Elvin Charles Hackel

Elvin "Elvie" Charles Hackel died January 16, 2025, in Loveland, Colorado, just shy of his 82nd birthday. Due to complications at his birth to Lloyd Melvin and Rilva Ione (Hutchinson) Hackel in Ord, NE on February 22, 1943, Elvin's doctors predicted that he would live only 8 years. To say he took particular delight in surprising people and doing the unexpected with the life God gave him, might be an understatement.
Elvie spent his childhood learning to read lips, messing with his uncle's tractor, and raising a ruckus at the swimming pool, while living with his family on various farms around Ord, NE. He loved farming. Just as recently as this last harvest season he offered to drive tractor for one of the cousins, if he would come spring him from the nursing home.
The family moved to Fort Morgan, Colorado in 1956 where Elvie spent his teenage years. As a young adult he did various jobs on local farms. He returned to NE where he worked at a meat packing plant and made sure to pay regular visits to his newlywed brother and sister-in-law right around dinner time. When his brother and parents moved to Denver, Colorado, Elvie followed. Throughout adulthood he held several jobs until he became a custodian for the US Post Office until he retired. He enjoyed disposing of junk mail torn up by the Post Office machines. Over the years, he amassed a remarkable collection of advertising pens.
Elvie enjoyed being a member and worship greeter at Bear Creek Presbyterian Church in Lakewood, CO. He especially enjoyed Sundays when he wore his authentic Alaskan moose-dropping tie tack-a sure-fire conversation starter. He also loved church potlucks. When someone finally suggested that he might also bring some food to share, he invented his go-to church potluck recipe. Ingredients: one block of cream cheese, one jar of salsa, one bag of chips. Instructions: deposit unwrapped cream cheese on a paper plate, open the jar of salsa, pour salsa over cream cheese, open the bag of chips and place it nearby. According to him there were never any leftovers, and no dishes to wash!
Uncle E also taught my brother and I how to cook one minute eggs in the microwave-hint be sure to poke the yolk before cooking (This recipe once saved breakfast for a group of hungry teenagers and their leaders on a church mission trip when the stove ran out of fuel). That said, Martha Stewart probably had nothing to worry about as fashion statements like umbrella hats, windshield wiper glasses, spring-heeled tennis shoes, and 16 x 50 Bushnell binoculars for an afternoon at the symphony, or household tips, such as cleaning your ears with car keys, using Go-Jo as an all-in-one shower gel (though, to be fair, his skin was always silky-smooth), and using the family dog as a lawnmower spark plug viability tester, did not gain a significant following. (And here I thought the dog was "Curly" because he was a poodle ).
I don't think Elvie would have considered himself an environmentalist, but he was into recycling. He readily shared his delight in swag by re-gifting it to his family and friends. The same Christmas that my dad received the "congratulations-you've-opened-a-checking-account" desk-clock and perpetual calendar, I received my first Swiss-army knife, bright yellow, and emblazoned with the Outside magazine logo. The origins of the red, crushed-velvet, gold-trimmed, faceted-ruby-crystal adorned lamp he gave my mom is a family mystery. Sadly, said lamp was most likely destroyed by the house-fire that ensued
when Uncle E decided to repair a coat zipper with the blowtorch near motorcycle parts soaking in gasoline.
Elvie found great joy in, "driving around and seeing stuff." Of course the driving was his favorite. He did not invent the dash-cam, but the person who did may have gotten the idea from Elvie's vacation video filming technique. He would wedge his little Sony mini video cassette recorder between the dash and the windshield (never mind the crack that ran through the middle of the frame), turn up the gospel quartet music on the radio, hit play on the camera, and "drive around and see stuff." When he got home, he would plug the camera into the TV and play the videos for anybody hanging around after Sunday lunch at his parents'.
In line with his knack for doing the unexpected, Elvie's road trips often included surprise visits to various family members. If, while you were away from home, you got a call from your son informing you that some guy wearing "space-shoes" (Cf. fashion statements above) had showed up claiming he was your cousin, you could be confident in reassuring your son it was "just Elvie" and yes, you were in fact related. Elvie was of the firm conviction that lack of an invitation should never be a hindrance to family providing food, lodging, and a few good laughs while he drove around to see stuff.
