The aged, large Brown trout, a trophy sought after by all who angled this or any section of the epic Colorado River headwaters, finned slowly at the lowest depths of a pool, languid, sated and content with his latest conquest of the fat Fall caddis flies that had sought respite upon the placid surface of his pool only to find, too late, that the serene waters upon which they had lit were but the antithesis of respite, rather, it was a canvas for slaughter, not unlike a sleek wooden cutting board that exists for the sole purpose of faunal relief before their methodical and intentional dismemberment, that which is necessary prior to the feast.
The Brown continued to rest, satisfied with all that he had accomplished, living at that moment within a state of supreme bliss; the thought of future glories or excesses nonexistent in his feeble brain, certainly not at this point of ultimate contentment and self-satisfaction.
And then, upon the surface of his domain, a ripple, a tremble showing desperation….the hint of a struggle, perhaps even weakness.…caught the Brown’s attention. Could there be room in his near-to-bursting stomach for another fat morsel; could one ever have too much of a good thing?
Without even thinking, even in his limited vision of what thinking and reasoning involved, the Brown shoots to the surface, mouth agape, ready to blindly gulp one more chunk of what, at first glance, albeit peripherally, seems appealing.
'Glump'….water is sucked in, along with the fat treat. 'Chomp', as the prey is quickly incised, tasted and devoured. These two naturally spasmodic actions, 'Glump' and 'Chomp', are but a split second apart from being simultaneous.
Next, a sting in the upper jaw, a pain so profound, quickly followed by a strain, a violent tug, then a steady flow that pulls and yanks at the Brown’s jaw with an intensity heretofore unimagined or experienced. Screaming downward, back to the safety of his pool, the tug gets stronger, and the pain more intense. He shakes his head violently to and fro, hoping to rid himself of whatever he has encountered, but to no avail; the unseen force continues to pull, and the burning in his mouth has now found its way into the bone and throughout his whole being. He continues to shake his head, he continues to circle his pool, his domain, but the tug and the pain persist and intensify. His energy spent, he gives in and follows the upward force, and in doing so, the pain in his mouth begins to lessen and the resultant shock to his body diminishes as well. He gives himself up to this higher force, his previous state of indolent satisfaction now replaced by an intense desire to survive, to vanquish the suffering which has been inflicted by this source unseen.
He breaks the surface, fleetingly seeing a world and a life that he’d never imagined, that he never knew existed so close to his world. Now in the grasp of the unknown force, he knows only that he is no longer in his world, he knows he doesn’t like this new world, but he has abdicated to this unknown place; sadly, he has no cognitive notion of the pain, the suffering and the violent demise that ultimately and swiftly will befall him as he crosses into this threshold unknown, in what he believes is a defensive measure necessary for his survival.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On December 27th, 2007, at approximately 5:00 PM MST, in front of family both immediate and in-law, a banker, a title company representative, a realtor and Abner Renta, my wife and I signed papers that made us joint owners of The Riverside Hotel, Bar & Restaurant.
Abner had signed his papers earlier in the day, and the money, $690,000, was already in his bank account. Nearly half of that money would immediately transfer to an individual who had loaned Abner $300,000 as an “investment” – an investment that not only earned the investor no dividends, but Abner had never even paid him a penny of the principal, as was their initial agreement and a condition of the loan. While this sucker made none of the promised gains, at least he got out whole.
We arrived at the hotel at 4:30 PM, having pulled a 9’x12’ U-Haul trailer, loaded with a sofa, chairs, our big screen TV and scads of other knick knacks, pictures, decorative items and on and on….the first load of what would ultimately be three additional loaded 9x12 U-Haul trailers and two 25’ Penske trucks comprised of all that we had acquired in 28 years of wedded bliss. The drive had been brutal, with a sideways snowstorm through most of Kansas the evening before, Julie sick as a dog, and the final push into Colorado, over Loveland Pass, up the icy roads, twists and turns of the Blue River Valley and slowly into Hot Sulphur…our new home that welcomed us after this bitch of a traverse like a massive mousetrap welcomes a timid mouse on an innocent quest for a bit of cheese.
The deal was for Abner to have all of his personal belongings out of the hotel at the hour of closing. The deal also included Abner leaving all of the furniture and fixtures germane to the operation of the hotel in place, as they were included in the price of the hotel. As you don’t have to imagine, the opposite had occurred. Anything of worth, including most of the nice antique pieces in the lobby and the rooms, were noticeably absent…absconded by Abner and held in whereabouts unknown.
Still present in the hotel, particularly in Abner’s living quarters, was his personal junk, trash, garbage…the effluvium of 20 years of pack-ratted living….the very shit of life that a person such as me or anyone would assume that they were paying hard money not to have to deal with. That shit, he left for us.
Step back and imagine me for a second, going into this major life altering venture, having driven through a blizzard, hauling a trailer with a sick wife and reluctant business partner, and walking into our new home, the previous owner sitting in one of the shit stained chairs that he was gracious enough to leave behind, sipping on champagne and chomping on celebratory shrimp that the realtor had provided, throwing the shrimp shells on the floor next to the worthless garbage that he hadn’t moved from the hotel, (not next to the antiques that I’d thought we purchased),…and as I'm smoldering to the point of spontaneous combustion, he says to me “I’ve got my personal effects in the back room, where I’ll still live for a while, if that’s OK with you? I've got nowhere else to go....sniff”
I took a Grand Canyon-esque deep breath and walked back into the living quarters. In one of the back rooms, actually the nicest back room…one that Abner and his kept illegal hadn’t fouled, were Abner’s clothes, personal effects and, believe this or not, his slippers sitting neatly near the side of the bed, his robe laid neatly on the bed and his toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste at the sink (this was a huge shock, taking into account the condition of his fetid dentia).
He sold us the building, he cashed his $690,000 check, he took and sold all of the good stuff out of the hotel, left the garbage and the trash, and still planned on living in the hotel rent free, with us, in the nicest room in the house.
If balls were cash, Abner would have the financial wherewithal to scare Bill Gates and Warren Buffet out of a game of Texas Hold-Em.
………….To Be Concluded
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Abner Renta.......Setting the Hook
Abner was broke.
Flat busted, tits-up, in the hole, impoverished, financially depleted, in the red, destitute, insolvent….you get the picture.
However, of paramount importance to this story was the fact that I didn’t get the picture, or worse and more to the truth, I knew but refused to get the picture.
Abner hadn’t paid his property taxes for three years. I learned, after not paying my property taxes the second year we owned The Riverside, that this wasn’t the end of the world. Kind hearted individuals would step up and pay your taxes, and when you could finally pony up with the money, you would pay your taxes to the County, plus a penalty and interest, which the kind hearted knights in shining armor would reap. CD’s were earning 2% and the stock market was anywhere from losing 100% to breaking even if you were lucky; buying up late property taxes and cashing in on the interest when finally paid netted the investor 10% interest – risk free.
Here was the ugly part, and the reason why Abner pleaded with a total stranger over the phone for a loan of $10,000. You had three years to get right with the County, at which point the kind hearted soul who saved your ass with the County by paying your taxes, at the worst case would gain 10% interest, but a best case scenario they would have first lien against your property when they sold it on the courthouse steps, 3 years to the date of your delinquency.
Simply put, let’s say I owed the County $6000 in property taxes on February 10th, 2004. I didn’t pay the money, but some nice guy did, and the County is cool, as they get their six grand and don’t even bother sending me a nasty notice. I pay $7000 one year later, for the 2003 tax, of which the nice guy gets $6600, and the County gets the $400 penalty. If I can’t pay the $7000 the following year, the compound interest grows into the next year and the next, until you hit three years past due. Let’s say I pay nothing for three years, as was Abner’s case, then on February 10th, 2007, on the courthouse steps in the County of Grand, CO, my property is auctioned off to the highest bidder – the nice guy that plopped down that initial $6000 investment three years ago gets the first grab at his six grand and 10% compounded interest over three years – that’s almost $2000 on a $6000 risk-free investment. In these and any times, buying up property taxes is a good investment. Instead of buying a dilapidated haunted shithole of a hotel, possibly I should have looked at that as a means to making a buck in Grand County…..but alas!
