Video Interview: Tage Pedersen

1993.023.0003 Video History of Tage Pedersen

Interview with Jeanette Darnauer

August 10,1993

Jeanette Darnauer [00:00:02] This is the Aspen Historical Society’s video history project. We’re talking with Tage Pedersen. I’m Jeanette Darnauer. Talk to us about your early childhood years. You were, where you were born and what life was like, what your interests were as, as a child, growing up in Denmark.

Tage Pedersen [00:00:25] Well, I grew up in Denmark, and my, uh, my early childhood was during the depression, and we had a depression there as well as we had it in this country. And, and times were tough and, and it was in a, in a small provincial town in the west coast of Denmark, and my dad was a salesman for bread and margarine and coffee; he’d go around the country. He was one of the first people in that area to drive a car. And I remember seeing my first airplane, too. So it’s, uh, it’s not that I’m that ancient, but in that part of the world, it was, um, it was just beginning at that time. Denmark was occupied by Germany from, in April of 1940 1940 till May of 1945. And I was 12 years old, 13 years old when that happened. And during those formative years, we didn’t have a chance to experience much, because we were pretty much confined to being in the area where you were living. And traveling was very difficult. You had to have a permit to, to travel anywhere within the country. And, of course, traveling outside was, was out of the question. So when, um, when the war was over, it was a great relief, of course, because you could move around and you could experience other things. And I, I, in my earlier years, in my teens, I went through an apprentice program as a cabinet maker, which I didn’t enjoy that much, uh, although I learned many, many things. And my, I guess my interests were in, in sports. I played soccer, I was a gymnast, and, uh, did some skiing, just cross-country skiing because Denmark, of course, does not have any mountains.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:02:23] What was it like as an impressionable young boy and then teenager growing up under German occupation?

Tage Pedersen [00:02:33] Well, it was, uh, it was, it was repressive, uh, in retrospect. When it happened, you don’t, it doesn’t really make that great an impression. I mean, it’s a very strange impression because we, we, we, we, you get an influx of people that speak another language, and that took over all the administrative functions of the country and, and pretty much controlled your life, even though there was, you know, there was no, not any great violence in the beginning of the war. The last 2 or 3 years, it changed rapidly because of, uh, resistance movement in Denmark and, and bombings and sabotage. And whenever that started, then, of course, the German force would retaliate. And, and that was very scary because you never knew how that would happen. It was usually prominent people that were executed, like, uh, newspaper people, journalists, uh, uh, clergy and prominent people in the society. And it was more or less at random. So, so that part of it, uh, towards the end of the war, it was, uh, a little more traumatic.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:03:49] Was, was your family ever directly in, in a difficult or dangerous situation?

Tage Pedersen [00:03:56] Not directly. We, we happened to live in a, within a, within the confines of a German, uh, establishment. Uh, so we had to, we had to go through a checkpoint every time we had to go into town or leave the house. They had surrounded that whole area with, with tank traps and walls and everything else, because it was a, it was a, an amphibious, uh, uh, airport or air, airfield. And there was a great German contingency in there. So we were, you had to show you, your papers every time you went in and out of the, of the house pretty much. So in that, in that sense, it was confined. There were some bombings, and we had to go to the, you know, the emergency shelter. But we were never in any direct danger, I should say.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:04:45] And you, uh, joined the Signal Corps after you got out of high school?

Tage Pedersen [00:04:50] That’s right.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:04:50] Tell me what your role was there, what you did.

Tage Pedersen [00:04:53] Well, I was, uh, I joined the Danish army right after the war, and it was, it was… I was drafted, and, and, and I chose the Signal Corps, I guess, because a friend had done it and told me it was kind of fun to do. So we, I did that, and we worked mostly in stringing telephone lines. And working radio, radio stations and radio communications. And after, after the first year, then I was sent to Germany and reversed my role in the Danish occupation of, of a section in Germany which was under the British section. So I spent six months in Germany, on the other side. And that was very, that was very enlightening.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:05:36] Yeah. What…so you started, you said, as a cabinet maker, then you decided to go into physical education?

Tage Pedersen [00:05:42] Yes.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:05:42] Tell me about that transition.

Tage Pedersen [00:05:43] After, after my service in the military, I, I enrolled in the YMCA College in Copenhagen. And I had been very active in the YMCA in Denmark as a youngster, and especially during the war years. We had some great times, and, and I decided I wanted to get involved in the YMCA and youth work and, and in physical education. And so I, I went to this college and after graduating, I became a, a YMCA secretary in Copenhagen for a couple of years. And then following that, I, I took over, became a national director for physical education in the YMCA and YWCA, so that that entailed a lot of traveling and instructions and…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:06:31] Did you know at that time that you then wanted to, to work with sports teams? Was your, did you have a dream that you were working toward?

Tage Pedersen [00:06:40] No, not, not really at that time, no. I was more interested in the general adult fitness, and that was really my, my interest and what I was aiming at, both, both adults and children.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:06:54] What was your introduction to skiing? You said you did some cross-country, but…

Tage Pedersen [00:06:58] We did some cross-country skiing in the late ’30s and early ’40s. There was a lot of snow, happened to be a lot of snow in Denmark in those years, and normally you don’t have snow. So it was, it was a very, it was a very crude kind of experience with {unintelligible} kind of skis and, and just to slide around and really didn’t, never did any kind of downhill skiing or turning or, you know, just sliding on the snow. And later on I did, I did spend a winter vacation in Norway, in Lillehammer, as a matter of fact, and, and learned a little more advanced skiing, but really very little skiing while, while in Denmark.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:07:36] Did you have… was it enough of an introduction, though, that you wanted to do more? Is that why you…?

