Our First Anniversary, and the ensuing days of hell that ushered in 2009

Our first New Years Eve at The Riverside, three days after taking ownership of the hotel, while noteworthy for a variety of reasons, will be quickly dismissed when compared to New Years Eve 2009, and the days that immediately followed.
New Years Eve 2009 was a booming night, unlike any we’d ever had. A dinner/spa/room special filled the hotel, and we turned as many diners away from the restaurant as we were able to accommodate. Heretofore unheard of bar and booze business along with a full house made for a riotous event; again, as is customary at The Riverside, it included a hodge-podge of people and personalities that would be more diverse than a Boulder phone book.
New Years Day dawned bright and beautiful, the morning sun and the brilliant blue of the Middle Park sky brought the repentant revelers down for a 10:00 AM breakfast and a hardy head start on the New Year. A day of good-byes at the checkout, room clean up, and the occasional glimpse at the football games, were followed by a slow dinner crowd, which afforded us the opportunity to sit down to dinner with our visiting friends from Kansas City on their last night at The Riverside. Darin the mortician/part-time waiter demanded that we sit, relax and enjoy the experience and cuisine of The River Room Restaurant, and was also gracious enough to act as our host and waiter. The wine and the accompanying good times flowed, and the hectic holiday week was indeed ending on a sweet note.
I can’t remember who came and told me that the Grand County police were in the lobby waiting to serve a warrant for Darin’s arrest, but the timing couldn’t have been worse, as Darin was in the process of serving our hot entrees. Couldn’t I have had an opportunity to quaff the fine wine and savor the rib eye before having to deal with our friend being handcuffed by civil servants that made Barney Fife look like the paragon of law enforcement (civil servants that also hopefully don’t waste their time reading blog sites that don’t always accurately describe people). It ‘twas not to be, as our hot entrees sat before us, delivered by Darin as his last act as a free man, looking mournfully at us while he said, “I must go”. The scene in the Garden of Gethsemane must have looked and felt much like this. Except they’d already eaten!!!
Three hours and $3000 on my American Express card later, coupled with a session with a slick, neon-orange business card bail bondsman that made me feel, well, icky, and Darin was sprung from the Grand County Hilton. Grand County is slightly notorious for its ability to generate revenue from unlicensed, defective car-driving neo-criminals that drink, drive, and wind up spending quality time at the county lock-up. Thus the saying; “Grand County – Come on vacation, leave on probation”.
Throw this little situation into the mix. As I was filling out and signing all of the bond stuff, it said that I gave them $3000 right now, but was signing a surety bond for $20,000. If Darin was actually guilty of all of these nefarious charges, and decided to bolt to Cancun, we’d be out some serious money. Wait just a minute! This guy showed up at our hotel/restaurant first as a good customer, then as a friend who wanted to help us by waiting tables and making desserts. It gave him something to do and someone to hang with when nobody in Grand County was busy giving up the ghost. We really don’t know him at all. Don’t know his background, his foreground, his above or below ground. We don’t have a clue about this guy and I just signed a $20,000 surety bond to get him out of jail, for charges we don’t know about. Could’ve been murder, terrorism, kidnapping, hotel/restaurant embezzlement charges - we had no real idea why those cuffs were slapped on him. And I’ve stepped into this deal for 20 grand – 20 grand that I damn sure don’t have. It’s my legs they’ll break, if in fact the Darin-off-to-Cancun scenario turns into reality.

Here’s the deal. Darin was arrested on larceny and “theft of services” charges. It has to do with what the County prosecutors feel were a misuse of pre-need funds that Darin inherited when he purchased the funeral home. The local paper has already essentially convicted Darin, as they’ve published the County’s side of the story (which was nothing more than a factual stating of the charges), and the local readership is left with the assumption – as they’ve not heard the other side of the story – that Darin is a crook. We know the man, and are hard pressed to believe that he is a crook – hard pressed enough to risk $20,000 that we don’t have. We believe he is honest to a fault – almost to the point of being a pain in the ass, as his penchant for playing life by the rules usually makes us feel a little guilty while we try and slide by this or skate by that. We’ve also heard Darin’s side of the story, and feel pretty good about not only risking the surety bond on Darin, but also confident that we’ll be invited to one hell of a blowout when he is eventually vindicated.
As the old saying goes, “Everyone gets their day in court”; nowhere is that more certain than in Grand County.

To be continued……