Abner was two weeks away from that three-year delinquent courthouse steps auction. He was about to lose the thing that he’d put 20 years of blood, sweat, tears and all of his monetary wherewithal into - his financial life was literally flashing before his eyes, and the ending was a cataclysmic event, from which there was no recovery; at best we’re talking homeless shelters, if they would have Abner and his cantankerousness.
The first $10,000 got Abner out of immediate trouble with the County and the really unpalatable ‘sale on the courthouse steps’ thing, which was bearing down on Abner to the point where it made Father Time look like a lazy good-for-nothing slacker. The next $10,000 that we sent went towards the next year of unpaid taxes and “a little credit card debt that I’ve compiled….”, a nervous little laugh accenting this profession. After submitting this second financial resurrection, now $20,000, we were a little more serious about buying the place, and we figured worst case, we’d get it back with interest if we didn’t buy The Riverside and one of the multitudes of interested parties that Abner had on the hook did buy the place.
A few blogs back I took a personal break to relate a childhood incident, possibly directly unrelated to the purchase of The Riverside, but probably subliminally related to the purchase of The Riverside – i.e. my early in life failed quest for the attainment of Sainthood. While I didn’t have a sit down with myself to discuss this, again subliminally, the notion of redemption and being back on the active board for Sainthood-liness festered in the dark recesses of my red-flag ignoring, financially deficient mind.
A visit to my banker in KC to discuss my wild notion of buying The Riverside wrought the following discussion. This was a banker that had financed my business for years, through times both lean and hardy – we’d become pretty good friends…as friendly as a banker can become with a borrower.
“We’ve found this place in Colorado that we’re considering buying. It’s a historic hotel in a beautiful little town. It’s something we’ve always considered doing, and now with the sale of the business, I think we’ve got the wherewithal to make it happen. I’ve got cash flow projections and pro formas for the next five years that I’d like you to look at. Any chance UMBig Bank would be willing to consider this?”
“Without even looking at your numbers, I’d be pretty certain that it’s not a loan we’d consider. Let’s be honest…you don’t have any experience in this type of business, and it’s in a remote spot that we wouldn’t be interested in investing in” said my friend, the banker, really looking out for me at this point and of course I FAILED TO SEE IT!!!
“But you’ve got locations in Denver! You’re trying to establish interests in Colorado.”
“Right, but they’re pretty selected investments in Colorado. Here’s the deal…we’re hesitant to loan money to established Kansas City restaurateurs with locations around the corner from our banks, let alone your venture, someone new to the business trying to make a go of it in the middle of nowhere.”
(A financially savvy friend, whose financial opinion I’d sought and trusted as Gospel for the past 20 years had just sat me down, looked me in the eye and told me in a fashion that a five-year old would have understood, that this was a bad deal and to make it but a funny point of cocktail party conversation in my future.)
“So, how serious are you about this deal?” my friend, the banker, inquired.
Sheepishly, “I’ve loaned him $20,000 to pay his delinquent property taxes, of which he’s guaranteed that he’ll pay me back when he sells the hotel.”
I’d known this banker for 20 years, and I’d never heard him cuss, not once. He was a Catholic, but his demeanor and apparent disdain with regards to booze, gambling, profane banter and all of the other fun things that Catholics are able to do whilst still being faithful to the their religion, would have made him a pretty solid Baptist.
“Tell me you are f-ing kidding me? You loaned him money to pay his property taxes so the place wouldn’t be seized and sold? Please tell me you didn’t do that? Do you realize you could have gone out there and bought that place for nickels…maybe pennies.. on the dollar??”
This is where the Sainthood thing comes back into play.
I knew damn good and well that I could have done that. I knew that I could have told old Abner that I too had not a pot to piss in and he was at the mercy of the State. I could have shown up two weeks after denying him his $10,000, and probably bought the place for 1/5th of what we ultimately paid for it. I knew this, I thought about it, and St. Richard decided against it as a course of action – a course that would hopefully define me and my future, a course that would give me good karma going forward, knowing that I allowed a human who’d given his heart and soul to this place, to walk away from that place with his head held high and some money in his pocket. I didn’t want to take ownership of The Riverside under any other scenario.
OK, so my Saintly actions weren’t reciprocated by the seller – after the deal, on paper, I am not Saint Richard, I’m Schmuck Richard. But to this day, as of this writing, I look into the mirror with aplomb, hoping that someone of a higher pose, someone beyond a banker, will note the good thing that we did; not for the purpose of a favorable reply, but for the sheer purpose of doing good.
To Be Continued…………..
Flat busted, tits-up, in the hole, impoverished, financially depleted, in the red, destitute, insolvent….you get the picture.
However, of paramount importance to this story was the fact that I didn’t get the picture, or worse and more to the truth, I knew but refused to get the picture.
Abner hadn’t paid his property taxes for three years. I learned, after not paying my property taxes the second year we owned The Riverside, that this wasn’t the end of the world. Kind hearted individuals would step up and pay your taxes, and when you could finally pony up with the money, you would pay your taxes to the County, plus a penalty and interest, which the kind hearted knights in shining armor would reap. CD’s were earning 2% and the stock market was anywhere from losing 100% to breaking even if you were lucky; buying up late property taxes and cashing in on the interest when finally paid netted the investor 10% interest – risk free.
Here was the ugly part, and the reason why Abner pleaded with a total stranger over the phone for a loan of $10,000. You had three years to get right with the County, at which point the kind hearted soul who saved your ass with the County by paying your taxes, at the worst case would gain 10% interest, but a best case scenario they would have first lien against your property when they sold it on the courthouse steps, 3 years to the date of your delinquency.
Simply put, let’s say I owed the County $6000 in property taxes on February 10th, 2004. I didn’t pay the money, but some nice guy did, and the County is cool, as they get their six grand and don’t even bother sending me a nasty notice. I pay $7000 one year later, for the 2003 tax, of which the nice guy gets $6600, and the County gets the $400 penalty. If I can’t pay the $7000 the following year, the compound interest grows into the next year and the next, until you hit three years past due. Let’s say I pay nothing for three years, as was Abner’s case, then on February 10th, 2007, on the courthouse steps in the County of Grand, CO, my property is auctioned off to the highest bidder – the nice guy that plopped down that initial $6000 investment three years ago gets the first grab at his six grand and 10% compounded interest over three years – that’s almost $2000 on a $6000 risk-free investment. In these and any times, buying up property taxes is a good investment. Instead of buying a dilapidated haunted shithole of a hotel, possibly I should have looked at that as a means to making a buck in Grand County…..but alas!
Abner was two weeks away from that three-year delinquent courthouse steps auction. He was about to lose the thing that he’d put 20 years of blood, sweat, tears and all of his monetary wherewithal into - his financial life was literally flashing before his eyes, and the ending was a cataclysmic event, from which there was no recovery; at best we’re talking homeless shelters, if they would have Abner and his cantankerousness.
The first $10,000 got Abner out of immediate trouble with the County and the really unpalatable ‘sale on the courthouse steps’ thing, which was bearing down on Abner to the point where it made Father Time look like a lazy good-for-nothing slacker. The next $10,000 that we sent went towards the next year of unpaid taxes and “a little credit card debt that I’ve compiled….”, a nervous little laugh accenting this profession. After submitting this second financial resurrection, now $20,000, we were a little more serious about buying the place, and we figured worst case, we’d get it back with interest if we didn’t buy The Riverside and one of the multitudes of interested parties that Abner had on the hook did buy the place.
A few blogs back I took a personal break to relate a childhood incident, possibly directly unrelated to the purchase of The Riverside, but probably subliminally related to the purchase of The Riverside – i.e. my early in life failed quest for the attainment of Sainthood. While I didn’t have a sit down with myself to discuss this, again subliminally, the notion of redemption and being back on the active board for Sainthood-liness festered in the dark recesses of my red-flag ignoring, financially deficient mind.
A visit to my banker in KC to discuss my wild notion of buying The Riverside wrought the following discussion. This was a banker that had financed my business for years, through times both lean and hardy – we’d become pretty good friends…as friendly as a banker can become with a borrower.