Tage Pedersen [00:07:41] No, I think at that time it wasn’t, it wasn’t a great, no, it was not a great deal, a great interest to me.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:07:47] What was your, what was your interest… how did your interest in the United States come about?

Tage Pedersen [00:07:52] Well, for two reasons. My, my older brother, he had toured the United States as a gymnast with the Danish gymnastic team. And, and I also have, my grandparents came to this country in the, in the late (18)’80s and settled in Iowa, but came back again, went back to Denmark because my grandmother didn’t like it. And I had an uncle that was born over here, and he came back later on and settled in Iowa. And so we had, I had relatives here. And the main interest, I guess, occurred when I met my wife, Pauline, who was studying in Denmark. She’s American, from Massachusetts, and she was studying in Denmark, and we met and that was, that was the end of the story.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:08:39] So it was either her living in Denmark or you living in the United States?

Tage Pedersen [00:08:42] Well, not really. There wasn’t, it was not a, it was not an ultimatum. We met while she was studying, and I had a little bit to do with the program. It was a program of adult education. She was, she was enrolled into residential adult education. So she spent a year in Denmark. And I knew the fellow who was, who was director of the program. And so we, we got to know each other at that time. And she actually spent Christmas at my home the first year. And that was, that was really the first time I met her. It was sort of by chance. And she went back to Massachusetts after a year, and I was planning on following her, and it dragged out with the visa, and we couldn’t wait any longer. So she, she came back to Denmark, and we were married in Denmark. And our first child, Sonja, was born in Copenhagen. So we lived in Copenhagen for two years while I was still traveling around the country. But we, we, we wanted to, to, to move to the United States.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:09:44] How did, how did your… what was the lure to come to Aspen?

Tage Pedersen [00:09:47] Well, there again, my, my brother who had toured here, he had settled in Denver and, and had come to Aspen to ski and decided to stay here. And since we wanted to, we wanted to go west, we didn’t want necessarily to live on the East Coast, this was the natural and, uh, uh, way of coming and, plus the fact that in those days you had to have a sponsor in order to enter the country. And, and he had found a sponsor in Aspen, which was the Aspen Sports and John Oakes. So he was responsible for my, uh, for my well-being. And if I got into trouble, he would have been deported with me, of course, I guess (laughter).

Jeanette Darnauer [00:10:31] What did that mean? Did he have to keep track of you?

Tage Pedersen [00:10:33] No. But he had to guarantee that I would not become a burden to the United States. So, in other words, if I, if I got into trouble, he was, he would be, he would stand up for me. And if I ran out of money, he would supply money for me, and, for the first year. So I was supposed to work for him in the store, but it never materialized.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:10:53] How did the job then with the Aspen Health Center come up…?

Tage Pedersen [00:10:58] Well, there was… by chance, totally by chance, because I didn’t know that that existed, even though it was my profession. The first, the first few months I worked for my brother in landscaping, and we were landscaping around at the Meadows area, planting the trees that are there now. And that was at the time when the Health Center was being constructed. And the director of the Health Center, Bruno Geba, at the time, we got to talk, and he found out what my background was. So he, he hired me on, and that was in, um, 1957.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:11:35] Was… did that have anything to do, then, with Walter Paepcke at the time?

Tage Pedersen [00:11:40] Oh, yeah, he was, he was, he was the one who, who, of course, built the Health Center because he wanted to have a physical side of his program, of the Institute program, along with, with the seminars, the more intellectual. His, his aim, of course, was, uh, body, mind, and spirit, the old, the old Greek triangle. And they had the spiritual and intellectual, and they did not have any, any kind of physical activity. And that was a pioneering effort in those days. You didn’t have health spas; you didn’t have adult fitness programs. And he was, he was very adamant about adding that to the, to the total experience.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:12:25] Do you remember the first time you met Walter Paepcke? And say his name again when you answer that question too.

Tage Pedersen [00:12:30] Walter Paepcke? I, um, well, I met him, yes, I met him, you know, shortly after I started working there, actually. It was uh, it was at, um, uh, um, Memorial Day, that first Memorial Day weekend.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:12:48] In 1956?

Tage Pedersen [00:12:49] ’56. Yes. Uh, he had invited a group of prominent business leaders from around the country to come out and experience the Health Center program in order to introduce them to what we were doing. And at that time, that was the first time I met him. And even though he was he was a proponent of physical fitness, he was really not a practitioner of it himself that much. But he was, he was very serious about having a good program, and he employed two, two medical doctors, three actually, a nutritionist and an orthopedic surgeon. And, and later on, uh, Doctor Houston, Charles Houston, who was, ended up living in Aspen and practicing after he, after he left the Aspen Institute. But, um…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:13:40] Were you, I mean, you were then in on the, on the very beginnings, the ground floor of the development of the, of the Health Center and the Meadows?

