Our first six months of operation were not indicative of the financial struggles that lay ahead. First of all, Julie and I weren’t there to experience the experience; rather, we were relying on three un-supervised inn-keeping novices under the age of 25 to manage our life savings. The business still had a decent amount of money in the bank, and Julie and I both still had jobs and incomes. I’d sit down monthly to pay bills and payroll for the distant business without feeling much of a sting; I went along as happily as if I had good sense.
Things started to get a little hinky when we hired the previously-mentioned bar-tender/building contractor to redo our living quarters. Again, this was an instance of me ignoring the fact that I was all but being beat to within an inch of my life by red flags, as prior to engaging Irish Car Bomb Bob the Builder to tackle the big job of renovating our quarters, I hired him to redo our walk-in cooler that the State Department of Health mandated be redone. That job went 40% over budget and took two weeks longer to complete than promised; yet armed with this knowledge, I went ahead and rehired Farson & McBytemee for the living quarters. Their proposal seemed sound, and while at the high end of what we could afford, the numbers still fell within my worst-case budget for the project. There was one important little fact that the contractors held from us in their proposal; a fact that would play heavily into the project taking five weeks longer to complete than promised.
In fact, Farson & McBytemee, while tackling the Riverside renovation, were also in the midst of building a competing bar and restaurant in neighboring Tabernash, CO – their bar and restaurant. The plan was for them to have their place, The Tabernash Tavern, open by Memorial Day weekend, 2008 – the same Memorial Day weekend that Julie and I had intended to take up residence in our new living quarters, so we could manage our first, busy, sold out holiday weekend on site. This didn’t happen, as I’m strongly supposing that any extra of F&McB’s workers, time and efforts went to meet their restaurants deadlines; the fact that July 4th was the first night we were able to spend in our bedroom tells me my supposition is more than just such. I wouldn’t dare either insinuate that the 25% overage they hit us with in labor and materials would have been due to any bad accounting or misallocated costs from their restaurant project. Why, only a thief or a crook would do something like that, and there certainly weren’t any of those in Grand County that hadn’t already been signed on to work at the local bank.
That first night sleeping in our new bedroom opened my eyes to another issue that I’d never considered before buying a hotel, bar and restaurant, and had I considered it and given it the necessary due diligence, no way would I have pulled the trigger on the purchase; that issue was vomit. Those that know me well know that I would rather face a pack of hungry lions while wearing rib-eye underwear than deal with vomit; the only possible thing worse than dealing with a vomiting human would be dealing with a vomiting tarantula. Oh Lord, let us not go there.
The restaurant was busy, and the hotel was sold out on this Grand County 4th of July night. Fortunately all of the diners and hotel guests ate early, and all but one couple departed for the fireworks extravaganza at Grand Lake – a good 45 minute drive from the Riverside. This would be the first time since moving to the hotel 10 days earlier that I would be able to sit quietly in the lobby and enjoy a cocktail in peace, as the couple that remained went quietly to their room. They were the last to check in that evening, not having a reservation and taking our only available room. When I was showing the gentleman the room, he asked if we had an elevator, as he told me his wife wasn’t in good shape and would be unable to go up and down the steps. When I said no, I felt certain that he would leave and I wouldn’t see any more of him; but I was wrong. A few minutes later, his wife and he were standing in the lobby, asking to check in; they’d flown to Denver from Kentucky that morning, driven through Rocky Mountain National Park, over the 11,000 foot summit of Trail Ridge Road, and were hungry, tired and ready to settle in, stairs or no stairs. His wife, who was 60-ish and not able to wear slim dresses, felt that she could make it up and down the stairs, although she was admittedly having a difficult time breathing, she felt, due to the altitude. She had me just a little worried.
Our visitors from Kentucky were the last to be seated for dinner, and after getting over the crankiness that often comes with traveling, they seemed to begin enjoying themselves and The Riverside. The wife had our Pan-seared Scallops w/Asparagus Tips in a Buerre Blanc sauce, while the husband enjoyed Prime Rib, with both enjoying a bottle of Riesling then desserts; a $100 restaurant tab on top of an $80 room rental that I didn’t think I’d get for the evening. Off they went to bed, off everyone else went to the fireworks and off I went to my quiet lobby and cold martini. Even Julie had decided to pack it in early, anxious for a rest in our own king-size bed, a bed that had been sitting for 10 days in the unfinished bedroom of the unfinished living quarters.
I had less than an hour of uninterrupted bliss, when the guest from Kentucky appeared in the lobby with a concerned look on his face.