“We’ve found this place in Colorado that we’re considering buying. It’s a historic hotel in a beautiful little town. It’s something we’ve always considered doing, and now with the sale of the business, I think we’ve got the wherewithal to make it happen. I’ve got cash flow projections and pro formas for the next five years that I’d like you to look at. Any chance UMBig Bank would be willing to consider this?”
“Without even looking at your numbers, I’d be pretty certain that it’s not a loan we’d consider. Let’s be honest…you don’t have any experience in this type of business, and it’s in a remote spot that we wouldn’t be interested in investing in” said my friend, the banker, really looking out for me at this point and of course I FAILED TO SEE IT!!!
“But you’ve got locations in Denver! You’re trying to establish interests in Colorado.”
“Right, but they’re pretty selected investments in Colorado. Here’s the deal…we’re hesitant to loan money to established Kansas City restaurateurs with locations around the corner from our banks, let alone your venture, someone new to the business trying to make a go of it in the middle of nowhere.”
(A financially savvy friend, whose financial opinion I’d sought and trusted as Gospel for the past 20 years had just sat me down, looked me in the eye and told me in a fashion that a five-year old would have understood, that this was a bad deal and to make it but a funny point of cocktail party conversation in my future.)
“So, how serious are you about this deal?” my friend, the banker, inquired.
Sheepishly, “I’ve loaned him $20,000 to pay his delinquent property taxes, of which he’s guaranteed that he’ll pay me back when he sells the hotel.”
I’d known this banker for 20 years, and I’d never heard him cuss, not once. He was a Catholic, but his demeanor and apparent disdain with regards to booze, gambling, profane banter and all of the other fun things that Catholics are able to do whilst still being faithful to the their religion, would have made him a pretty solid Baptist.
“Tell me you are f-ing kidding me? You loaned him money to pay his property taxes so the place wouldn’t be seized and sold? Please tell me you didn’t do that? Do you realize you could have gone out there and bought that place for nickels…maybe pennies.. on the dollar??”
This is where the Sainthood thing comes back into play.
I knew damn good and well that I could have done that. I knew that I could have told old Abner that I too had not a pot to piss in and he was at the mercy of the State. I could have shown up two weeks after denying him his $10,000, and probably bought the place for 1/5th of what we ultimately paid for it. I knew this, I thought about it, and St. Richard decided against it as a course of action – a course that would hopefully define me and my future, a course that would give me good karma going forward, knowing that I allowed a human who’d given his heart and soul to this place, to walk away from that place with his head held high and some money in his pocket. I didn’t want to take ownership of The Riverside under any other scenario.
OK, so my Saintly actions weren’t reciprocated by the seller – after the deal, on paper, I am not Saint Richard, I’m Schmuck Richard. But to this day, as of this writing, I look into the mirror with aplomb, hoping that someone of a higher pose, someone beyond a banker, will note the good thing that we did; not for the purpose of a favorable reply, but for the sheer purpose of doing good.
To Be Continued…………..
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Abner Renta..........Master Angler
Although the piercing smile had not yet fully subsided from his face, Abner said “Of course I remember you Mr. Paradise. How could I forget a name like Paradise?”
“Well, my wife and I have always loved your place, and I’ve just sold my business here in Kansas City and we’re at a point in our lives where we’re looking for a lifestyle change, and we’ve always thought about owning The Riverside. Any chance you’re looking to get out of the business and sell the place?”
The smile was now back broadly, so profoundly, that he could barely operate his tongue to get words through his lips. The high elevation afternoon sun was reflecting off of his fully exposed rotting dentia, the reflection from his ragged incisors in the front window of The Riverside all but blinding Abner to the point where he couldn’t concentrate, but he summoned the necessary wherewithal to answer in something like a hissing purr…”Yes…yes… I might be interested in discussing a sale of the property. But it would have to be to the right people…people that would care for the place, people that would love the place, as I have.”
‘Oh My’, I thought, ‘beyond the financial, he has additional qualifications for who he’ll sell to.’ Could we be so honored, could we ultimately be selected and would we be chosen worthy enough to ably carry his water at The Riverside going forward?
I didn’t want to be cast out from consideration before a proper vetting so early in the game, a vetting that might show me and mine not worthy to bear the distinguished mantle of Proprietor of The Historic Riverside Hotel, but I had to come right out and get a price, as I had a maximum number in mind that I was willing to offer, but I feared that the number was maybe half what he was asking. No sense going any further if the place was immediately out of our price range.
“So Abner, I know there is a lot of water to cover between here and there, but so I don’t further waste either of our time, do you have a number in mind that you’d sell the place for?”
Abner said immediately, and emphatically, no doubt his arm was outstretched and his index finger pointing skyward in oratorical emphasis, “I won’t take a penny less than $800,000!”
Now the drunken pumpkin grin appeared upon my face. I’d imagined the place to be worth 2 million, maybe as much as 3 million, and my drop dead point with what I thought we could offer was 1.5 million. Here was a 13,000 square foot structure on 1.5 acres of Colorado River-front property – bona-fide Gold Medal trout water that people traveled from all over the world to angle. I’d read that people spent as much as 3 million dollars for 2500’ feet of undeveloped riverfront property on The Colorado, not but a mile or two upriver from Hot Sulphur.
“Well, that seems to be a price range that we can work in…let me talk with my wife and get back with you.”
I didn’t then know, but know now, that Abner quickly lost the smile at this point and went heavy into a ‘gotta sell this son-of-a-bitch at all costs as I haven’t had a serious prospect with the money to make this happen on the hook for the past 19 years’ survival mode …”I do remember you now…you had a family and you seemed to love this place. Not everyone could take this on, but I remember that you and your wife and kids seemed like you’d be the type of people that would be perfect for this place. Wasn’t one of your kids retarded?”
“No, uh, that was one of our friend’s kids you’re thinking about, and he wasn’t retarded!”
“Sorry. Sorry. I’ve had so many thousands of guests the past few years, it’s a wonder I can remember as many particulars as I can…given my advanced age…and my poor health…(cough…cough). I really would like to sell this place to you, as I’m really starting to wear down.”
“Well Abner, let me talk with my wife, and I’m going to put a list of questions together and I’ll call you in a few days.”
And now, here was not only the first red flag of hundreds that I would fail or refuse to see, but in retrospect, here was the biggest, football-field sized red flag of all times regarding our magnum f-up in the pursuit and eventual purchase of The Historic Riverside Hotel, Bar & Restaurant.
Abner opened up to me, a virtual stranger, over the phone on our first phone call…”I’ve got a couple of other parties interested in the property…I think you should know that.” (‘Damn!” I thought.) Abner continued…”Unfortunately, I’ve got myself into a little issue on my property taxes, and I could use $10,000 to get up to speed with the county. If you could send me the money, we could put it towards a down payment, or at the least, I’d pay you back at a generous interest rate when I sell the place to someone else if you’re not interested in purchasing the property. And if you were to send me the money pretty quickly, it would sure put you in a favorable position when I’m deciding who to sell the place to.”
At this point any normal human being and most abnormal human beings...probably even most cats and dogs… would have not only turned away from this deal, they would have snapped their necks turning away and running as fast as their fat little shanks would carry them, all the while laughing with glee, screaming to and thanking the Good Lord above about having almost gotten into a deal that would’ve involved sending big money on the come to a shifty, broke, tax-evading hotelier in a State that was not only accepting of him, but also the city of Boulder and it’s inhabitants.
Reality and simple common sense would then have its natural chance to kick in, and you’d reply to this outlandish request with a “What??? Do you think I’m out of my mind? I’m going to just up and send you $10,000? Are you insane???” You would then hang up the phone, probably chuckle to yourself, and then get on with your life.
I probably don’t have to tell you that the $10,000 check was in the mail, heading west to Abner Renta, but a few short days later…..
To Be Continued
“Well, my wife and I have always loved your place, and I’ve just sold my business here in Kansas City and we’re at a point in our lives where we’re looking for a lifestyle change, and we’ve always thought about owning The Riverside. Any chance you’re looking to get out of the business and sell the place?”