Tage Pedersen [00:13:48] Yes.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:13:48] Were you able to bring the philosophy that you had started in, in Denmark to that?

Tage Pedersen [00:13:54] I think so, yes. I think what, what we were trying to do was to make physical fitness, um, more interesting and trying to make it enjoyable for people, because whenever you talked about it in the beginning, everybody was, was backing off because they were, they were used to, to the, to the old fashioned type of, uh, regimented, uh, jumping jacks and that kind of thing. So we, we tried to introduce more of a, I would say, more of an enjoyable experience for them. We would, we would certainly divide the program, the daily program, up to many little sections, so you didn’t get bored with one thing. And, and games like playing volleyball and uh, and partner kinds of exercises and, and, and what, what in today’s terms is, is called, uh, aerobic kind of exercises. But… because we didn’t, we didn’t use music in those days. We did later on, but um… So it was, it was, it was an all-around fitness program where we worked on both the strength building, posture, uh, aerobic capacity and, and injury prevention type of exercises.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:15:13] How did people react to that?

Tage Pedersen [00:15:15] They enjoyed it. They loved it. We had, we had, I would say, probably 90, 95% attendance from, from the seminar participants. At first, we were worried that people were not interested in it, but we also found that it was a great, um, a great addition to the program, as such. Because if people can have fun together and, and can, can play together, they can also better communicate and also if, if they can, if they can interact, or let me put it this way, when, when they are, when they are together without clothes on, that makes a difference too. I remember once in the sauna, there was a whole two rows of businesspeople sitting in the sauna, and one walked in and, and looked at all those naked bodies. And he said, “Hell, you can’t even tell who the president is here.” So, so the clothes, the clothes makes people too. And I think when you can, when you can play together and, you know, the formalities drop, and we knew, and everybody at the time knew, that it made for a better stimulating seminar experience.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:16:29] Was that the same philosophy that you had brought to the YMCA program in Denmark, or was this an expansion of it?

Tage Pedersen [00:16:35] It was pretty much the same. Yeah, it was, I think, uh, what, what today we call “modern physical fitness” originated in the Scandinavian countries and to some degree in Germany, too, where you, where you got away from the, from the countdown one, two, one, two, uh, unison kind of exercise, where you, where you were more working on, on individual um, uh, performance and individual progress. So in that sense, I think it was a little different. Yeah.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:17:07] What were your impressions of Aspen when you first came here?

Tage Pedersen [00:17:10] If I had money, I would have left again.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:17:13] Really?

Tage Pedersen [00:17:14] Probably, yes, it was… we came in the spring, and there was… the only street that was paved with Main Street. All the rest of them were just mud and potholes and, uh, we had, we had… our daughter was nine months old, and we were pushing, you know, strollers around, and, and it was not a pleasant experience. Plus the, you know, the water system was unsafe. The sanitation system was, was leaking and crossing into the, to the water system and, and, and so it was not, it was not a pleasure in the beginning. And, and we, we actually, I seriously think that we might have left if we had had the money and… but then later on we, you know, you, you get to meet people and uh, and uh…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:18:01] But did you anticipate even at that time that the dream that Walter Paepcke and other people had to, for this to become a major resort? Did it appear that it could to you?

Tage Pedersen [00:18:11] No. Well, it’s certainly, you know, every year people were saying if somebody was buying a piece of property for $1,200, they said, “This is crazy.” You know, it’s never, “You’re never going to get any money out of that again.” So I think the general perception in those days was that, it was like, like you couldn’t borrow money to build a house, no bank. There was no, well, there was a bank in Aspen, Bank of Aspen. They would not lend money for, for real estate investments. Glenwood Springs would laugh at you when you came down there. It was impossible to, just to borrow money to do anything. You had to, you had to work on, on, on just, on just, uh, good relationship, borrow money from individuals. And Tom Sardy was, well, he, he, he funded my, my building the first house and…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:19:02] Tell me… I know that story. So tell me about that because it’s very interesting.

Tage Pedersen [00:19:06] Yeah. Well, we, we had bought a piece of property from Fritz Benedict for $1,200 and… $50 down and $50 a month, and that was all the money we could afford at the time. And we wanted to build. So we went around and everybody said, “Well, go, go downvalley and ask some of the farmers and ranchers. Sometimes they’ll lend you money.” And so we went through the whole, the whole spectrum of, of opportunity. We went to the bank, we went to the savings and loans in Glenwood. And nobody, you know, we didn’t have any collateral, of course. And, uh, and by, just by chance, I was, I talked to Tom Sardy. I didn’t know him at the time and told him what I was, had intention of doing. And he said, “Hell,” he said, “just, just go ahead and build it.” He said, “And then we can finance it once you get it built.” And he said, “Anything you need of building materials, you can get from my store.” And, uh…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:20:01] And his store was…?