“Can I help you?” I asked with a smile that tried to hide what I really wanted to ask – “what in the hell are you doing down here disturbing my peace???”
“Your scallops have made my wife sick. She’s thrown up all over the bedroom. Can you call 911?”
“Oh My God!” I thought, “I forgot about vomit. How in the hell could I have forgotten about vomit? Who in the hell is going to clean up the vomit?? There’s no way I can clean up the vomit! I doubt I’ll ever even be able to go upstairs again, let alone clean up the damn vomit!”
“You’re serious?” I asked. “You really need me to call 911? I mean, the vomit is about the worst thing that could have happened at this point in my life, but I don’t need 911!”
So I called 911, which will have to come from Granby, some 14 miles away. I stand out in front of the hotel, waiting anxiously for help, hoping the lady doesn’t die in our hotel, but more importantly hoping that she’ll be well enough to help clean up her vomit.
Within 15 minutes that seemed like the proverbial eternity, the ambulance showed and I pointed the Paramedics in the direction of the vomit-filled room. A few minutes later, the two male Paramedics, (there was a third female Paramedic), came down to retrieve the stretcher.
“How is she” I asked.
“Severe altitude sickness”, one answered, “a really bad idea for someone her age, in her shape, to come from sea level to 11,000 feet in an 8-hour period.”
“How bad is the room” I asked, cognitive of my being polite to ask first about the lady before asking about what really concerned me.
“Pretty bad” was the answer.
Pretty bad!!! These guys are used to dealing with all sorts of nasty stuff, and he said ‘Pretty bad’. Oh my God, what awfulness awaits me?
It was another 30 minutes before the ambulance crew started to traverse the stairs with the stretcher that contained our guest. It’s work to slither up and down those stairs with a box of donuts; imagine transporting a human cargo on a 7’, wheeled gurney. My hat’s still off to those dudes, who were making something that I would have considered impossible look easy. Our guest didn’t look well; she was pale, sweating and strapped to the gurney with much needed oxygen being tubed to her nostrils. She gave me a sad look, a faint wave and mouthed “I’m sorry!” I know she felt sick, and worse, badly for me and the situation.
By this time, guests had begun to return from the fireworks and were milling around the front of the darkened hotel. Off went the ambulance, followed by her husband in their rented Ford Taurus; that being followed by $180 that went unpaid for the room and the dinner, half of the latter of which was left behind in the ‘Linda’ room.
When I finished dealing with the guests and locking the place down, and thanking my darling daughter Rachel, to whom I will forever be eternally grateful to for her courage in cleaning up the vomit, I went back to spend my first night in my old bed in my new room. I belive it was 2 AM.
Julie awoke from a deep sleep, to mumble/ask, “how’d things go?”
“Before or after the ambulance left?”
To be continued………..
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Friday the 13th.........The Final Chapter
No, this isn’t another Riverside ghost story, but it is for damn sure a horror story. And as for the ‘Final Chapter’, is it the end of the blog?
Maybe….
There are still untold stories – some really, really good untold stories. I’ve yet to tell the story of the previous owner, and that is one humdinger of a story. There are other stories, partly written, about other characters and events that need to be told; but I want to make certain that we’ve been totally immersed into the Mississippi Witness Protection Program, with the requisite assumed identities, before exposing all of the juicy details of the people we encountered and events that occurred during our two year fling in the mountains.
No, these untold stories will be for the book. Let’s face it. I was foolish enough to think that I could chuck it all and make a go of it in the mountains of Grand County, CO; getting a book written and published would be folderol compared to the task of paying the bills and earning a living, during a depression, in a ramshackle, haunted hotel in Hot Sulphur Springs, CO.
During our first full weekend of living at The Riverside, I received a harbinger of things to come that made my already nervous self-examination about “have we done the right thing?” look like a hungry buzzard hanging around the back door of a Kobe Beef processing plant.
A quick update; we bought the hotel on December 27th, 2007. My daughter Rachel, and two other family members, ran the place the best they could under the circumstances, until Julie and I showed up on June 25th, 2008. As I was driving into Hot Sulphur Springs on June 25th, following the jack-leg moving company that I hired on the cheap, I took a deep breath and drank in the moment. The sun was setting over Mt. Bross and the spacious valley that was carved by the Colorado River, the valley that is Hot Sulphur Springs; it all lay before us in spectacular fashion as we drove in for the first time as residents.
“Ahhh”, I exhaled, and said out loud to both Julie and myself, “it’s June 25th, and we’re arriving at our new home, and our new life. It’s hard to believe that we live here! Let’s never forget this date!”
