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Fortos Fort

Walk

February 25, 2022 by robertforto Leave a Comment

Robert and Nicole Forto

For those that know me, this week marks a very difficult time in my life. I am proud to say that I overcame and beat all of the odd but that does not diminish things that I can not change.

My friends and family also know that music is a huge part of my life. In fact, music is life in many cases and the song Walk by the Foo Fighters resonates with me on many levels. Its lyrics share my story and what I have gone through and how I have pulled myself up by the bootstraps and kicked life in the ass.

Take a listen and then we will dive a little deeper:

In the initial verse, Grohl admits that he has drifted several times from his path and is actually getting used to his new beginnings. He begins to accept his shortcomings and start his journey back. 

This is very similar to my story. In the late 1990s I was a wreck. I was busy gambling and chasing after addiction and it finally caught up to me. I too accepted my shortcomings and started on my own journey that would eventually become Dreamchaser Leadership, our businesses, sled dogs, and our little life.

Grohl could probably be referring to the process of learning something new, healing from an illness or an addiction because he expresses gratitude in the bridge over the fact that he is not dead. In fact, he seems to have found a reason to stay alive and stresses not wanting to die anymore.

For me, I could not have been in a worse place. I was facing a very long time in prison for my ill deeds and I needed to find a reason to stay in the fight.

My reason was my wife Michele and three kids, Nicole, Tyler, and Kyle. Every single day I fought to make sure I could one day be a dad and husband to them.

Grohl reveals in many interviews that he wrote the verse about going through a trial after he helped his daughter, Violet to learn how to walk and she was later able to walk by herself.

The lyrics go on:

learning to walk again
I believe I’ve waited long enough
Where do I begin?
Learning to talk again
Can’t you see I’ve waited long enough?
Where do I begin?

When I finally accepted my fate I knew I had to not only make amends to those who I hurt so badly but also had to find a way to start over. It took years of hard work from my wife and I to make reparations for my misdeeds but we finally did and I was given another chance.

The most powerful verses in the song is:

Do you remember the days?
We built these paper mountains
Then sat and watched them burn
I think I found my place
Can’t you feel it growing stronger
Little conquerors

During this time of incarceration, Michele and I would sit for hours in visiting rooms working out plans for the future. While this is nothing new for prisoners and something that all of them do to not only try to hold on to the past but also promises for the future.

In those visits together Michele and I built our own paper mountains and those little scraps of paper would eventually become the workings of the business that we run today. It started off as Denver Dog Works and we sat there and drew out the business plan and even the logo.

Over time, those little conquers of ours were put into motion that would eventually carve out who I am today. I was on a series on Animal Planet, I taught prisoners how to become dog trainers, facilitated classes, and helped start a service dog program inside.

Now,
For the very first time
Don’t you pay no mind
Set me free, again
To keep alive, a moment at a time
That’s still inside, a whisper to a riot
The sacrifice, the knowledge to survive
The first decline, another state of mind
I’m on my knees, I’m praying for a sign
Forever, whenever, I never wanna die

This is powerful. When you live in a nightmare every day and that nightmare is real life, you hear those whispers, those riots, those cries. It breaks you mentally and physically. That is what it is meant to do. Many find their way in reverting gangs and crime on the inside. Others find religion only to toss it over their shoulder at the front gate. Others find classes and groups or programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.

The point is, at some point, it breaks you down and you have to make a choice…forever, whenever…you will survive.

My time came on October 16, 2006, after a very long journey.

Immediately after that date, I walked into a dog training company, American School of Dog Training in Denver, Colorado. I had a stack of papers and was ready to shine.

This grizzled, old-school dog trainer and owner of the place, Bob said, “I don’t care about your fancy degrees and certificates. I want you to go out back and pull a dog out of the kennel and bring it out here and show me what you got.”

I did and was hired on the spot on October 18th.

Shortly thereafter the old guy asked me if I wanted to lease the place and we did. By January Michele started working at the place part-time and we started Denver Dog Works.

In time I hired two of the guys that I taught how to be trainers and one of them, I am proud to say is still working as a professional trainer today. Way to go Russ!