Tage Pedersen [00:20:02] That was the Aspen Lumber Supply Company, and he had a hardware store and lumber and supply company. And he said, “If I don’t have it in the store, I can get it for you.” So, you know, I was floored. But we never, he never made me sign any papers or made any contract. And, and I just went in there, and we ordered everything we needed for the house. And once we had it built, he went along with me down to, to the bank in Glenwood Springs. And we got a loan, and I paid him off, and he didn’t charge any carrying charges, and, and the same thing with, with Fritz. When I paid him off, Fabi actually gave us 5% off for paying cash after having, having built a house on their property without, without… So those were, those were days of trust. And of course, um, it was one of the ways that he could operate, too, because nobody had, you know, except the, the wealthy outsiders. But, and he did it, he did it a lot, to a lot of people. Yeah. I had a friend who he did the same thing to, and I don’t know if he ever got burned. I talked to him, and he, he really did not. He never indicated that, that anybody walked away from it. So that was, that was a great experience.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:21:20] Your… tell me about your first skiing experience, how you got into skiing downhill and being involved in the, in the alpine business.

Tage Pedersen [00:21:27] Well, it was, my first skiing experience in downhill was at Arapahoe Basin because I came, I came to visit a year before I moved here, and my brother took me up to the top of Arapahoe Ski Basin and, with a pair of alpine skis, and I had no idea of how to turn. And I got down somehow. And so that was my first experience. And, and then in Aspen, I, I, uh, when we first came here, I just sort of got into it, uh, gradually. And then I became a ski instructor like everybody else.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:22:00] Do you remember who your first teacher or teachers were?

Tage Pedersen [00:22:02] That was, uh, Morrie Shepard, who was the head of the ski school at the time, and Wendy Morse. They were the, those two… There was Red Soderstrom, and, and Klaus Obermeyer was here, Sepp Kessler. Those were some of the people that taught us in the clinics that we had to go through in order to become ski instructors. And Fred Iselin and, and Friedl Pfeifer, of course, were the directors of the ski school.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:22:29] That was all on Aspen Mountain because…

Tage Pedersen [00:22:31] It was all Aspen Mountain, yeah.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:22:33] Highlands wasn’t open, Buttermilk…?

Tage Pedersen [00:22:34] No. Buttermilk and Snowmass… Of course we had, there was a rope, not a rope tow, but a T-bar on Little Nell. And that’s where we did the beginning, which was pretty tough for people, especially in those days with the longer, stiffer skis and softer boots and all of that. So you had to have a lot of body motion in order to…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:22:54] Did you ever think that you might not want to continue the sport, that it wasn’t perhaps as exciting as you…?

Tage Pedersen [00:22:59] No. I really got to enjoy it. Oh yes. I, in those early days, a day without skiing was a, was a lost day. You know, you really tried to ski every day if you could, possibly.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:23:14] Was the, was it difficult coming here? I mean, there are a lot of Europeans who, who came here, obviously, Germans as well as others. Were the, were the relationships with the, with the Germans difficult after the war?

Tage Pedersen [00:23:28] No, not really. I’ve never had any, any, any problems. No, not at all. My, a lot of my good friends in the older day, in the earlier days, were Germans. Sepp Kessler, uh, Sepp Uhl and Kessler and Klaus and everybody. No, there was, there was no animosity at all.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:23:50] It was a close-knit community, wasn’t it?

Tage Pedersen [00:23:52] It was, very much, yeah. It was, it was, it was, there was, there were, I would say, three different sections of people. There were the old-timers that had been here before, and they sort of formed their own community. And it was not easy to, always easy to get in with them. And they ran the town. They ran everything in town, school board and county commissioners, and the political parties were all, were all run by the old-timers. And then you had the, the newcomers like ourselves, working people in the lodging business, restaurant business and in the construction business and services to some degree. And then, and then that was, that was another level in the community. And then you had the, the more wealthy people that came from, from the east, primarily from, from New York, Chicago area and had, had vacation homes and didn’t, didn’t necessarily spend the whole year here. And that was sort of like, uh, that was another, another level. And, and even though there were, there were, there was mutual, uh, agreement and respect, it was not, there was a… I would say there was a little more class difference than, than there is today.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:25:15] So the, there was, but you know, the people even today, though, are… there’s, there’s a lot of, I don’t know if I want to say animosity, but, but resentment sometimes with the second homeowners. Are you, would you say that that kind of reaction happened with the wealthier people then?

Tage Pedersen [00:25:30] No, I don’t think it was, I don’t think it was resentment. That’s, that’s not so much my feeling. It was just that, that, you know, they were the intellectuals. They were the ones that associated with the music and the Institute and to some degree, skiing. It was, it was more an economic level that was, that made the difference. And it was not, there was not animosity. You know, you, you, you knew them and you talked to them, and, but you didn’t go to their parties that much. And you don’t, you didn’t… I think, I think one of the advantages today is that there’s a lot, there’s a lot more choice and, and more, uh, more democratic, I would say, even, even though the, the, the level is, there’s a lot, a lot more difference in between the, the poor and the rich today than there was then, I’d say.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:26:22] Jeanne Jaffee talks about that and I can’t remember what she called it. There’s two, two different classes that, that one was sort of the shitkickers and one was something else.

Tage Pedersen [00:26:32] I don’t, I don’t remember that termination.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:26:35] Who were the old timers at that time? I mean, it’s… when you, when you come into town in ’56, who was considered the old timers?