The smile was now back broadly, so profoundly, that he could barely operate his tongue to get words through his lips. The high elevation afternoon sun was reflecting off of his fully exposed rotting dentia, the reflection from his ragged incisors in the front window of The Riverside all but blinding Abner to the point where he couldn’t concentrate, but he summoned the necessary wherewithal to answer in something like a hissing purr…”Yes…yes… I might be interested in discussing a sale of the property. But it would have to be to the right people…people that would care for the place, people that would love the place, as I have.”
‘Oh My’, I thought, ‘beyond the financial, he has additional qualifications for who he’ll sell to.’ Could we be so honored, could we ultimately be selected and would we be chosen worthy enough to ably carry his water at The Riverside going forward?
I didn’t want to be cast out from consideration before a proper vetting so early in the game, a vetting that might show me and mine not worthy to bear the distinguished mantle of Proprietor of The Historic Riverside Hotel, but I had to come right out and get a price, as I had a maximum number in mind that I was willing to offer, but I feared that the number was maybe half what he was asking. No sense going any further if the place was immediately out of our price range.
“So Abner, I know there is a lot of water to cover between here and there, but so I don’t further waste either of our time, do you have a number in mind that you’d sell the place for?”
Abner said immediately, and emphatically, no doubt his arm was outstretched and his index finger pointing skyward in oratorical emphasis, “I won’t take a penny less than $800,000!”
Now the drunken pumpkin grin appeared upon my face. I’d imagined the place to be worth 2 million, maybe as much as 3 million, and my drop dead point with what I thought we could offer was 1.5 million. Here was a 13,000 square foot structure on 1.5 acres of Colorado River-front property – bona-fide Gold Medal trout water that people traveled from all over the world to angle. I’d read that people spent as much as 3 million dollars for 2500’ feet of undeveloped riverfront property on The Colorado, not but a mile or two upriver from Hot Sulphur.
“Well, that seems to be a price range that we can work in…let me talk with my wife and get back with you.”
I didn’t then know, but know now, that Abner quickly lost the smile at this point and went heavy into a ‘gotta sell this son-of-a-bitch at all costs as I haven’t had a serious prospect with the money to make this happen on the hook for the past 19 years’ survival mode …”I do remember you now…you had a family and you seemed to love this place. Not everyone could take this on, but I remember that you and your wife and kids seemed like you’d be the type of people that would be perfect for this place. Wasn’t one of your kids retarded?”
“No, uh, that was one of our friend’s kids you’re thinking about, and he wasn’t retarded!”
“Sorry. Sorry. I’ve had so many thousands of guests the past few years, it’s a wonder I can remember as many particulars as I can…given my advanced age…and my poor health…(cough…cough). I really would like to sell this place to you, as I’m really starting to wear down.”
“Well Abner, let me talk with my wife, and I’m going to put a list of questions together and I’ll call you in a few days.”
And now, here was not only the first red flag of hundreds that I would fail or refuse to see, but in retrospect, here was the biggest, football-field sized red flag of all times regarding our magnum f-up in the pursuit and eventual purchase of The Historic Riverside Hotel, Bar & Restaurant.
Abner opened up to me, a virtual stranger, over the phone on our first phone call…”I’ve got a couple of other parties interested in the property…I think you should know that.” (‘Damn!” I thought.) Abner continued…”Unfortunately, I’ve got myself into a little issue on my property taxes, and I could use $10,000 to get up to speed with the county. If you could send me the money, we could put it towards a down payment, or at the least, I’d pay you back at a generous interest rate when I sell the place to someone else if you’re not interested in purchasing the property. And if you were to send me the money pretty quickly, it would sure put you in a favorable position when I’m deciding who to sell the place to.”
At this point any normal human being and most abnormal human beings...probably even most cats and dogs… would have not only turned away from this deal, they would have snapped their necks turning away and running as fast as their fat little shanks would carry them, all the while laughing with glee, screaming to and thanking the Good Lord above about having almost gotten into a deal that would’ve involved sending big money on the come to a shifty, broke, tax-evading hotelier in a State that was not only accepting of him, but also the city of Boulder and it’s inhabitants.
Reality and simple common sense would then have its natural chance to kick in, and you’d reply to this outlandish request with a “What??? Do you think I’m out of my mind? I’m going to just up and send you $10,000? Are you insane???” You would then hang up the phone, probably chuckle to yourself, and then get on with your life.
I probably don’t have to tell you that the $10,000 check was in the mail, heading west to Abner Renta, but a few short days later…..
To Be Continued
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Abner Renta...........aka Not Martha Stewart
About 20 miles NNE of Hot Sulphur Springs lies the village of Grand Lake, Colorado, home to Colorado’s deepest and largest natural lake and the headwaters of the Colorado River; Grand Lake is also the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. In the county of Grand, with all of the spectacular vistas, fishing, hunting and recreational opportunities, Grand Lake, Co can lay claim to the first established vacation spot in the Colorado Rockies, dating back to the late 1800’s. The setting of this cerulean jewel surrounded by sloping pine forests and the ensuing spires of The Indian Peaks is rivaled by few places in terms of its natural beauty. Sadly, at the bottom of this visually bountiful natural bowl lies the actual town of Grand Lake, replete with a faux rustic Old West street of bars, restaurants, art galleries, souvenir shops, a bowling alley and some less-than-quaint motels and lodging establishments. Oh well, we all gotta make a buck.
The Historic Grand Lake Lodge, which opened in 1920, some 17 years after the opening of The Riverside, was the crown jewel of Grand Lake – a magnificent lodge, guest quarters and cabins – the standard bearer for food, beverage and lodging on the western slope of the Continental Divide; this until a fire burned the better part of the place to the ground in the summer of 1973. The owners took a painstaking 8 years to rebuild, careful to extract historic furnishings and native memorabilia from the charred rubble before finally re-opening in the summer of 1981.
Why is this little NNE travelogue germane to the story of Abner Renta and The Riverside?
Approximately 50 yards north of the resurrected Grand Lake Lodge, just at the edge of the majestic pine forests that surround this iconic structure, sat a pile of pre-1940’s kitchen equipment that barely survived the fire, and only because the fire didn’t get hot enough to melt the 2-ton cast-iron gas stove, oven and attached griddle that had been the heart and soul of The Grand Lake Lodge kitchen for the past 30 years. They’d been talking about replacing that big, old, outdated locomotive of a stove 10 years prior to the fire; it was now dead and forever out of that kitchen, figuratively if not literally buried at the edge of the woods - for the kitchen crew a silver lining in the dark cloud that was the destructive blaze of 1973. Truth be known, they’d hoped that it would sit there forever and become a permanent part of the flora and fauna, as the effort required of hauling it off would have been monumental.
Enter Abner Renta, Gollum on his eternal quest for a magic ring’s worth of cheap furnishings and equipment for his newly acquired mountain hostelry.
Abner bought the stove for $25, had his bus-depot servant and probably 15 others help load it onto a U-Haul trailer and install it in the newly remodeled kitchen at The Riverside in 1986, prior to the grand reopening. No big deal that not all of the burners worked, the flat top was half melted, it was rife with rust or that the scald and char from the 1973 fire was literally welded to the exterior of this gargantuan hot-box; what was key was that it was cheap, and it worked…..barely, but worked vs. not working at all, in a very black and white sort of way.
Stove assembled in place, to a yellow paisley linoleum sheet floor, probably installed in The Riverside kitchen sometime in the 1930’s, Abner and his servant adhered speckled, beige asbestos linoleum tiles – I’m certain upon completion, they stood back and proudly gazed upon the bright new floor, which now looked something like a glistening diamond in a goats’ ass.
The perimeter of the kitchen was then outfitted with built-in plywood and pine shelves, cabinets, pantries, drawers and worktops, painted with a heavy coat of high-gloss white paint; it was here that utensils and dry goods were stored, and food was ultimately prepared. These cabinets and shelving were very well constructed by Abner’s illegal; so well constructed that they would end up being a screaming bitch to remove 22 years later in our effort to get the kitchen up to code: (take a peek in any commercial kitchen - you won’t see anything constructed of wood, as wood tends to have a soft spot for harboring bacteria.)