No sooner were the words were out of my mouth, when my history-loving nerd-gene grabbed me by the ear in a combined Jesuit/nun-like fashion, and screamed the following at a deafening level, to which only I was privy – “JUNE 25!! YOU IDIOT!!! THAT’S THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN!! YOU KNOW, CUSTER’S LAST STAND ??!! HE WAS A FOOL, RUSHING BRAZENLY INTO THE UNKNOWN, FOR GLORY, FOR HIS EGO, AND HE WAS SLAUGHTERED ON THIS DAY, 132 YEARS AGO.BRUTALLY SLAUGHTERED, I TELL YOU! DO FOOLS NEVER LEARN FROM HISTORY???”
My history-loving nerd gene has a bit of an attitude, and typically offers me way too much information. But he often motivates me, and this is what he tossed out regarding Custer’s quest for greatness; a quote from Teddy Roosevelt that was offered in defense of Custer’s folly. I relate to it, and embrace it as an excuse for my Colorado brain fart.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat”
The content of this fine quote gives me great comfort as I chastise and feel superior to you poor spirits, you that live in that gray twilight; you that still have your 401K’s intact in the bank.
So much for the pursuit of glory….
So back to the harbinger. Our first weekend had us hosting guests in 6 rooms, and one of the couples were old time ‘Abe’ guests, i.e. people that had stayed at The Riverside for years and knew both its charms and its foibles. They were celebrating a wedding anniversary, and were staying in the two-room suite overlooking the river; a wonderful couple who were very supportive of what we’d done to improve the hotel. They had a lovely dinner that they raved about, complete with wine and champagne, then retired to the bar for a ‘final-final’. Through bar chatter I learned that the gentleman was a Circuit Court Judge in Denver; a very distinguished, gentle, intelligent man – a man who’s opinion would hold some weight.
After I shared our story of quitting our jobs, packing it up and moving to a brave new life in the mountains, he looked at me, and earnestly said, “I really admire you for what you’ve done. You’ve done great things with this place, and I really hope that you’re able make a go of it. But I can tell you, Grand County is a damn tough place to make a living. I can only wish you the best.”
When he told me this, the economy was still robust, or as we know now in retrospect, was still robust on the surface to us idiots. The bubble had yet to burst, and this guy who dealt with the day to day reality of making a go of it in Colorado, looked me in the eye, with a face that showed genuine concern, and said “….Grand County is a damn tough place to make a living. I can only wish you the best.”
After our first weekend in our new venture, it began to occur to me that the carrion of Kobe Beef might stand a better chance against vultures, and our ultimate demise, than we.
To Be Continued…………
Maybe….
There are still untold stories – some really, really good untold stories. I’ve yet to tell the story of the previous owner, and that is one humdinger of a story. There are other stories, partly written, about other characters and events that need to be told; but I want to make certain that we’ve been totally immersed into the Mississippi Witness Protection Program, with the requisite assumed identities, before exposing all of the juicy details of the people we encountered and events that occurred during our two year fling in the mountains.
No, these untold stories will be for the book. Let’s face it. I was foolish enough to think that I could chuck it all and make a go of it in the mountains of Grand County, CO; getting a book written and published would be folderol compared to the task of paying the bills and earning a living, during a depression, in a ramshackle, haunted hotel in Hot Sulphur Springs, CO.
During our first full weekend of living at The Riverside, I received a harbinger of things to come that made my already nervous self-examination about “have we done the right thing?” look like a hungry buzzard hanging around the back door of a Kobe Beef processing plant.
A quick update; we bought the hotel on December 27th, 2007. My daughter Rachel, and two other family members, ran the place the best they could under the circumstances, until Julie and I showed up on June 25th, 2008. As I was driving into Hot Sulphur Springs on June 25th, following the jack-leg moving company that I hired on the cheap, I took a deep breath and drank in the moment. The sun was setting over Mt. Bross and the spacious valley that was carved by the Colorado River, the valley that is Hot Sulphur Springs; it all lay before us in spectacular fashion as we drove in for the first time as residents.
“Ahhh”, I exhaled, and said out loud to both Julie and myself, “it’s June 25th, and we’re arriving at our new home, and our new life. It’s hard to believe that we live here! Let’s never forget this date!”
No sooner were the words were out of my mouth, when my history-loving nerd-gene grabbed me by the ear in a combined Jesuit/nun-like fashion, and screamed the following at a deafening level, to which only I was privy – “JUNE 25!! YOU IDIOT!!! THAT’S THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN!! YOU KNOW, CUSTER’S LAST STAND ??!! HE WAS A FOOL, RUSHING BRAZENLY INTO THE UNKNOWN, FOR GLORY, FOR HIS EGO, AND HE WAS SLAUGHTERED ON THIS DAY, 132 YEARS AGO.BRUTALLY SLAUGHTERED, I TELL YOU! DO FOOLS NEVER LEARN FROM HISTORY???”