Michlele and I bought our first house in Aurora, Colorado, and eventually moved our family to Alaska and started Alaska Dog Works.

There have been many, many, trials and tribulations over the years and many more nightmares about my past. But each day Michele and I find our place and feel it growing stronger each and every day.

I am proud of what we have become.

In short, you can learn to WALK again.

There is so much to this story and maybe one day I will sit down and write a book.

Oh, and a quick side note. Do you remember that little girl Violet that Dave taught to walk? Well, she is now a backup singer in his band–arguably the biggest band in the world. And do you know what? That little girl Nicole, my daughter in the picture above, is all grown up and a partner in our family business.

Listen to the song again…

If you like what you have read or if you have a similar story to share, let me know in the comments below and follow me on Twitter.

 

 

Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post, Denver Dog Works, Dreamchaser Leadership, Fortos Fort, Gambling

11 Years at Fortos Fort in Alaska

July 4, 2021 by robertforto Leave a Comment

Fortos Fort in Willow Alaska

11 Years!

11 years ago today we bought Fortos Fort in Willow, Alaska on a rainy day by giving my 12-year-old daughter the option to stay in Denver or move to Alaska.
She voted to move and we left a wad of cash of several 1000 dollars on the realtor’s kitchen table—he wasn’t even home!
What a difference a little money and a lot of work makes.
The rest, as they say is history!

Filed Under: Daily Post, Fortos Fort

A decade at Fortos’ Fort

July 4, 2020 by robertforto Leave a Comment

It is hard to believe that it has been a decade. On July 4, 2010 my daughter, Nicole and I arrived in Alaska and it changed our family’s lives forever. We saw this little house as a possibility to make so many dreams come true. So much has changed over the last ten years. So many ups and downs, so many memories, so much life lived.

On that day I left the decision to buy this house in the hands of a 12 year old little girl on a rainy, foggy day. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Our house has become a home that we affectionately call Fortos’ Fort.

Here is a before and after photos of what it looks like then and now.

Filed Under: Daily Post, Fortos Fort

Youth Gone Wild/Touch of Gray

November 26, 2018 by robertforto Leave a Comment

I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was July 12, 1989. I was really early for a concert and found myself playing hacky sack around the back of the Richmond Coliseum. As I was kicking around the little leather bag I soon found out that it was Rachel Bolan, Scott Hill and Dave Sabo playing with us.

They were members of a hot new metal band, Skid Row and they were opening up for Bon Jovi that night. Skid Row had a song that was an anthem for our generation, Youth Gone Wild. It was about teen angst and rebellion. Aren’t they always?

At that concert they would film a video for one of Bon Jovi’s songs, Lay Your Hand on Me and they did the song over and over. In the final cut you can get a brief glimpse of me in the front row against the barrier with a chick in a fish-net jersey–you know the ones if you grew up in the eighties. We were sweaty and gross but having the time of our lives.

That concert was just a few weeks after high school graduation and a trip that I took across country in a car that I thought was mine. That is a story for another post for sure…

In the coming months I would find myself in L.A. to see the band Living Colour call Axl Rose out on stage for being a racist and Rose later stopping the GnR show and having a meltdown mid-set before The Rolling Stones took the stage. It would be the only time I have seen the Stones unless I am able to secure tickets for them in the coming week. I paid $50 for my ticket.

I drove all the way across country three times that summer. Twice in an Oldsmobile Cutlas Supreme that my grandfather gave me after the car mentioned above was returned to the dealership.

By the end of October I was in Florida with all of my possessions in a backpack and living on a sailboat with my friend Darrin. Neither one of us knew the first thing about sailing but somehow made it to Key West to see Billy Squire along the way. At some point I had fallen off the mast of the boat and broke my arm, with no money and no insurance I somehow set it by plowing a parked car, football-style.

By Christmas we were broke and hungry. The Olds had blown up and I sold it for 500 bucks to some guy on the corner. On New Years Eve we were homeless and living under a tree near the beach. My friends father quickly threw us off the boat when we found out we took it on our little trip.

