Favorite Memories

The BURN:

On one of the ski trips that the Driscoll and Avon families took to Colorado, Jeff led us on a particularly adventurous run.

Jeff always liked to ski in the trees while all the rest of the kids would be going down the open slopes, but not Jeff. You would see him shooting in and out of the trees every chance he could. We would all be at the bottom of the mountain standing in a group talking about the great run we just finished. Then Jeff would finally come shooting out of the last patch of trees, race up to us slide to a stop and throw snow all over his Dad. On one run, we had waited longer than normal for Jeff to show up from the trees. We were just about to call in the St. Bernard dogs, when here he comes out of the trees sliding to a stop and once again covering Cliff in snow. He was really excited this time. He had discovered a new run in the trees and wanted everybody to try it with him. So we all head up the ski lift, ski part way back down until he came to a hole in the fence. He said, "You're going to love this trail; it's called "The BURN!" "Jeff", I said, "this is not a trail it is a hole in the fence that some wild out of control "young body" made because he was going too fast." "No, no," Jeff says, "I was just down it the last time- it's great follow me!" And with that down the BURN he goes followed by all the rest of the gang of kids.

I just turned to Cliff to say, "Let's go down the regular run and meet them at the bottom" when he disappears through the hole in the fence too. You know the old saying; "like Father like Son". I think Jeff had plastered him with snow one too many times that day. Realizing that I too had to go or be made fun of the rest of the trip, so through the hole I went. I had not gone down that hill 5 feet until I knew that I had made a huge mistake. There were rocks and logs and stumps buried under 3 feet of powder. I can't ski in powder on a good slope. I knew that there was no way I was going to get through this mess of trees and rocks without some kind of serious injury. The one thing that keep me going was knowing that I was going to turn Jeff into a snow ball if I survived this run. I was in all kinds of trouble stuck under trees, tripped by buried logs and covered in fresh powder from head to toe. I knew I wasn't the only one struggling because I could hear Cliff cussing and yelling.

All the kids were long gone and I was lost, but after much falling, being swatted by low hanging branches, running into rocks, I finally made it out of the trees and into the open. Being out of the trees and finding John and Amy and all the rest of the kids was a great relief. I had no idea where Cliff was but I wasn't going back in there to look for him. I did have one final problem, the nice groomed run the kids were waiting for us on was about 25 feet straight down a cliff, no not that Cliff a real cliff! I yelled down to the kids and asked them how they got down there? Guess who yells back up and says "Just come down the cliff. You can do it-we all did!" You got it, my old buddy Jeff. I'm standing on top of this mountain thinking that if I head straight down this hill for Jeff I'm fairly sure I can run him down and cover him with snow. So down I came right for Jeff, he sees I'm after him so down the mountain he goes with me in hot pursuit. I'm working as hard as I can to catch up to him and he's bouncing along having a great time laughing, knowing full well that I'll never catch him. He was right I never did.

That was just one of the great memories we had with the Avon family on our Ski trips to Colorado. Vicki, Willy, Zach, Kourtney and I have been back to ski Breckenridge a couple of times. Vicki and I always ski up to that hole in the fence that Jeff called a ski trail, look over the edge have a good laugh and then get the hell out of there.

Harry, Marcia, John, Vicki, Jason Driscoll

P.S. I have undisputable proof that I can ski faster than Cliff, just ask him. — Submitted by Harry Driscoll

We had a basketball hoop attached to the deck above the carport. Whenever we want to play basketball, we would have to move the car forward and as close to the house as possible to open up the court. One day when Jeff was 11 years old, I was in the house when I heard a terrible noise. I ran down stairs, but was unable to get out the basement door, so I ran back upstairs and out the back door. When I got around back to the basement, there Jeff was sitting in the car, head down, the basement wall pushed in and the engine of the car running. When I opened the car door and asked what he was doing, with a few expletives thrown in, his first comment was that the brakes on the car didn't work. Of course, I asked him very politely to get out of the car and go into the house. I told him that he was grounded until he graduated from high school or joined the Army, whichever came first. A few days later, we had two adjustors at the house when Jeff came home from school. I introduced them as Army recruiters and the look on his face was worth all the trouble he had caused. — Cliff Avon, Jeff's dad

When Jeff had his first high school wrestling match, after never having wrestled in junior high, you could see that he just didn't know what to do. I, having never wrestled, could not give him any instruction. I was talking to Jeff after the match, when Harry Driscoll, who had wrestled in high school, came up to us. I said to Jeff that maybe Harry could give him some pointers. Harry said he'd be glad to and begin to tell Jeff a story of a wrestler who was facing a state champion wrestler. Before this kid knew it, the champion wrestler had him tied up in a pretzel. When he looked up, he saw these testicles in his face. He thought what the heck, I'm going to loose anyway so he reached up and bit the testicles as hard as he could. In a flash, he rolled the champion over and pinned him. His coach was ecstatic and asked the kid how he did it. He said to his coach, "You can't believe how much power you can generate when you bite your own nuts." I don't think that Jeff was ever forced into using that move through out the rest of his career, but I know he told me he thought about that Harry's advice from time to time. — Cliff Avon, Jeff's dad

I flew down to Arkansas to visit Jeff on my birthday in November of 2002. Since the weather was still nice down there, we spent an entire day golfing. It was Jeff, myself, two golf pros, the superintendent and a long-time member of the club. We played many, many holes...just for fun, not really keeping score (thank God). Soon the sun was setting and we decided to play one final hole and call it a day...it was a par three. We decided to pair up and play a two-person best shot. Whoever won the hole...well, I guess got bragging rights for the remainder of the evening. Since I was his sister, Jeff was stuck with me. The first golf pro teed off...on the green, a decent distance from the hole. The second golf pro teed off, falling short of the green. I teed off...sticking it less than three feet from the cup! After Jeff putted it in, he yelled, "Avon's Unite!" The other teams walked away with a three while Jeff and I walked away with a two and bragging rights! (I believe Mom and Dad also got the pleasure of our bragging as they got a phone call around 2:00 in the morning re-telling the story!) — Megan Cox, Jeff's sister