My history-loving nerd gene has a bit of an attitude, and typically offers me way too much information. But he often motivates me, and this is what he tossed out regarding Custer’s quest for greatness; a quote from Teddy Roosevelt that was offered in defense of Custer’s folly. I relate to it, and embrace it as an excuse for my Colorado brain fart.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat”
The content of this fine quote gives me great comfort as I chastise and feel superior to you poor spirits, you that live in that gray twilight; you that still have your 401K’s intact in the bank.
So much for the pursuit of glory….
So back to the harbinger. Our first weekend had us hosting guests in 6 rooms, and one of the couples were old time ‘Abe’ guests, i.e. people that had stayed at The Riverside for years and knew both its charms and its foibles. They were celebrating a wedding anniversary, and were staying in the two-room suite overlooking the river; a wonderful couple who were very supportive of what we’d done to improve the hotel. They had a lovely dinner that they raved about, complete with wine and champagne, then retired to the bar for a ‘final-final’. Through bar chatter I learned that the gentleman was a Circuit Court Judge in Denver; a very distinguished, gentle, intelligent man – a man who’s opinion would hold some weight.
After I shared our story of quitting our jobs, packing it up and moving to a brave new life in the mountains, he looked at me, and earnestly said, “I really admire you for what you’ve done. You’ve done great things with this place, and I really hope that you’re able make a go of it. But I can tell you, Grand County is a damn tough place to make a living. I can only wish you the best.”
When he told me this, the economy was still robust, or as we know now in retrospect, was still robust on the surface to us idiots. The bubble had yet to burst, and this guy who dealt with the day to day reality of making a go of it in Colorado, looked me in the eye, with a face that showed genuine concern, and said “….Grand County is a damn tough place to make a living. I can only wish you the best.”
After our first weekend in our new venture, it began to occur to me that the carrion of Kobe Beef might stand a better chance against vultures, and our ultimate demise, than we.
To Be Continued…………
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Chicken Spiedini for the masses
I thought it only fitting that I should follow up a story about the bounteously heinous discovery in the kitchen crawl space with a recipe for one of our restaurants best selling, if not our signature, entree – Chicken Spiedini.
We brought this dish from a storied Italian eatery in Kansas City, Garozzo’s Ristorente, which built a bit of an empire on the back of this grilled, garlic-laden fowl. The first time I ate at the original location on 5th & Harrison, down near the KC City Market, the waiter suggested the Spiedini over a pasta dish I was tempted to order; I took his advice, and found that I’d never tasted anything quite like it. It was one of those seminal degustatory moments that jarred you into the realization that there was a whole culinary world beyond your mother’s meatloaf. Mr. Garozzo went on to open three more restaurants, including one in Wichita, KS, all of which were fueled by the success of his Spiedini. Chicken Spedini even wrought new, competitive restaurants from former Garozzo employees, including the original Garozzo’s chef who opened his own place, loudly proclaiming himself the inventor of the dish; he didn’t make it a year, while all of the Garozzo’s are still churning out Spiedini.
At The Riverside, we never claimed Chicken Spiedini as an original recipe, but gave due credit by referring to the dish on our first menu as ‘Chicken Spiedini a la Garozzo’. (I’m not certain what ‘a la’ means, but I’d seen it on a lot of other menus, and thought, ‘what the hell’.) I do steadfastly believe that our version was better than Garozzo’s; an opinion that was shared by numerous Kansas-Citians who had eaten the dish in both KC and at The Riverside. The only restaurant review that we ever received in the local paper, good or bad, was a one-line mention in a “What to do this weekend” column from the Sky-High Daily News entertainment writer, saying “try the Chicken Spiedini at The Riverside – it’s incredible!”
While it was immensely popular, it was also very labor intensive to prepare, and in our last few months of operation, down to a single chef, we decided to scrap the dish in favor of easier preparations. Make it at home, and you’ll get a feel for what our kitchen help had to do on a daily basis for the throngs (ok, maybe not throngs; if there had been throngs, we may yet still be in business) of dinner guests who ordered, and adored, Spiedini. I’m proud that we threw very little un-eaten food away at The Riverside, and when we did, never was it Spiedini.