The dining room tables and chairs as well as all of the furnishings in the guest rooms were a hodge-podge assortment of yard sale, estate sale and thrift shop items; an eclectic mix, but functional and inexpensive. Bedding, sheets and towels were also collected at various sales or second-hand stores – no boring, bleached white sheets for The Riverside beds; if the linen wasn’t loud enough to keep you awake at night, you wouldn’t be sleeping on it in Abner’s place. Many guests found the wacky sheets and funky furnishings charming, as it gave the place a ‘homey’ feel; we got rid of them the first week we owned the hotel.
The dishware, glasses and cutlery were also vintage garage sale – nothing was a set, no two pieces alike; it could be all but dizzying to look down at the swirls, stripes and floral patterns on the plates before stabbing your fork at some of Abner’s finest fare. Also, for certain an advantage to using loud, colorful stoneware was its ability to hide the adhered flecks of yesterdays’ food that might have been missed by the no-dishwasher sink dunking method of tableware hygiene that Abner chose to employ, as the Grand Lake Lodge did not have a rusted, charred, barely working dishwasher for sale.
And then there were the beds. Abner didn't need to go searching after bargains on mattresses, pillows and bed frames - they came with the hotel at the time of purchase...and had been there since the dawn of time. While driving home from The Riverside after our first extended winter visit, I realized for the first time in my life that I actually had a back, because it hurt so freaking bad after sleeping on that bed for four nights! Most of the beds consisted of a 6" thick 1940's era mattress laying on a frame of naked rusty bedsprings. Go back and watch some old war movies from the 1950's, and you'll see beds like this in scenes from German POW camps. We had Abner's beds at the curb within two months, replaced by new queen mattresses.
The final accoutrement to The Riverside was no bargain basement thrift shop fire damaged piece of junk, rather, it was arguably one of the most spectacular pieces of furnishing in all of Grand County – the magnificent, historical Brunswick Bar. Manufactured in 1895 in Dubuque, IA and eventually brought to The Riverside from it’s original home in Leadville, CO in 1920, the bar was a burnished oak and cherry wood masterpiece of ornately carved borders and corniced columns that beckoned the thirsty traveler to gaze in awed admiration, often forgetting that an icy beer sat sweating before him, waiting patiently to be consumed. When Abner arrived at The Riverside, the bar was stored out back of the hotel in one of the storage sheds amid piles of clutter that had accumulated over the past 80 years. Enlisting the help of a few locals with the promise of a round of free drinks after the bars assemblage, Abner had the booze-fueled locals lift, haul and reassemble the bar in what had previously been a small storeroom off of the kitchen. After a 20 year hiatus, the glorious Brunswick Bar was back in business at The Riverside.
And so began Abner’s tenure as proprietor of the newly refurbished Riverside Hotel, Bar and Restaurant; he had the roof replaced, the walls wallpapered, the rooms furnished, the bar stocked and the kitchen cooking in time for the start of the summer tourist season of 1986.
21 years later, he was pulling out every stop imaginable to convince a naive couple from Kansas, with just enough money to get their asses in serious trouble, that Hot Sulphur Springs was a garden spot that would rival Mecca, that there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the smiles of satisfied customers as they pass through your door having been unknowingly insulted and unwittingly filched to their gills, and that in spite of the seemingly high asking price, The Riverside was an idyllic yet affordable dream-come-true that these flatland hospitality rubes could make happen with the stroke of a pen.
To be continued………
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Abner Renta............aka Not Bob Villa
So who in the hell is this Gollum-esque miscreant, this Abner Renta, who found his way to a ramshackle old hotel in a desolate outpost in the frozen, unpopulated heart of Colorado, in the county of Grand, for what seemed to be the ultimate purpose of taking easy money from innocent, unsuspecting people whilst making them feel lower than a Gollum-esque miscreant?
Raised a Puerto-Rican Jew in the West Side slums of Brooklyn in the late 1940’s, Abner moved way further west to study at the University of Colorado in Boulder. (How on earth would Abner have chosen Boulder? one might ask; but I have mentioned before in detail in this blog of Boulder, CO being a magnetic force in the center of the universe for attracting the...uh.. odd.) Social Work was his degree, (very ironic…a degree you would normally pursue if you wanted to be in the business of helping the less fortunate), and he plied it for a while working for the Colorado Department of Unemployment. Possibly the notion of working with and trying to fleece people that had nothing to fleece moved him into the hospitality industry, where logic would follow that if you were staying at a nice hotel, you had to have some money to spend/lose/fleece. It was there that Abner found his home.
Abner worked at a hotel near the Denver Airport for the better part of 10 years, honing his multiple Riverside-worthy skills of hotel and restaurant management, biting sarcasm, short-sheeting, cost-cutting, bill padding, good eye contact while bald-face lying, code skirting, pouring rot-gut booze in empty top shelf bottles, dead-beating vendors and tax evasion….to name but a few.
Abner pounded out of Denver in the late 1980’s with a suitcase full of cash and an illegal that he picked up at the Denver Greyhound depot, bound for the mountains in search of a place where he could practice his newly-acquired art of hospitality on the paying public – far from the eyes of scrutiny.
He stumbled upon a sleepy little burg in Grand County, one block south of Highway 40 and found a building nestled against the banks of the majestic Colorado River, a football field away from the base of Mt. Bross, (a languid, lazy excuse for a mountain, but imposing nonetheless as it lorded over the town and valley like a fat uncle to whom either money or fealty is owed), and a stone’s throw away from a natural hot springs pool that had been frequented by the Ute Indians and other nonnative denizens as far back as the 1st century….possibly further.
What Abner found was a magnificent but neglected historic structure; a white, clapboard many-windowed building that jutted it’s façade in broad defiance of the southern exposure that pounded it with 300 days per year of an 8000 foot elevation dose of UV rays. The 3/4” thick pine slats that comprised the cladding of The Riverside had seen and needed a century’s worth of primer and paint to survive this environment; when Abner found it, the illegal-in-tow did a little scraping then added a heavy coat of 1980’s cheap white latex – that did for the place until we purchased it in 2007, badly in need of a new coat of paint.
The Riverside had been unoccupied for the better part of ten years when Abner purchased it in 1986. The roof was shot, and water damage had all but obliterated the place. Water, the stuff that we are all comprised mostly of, live for, die for, fight for and order with or without gas at fancy restaurants, when left to its own devices is brutal on buildings and building materials in general, and roofs in particular. This naturally destructive proclivity is magnified in a roller coaster-extreme climate like Hot Sulphur Springs. The building faces south to accept the warming rays of the sun for natural heat, while the roof slopes back away to the north so that the accumulated then melting snow drips and drains to the back of the building, away from the thronging public. That northern exposure snow, seeing no sun from October thru May, builds up on that roof all winter – 3’-4’ feet is common. The weight of that snow consistently squats on the roof, forcing and flexing the substrate with cooling and warming, all the while opening cracks and crevices that the melting snow seeks out. Unabated, this force, this unyielding flex and flow, and then the ensuing melting snow and dripping water, can buckle the structure of a building and obliterate its walls and floors in a few short years.
When Abner found The Riverside, it was on the perilous end of being decimated by the innocent but destructive forces of cold, hot, sun, snow, ice and water. Needless to say, Abner got a pretty good deal on the place.
One of the first things that Abner did, or rather had his indentured illegal do, was put a new roof on The Riverside. The existing roof was a flat layered hot asphalt and felt construction, known in the trade as a ‘built-up roof’ – the technology dates back to the late 1800’s, and is still a solid option for a flat roof today, much unchanged in both materials and application techniques. As opposed to tearing off the old and applying a new – standard protocol for a roof of this age and deteriorated condition – Abner went right over the old roof with interlocking metal roofing panels, roughly 3’ wide and 20’ in length. When I say ‘went over’, I mean that the help screwed this roof down to the old substrate with thousands of 3/8” x 1.5” screws – that would also equate to thousands of holes being put in the roof, leading to thousands of additional opportunities for future leaks. Not the best roofing practice, but quick and cheap!
