care of things at home including what I now think was a hyperactive son. She was a school teacher and taught in one-room country schools until she married my Dad at which time she was forced to give up teaching. In country schools at that time woman teachers could not be married. Both my parents were brought up on farms. I have traced the Cotton family back to my great-grandfather Allen who farmed near Cooperstown, NY. His parents migrated from England. The story my father told me is that Allen ran away from home at age 13 to join the Union Army in the Civil War. Because he was too young to go into battle they sent him out picking mullen plant leaves for the officers to use as toilet paper. My father claims his tombstone reads he was “Mullener of the Union Army”. I have recently tried to locate his tombstone in the Cooperstown area and verify this but could not find it. My grandfather, William Pit Cotton, was also born in the Cooperstown area. He married my grandmother Sophia Maudrich and they served as share croppers growing hops for the Annheiser-Busch brewery. Grandpa Cotton loved horses and told about his experience working with the brewery Clydesdales. They eventually had to move elsewhere as the hops were attacked by a blight in the area. My grandmother Cotton was borne in Germany and migrated to the Albany area with her parents in the latter part of the 19th century. She actually was confirmed in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Albany which is the church Vollie and I were married and subsequently lived in for 3 years as janitors (formally called Sexton). On my mother’s side of the family my grandmother, Lydia Owens was born in the U.S. of parents of Welch descent. My grandfather Reuben Klock was also born in the U.S. from a family that settled in the Mohawk valley before the revolutionary war. There is a fortified family homestead east of Little Falls called Fort Klock. At one time we talked to the curator of the Fort who did a background check of the Klock family and found that the original name was von Gluck which means good luck. I never knew my grandfather as he drowned when I was a toddler while working on a dam on the Mohawk River near the family farm. My recollections of life before I entered grade school are spotty. Born in 1940, those years were during World War II. I remember looking up to see the sky filled with aircraft that must have been on their way to Europe. My parents raised goats as part of the measures taken at that time to overcome food shortages. To this day I have a hard time eating goat cheese because I didn’t like goat milk or the smell of goats. I remember a two-wheeled cart that my father made to be pulled by one of the goats. My main recollection is that it came off the goat and I flipped backward on my head! Our house was quite small, especially by today’s standards. The property used to be the “Shady Corner” gas station and my Dad converted the gas station building into the house. It had two small bedrooms a single bathroom, a small living room, and a kitchen. The kitchen and my bedroom was a shed-type construction added to the original gas station building. It also had a partial basement with less than 6’ of head space. I guess the entire living area was less than 800 sq ft.; less than our small mountain cabin. Figure 1: Me as a toddler The house was located in the bottom of the Mohawk Valley and was situated between the old Route 5, now called the River Road, and the “new” Route 5. A gravel connecting Figure 2: Home near Little Falls, NY where I grew up road existed on the west side, and on the east was a large, brick house that dated back to the early 1800’s. It had tall southern-style pillars in the front and very tall rooms with windows in which the glass had sagged with time. In the north side of the basement was a hidden room that was used as part of the “underground railroad” to hide runaway slaves as they traveled to Canada. Across the road from our house was a large swamp area with lots of red-winged black birds and pheasants. In the summer, it was very hot and humid, with loads of mosquitoes. Perhaps that is one reason we often went camping during the summer months? Before I was school age we set up camp at Canadarago Lake which is out of the Mohawk Valley maybe 35 to 40 miles to the south. It is west of Otsego Lake where Cooperstown, NY is located. While this does not seem far by today’s standards remember the roads were not as well maintained and the cars were not as fast either. I remember one time we had a Model A Ford that the bumper fell off on one side. My father took off his belt and used it to tie the end of the bumper back on. First we had a small camping trailer, maybe 14 foot long and Dad set up a large canvas enclosure like an enclosed awning. The trailer was kept there year around. Then we moved up to this much larger converted bus that had the engine compartment removed. I remember we had rather small fishing boats, maybe 12 to 14’ long and had something like 0.5HP outboard motors. These were not the most seaworthy craft as I remember one time waves spilling over the stern and my mom and dad bailing vigorously. Fishing was one of the main activities at the lake. I remember once catching a pickerel that must have been 2’ long! If I lifted it as high as I could the tail still dragged on the ground. I used to play with the grandson of the campground owners. One time the two of us went into the park store where there was this thing that one could purchase a chance to push this metal rod into holes and pull out a note that said you either won a prize or not. Well the two of us unknowingly kept busy punching in the holes trying to get a winning ticket. Boy did we get in trouble! I think my father paid half of the cost of those tickets. I learned to swim at a very young age. I remember at the age of 2 running down to the end of the dock, diving into the lake and swimming out to the float some 50’ away. One time some women screamed when I did it and I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. Sometimes just my father and I would go camping as my mother was in a hospital in Albany, NY. We would drive to Albany and visit her there. I didn’t realize it at the time but it was a mental hospital as my mother had frequent nervous breakdowns. I think the first time I realized how serious her mental problems were when in first grade in lunch line a boy told me my mother attempted to kill herself. It turned out he was the son of a nurse in Little Falls hospital and he had overheard them talking about my mother. I cried and told him she did not! But afterwards, I guess my father contacted the parents and told them what happened.

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