As they are also children of God, they shall go un-named in this tome, to protect them – from scorn, from ridicule, from the certain disdain and disparagement normal people would heap upon them if they knew them and suffered their eccentricities and outlandishness’s as we have. Nor will I single out the best or worst of them; some of these multi-named guests (for example, but pseudonymically, Laura Moon-Child Temple Bluebird, and I won’t say if she was on the best or worst list), while deserving of a full chapter in this book, detailing their oddities and assaults on normalcy, will quietly and respectfully flow into the pools and eddies of what makes Boulder…….. Boulder.
Boulder, CO can simply and adequately be defined as “24 square miles surrounded by reality.” As the suspected but undefined magnetic power field of the Bermuda Triangle so surreptitiously draws in unsuspecting airplanes and ships, the force of Boulder seeks out and sucks in, from all over the civilized world, the weird, the green, the soy-obsessed/gluten intolerant, the radically vegan, the granola crunching, the humorless, the intellectually arrogant liberal East-Coast Ivy-League rejects, the Allen Ginsburg look-alike, aging hippies who refuse to accept that they’ve aged and the hippie-thing really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be – (certainly not as it’s carried into old age), and variations and agglomerations of all of the aforementioned. Boulder is a beacon for all that live on the fringe, providing a safe haven where they can be amongst those with similar neurosis, and experience a sense of normalcy that isn’t available to them anywhere else in the civilized world. Twenty-four square-miles surrounded by reality.
Having exposed all of these truths, it is important to note that a large percentage of our guests are from Boulder, and they love The Riverside, (or loved the old Abe-owned Riverside) because it so typifies the fringe of what is acceptable as a hostelry. It’s old, it’s eclectic, it’s funky, it’s, it’s…..IT’S SO BOULDER. Or at least it used to be so Boulder. We constantly have to defend ourselves personally (we’re not ultra-liberal, vegan, 60’s radicals, native Coloradans) as well as the improvements we’ve made to the hotel and restaurant to those who we refer to as “old Abe people”, i.e. loyal customers of Abe’s.
Abe had three types of customers: 1) those that liked and patronized the place because of Abe; 2) those that liked the place and patronized it in spite of Abe, and; 3) those that liked the place but never came back because of Abe. If you put percentages on that clientele, my guess is it’s 10% for the first group, 20% for the second, and the remaining 70% we’re trying to recover and win over. Abe’s catering to and relying upon that loyal 10% was the reason for his winding up broke, broke, and broker. (Editor’s note: One of Abe’s best customers is now one of ours; he is an exception to the rule. He loves what we’ve done with the place, joins us regularly, and is a pleasure to have in our house. However, there is no denying the fact that he is indeed, a character; that trait alone makes him a welcome fixture to The Riverside. I don’t believe he is actually from Boulder proper, but should he want the position, he could be elected Mayor.)
I get one of these calls weekly.
“Are you the new owner?”
“Yes, along with the bank”
“What happened to Abe?”
“He sold us the hotel two years ago and moved to Englewood.”
“Oh, we just loved Abe. We miss him so!”
“Wait a minute. You loved Abe, you miss him so, but you haven’t stayed here for two years, and you didn’t even know that he was gone?”
“Well, mostly we stayed at the hot springs, because the Riverside was a dump. But we loved Abe. He was such a character!! Do you have any rooms available this weekend, and do you still take pets?”
“I have some queen rooms that we allow for pet owners. What type of pets?”
“Oh, we have four pit-bulls. The two females are in heat, and the males are fresh from a fight, but they’re small for their breed. But Abe always let us bring our dogs.”
“Sorry, but single dogs, less than 30 pounds.”
“OK, well how much are the rooms?”
“Queen Rooms are $76 plus tax.”
“WOW. $76 dollars? You’ve raised the rates!!!”
“Yes. We’ve made some improvements – new beds, new sheets, light bulbs that actually work, toilets that flush – and these things cost money, but I think you’ll find the place a little more welcoming. Oh, and other stuff has gotten more expensive since you last stayed here in 1994 for $35. Electricity, water, gas, you know, the stuff that puts this place a step above camping out.”
“Oh my!! Please don’t tell me you got rid of the mismatched, paisley, loud-striped, cartoon-character sheets. They gave the place such a unique feel.”
“Well, unfortunately we did. They were, uh, threadbare, and to quantify them as acceptable bed sheets, we would have had to develop a new process for thread grafting. We found it cheaper to buy nice, new, white high thread count sheets. They’re really comfortable. You should try them at your home.”
“Oh, that’s what we have at our home. But I’ll miss those old sheets. Do you still have the restaurant? Abe’s food was so good!”
“We have a very nice restaurant, and I think the food is as good as or better than what Abe used to serve.”
“We loved the old chalk board menu. Do you still use that?”
“No, we have a paper menu, and in most cases, we have all of the stuff available that’s on the menu.”
“We loved the way Abe used to be out of everything and he’d yell at us and tell us what we were going to eat, whether we liked it or not.”
“I think there are still restaurants in Hell where you can get that experience.”