When the metal roofing panels were delivered to Abner, laid in bundles on the roof by a crane, Abner went up and cut the bundles open for the purpose of counting the panels; By God, he’d paid for 120 panels and understandably, he was going to count and make certain that they shipped him the 120 panels that he paid for. All present and accounted for, Abner and the help turned in early for what would the following day be a grueling day of roofing. Abner didn’t account for the possibility of an evening windstorm, which in fact did occur, lifting all 120 panels (not simultaneously) and depositing them throughout the town of Hot Sulphur. It is a miracle that no one was dismembered or beheaded, as these panels are sharp-edged sheet metal, capable of literally cutting someone in half given the lethal combination of proper angle and sufficient force, both of which would be available as these things flew threw the air like big, rectangular Frisbees. It would not have been a good first impression on the town from the new hotel proprietor had one of the residents, due to Abner’s miscalculation, been sliced clean in half whilst taking an evening stroll.
After spending the better part of the next two days collecting the panels and toting them back up on the roof, without the aid of a crane, the help began attaching what in most cases were bent, misshapen and often out of square panels; square being important for the purpose of adjoining panel to panel in a tight, waterproof fit. This little whoopsie would be the cause of continual leaks and the resultant water damage from Abner’s first day of new building and roof ownership until the day he handed the keys over to me, and then beyond.
To Be Continued……..
Raised a Puerto-Rican Jew in the West Side slums of Brooklyn in the late 1940’s, Abner moved way further west to study at the University of Colorado in Boulder. (How on earth would Abner have chosen Boulder? one might ask; but I have mentioned before in detail in this blog of Boulder, CO being a magnetic force in the center of the universe for attracting the...uh.. odd.) Social Work was his degree, (very ironic…a degree you would normally pursue if you wanted to be in the business of helping the less fortunate), and he plied it for a while working for the Colorado Department of Unemployment. Possibly the notion of working with and trying to fleece people that had nothing to fleece moved him into the hospitality industry, where logic would follow that if you were staying at a nice hotel, you had to have some money to spend/lose/fleece. It was there that Abner found his home.
Abner worked at a hotel near the Denver Airport for the better part of 10 years, honing his multiple Riverside-worthy skills of hotel and restaurant management, biting sarcasm, short-sheeting, cost-cutting, bill padding, good eye contact while bald-face lying, code skirting, pouring rot-gut booze in empty top shelf bottles, dead-beating vendors and tax evasion….to name but a few.
Abner pounded out of Denver in the late 1980’s with a suitcase full of cash and an illegal that he picked up at the Denver Greyhound depot, bound for the mountains in search of a place where he could practice his newly-acquired art of hospitality on the paying public – far from the eyes of scrutiny.
He stumbled upon a sleepy little burg in Grand County, one block south of Highway 40 and found a building nestled against the banks of the majestic Colorado River, a football field away from the base of Mt. Bross, (a languid, lazy excuse for a mountain, but imposing nonetheless as it lorded over the town and valley like a fat uncle to whom either money or fealty is owed), and a stone’s throw away from a natural hot springs pool that had been frequented by the Ute Indians and other nonnative denizens as far back as the 1st century….possibly further.
What Abner found was a magnificent but neglected historic structure; a white, clapboard many-windowed building that jutted it’s façade in broad defiance of the southern exposure that pounded it with 300 days per year of an 8000 foot elevation dose of UV rays. The 3/4” thick pine slats that comprised the cladding of The Riverside had seen and needed a century’s worth of primer and paint to survive this environment; when Abner found it, the illegal-in-tow did a little scraping then added a heavy coat of 1980’s cheap white latex – that did for the place until we purchased it in 2007, badly in need of a new coat of paint.
The Riverside had been unoccupied for the better part of ten years when Abner purchased it in 1986. The roof was shot, and water damage had all but obliterated the place. Water, the stuff that we are all comprised mostly of, live for, die for, fight for and order with or without gas at fancy restaurants, when left to its own devices is brutal on buildings and building materials in general, and roofs in particular. This naturally destructive proclivity is magnified in a roller coaster-extreme climate like Hot Sulphur Springs. The building faces south to accept the warming rays of the sun for natural heat, while the roof slopes back away to the north so that the accumulated then melting snow drips and drains to the back of the building, away from the thronging public. That northern exposure snow, seeing no sun from October thru May, builds up on that roof all winter – 3’-4’ feet is common. The weight of that snow consistently squats on the roof, forcing and flexing the substrate with cooling and warming, all the while opening cracks and crevices that the melting snow seeks out. Unabated, this force, this unyielding flex and flow, and then the ensuing melting snow and dripping water, can buckle the structure of a building and obliterate its walls and floors in a few short years.
When Abner found The Riverside, it was on the perilous end of being decimated by the innocent but destructive forces of cold, hot, sun, snow, ice and water. Needless to say, Abner got a pretty good deal on the place.
One of the first things that Abner did, or rather had his indentured illegal do, was put a new roof on The Riverside. The existing roof was a flat layered hot asphalt and felt construction, known in the trade as a ‘built-up roof’ – the technology dates back to the late 1800’s, and is still a solid option for a flat roof today, much unchanged in both materials and application techniques. As opposed to tearing off the old and applying a new – standard protocol for a roof of this age and deteriorated condition – Abner went right over the old roof with interlocking metal roofing panels, roughly 3’ wide and 20’ in length. When I say ‘went over’, I mean that the help screwed this roof down to the old substrate with thousands of 3/8” x 1.5” screws – that would also equate to thousands of holes being put in the roof, leading to thousands of additional opportunities for future leaks. Not the best roofing practice, but quick and cheap!
When the metal roofing panels were delivered to Abner, laid in bundles on the roof by a crane, Abner went up and cut the bundles open for the purpose of counting the panels; By God, he’d paid for 120 panels and understandably, he was going to count and make certain that they shipped him the 120 panels that he paid for. All present and accounted for, Abner and the help turned in early for what would the following day be a grueling day of roofing. Abner didn’t account for the possibility of an evening windstorm, which in fact did occur, lifting all 120 panels (not simultaneously) and depositing them throughout the town of Hot Sulphur. It is a miracle that no one was dismembered or beheaded, as these panels are sharp-edged sheet metal, capable of literally cutting someone in half given the lethal combination of proper angle and sufficient force, both of which would be available as these things flew threw the air like big, rectangular Frisbees. It would not have been a good first impression on the town from the new hotel proprietor had one of the residents, due to Abner’s miscalculation, been sliced clean in half whilst taking an evening stroll.
After spending the better part of the next two days collecting the panels and toting them back up on the roof, without the aid of a crane, the help began attaching what in most cases were bent, misshapen and often out of square panels; square being important for the purpose of adjoining panel to panel in a tight, waterproof fit. This little whoopsie would be the cause of continual leaks and the resultant water damage from Abner’s first day of new building and roof ownership until the day he handed the keys over to me, and then beyond.
To Be Continued……..
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Mr. Abner Renta...."Unwelcome to My Hotel!"
We would visit The Riverside eight times in total before our seriously fatal pursuit of purchasing the place; the initial summer visit and one other, and six straight visits between Christmas and New Years. Our Colorado/Riverside holiday ritual involved blowing out of KC on Christmas afternoon, driving to Hays, KS, spending the night, and then heading straight the next morning to 7800 feet of Hot Sulphur Springs altitude and 139 pounds of Abner Renta attitude. There we would meet family and more often than not friends from KC who we’d drag to this little jewel in the mountains; The Riverside, an ideal place over the holidays for quality time with family and friends, in the town that progress forgot and the land that Jim Cantore feared.
One irony of our Riverside pre-purchase winter visits to Hot Sulphur and the mountains was that never, ever, did we experience the brutal weather and driving conditions that are commonplace in that neck of the woods. We ignorant flatlanders would head up I-70 out of Denver every December 26th, the sky blue and the frost glistening, and marvel at the beauty of the snow-laden pines and icy peaks on clear roads all the way to our destination. Not once, coming or going, were we treated to the normalcy of a winter blizzard, the kind where we bit our lips to bleeding and wore out our right arms sign-of-the-crossing whilst driving over Berthoud Pass; that is, not until we bought the place and there was no going back: and then, of course, we experienced them with Ex-Lax regularity.