Tage Pedersen [00:26:41] Well, there was Mike Garrish, of course, who later became mayor. And there was Mayor Robison at the time, and there was the Sheriff Herwick, and there were the Loushins and the, uh, Popishes. And, and there was, there were some great families. And it was not that they… I think, I think they more or less, they felt that they were not quite as good as the rest of us was because they were, you know, they had been here and they, they had, they had never been any place else, a lot of them. And, let’s see, other families, I think, you know, there were some great families and we, we were lucky enough to get to know a lot of them and have developed good friendships.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:27:26] Do you think they had the attitude then, um, or was it, what was their attitude about newcomers coming to town? You know that, we say in the last 20 years that there have been a lot of people move here and then they want to close the door. What was the attitude at that time about people?

Tage Pedersen [00:27:39] Oh, I think, I think, I think in, sometimes they were probably smiling because they sold their properties, you know, for a pile of money to those, to those outsiders that would pay that much, which might have been a few hundred dollars, but a lot more than they had ever been able to, to get before. And then I think later on there was a resentment when, when the, when the property prices went sky high that they had sold for a few thousand dollars, something that later on would sell for tens of thousands. So I think, I think there was, there was some, some resentment there, but I, I think in the early days that they would often, uh, you know, without knowing, of course, but I have a feeling that they might have been talking to, to each other and saying, “Hey, this this girl from Chicago came and paid twice as much as it’s worth,” you know, whatever, whatever that was. And that was cheap.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:28:36] Still happens.

Tage Pedersen [00:28:37] It still happens. Yeah. Of course. Yeah.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:28:42] Let’s go back and revisit some of the Meadows things again. What…? Who do you remember coming through the Meadows? You must have had some very prominent people because they were at the Institute, at the Aspen Institute?

Tage Pedersen [00:28:55] Mhm. Yeah. Uh, the one I remember with great fondness was Adlai Stevenson.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:29:03] Who did what?

Tage Pedersen [00:29:03] He came to the Institute as a guest of Mr. Paepcke, and he was a friend of Paepcke from Chicago, of course. And, and that also, that story also tells a little bit about Mr. Paepcke. He was a, he was a very shy person. And I remember when, when I was introduced to Adlai Stevenson, Paepcke came, brought him down to the Health Center, and he came up to me and he said, “Governor Pedersen, I want you to meet Adlai Stevenson.” And since then I was, I was called “the governor” for a long time. And, but anyway, uh, Stevenson, he came to the Health Center every single day he was here. And, and they would come sometimes from the seminars, though, and sort of drag him out of the gym. Not that he was an athlete, but, but as he, as he said, he said, “I need this a lot more than I need the mental stimulation.” And his, his physical condition was not good, but he, he enjoyed it. And I remember when he left, I gave him a skipping rope because he was, he was, we did a lot of exercises with the skipping rope, and he particularly enjoyed that. So he, he, he left Aspen with a skipping rope. And of course, we had, uh, have well known people. We had the Kennedys for years. They would come to the Meadows and stay. And also, of course, being who they were, worked out very, very heavily and come to the Health Center all the time for workouts and massages and so forth.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:30:29] Were there interesting conversations that happened in the, in the spa or the locker rooms that were political or special?

Tage Pedersen [00:30:35] Yes. Amazingly, yes. Yes.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:30:38] Do you remember some of them?

Tage Pedersen [00:30:39] Uh, I don’t know, right off hand. Uh, Gerald Ford was there at the same time, when he was a congressman, of course. And Eric Sevareid was a very good friend. He would come every year and, and always spend a lot of time at the Health Center. Every afternoon he would come down, and he would always have the time of day to answer questions and talk to anybody, regardless of who they were. Daniel Schorr, of course, had been, came many times. Leonard Bernstein came and played volleyball between smoking cigarettes in the locker room. And, uh…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:31:18] Did you try to get him to stop smoking?

Tage Pedersen [00:31:20] We talked about it, but…

Jeanette Darnauer [00:31:22] Talked about it?

Tage Pedersen [00:31:24] We talked about getting him to stop smoking, yes, but I think that, that was, that was, uh, that was impossible. Yeah. He was, uh, but, but we, it was, it was interesting in the sense that not being an American, I didn’t always necessarily know who the, who the important people were. And, and, uh, so consequently, I learned early on to treat, try to treat everybody as if they were important because then you never, then you never get in trouble. And I’ve always been surprised when you get a memo from the headquarters saying so and so is coming and make sure that everything is well. And I always tell people, “Hey, don’t, don’t do that. It’s then that, that implies that you treat other people with less care.” You should, um, so that, that was one of my, uh, my learning experiences.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:32:26] How did the experience at the Meadows then translate into your work with athletics, athletes and sports training, Olympic training teams?

[00:32:34] That, that came about with, we being the only gym in town. The, in the, in the early days, the ski team was training here prior to the Olympics in Squaw Valley in ’58. The team was training here, and they came, some of them came down to the Health Center, and we did some very informal work with them, because the ski team in those days did not have a formal conditioning program. And then in the following years, individuals would come by. And sometimes when the team was training here, we could get the coaches to bring the team members down, mostly to play volleyball. And, and we did… I remember once in the early ’60s, the team had come out. A lot of the team members were in Aspen before the training camp started, before the coach was there. And they came to the Health Center, and we were doing all kinds of things. We were doing gymnastics and tumbling, and the coach came in the gym and looked and stopped, threw up his arm and say, “Stop everything,” he said, “They can get hurt doing that.” And so we had a discussion that maybe it would be, it would prevent them from getting hurt if they were in good shape and were able to do those things.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:33:59] Even though they were Olympic athletes, they still didn’t understand that philosophy.