Serves 4
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¾ cup flour
¾ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 ½ cup bread crumbs (buy ‘em, don’t make ‘em)
AMOGIO SAUCE
¾ cup olive oil
¾ cup vegetable oil
1 medium-sized head of garlic
1 thin-skinned, damn juicy lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
A few hefty grinds of fresh black pepper and a few stout pinches of Kosher salt
You’ll need ka-bob skewers, and in a perfect world, a nice, hot bed of coals to grill the Spiedini over; if you can’t grill, you can also cook the skewers indoors on a hot griddle. Spiedini is an Italian term with the loose translation of ‘skewers of meat or fish, grilled over a flame’; the direct translation is ‘skewers of meat that are slowly prepared, to the sound of blaring heavy-metal/ bad rap music, by highly paid kitchen staff.’
Pound the chicken breasts thin, about a quarter inch thick, and cut length-wise into 1” wide strips. If you’ve pounded your breasts thin enough, you should get 14 – 16 strips from the 2# of chicken.
You’ll also need three prep bowls, one which will contain the ½ cup of olive oil, one the flour, and the third a well-mixed blend of the bread crumbs, the grated parm cheese and the basil flakes.
Lightly salt and pepper the chicken strips, thoroughly wash your hands (this is an important step that was often overlooked by our kitchen staff, no matter how much I yelled at them when I found them preparing this dish, and others, with dirty, filthy hands), and grab a chicken strip. Dredge it in the flour, shake off the excess, dip it in the olive oil, drip off the excess, and dredge it in the bread crumb mixture. Place the coated strip on your work surface and roll it into a pinwheel. Stick this onto a skewer, obviously jamming the business end of the skewer through the entire diameter of the pinwheel, and repeat the process with all of the strips. Dependent upon your dredging, dripping and shaking skills, you may end up needing more flour, oil or bread crumb mix; but you’d have hopefully figured that out on your own, as any cook knows that a recipe is but a yardstick, not a micrometer.
Let your skewered, Spiedini-ed chicken sit patiently on your cooking sheet, and begin preparing the Amogio sauce. Peel your garlic cloves, and chop to a fine dice. Don’t use a garlic press; there is a profound difference in how garlic tastes and reacts to other ingredients when it is chopped versus pressed. Throw your finely diced garlic in a mixing bowl along with all of the other ingredients, and stir it gently with a spoon every so often. Don’t whisk it, as you don’t want to emulsify the lemon juice into the blend. Be gentle.
You can make the Amogio sauce the day before, but needless to say, the longer it sits, the more potent it gets. If you do make it the day before, I’d leave out the freshly squeezed lemon juice; add that closer to meal time. Stir gently after adding the lemon juice.
Grill or griddle your chicken to doneness – and you have to be careful about this, as the rolled up chicken will need to cook through; but be careful not to burn the crap out of the outer portion of the chicken in the process. Grilling is a skill, not to be maligned, chided and laughed at by those who don’t practice, but only eat the fruits of the hot iron grate. The first time we had the dish at the newly opened restaurant of the ‘inventor’ chef, the inner part of our Spiedini was RAW; not undercooked, but blind-ass, naked RAW! The waiter was flustered, and actually said, “Uh, keep this quiet, and the Tiramisu is on the house!” Mmmmm, raw chicken and Tiramisu, one of my favorite Italian delights! What wine goes with that?
To plate, liberally spoon 1/3 cup of the Amogio on a plate, un-skewer the properly grilled chicken onto the pool of sauce, top the chicken and rim the plate with a little finely chopped parsley, spoon another tablespoon or two of the remaining Amogio over the top of the chicken and accompany with sides. I’d suggest a nice penne pasta with a light, slightly sweet marinara sauce as an accompaniment, as you’ll want something all-but bland to offset the punch-in-the-nose you’ll get from the Amogio sauce. Nicely prepared fresh green beans or broccoli will seal the meal.
Listen to some Sinatra and quaff some Chianti, or Amarone, if the finances will allow.
We brought this dish from a storied Italian eatery in Kansas City, Garozzo’s Ristorente, which built a bit of an empire on the back of this grilled, garlic-laden fowl. The first time I ate at the original location on 5th & Harrison, down near the KC City Market, the waiter suggested the Spiedini over a pasta dish I was tempted to order; I took his advice, and found that I’d never tasted anything quite like it. It was one of those seminal degustatory moments that jarred you into the realization that there was a whole culinary world beyond your mother’s meatloaf. Mr. Garozzo went on to open three more restaurants, including one in Wichita, KS, all of which were fueled by the success of his Spiedini. Chicken Spedini even wrought new, competitive restaurants from former Garozzo employees, including the original Garozzo’s chef who opened his own place, loudly proclaiming himself the inventor of the dish; he didn’t make it a year, while all of the Garozzo’s are still churning out Spiedini.