Elvie's vehicle was always equipped with three or four radar detectors to ensure his driving was uninterrupted by speeding ticket stops (This tactic was unsuccessful. So unsuccessful that he once told me he thought the cops were harassing him because he got stopped so often, for no reason, of course). He liked road trips, but his true drive-time love and expertise was off-road in a 4x4, especially when accompanied by nervous passengers! Elvie reveled in making people squirm, squawk, squeal, and say their prayers by steering close to a sheer drop off the side of a mountain, or revving the lowest gears up an "impossible" incline full of car-sized boulders. To his credit, over the years, everyone always came back alive, maybe a bit wobbly, and much closer to God. A brilliant 4x4 travel tip from Uncle E: Always keep a glove box full of bubble gum and require all passengers to chew some, in case a sharp rock punctures the gas tank. The hole can be plugged with a wad of chewed gum, any flavor. Chewing gum also relieves altitude change ear pressure, and keeps throats well hydrated for all the screaming, whooping, and laughing. Oh, and if there is a mound in the road, that could not be gotten over without high-centering your vehicle in the wilderness, be sure to leave some tire tracks up it for the next brave souls on the trail, just to "make 'em think you did." (Insert an all-teeth Elvie grin here).
Elvie was also known to enjoy a well-roasted turkey leg at the Renaissance Festival, finding an unmonitored side door into car and truck expos, Gospel Quartet concerts, and cheering on his cousins at rodeos. In part, his love of crowded events also stemmed from his love of surprising people and his possession of reflective watch faces, laser pointers, and a pen that shot water. There were many times that Elvie's squinted eyes and satisfied grin were due to his making people think it was raining on a bluebird-sky day in Colorado.
Besides driving around and seeing stuff, Elvie's other obsession was family. These past several years, after losing the ability to drive safely, he spent most of his time at the nursing home watching his 80" Black-Friday-Special TV and on the phone with his family. The cousins agreed that he was always curious about what they were doing, right down to the latest gas mileage they got with their truck, any new farm implement purchase, and even the minute details of green bean freezing. In addition, he always asked after the next generations wanting to know what the kids, grand-kids, and great-grand-kids were doing these days. If as philosopher Simone Weil indicated, attention is one of the most
generous expressions of love we can give one another, then Elvie loved his family and friends. He certainly paid them a lot of attention.
While I do not think it is possible to surprise the Lord, I do not doubt that the omniscience of the Almighty would keep Elvie from leaving tracks to make us think he did. Once it was clear he was headed that way, he died fairly quick-probably hoping to sneak past St. Peter at the pearly gates and invite himself to dinner; even though he did well know he was welcome through the front door. Elvie said as much in a text to his hairdresser. Yes, Elvie had a hairdresser (no telling what she thought of Go-Jo as a hair product). In a text he let me copy when I was "fixing" his phone he wrote to her: "we are all sinners by the grace of God we are all forgiven nobody is better than thee other so you have the same right as anybody else don't let anybody put you out they are one just like you are one". While punctuation may have been elusive, Elvie fully grasped grace. He knew that everybody needed saving and that God could save anybody, even somebody as ornery as him. That's good news, it means God can save the rest of us ornery folks too. Nobody is so far gone that they are out of the reach of God's grace to us in Jesus Christ. Elvie knew, that because he received God's gift of salvation in Jesus, and not for any other reason, that when he showed up at God's door, he would have a place to stay, a feast waiting, and plenty of laughs. After all, He's family.
I do not pretend to know exactly what that transformation into glory entails. I do not know if plaid shirts and khaki pants are standard issue in heaven, they might be now. I would bet that for Elvie, heaven might be something like finally having the perfect pair of shoes he searched for all his earthly life. It must be wonderful to be at home and at peace with family, to have old grudges, offenses, wounds, aches and pains healed once and for all. It must be sheer delight not to have to ask people to repeat the punch line of their jokes two or three times before letting that infamous Hackel cackle echo through the great banquet hall of our Eternal King. Of course, the best part was probably the drive. Who knows what wonders he must have seen along the way? One thing we can be sure of, when that sweet chariot swung low to carry him home, the first thing Elvie asked his band of angels was, "What kind of gas mileage you get with that thing?"
A graveside service for Elvin was held January 29, 2025, at the City of Loveland Burial Park. The Rev. James Webb of Mountain View Presbyterian Church (Loveland, CO) presided. Elvin was preceded in death by his parents, Melvin and Rilva Hackel, his brother, Ron Hackel, and nephew, Travis Hackel. He is survived by his sister-in-law, Jeannie Hackel and niece, Tracee Hackel, long-time friend Coleen Bowen, and many beloved cousins. We wish to thank Good Samaritan Village Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing staff for taking good care of Elvie for the last seven years of his life and approving the installation of his 80" TV in his room for the duration.