From that first visit in the summer of 1993 to the final visit in the winter of 2000 where we left The Riverside saying “never in hell will we come back here”, Abner steadily transmogrified from a lovable old character’s character to an utterly untenable asshole’s asshole. I contend that many long-time customers continued to visit Abner and The Riverside in his later years only to savor the experience of seeing this miserable ill-humored insulting old fool in his penultimate assholiness glory, much as you watch a NASCAR event for hope of seeing a wreck, or a hockey game a brawl.
Here are some examples of the snappy repartee that I’ve tried to expunge from my memory that would inspire paying guests to consider any other available place on earth than Abner’s Riverside, including most prisons, to eat and sleep while on vacation.
- To friends of ours who visited during one winter trip with their 5-year old…“Your son is very ill-behaved. I'm assuming that he's mentally retarded?”
- To an overweight female guest in the restaurant, loudly enough for all to hear…”If you don’t see anything on the menu that suits you, the Dairy Dine is down the street. Their hamburgers are very good and very fattening, but I don’t suppose that will deter you from eating one.”
- To an innocent walking in off of the street…”What sort of a sty were you raised in where you find it acceptable to enter this room without wiping your feet?” (The prospective customer proffered his middle finger in response and quickly left the premises without describing to Abner the sort of sty in which he was raised.)
- Aloud to no one in particular as a female guest, clad in ski pants, walked through the lobby…”The nice thing about insulated ski pants is that people aren’t sure if they’re looking at your fat ass or insulated ski pants – but then I suppose that all of our asses look fat in ski pants! Bwahaahaahaa!”
These are a few of what I remember; there were plentitudes more that I thankfully succeeded in forgetting.
One of Abner’s trademarks was his dramatic falsetto creepy Tiny Tim freak show of a laugh; it is way beyond verbal description, and whenever you heard it, you’d cock your head like the RCA Jack Russell in aural wonderment. Those of you who visited The Riverside and knew Abner would then and could now attempt to mimic the laugh – it was like Elvis’s “Thank you…thank you very much…”; you heard it and you had to try and ape it yourself.
As the visits to The Riverside mounted up, the laughs lessened and the slyly caustic comments turned to brutal personal assaults. I don’t remember a seminal event on that last visit that made us stomp our foot and say that we were never coming back, rather, it was just a general feeling of ill will that Abner consistently exuded towards us, his paying customers. You knew he needed our money, but you also knew that the last thing on earth he wanted was our company.
I never complained to Abner, never said anything like “Dammit, we’ve come here for six straight years now, brought you a ton of business, spent a ton of money, but you’ve turned into a real shithead and we’re NEVER COMING BACK!” I never did because I knew that he couldn’t care less. At best, berating him and telling him the truth would have gotten me nothing more than one of his “BWAHAAHAAHAAs”.
Six years passed, in which only one of those years we returned to the mountains for our post-Christmas family visit - and not to The Riverside; the rest were spent in Kansas City, blissfully enjoying our home and family, replete with our own private toilets. Not one of us missed our Christmases past at The Riverside.
Then one day, in late February of 2007, as a result of a series of events that were in a domino line that began clickclackclickclackclickclackclicking their way towards the finish line, at which point wrought one of the most infamous phone calls in the universal history of pure dumb-ass foolishness….
“Abner, I don’t know if you remember me, but my name is Richard Paradise, and I’m wondering if you’re interested in selling The Riverside?”
The rotted-teeth grin that Abner displayed upon hearing that question beamed across 700 miles of fiber optics; a smile so profound that possibly the corners of his mouth deftly sliced into each of his earlobes……
To Be Continued…………
One irony of our Riverside pre-purchase winter visits to Hot Sulphur and the mountains was that never, ever, did we experience the brutal weather and driving conditions that are commonplace in that neck of the woods. We ignorant flatlanders would head up I-70 out of Denver every December 26th, the sky blue and the frost glistening, and marvel at the beauty of the snow-laden pines and icy peaks on clear roads all the way to our destination. Not once, coming or going, were we treated to the normalcy of a winter blizzard, the kind where we bit our lips to bleeding and wore out our right arms sign-of-the-crossing whilst driving over Berthoud Pass; that is, not until we bought the place and there was no going back: and then, of course, we experienced them with Ex-Lax regularity.
From that first visit in the summer of 1993 to the final visit in the winter of 2000 where we left The Riverside saying “never in hell will we come back here”, Abner steadily transmogrified from a lovable old character’s character to an utterly untenable asshole’s asshole. I contend that many long-time customers continued to visit Abner and The Riverside in his later years only to savor the experience of seeing this miserable ill-humored insulting old fool in his penultimate assholiness glory, much as you watch a NASCAR event for hope of seeing a wreck, or a hockey game a brawl.
Here are some examples of the snappy repartee that I’ve tried to expunge from my memory that would inspire paying guests to consider any other available place on earth than Abner’s Riverside, including most prisons, to eat and sleep while on vacation.
- To friends of ours who visited during one winter trip with their 5-year old…“Your son is very ill-behaved. I'm assuming that he's mentally retarded?”
- To an overweight female guest in the restaurant, loudly enough for all to hear…”If you don’t see anything on the menu that suits you, the Dairy Dine is down the street. Their hamburgers are very good and very fattening, but I don’t suppose that will deter you from eating one.”
- To an innocent walking in off of the street…”What sort of a sty were you raised in where you find it acceptable to enter this room without wiping your feet?” (The prospective customer proffered his middle finger in response and quickly left the premises without describing to Abner the sort of sty in which he was raised.)
- Aloud to no one in particular as a female guest, clad in ski pants, walked through the lobby…”The nice thing about insulated ski pants is that people aren’t sure if they’re looking at your fat ass or insulated ski pants – but then I suppose that all of our asses look fat in ski pants! Bwahaahaahaa!”
These are a few of what I remember; there were plentitudes more that I thankfully succeeded in forgetting.
One of Abner’s trademarks was his dramatic falsetto creepy Tiny Tim freak show of a laugh; it is way beyond verbal description, and whenever you heard it, you’d cock your head like the RCA Jack Russell in aural wonderment. Those of you who visited The Riverside and knew Abner would then and could now attempt to mimic the laugh – it was like Elvis’s “Thank you…thank you very much…”; you heard it and you had to try and ape it yourself.
As the visits to The Riverside mounted up, the laughs lessened and the slyly caustic comments turned to brutal personal assaults. I don’t remember a seminal event on that last visit that made us stomp our foot and say that we were never coming back, rather, it was just a general feeling of ill will that Abner consistently exuded towards us, his paying customers. You knew he needed our money, but you also knew that the last thing on earth he wanted was our company.
I never complained to Abner, never said anything like “Dammit, we’ve come here for six straight years now, brought you a ton of business, spent a ton of money, but you’ve turned into a real shithead and we’re NEVER COMING BACK!” I never did because I knew that he couldn’t care less. At best, berating him and telling him the truth would have gotten me nothing more than one of his “BWAHAAHAAHAAs”.
Six years passed, in which only one of those years we returned to the mountains for our post-Christmas family visit - and not to The Riverside; the rest were spent in Kansas City, blissfully enjoying our home and family, replete with our own private toilets. Not one of us missed our Christmases past at The Riverside.
Then one day, in late February of 2007, as a result of a series of events that were in a domino line that began clickclackclickclackclickclackclicking their way towards the finish line, at which point wrought one of the most infamous phone calls in the universal history of pure dumb-ass foolishness….
“Abner, I don’t know if you remember me, but my name is Richard Paradise, and I’m wondering if you’re interested in selling The Riverside?”
The rotted-teeth grin that Abner displayed upon hearing that question beamed across 700 miles of fiber optics; a smile so profound that possibly the corners of his mouth deftly sliced into each of his earlobes……
To Be Continued…………
Monday, October 24, 2011
Riverside Smoked Brisket Chili
Before fall is about turning leaves, pumpkins, high school football or Halloween, it is first about chili. Who doesn’t on that first weekend where the slightest hint of a nip is in the air, say to themselves “I could sure go for a steaming hot bowl of chili and a couple of big gin martinis!”