“We’re gluten-intolerant vegan soy-addicts, and no ice in our water!!!! Can you accommodate our needs?”
“Wait a minute! Abe served trout, steak or Cornish Game hens with Spanish rice. What part of that accommodated your diet??”
And so it goes. Weekly I get these calls from Boulder-ites. They usually end up giving us a try, arriving late in the day in their late-model, bumper-sticker laden (COEXIST, Impeach Bush, Go Green, blah, blah, blah) Subaru’s, ready for a soak, a meal and a bed.
We bend over backwards to try and win them over. In most cases, we do. But this goes back to the fact that The Riverside is exceptional because it is The Riverside. It’s not about us, our personalities or our politics. It’s not about comfortable beds and new sheets. It’s not about whether you’re from Boulder, CO or Shawnee, KS. All you need to ‘get The Riverside’ is a heart, a soul and an appreciation and understanding of what makes life unique and special. Twenty-four square miles, surrounded by reality, is Boulder, Co; and fortunately for us, it’s loaded with people that get it.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Living Life Lakeside
I used to live in a magnificent 12,000 sq.ft. historic building perched right smack dab on the banks of the Colorado River; I could walk out my back door to the edge of my property and either fish or pee into a stretch of Gold Medal trout water that people from all over the country would travel to and pay big bucks for the opportunity to flick San Juan worms and caddis flies into its eddies and pools, hoping to land many rainbows, browns or brookies, but thrilled to land one, and if skunked, happy to have been there trying. My wife and daughter still live there, although they haven’t the proclivity to either fish or pee in the river. My hope is that when they look at the river, they think of me and wish that I were fishing or peeing there still; but I am not, nor will I be anytime soon. Maybe even never again.
I now reside in Flowood, Mississippi, an eastern suburb of Jackson, in an apartment complex called Reflection Point, on a little body of water known as Mirror Lake. In my previous Colorado life, I would revel in and delve into the history of the river we lived on, initially known as the Grand River, carver of the Grand Canyon, until 1922 when it was renamed the Colorado. Needless to say, Mirror Lake doesn’t quite have the pedigree of the Colorado, nor does its run-off contribute to anything other than duck soup. In fact, Mirror Lake is a man-made 40-acre body of water that was built to accomodate and add asthetic value to a large, mirrored office building and the subsequent apartment complex (Reflection Point / Mirror Lake – get it?). I live in the apartments, and I work in the office building.
Ergon’s headquarters are in the Mirror Lake Building, a large, multi-storied building with a mirrored glass exterior. The city of Flowood, located in Rankin County, MS, is your typical bedroom community, comprised of single and multi-family housing, strip malls, a new shopping area with the requisite Lowes, Target, Kohls and all of the supporting cast, and an anonymous, big-time taxpaying corporation quietly hiding in a large mirrored structure on the banks of Mirror Lake. Unless you work for Ergon, you drive by and don’t think about or have any idea who or what resides in the big building on the lake, as the small street-level ‘you’d miss it unless you were looking for it’ sign is the only clue as to whom or what occupies the structure. Ergon is the Greek word for ‘Work’ – while ‘ego’ is part of the word, it’s not part of the Ergon picture.
The Ergon building is rather unspectacular – a six story rectangle joined to a smaller three story section. Like the organization, the building is practical, serviceable and not the least bit ostentatious. It stands out only because at a height of six stories, it is five stories taller than anything else for miles around. I work on the third floor of the six-story building. I’d been there numerous times in my previous life – the life where I knew I was a short-timer, and knew I wouldn’t ever work for a big company, because I knew that I was ultimately going to live life riverside. Then two weeks ago, at the end of my first day at corporate, I punched the down button on the elevator to head home and said to myself, “Holy crap! After 30 years of doing everything humanly possible to avoid working in this sort of situation, I’m now working in a place with an elevator, and I’m excited and thanking God that I’m standing here pressing this button.” Flirting with poverty has a profound way of changing your perspective.
Colorado vs. Mississippi; lots to compare, lots to say. I’ll start with the topography. Colorado has big time mountains, and Mississippi is flat – no point higher than 1000 feet above sea level. (There are five states that have no point exceeding 1000 feet above sea level; I’ve given you one, for $1000, name the others.) They both have lots of pine trees – Colorado has rigid, upright, lodge-pole pines, while Mississippi has a fat-needled, droopy, almost sensuous kind of pine tree. The Colorado pines are always on guard, ready-for-a-big-snowfall and up to whatever nature throws at them; the Mississippi pines are lush, fat, lazy and look as if they’re thinkin’ about fixin’ to do nuthin’. They are both beautiful.