At The Riverside, we never claimed Chicken Spiedini as an original recipe, but gave due credit by referring to the dish on our first menu as ‘Chicken Spiedini a la Garozzo’. (I’m not certain what ‘a la’ means, but I’d seen it on a lot of other menus, and thought, ‘what the hell’.) I do steadfastly believe that our version was better than Garozzo’s; an opinion that was shared by numerous Kansas-Citians who had eaten the dish in both KC and at The Riverside. The only restaurant review that we ever received in the local paper, good or bad, was a one-line mention in a “What to do this weekend” column from the Sky-High Daily News entertainment writer, saying “try the Chicken Spiedini at The Riverside – it’s incredible!”
While it was immensely popular, it was also very labor intensive to prepare, and in our last few months of operation, down to a single chef, we decided to scrap the dish in favor of easier preparations. Make it at home, and you’ll get a feel for what our kitchen help had to do on a daily basis for the throngs (ok, maybe not throngs; if there had been throngs, we may yet still be in business) of dinner guests who ordered, and adored, Spiedini. I’m proud that we threw very little un-eaten food away at The Riverside, and when we did, never was it Spiedini.
Serves 4
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¾ cup flour
¾ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 ½ cup bread crumbs (buy ‘em, don’t make ‘em)
AMOGIO SAUCE
¾ cup olive oil
¾ cup vegetable oil
1 medium-sized head of garlic
1 thin-skinned, damn juicy lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
A few hefty grinds of fresh black pepper and a few stout pinches of Kosher salt
You’ll need ka-bob skewers, and in a perfect world, a nice, hot bed of coals to grill the Spiedini over; if you can’t grill, you can also cook the skewers indoors on a hot griddle. Spiedini is an Italian term with the loose translation of ‘skewers of meat or fish, grilled over a flame’; the direct translation is ‘skewers of meat that are slowly prepared, to the sound of blaring heavy-metal/ bad rap music, by highly paid kitchen staff.’
Pound the chicken breasts thin, about a quarter inch thick, and cut length-wise into 1” wide strips. If you’ve pounded your breasts thin enough, you should get 14 – 16 strips from the 2# of chicken.
You’ll also need three prep bowls, one which will contain the ½ cup of olive oil, one the flour, and the third a well-mixed blend of the bread crumbs, the grated parm cheese and the basil flakes.
Lightly salt and pepper the chicken strips, thoroughly wash your hands (this is an important step that was often overlooked by our kitchen staff, no matter how much I yelled at them when I found them preparing this dish, and others, with dirty, filthy hands), and grab a chicken strip. Dredge it in the flour, shake off the excess, dip it in the olive oil, drip off the excess, and dredge it in the bread crumb mixture. Place the coated strip on your work surface and roll it into a pinwheel. Stick this onto a skewer, obviously jamming the business end of the skewer through the entire diameter of the pinwheel, and repeat the process with all of the strips. Dependent upon your dredging, dripping and shaking skills, you may end up needing more flour, oil or bread crumb mix; but you’d have hopefully figured that out on your own, as any cook knows that a recipe is but a yardstick, not a micrometer.
Let your skewered, Spiedini-ed chicken sit patiently on your cooking sheet, and begin preparing the Amogio sauce. Peel your garlic cloves, and chop to a fine dice. Don’t use a garlic press; there is a profound difference in how garlic tastes and reacts to other ingredients when it is chopped versus pressed. Throw your finely diced garlic in a mixing bowl along with all of the other ingredients, and stir it gently with a spoon every so often. Don’t whisk it, as you don’t want to emulsify the lemon juice into the blend. Be gentle.
You can make the Amogio sauce the day before, but needless to say, the longer it sits, the more potent it gets. If you do make it the day before, I’d leave out the freshly squeezed lemon juice; add that closer to meal time. Stir gently after adding the lemon juice.
Grill or griddle your chicken to doneness – and you have to be careful about this, as the rolled up chicken will need to cook through; but be careful not to burn the crap out of the outer portion of the chicken in the process. Grilling is a skill, not to be maligned, chided and laughed at by those who don’t practice, but only eat the fruits of the hot iron grate. The first time we had the dish at the newly opened restaurant of the ‘inventor’ chef, the inner part of our Spiedini was RAW; not undercooked, but blind-ass, naked RAW! The waiter was flustered, and actually said, “Uh, keep this quiet, and the Tiramisu is on the house!” Mmmmm, raw chicken and Tiramisu, one of my favorite Italian delights! What wine goes with that?