Tage Pedersen [00:34:02] No, not, not… some of them were and some of them were not. But it was that they were, they were, they were just gearing to skiing, you know. And of course, the team did not have a year-round formal program. They would hire a coach for the Olympics, and they would train for a couple of weeks before, and that was it. And then they would spread out again and be on their own. So there was, there was no formal program. That really started with, um, with Bob Beattie and, and that was my introduction to working with the team on a, on a more permanent basis.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:34:40] You have a list of, you know, of who you have worked with. Why don’t you, just for, you know, tape purposes, go through the different, you know, teams, and Olympics, and years, even, that you spent time with.

Tage Pedersen [00:34:55] Mhm. My first, um, my first formal introduction to the team was in 1967 when Bob Beattie called me and said, “We have a, we have a team member who had a sprained ankle, and I wonder if you could come up and you could work with him?” And I said, sure. And that was Billy Kidd. And so he came up to Aspen. He stayed at our house and spent a couple of weeks and worked, worked with him on rehabilitating his, his ankle. He had sprained an ankle, and it worked out pretty well. He came back well and skied again. And, and then after that, Beattie asked me if I could go to the Olympics with the team in 1968, which was the same winter. And that was my first formal, uh, engagement with the, with the ski team. So I spent about two weeks prior to the Olympics in, in Europe traveling and uh, and helping them with, with both conditioning program and injury prevention and also treating aches and pains and injuries. So that was in ’68 in Grenoble. And, and then after that it was an annual involvement with training camps. And, and I had the pleasure of writing the first uh, training manual, conditioning training manual for the ski team that, uh, that we sent home with them and, uh, in off-season because even at that time, the ski team was not, uh, on an annual, on a year-round, uh, training program. So, but we had, we had to, then subsequently we had, uh, conditioning training camps every spring and, and, and in the fall, too, and also ski training in the summertime.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:36:51] Who was your favorite athlete to work with or did you have just one?

Tage Pedersen [00:36:55] Well, I don’t, I don’t think I could say one. I can, I can name several. I think Billy Kidd was a very, and he’s still a very good friend. We see each other frequently and uh, and he, of course, he, later on in 1972, uh, in 1970, won the World Championship, and I happened, I was privileged to be around him at that time. And that was a, that was a very interesting story because he, he had sprained his ankle again. And he also had a severe back injury, so bad that he couldn’t, he could not, after he had, I think he was third in the slalom and then he could not, he could not practice the downhill because of his back. And, and we found, we found a back brace for him and, and got him moving again. He subsequently did very well and won the combined gold medal. And Spider Sabich, very impressive athlete, and Cindy Nelson, I worked with her from the, from the early days until now. And the Mahres, and, and the, the list is, is as long as… Christin Cooper, Mark Tache, uh, Andy Mill…lots of work with Andy Mill. He had a lot of injuries.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:38:16] Did you counsel him to finally get out of skiing?

Tage Pedersen [00:38:19] No, but I… his greatest Olympic result was in Garmisch in 196-, no, in 1976, where he was sixth in the downhill. And he had sprained his ankle in training, and we did not think he could… he was not able to train the downhill, and we did not think he could ski it. But what we did was, prior to his start, we took his boot off at the start and packed his foot and ankle in snow and ice, and he sat with that so his leg was numb. And then just before the start, we put his boot back on again, and he skied and had his best result after that. So yeah, he was, he was a he was a great friend also and, and a great athlete.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:39:11] Are you still working with the, the Olympic team?

Tage Pedersen [00:39:14] Not on a regular basis now. I worked on a part time and event time basis to up till 1984 Olympics in, in Sarajevo, and well I actually worked the next year also in ’85 the World Championships. But starting from 1980, the ski teams employed full time trainers, and I, I was not interested in that. And, and so in those following years, I would work more on an individual basis with some of the athletes that had specific injuries, and they would come out and spend time in Aspen, and we would work with them, but not as a team trainer since 1984.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:40:05] Some athletes can be pretty difficult to work with, have pretty big egos. What would you say some of your biggest challenges were as you were working with…?

Tage Pedersen [00:40:14] You want me to name names?

Jeanette Darnauer [00:40:16] Sure, if you want.

Tage Pedersen [00:40:19] Um, I, I’m not sure that, that that is true. I mean, they had big egos and they are very self-centered, and that’s why they’re good athletes. And Kiki Cutter is a great friend, and she was probably one of my greatest challenges. I remember the first year she was with the team in Europe, she had come over and joined the team and, uh, and we had very few, very little money in those days. We were traveling second class on the train and, and packing the skis, and they were carrying their own skis and stacking them in the hallways and the train and so forth. And, and they, we didn’t have any money. And actually, we were lending the team money from the coaches and trainers and so forth. But anyway, he, I remember the first, the first trip on the train I took with her, she said to me, “How come you’re traveling second class and the French are traveling first class?” {break – tape runs out}

Tage Pedersen [00:41:18] I think so, yeah, I think so. I think…

Greg Poschman (camera) [00:41:21] If you could just start over with, what did she say on the train is where you could just pick it up, Jeanette.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:41:25] Are you rolling?