Colorado has Trail Ridge Road, at 12,183 feet elevation, the highest paved roadway in the US. As you wind to the top, the views make you wish you had something beyond a mere camera to record them. When you get to the top, (unless you’re from Boulder) you know that someone way beyond human is responsible for this vista; someone like, maybe, God. But God also did some road work in Mississippi. Little known to outsiders but spectacular in a way that makes serenity a much sought-after religion is the Natchez Trace Parkway. This languid stretch of two-lane, beautifully-paved, commercial-vehicle free road traces a 444-mile stretch from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN. The road, or ‘Trace’, was carved through heavily wooded forest by Native Americans who knows how long ago, and used in subsequent years by all form and fashion of our ancestral travelers. The National Parks Service now maintains the road, and dots it with historical stop-offs and points of interest. I drove the Trace from Jackson to Natchez and back on a recent Sunday. I love to drive, and the days’ misting rain, the heavy pine forests and gentle hills and curves made the trip an unexpected, indescribable narcotic pleasure - not to compare the Trace to Trail Ridge, nor Trail Ridge to the Trace; both are singularly spectacular.
No one has the market on beauty cornered. You don’t have to be looking at mountains and rivers to be happy. The view of a man-made lake from a third floor office can be breathtaking. It’s all a matter of perspective.
To be continued…
(Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Rhode Island and Delaware)
I now reside in Flowood, Mississippi, an eastern suburb of Jackson, in an apartment complex called Reflection Point, on a little body of water known as Mirror Lake. In my previous Colorado life, I would revel in and delve into the history of the river we lived on, initially known as the Grand River, carver of the Grand Canyon, until 1922 when it was renamed the Colorado. Needless to say, Mirror Lake doesn’t quite have the pedigree of the Colorado, nor does its run-off contribute to anything other than duck soup. In fact, Mirror Lake is a man-made 40-acre body of water that was built to accomodate and add asthetic value to a large, mirrored office building and the subsequent apartment complex (Reflection Point / Mirror Lake – get it?). I live in the apartments, and I work in the office building.
Ergon’s headquarters are in the Mirror Lake Building, a large, multi-storied building with a mirrored glass exterior. The city of Flowood, located in Rankin County, MS, is your typical bedroom community, comprised of single and multi-family housing, strip malls, a new shopping area with the requisite Lowes, Target, Kohls and all of the supporting cast, and an anonymous, big-time taxpaying corporation quietly hiding in a large mirrored structure on the banks of Mirror Lake. Unless you work for Ergon, you drive by and don’t think about or have any idea who or what resides in the big building on the lake, as the small street-level ‘you’d miss it unless you were looking for it’ sign is the only clue as to whom or what occupies the structure. Ergon is the Greek word for ‘Work’ – while ‘ego’ is part of the word, it’s not part of the Ergon picture.
The Ergon building is rather unspectacular – a six story rectangle joined to a smaller three story section. Like the organization, the building is practical, serviceable and not the least bit ostentatious. It stands out only because at a height of six stories, it is five stories taller than anything else for miles around. I work on the third floor of the six-story building. I’d been there numerous times in my previous life – the life where I knew I was a short-timer, and knew I wouldn’t ever work for a big company, because I knew that I was ultimately going to live life riverside. Then two weeks ago, at the end of my first day at corporate, I punched the down button on the elevator to head home and said to myself, “Holy crap! After 30 years of doing everything humanly possible to avoid working in this sort of situation, I’m now working in a place with an elevator, and I’m excited and thanking God that I’m standing here pressing this button.” Flirting with poverty has a profound way of changing your perspective.
Colorado vs. Mississippi; lots to compare, lots to say. I’ll start with the topography. Colorado has big time mountains, and Mississippi is flat – no point higher than 1000 feet above sea level. (There are five states that have no point exceeding 1000 feet above sea level; I’ve given you one, for $1000, name the others.) They both have lots of pine trees – Colorado has rigid, upright, lodge-pole pines, while Mississippi has a fat-needled, droopy, almost sensuous kind of pine tree. The Colorado pines are always on guard, ready-for-a-big-snowfall and up to whatever nature throws at them; the Mississippi pines are lush, fat, lazy and look as if they’re thinkin’ about fixin’ to do nuthin’. They are both beautiful.
Colorado has Trail Ridge Road, at 12,183 feet elevation, the highest paved roadway in the US. As you wind to the top, the views make you wish you had something beyond a mere camera to record them. When you get to the top, (unless you’re from Boulder) you know that someone way beyond human is responsible for this vista; someone like, maybe, God. But God also did some road work in Mississippi. Little known to outsiders but spectacular in a way that makes serenity a much sought-after religion is the Natchez Trace Parkway. This languid stretch of two-lane, beautifully-paved, commercial-vehicle free road traces a 444-mile stretch from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN. The road, or ‘Trace’, was carved through heavily wooded forest by Native Americans who knows how long ago, and used in subsequent years by all form and fashion of our ancestral travelers. The National Parks Service now maintains the road, and dots it with historical stop-offs and points of interest. I drove the Trace from Jackson to Natchez and back on a recent Sunday. I love to drive, and the days’ misting rain, the heavy pine forests and gentle hills and curves made the trip an unexpected, indescribable narcotic pleasure - not to compare the Trace to Trail Ridge, nor Trail Ridge to the Trace; both are singularly spectacular.
No one has the market on beauty cornered. You don’t have to be looking at mountains and rivers to be happy. The view of a man-made lake from a third floor office can be breathtaking. It’s all a matter of perspective.
To be continued…
(Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Rhode Island and Delaware)
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