To plate, liberally spoon 1/3 cup of the Amogio on a plate, un-skewer the properly grilled chicken onto the pool of sauce, top the chicken and rim the plate with a little finely chopped parsley, spoon another tablespoon or two of the remaining Amogio over the top of the chicken and accompany with sides. I’d suggest a nice penne pasta with a light, slightly sweet marinara sauce as an accompaniment, as you’ll want something all-but bland to offset the punch-in-the-nose you’ll get from the Amogio sauce. Nicely prepared fresh green beans or broccoli will seal the meal.
Listen to some Sinatra and quaff some Chianti, or Amarone, if the finances will allow.
Monday, August 2, 2010
The Three Portals of Hell....Part V
Really Awful Offal....
In many cases, one would save the best for last. I’ve done the opposite, as the final story of the three Riverside portals is indeed saving the worst, most offensive, most God-awful for last. Portal Number One involved snakes in the bedroom – BUPKIS! Portal Number Two involved bad plumbing, raw sewage and a Meth addict manhandling a rented high-pressure Jetter in the underbelly of the hotel – Sheer Folly!
Portal Number Three involves the kitchen; it involves grease, old food and bad dishwater festering in a darkened crawl space – it involves an agglomeration of things so bad that people actually go to school to become lawyers, so that they can avoid ever having to be within anything short of tort distance from this holy trinity of gluck.
As mentioned previously, the space under the kitchen was original to the hotels 1903 construction. It had a shorter head clearance than the crawl space under the hotel lobby, by maybe a foot; you were in a serious crouch in this space, and in most cases to get done what you had to do when you were down there, you had to kneel on the lengths of 2 x 12s that ran the length of the space. The two kitchen drains ran under this section, both ultimately leading into the infamous ‘grease trap’, a 16” square box that collected…well…the sort of things that would not only turn you into a Boulder-proud vegan, you’d possibly never eat again if you saw what it contained. The exit side of the grease trap consisted of a 3” pipe that ran into the main sewer line in the crawlspace in Portal Number Two, where it joined with the 3” exit pipes from the toilets, sinks and showers.
(Side Note from Richard Paradise, Restaurant/B&B Consultant LLC: If you, the prospective first-time restaurateur and B&B Operator, just read this last paragraph, and you still want to get into the restaurant & hotel business, quickly send me another $10,000, so that I can further counsel, advise and save you $1,000,000 worth of blood, sweat, tears and actual cash money; not to mention the eventual date with your grease trap.)
It was the end of the Easter weekend, 2009, when we were shutting the hotel down, for both a vacation and a kitchen reconstruction. The plan involved a big-bang, farewell Easter brunch, two-weeks out of Hot Sulphur, then a return to gut and replace the old, inherited equipment we’d been dealing with the past year, replace the existing slippery linoleum floor with some kick-ass commercial floor tile I’d scored from an old adhesive-business contact, and be ready to fly by Memorial Day, 2009.
I can’t remember why our chef went into Portal Number Three shortly before our two-week vacation, but he did, and he reported something pretty wretched.
“The pipe from the dishwasher/disposal has a crack in it, and the crawl space is flooded with….uh….well…some pretty bad stuff. There’s, like, a foot of really bad water down there.”
This was one of those times when procrastination seemed the wiser option. There was a basement full of fetid water, that wouldn’t be added to when we were on vacation. We’d rent a pump when we got back from vacation, drain it, fix the pipe, the floor, the kitchen, etc. No point in delaying our much anticipated and much deserved vacation to deal with this seamy little issue. Unlike us, it sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere.
Two weeks later, we’re back at the Riverside, ready for one hell of a floor ripping-up, crawl-space draining good time. I didn’t even bother to look in the flooded crawl space before heading to the local equipment-rental place for a portable sump pump. Money down, pump in hand, we sucked it up and opened the crawl space, to find….no water! Closer inspection found a substance that, much unlike water, was indefinable. Several months full of restaurant flotsam and jetsam, discharging through the dishwashing system through the crack in the exhaust pipe, in small dribs and drabs over the past few months, into the dirt floor of the crawl space, to sit, stew and percolate, had turned into a gel, a goo, an all but living, breathing, writhing clot. There is really no better way to describe this substance other than it being a grayish, rubbery subterranean pudding, smelling like no pudding you could imagine. If evil sought out a smell, it would have latched onto this layer of gloosma like corruption seeks out politicians.