Within days Darrin called his mom and she made him join the Marines on the spot. I called mine and asked for a plane ticket back to Portland, Oregon.

I started college and formed a rock band a few months later. We played at grungy clubs and I worked my way through school working the night shift at 7-11 and drinking, mostly as payment for our gigs, pretty heavily.

Fast forward to April 8, 1994. I was sitting on the beach in Fort Meyers, Florida with my toes in the sand and talking to an old beach bum that made hats for the tourists out of palm fronds. A special report came on the radio that the singer for the band, Nirvana was found dead. Just the night before our little rock band played Lithium and Come as You Are at a scuzzy bar called The Reef further down the beach. Those two songs were in heavy rotation in our set that mostly covered other bands with an original or two.

By the mid-to-the late 1990s my life was spiraling out of control. I was heavily addicted to gambling and spending my days “playing” the stock market. In one day in the autumn of 1999, I made $170,000 and it was gone by the end of the week. That is not a brag. Just the harsh reality of how reckless I had become.

The next decade is a blur of legal troubles, losing everything, my freedom, and almost my life.

I grew up. I met Michele. We married. Raised the kids. Bought a house and started a successful business. We ran sled dogs and became respectable members of our community, or so I thought.

Youth Gone Wild had come and gone but not without a lot of scars.

If we can back up just a bit, I remember playing poker in the back of one of those seedy bars in Portland’s northeast’s side were I would spend most of my time. I heard The Grateful Dead’s Touch of Gray for the first time. The Dead weren’t my favorite but I did get a chance to see them a couple of times. The last time was on the last tour before Jerry died. That will come into play in a sec.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

I am now in my late forties and struggle to make sense of the last (almost) five decades. I have spent my life doing what I wanted and paid the price a time or two. I have done everything I have ever wanted to do. I have travelled. I have seen many concerts. Met many people. Made many friends and had a lot of awesome experiences. About five years ago I returned to school as part of a mid-life crisis, just because.

There is a quote in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile you could miss it.”

I have spent my life trying to prove to myself that life is what you make it and you can’t let anything get in your way.

I was in fact very wrong. Just this past weekend I came to the realization that time passes too fast. How do I know? It was something as stupildy simple as visiting a Walmart of all places and trying on a pair of glasses. All the sudden I could read everything again clearly. If I can digress for just a second. As we age the lenses in our eyes become less flexible. To many of us this will be the first realization that we are getting old…

To some it is inconsequential. Others will blast me and say, “what the hell are you talking about. Everyone needs glasses in their 40s.” That is exactly the point. That simple, shortsighted and trivial, little step of realizing that I need glasses was a punch in the gut to me. It was the realization that we aren’t here forever and soon things will be much different than it was before.

I have lived fast. I have lived loose. I have slowed down and tried to re-connect with those I have let stray away. Just this past weekend I heard that my high school class is planning our 30-year reunion. 30 f-ing years. I will go.

Time will pass and there is still a lot to do. I am sure, all of you–my rabid readers–have had that realization a time or two that we aren’t young anymore. When was it for you?

In the words of Jerry, (and Robert Hunter)…but I also know that that we must whistle through your teeth and spit ’cause it’s alight.

Our time, oh, well, a touch of gray kinda suits you anyway.

I will get by.

Filed Under: 30 Days About Me, Daily Post, Fortos Fort, Robert Forto

Fortos Fort: Seven Years in the Making

July 4, 2017 by robertforto 2 Comments

Seven years ago today, me and my then 12-year old daughter pulled into the driveway of a run-down cabin in the woods near the little community of Willow, Alaska. We were city slickers from Denver in search of adventure. We had come here to look at a place were we could run sled dogs and get away from the hustle and bustle of a couple million people.

My rabid readers know the story by now: I let this little girl make the decision on if this was the right place. It was and here we are seven years later. It has been a labor of love to make this house a home. It is now full of so many memories.

What do you think of the transformation?

Follow Robert on Twitter at @robertforto

Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post, Fortos Fort

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