Greg Poschman (camera) [00:41:26] Yeah.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:41:27] Okay. Tell me what she said on the train and say what we were talking about.

Tage Pedersen [00:41:30] Well, we were talking, she was, she was complaining about the accommodations on the train, that we were traveling second class when the French and the Austrian girls were traveling first class, and they had somebody to carry their skis and, and do their skis and all of that. And where our, our women had to do their own. And then later on, we were, I think they were given $2 a day per diem, the athletes, to buy incidentals and lunches and so forth. And she complained about that, that it was not enough. And so I finally said to her, I said, “Kiki, if you don’t like it, you better go home again.” But we are great friends, and she’s a great, great athlete. And it just shows her, her determination. And, uh, and she, she did the, of course was, was the, the best woman skier for about 12, 15 years that we have ever had. She won more World Cup races up till, uh, up till the time of Tamara McKinney. And, and an interesting footnote to her was in, uh, Michener’s book about sports in America, he named specifically Kiki as being, and I kid her about that because she’s, she’s rather tiny, and he, his, his description of Kiki Cutter was “pound for pound, she’s the best athlete in the country, the best woman athlete in the country.”.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:42:49] That’s neat.

Tage Pedersen [00:42:50] Yeah.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:42:51] Your, uh, your career and your, your interest on a community involvement level, as well as career, has spanned both the arts and the, and sports side. It seems like you, I’d like you to talk about your philosophy in doing that and then how you got interested in the arts, even, even early days from Denmark.

Tage Pedersen [00:43:14] Uh, I became involved with the with the ballet in Aspen when it first started. And, uh, my involvement with ballet started back in Copenhagen when I was in the service. I went to the Royal Theatre and watched the ballet more often than I went to the movie, because there was a, we had a deal in the service. You could go to the ballet for $0.50, and a movie would cost you about a dollar or equivalent. So it was cheaper to go to the ballet, but you were, of course you were sitting up in the third gallery. But that started my, my interest in ballet, and I think it was primarily from an athletic point of view. I was, you know, I was, I was taken by the incredible athleticism of good ballet dancers. And I happened in those days to, to watch two of the greatest ballet dancers that, you know, at the time and even back into now, Toni Lander, who later on happened to come to Aspen with her husband, Bruce Marks, who was artistic director of Ballet West, and another Erik Bruhn. And both Tony and Erik were dancers, uh, with the American Ballet Theatre. And later on, he became, he became artistic director of the Canadian National Ballet. But that was, that was my interest in, interest in ballet. And, and in 1970, uh, Ballet West first came to Aspen from Salt Lake City, and they came on their own. The, the artistic director then was William Christensen, who also happened to be Danish and of Danish background. So I got to know him, uh, early on. And they performed in the, in the old brick schoolhouse in the gym, and they came on their own. There was no support group in Aspen. And after the first year, we, I was talking to him, and I suggested that we should, we should form a support organization to help fund the program. And of course, he was, he was very happy about that. And so, so we formed a board of, uh, of, a committee, a subcommittee of, of Ballet West and, uh, and that was, I think, in 1972.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:45:37] And you went on to continue, continued to be involved.

Tage Pedersen [00:45:40] I continued to be involved. I was, I, I was elected president of that group and, and, and remained there until 1980. And, and we evolved from, from uh, being just a, a Ballet West program. And then later on, of course, we added a school or Ballet West added a ballet school, which is still very strong and attracts very good students. And, and they came for 4 to 6 weeks, depending on, on the season and became, depending on the money, we had, because we had to raise a lot of money and, and they had to support the program partially too. And, and as the years went on, we, we started inviting some other groups. We invited some… somehow we got, we had connections with some people in the ABT, and we had some of their prime, primary dancers come out. And before and after the Ballet West. And then, of course, it evolved into more of a dance festival, ballet festival in, in the late ’70s. So it, we formed our own organization early on, probably in ’76, and had an independent organization of that, of Ballet West. And we tried to fund the program totally rather than depending on Ballet West in Salt Lake City. We tried to get them, uh, uh, out of having to support it directly.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:47:18] How would you describe your dream, at the time you started wanting to, to make sure that Aspen had a, that Ballet West had a support system here? And then as you went through the process of becoming a total dance festival?

Tage Pedersen [00:47:34] Well, I, I think it more evolved than, than it was a planned, uh, a planned development of the whole program. I think it evolved by the, by the simple fact that, uh, that even though we, we felt Ballet West was a very good company and people liked them, and we had a great, a great, uh, community involvement because they were here for about six weeks and people got to know the dancers personally. They saw them in, in the stores and the restaurants and, and they wanted to go out and see how they were doing. And so it was a, it was a sort of a family kind of, um, involvement. And it was very, very, I think that was very valuable that, we don’t have that today and, and involving it, evolving it into more of a festival, I think happened, uh, for two reasons. One, it, it became very difficult to raise enough money to have a full-fledged ballet company here for that many months, you know. Housing and, and the cost of, of, uh, tremendous cost. We could only, we could only maybe raise 40% in ticket sales. The rest we had to, we had to collect otherwise. So we tried to, we tried to get other groups that were maybe less expensive and also presented a different, uh, a different side of dance. So we, we had some modern, modern groups, and we had Twyla Tharp and, and, and that was about as, as wild as it got. So, so it, we did decide at the time then that we should, I think we had Ballet West always for two weeks, though, and then the other weeks we tried to, to fill in with other types of dance.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:49:31] Mary Apple, the executive director for a number of years, called you the best leader that she’d ever worked with. She said, you have a, your sense of fairness and, and democracy is, is really unbelievable. Tell me, how would you describe your philosophy of leadership?