Synonymous with chili season is the season of getting bombarded by people wanting the recipe for the chili we served at The Riverside. I mean…..bombarded!
This recipe is arduous. It has multiple steps requiring multiple cooking methods – roasting, grilling, smoking, grinding and braising; but that’s why the end result is really good. If you skip the tough parts, then you’re just making chili. They sell chili in cans if you’re really lazy, and it’s not bad; but its not Riverside Chili – the chili that had one of the locals proclaim, (she owned the 2nd hand thrift store in Granby from which Abner Renta outfitted The Riverside) “this is the best chili I’ve ever had in my life. It would be even better with beans…” Her bill for the best chili she’d ever had in her life was $7.67, with tax; she left $8.00, which netted me a whopping thirty-three cent tip. Maybe beans in the chili would have gotten me fifty-cents.
Serves 8-10, or 2 with multiple leftovers
3 dried Ancho chilies (they smell of molasses – can you think of anything better?)
3 dried Guajillo chilies
5-6 dried Arbol chilies
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 – 5 - 7# Brisket flat, cut into ¾” cubes
1 pound bacon, diced
½ stick unsalted butter
2 – sweet yellow onions, chopped
2 - red bell peppers, chopped fine
4 – celery stalks, chopped really fine
4 – fat cloves garlic, chopped extremely fine
2 – 14 oz. cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed (optional)
1 – 46 oz. bottle low sodium V8 Juice
Step #1
I’m assuming you have a gas grill. Worst case, you’ve got a charcoal grill; if you have neither, go back to pre-Step -#1 and buy some canned chili.
Heat your grill hot and roast the dried chili peppers. They’ll puff up, and char – that’s what you want; get them to the point where they’re almost smoking, and dark but not burned, on all sides. Take them off the heat, bust the tops off, shake out the seeds, and put them in your blender or food processor, whirling them to a fine powder. You should have the better part of ¾ cup of roasted, ground chili powder.
Step #2
Toast the cumin seeds in a sauté pan over high heat – constantly shaking or stirring. When the aroma starts to permeate the room – don’t burn them or they’ll be bitter, they’re done. Put them in your mortar & pestle and grind them to a fine powder.
Step #3
Pull your meat straight out of the fridge and dice the brisket into ¾” cubes. ½” is too small, 1” is too big - ¾” is perfect. Fire up your smoker, very low heat – anything beyond 200F is too hot. Cherry, apple or pecan wood is the best; hickory or mesquite is a bit bitter, but if that’s all you have, it’ll have to work. You don’t want to cook the meat, just bathe it with the smoke. The colder the meat initially, the more time it has to accept the smoke and not cook.
As soon as you think the meat is starting to cook, pull it out of the smoker and set aside.
Step #4
Dice the bacon and fry until 3/4 crisp in your chili cooking kettle. With a slotted spoon, take out the bacon, leave the bacon fat and add the ½ stick of butter – this isn’t diet chili. Melt the butter then add the onions, bell peppers and celery. Cook 7 minutes, stirring fairly regularly, then add garlic, and cook 3 minutes.
Add the ground chilies and cumin. Stir. If the aroma isn’t making you weep at this point, you need to dump this concoction and go buy some canned chili.
Lower the heat a bit, throw in the bacon and the Brisket, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, as if you were making risotto. If you’re adding beans, put them in now, stir for 1 minute, then add the V8.
Cook over the lowest heat you can, as long as you can, making sure the chili never boils.
Stir it gently, every so often. It’s all the better if you can cook it low for a couple of hours, cool it down, refrigerate it and warm it back up and eat it the next day. (I’ve never done this, but I can’t imagine why you couldn’t put your covered chili cooker in a 220F oven and leave it be for three-four hours. Slow. Braise.)
Season the chili with a little salt, pepper and Tabasco to taste. Some people add shredded cheese, sour cream, or other fattening accoutrements, but this stuff doesn’t need it.
If The Riverside chili isn’t the best you’ve ever had, no need to leave me a thirty-three cent tip.
Synonymous with chili season is the season of getting bombarded by people wanting the recipe for the chili we served at The Riverside. I mean…..bombarded!
This recipe is arduous. It has multiple steps requiring multiple cooking methods – roasting, grilling, smoking, grinding and braising; but that’s why the end result is really good. If you skip the tough parts, then you’re just making chili. They sell chili in cans if you’re really lazy, and it’s not bad; but its not Riverside Chili – the chili that had one of the locals proclaim, (she owned the 2nd hand thrift store in Granby from which Abner Renta outfitted The Riverside) “this is the best chili I’ve ever had in my life. It would be even better with beans…” Her bill for the best chili she’d ever had in her life was $7.67, with tax; she left $8.00, which netted me a whopping thirty-three cent tip. Maybe beans in the chili would have gotten me fifty-cents.
Serves 8-10, or 2 with multiple leftovers
3 dried Ancho chilies (they smell of molasses – can you think of anything better?)
3 dried Guajillo chilies
5-6 dried Arbol chilies
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 – 5 - 7# Brisket flat, cut into ¾” cubes
1 pound bacon, diced
½ stick unsalted butter
2 – sweet yellow onions, chopped
2 - red bell peppers, chopped fine
4 – celery stalks, chopped really fine
4 – fat cloves garlic, chopped extremely fine
2 – 14 oz. cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed (optional)
1 – 46 oz. bottle low sodium V8 Juice
Step #1
I’m assuming you have a gas grill. Worst case, you’ve got a charcoal grill; if you have neither, go back to pre-Step -#1 and buy some canned chili.
Heat your grill hot and roast the dried chili peppers. They’ll puff up, and char – that’s what you want; get them to the point where they’re almost smoking, and dark but not burned, on all sides. Take them off the heat, bust the tops off, shake out the seeds, and put them in your blender or food processor, whirling them to a fine powder. You should have the better part of ¾ cup of roasted, ground chili powder.
Step #2
Toast the cumin seeds in a sauté pan over high heat – constantly shaking or stirring. When the aroma starts to permeate the room – don’t burn them or they’ll be bitter, they’re done. Put them in your mortar & pestle and grind them to a fine powder.
Step #3
Pull your meat straight out of the fridge and dice the brisket into ¾” cubes. ½” is too small, 1” is too big - ¾” is perfect. Fire up your smoker, very low heat – anything beyond 200F is too hot. Cherry, apple or pecan wood is the best; hickory or mesquite is a bit bitter, but if that’s all you have, it’ll have to work. You don’t want to cook the meat, just bathe it with the smoke. The colder the meat initially, the more time it has to accept the smoke and not cook.
As soon as you think the meat is starting to cook, pull it out of the smoker and set aside.
Step #4
Dice the bacon and fry until 3/4 crisp in your chili cooking kettle. With a slotted spoon, take out the bacon, leave the bacon fat and add the ½ stick of butter – this isn’t diet chili. Melt the butter then add the onions, bell peppers and celery. Cook 7 minutes, stirring fairly regularly, then add garlic, and cook 3 minutes.
Add the ground chilies and cumin. Stir. If the aroma isn’t making you weep at this point, you need to dump this concoction and go buy some canned chili.
Lower the heat a bit, throw in the bacon and the Brisket, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, as if you were making risotto. If you’re adding beans, put them in now, stir for 1 minute, then add the V8.
Cook over the lowest heat you can, as long as you can, making sure the chili never boils.
Stir it gently, every so often. It’s all the better if you can cook it low for a couple of hours, cool it down, refrigerate it and warm it back up and eat it the next day. (I’ve never done this, but I can’t imagine why you couldn’t put your covered chili cooker in a 220F oven and leave it be for three-four hours. Slow. Braise.)
Season the chili with a little salt, pepper and Tabasco to taste. Some people add shredded cheese, sour cream, or other fattening accoutrements, but this stuff doesn’t need it.
If The Riverside chili isn’t the best you’ve ever had, no need to leave me a thirty-three cent tip.
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