Tage Pedersen [00:49:49] Well, um, that’s very kind of her. And I, let me just, let me just point out that, that Mary Apple was involved with, with the ballet from probably from ’72-’73 up till ’85-’86 and did an incredible job of getting people involved and very quietly, uh, made sure that we all kept, kept in line. Um, I don’t know if I have a strong philosophy. I think it’s more maybe a nature and maybe, maybe it’s, it’s just that, uh, maybe it’s not that I was not a strong leader, but that everybody else felt that I needed help. Maybe that’s how it worked out, because we had a great, we had a, we had a fantastic time. We all, we often talk about it, the people that were involved, that everybody was working, everybody was working together, and, and there were no prima donnas and no stars. And I think everybody felt that it, the job had to be done. And so it was, it was probably, I think it was, we had a, we had a wonderful group of people.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:51:00] Tell me about your involvement with the Music Festival.

Tage Pedersen [00:51:03] Well, I have I have never been involved with the Music Festival on an organizational basis, only as a fan.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:51:12] And you knew Edgar Stern.

Tage Pedersen [00:51:14] I knew Edgar Stern, I knew Courtlandt Barnes, and I, of course, I knew Jean Jaffee and, and everybody there. And I’ve just been, you know, been attending the Music Festival, and I still am. And I think it’s the, it’s the greatest asset we have, and, and I think today it’s, it’s as good as ever.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:51:38] Are you, uh, concerned about the future of the arts in Aspen? And where do you think, talk about your hopes and dreams for the future?

Tage Pedersen [00:51:47] I’m concerned to the, to the extent that I have a feeling that some, maybe some people, maybe not willingly, but seem to try to, to bring the big city to Aspen, in the way of facilities and in the way of the programing and everything else. And I, my concern is that we lose the informality and the, the closeness you have with the artists. I can see it in the, in the ballet. In the old, in the old gym, you were sitting very close, and you could actually see them sweat and hear them breathe and feel it. Now you have a wonderful theater, but you’re not, you don’t have that intimacy. And I can see the same thing could happen in the tent. There are people that want to build a concert hall. And in the tent, you have a wonderful, uh, a wonderful closeness to the, to the action that you don’t have otherwise. I mean, you know, when the airplanes are flying over and the dogs are barking, that it’s, you know, it’s probably bothering the musicians and it’s difficult for them to perform as well as they want to. But I think it brings, it brings an atmosphere that is very precious and very important. So my concern with, with Aspen and the arts is that you don’t want to bring Lincoln Center to Aspen, and you don’t want to bring the great concert halls and theaters, and you have to still maintain the summer kind of festival thing where you, where you have a… And I think the Music School too. I think in the old days when the students were living around town, and you could walk and hear music all over town. You don’t have that anymore because they’re out there now. And that’s probably a natural, it’s a natural evolvement but… and I, uh, it can’t be helped. You can’t go back to the good old days, but I think it’s the kind of thing that we all have to, we shouldn’t urbanize, uh, the culture, I don’t think. I think that’s the value and the importance of it.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:54:07] Maybe that’s, um, is there hope, then, to, not to bring back the old days, like you said, but do you still find hope in, in the future of making, maintaining Aspen’s, um, rapport and smallness or community, sense of community?

Tage Pedersen [00:54:25] It’s very difficult, I think. It’s getting more and more difficult, but I think it can be done and I think it’s something that, that we all have to be very much aware of. And I think they are. I think the people involved are, but they, it’s like in everything else in life, you, you know, you think success is necessarily synonymous with getting bigger and better. And I don’t necessarily think that, as far as the dance goes, that we have to strive to get the best in the world to Aspen. I think you can, you know, I would enjoy to see the Colorado Ballet in Aspen, for instance, you know, and people might say, well, that’s not sophisticated enough. But so what? I think, I think that’s part of it. I don’t think that we have to have all the stars. And I think… I can enjoy, you know, a student concert as well as I can, you know, uh, the stars coming in and I think there still is a lot of that in Aspen. I recall a concert once that, Isaac Perlman, uh, Itzhak Perlman and Misha Dichter had a chamber concert, and when Misha Dichter walked on stage, um, he had a, you know, page turner, and that was, um, Pinchas Zukerman came, came up and sat and turned pages for him. I mean, you won’t see that anywhere. And, and that’s the kind of thing, I think, is interesting to watch. And you would, you would never find that in the concert hall. And that intimacy I think is important.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:56:22] Thanks, Tage.

Tage Pedersen [00:56:23] It was a pleasure.

Jeanette Darnauer [00:56:25] We’ve been talking with Tage Pedersen as part of the Aspen Historical Society’s video history project. I’m Jeanette Darnauer.