“Crap!” I thought, “I planned on being able to pump this problem out of my life.” No, it would require a shovel, some plastic bags, and me kneeling/crouching in the cramped quarters of the Third Portal of Hell. While my chef honorably offered to do this dirty beyond dirty job, I couldn’t reasonably ask anyone that I was paying less than $140/second to perform this horrific task.
I previously might have mentioned that it smelled really bad; it did, but when the gelatinous smelogma was actually disturbed, i.e., turned and probed by the peak of the spade, the odor that was unleashed from this custard of a thousand previous Riverside dinners was indescribable. It was very quick duty; throw a plastic trash bag in the hole, hold my breath, descend and scrape two or three shovelfuls into the bag, stick my head above the crawl space for a breath of air, hold my breath, and repeat. There were a few times I had to exhale and breathe on my way back up, and the gag reflex was major; just a momentary whiff of what I was excavating was potentially lethal. Any bad human act – you name it; robbery, terror, murder, greed, vengeance - could be averted by the threat of having to smell this hellish concoction.
It took a while, but the job was completed. I might have imagined this, but I don’t think so, as the trash dumpster, containing the bags of crawl space sploojisma, emitted a fluorescent greenish glow from beneath its lid as it sat in our side yard, waiting patiently for the 2nd Tuesday of the month pick-up.
The puddinous spoosma collected, a layer of lime was deposited upon the crawl space floor, eliminating any of the remaining odors, and slaying the resident microbial villains that had been wrought from the no-longer festering foodsmegjisma.
I now live in Mississippi, and am fortunate to have a job with a large corporation. People often ask me “Why would you move from Colorado to Mississippi? Didn’t you love the restaurant business? Aren’t you sorry that you gave up your dream?”
Those are fair questions. If you want the real answer, please contact me at:
Be prepared to spend a Grand. I’ll save you a fortune.
In many cases, one would save the best for last. I’ve done the opposite, as the final story of the three Riverside portals is indeed saving the worst, most offensive, most God-awful for last. Portal Number One involved snakes in the bedroom – BUPKIS! Portal Number Two involved bad plumbing, raw sewage and a Meth addict manhandling a rented high-pressure Jetter in the underbelly of the hotel – Sheer Folly!
Portal Number Three involves the kitchen; it involves grease, old food and bad dishwater festering in a darkened crawl space – it involves an agglomeration of things so bad that people actually go to school to become lawyers, so that they can avoid ever having to be within anything short of tort distance from this holy trinity of gluck.
As mentioned previously, the space under the kitchen was original to the hotels 1903 construction. It had a shorter head clearance than the crawl space under the hotel lobby, by maybe a foot; you were in a serious crouch in this space, and in most cases to get done what you had to do when you were down there, you had to kneel on the lengths of 2 x 12s that ran the length of the space. The two kitchen drains ran under this section, both ultimately leading into the infamous ‘grease trap’, a 16” square box that collected…well…the sort of things that would not only turn you into a Boulder-proud vegan, you’d possibly never eat again if you saw what it contained. The exit side of the grease trap consisted of a 3” pipe that ran into the main sewer line in the crawlspace in Portal Number Two, where it joined with the 3” exit pipes from the toilets, sinks and showers.
(Side Note from Richard Paradise, Restaurant/B&B Consultant LLC: If you, the prospective first-time restaurateur and B&B Operator, just read this last paragraph, and you still want to get into the restaurant & hotel business, quickly send me another $10,000, so that I can further counsel, advise and save you $1,000,000 worth of blood, sweat, tears and actual cash money; not to mention the eventual date with your grease trap.)
It was the end of the Easter weekend, 2009, when we were shutting the hotel down, for both a vacation and a kitchen reconstruction. The plan involved a big-bang, farewell Easter brunch, two-weeks out of Hot Sulphur, then a return to gut and replace the old, inherited equipment we’d been dealing with the past year, replace the existing slippery linoleum floor with some kick-ass commercial floor tile I’d scored from an old adhesive-business contact, and be ready to fly by Memorial Day, 2009.
I can’t remember why our chef went into Portal Number Three shortly before our two-week vacation, but he did, and he reported something pretty wretched.
“The pipe from the dishwasher/disposal has a crack in it, and the crawl space is flooded with….uh….well…some pretty bad stuff. There’s, like, a foot of really bad water down there.”
This was one of those times when procrastination seemed the wiser option. There was a basement full of fetid water, that wouldn’t be added to when we were on vacation. We’d rent a pump when we got back from vacation, drain it, fix the pipe, the floor, the kitchen, etc. No point in delaying our much anticipated and much deserved vacation to deal with this seamy little issue. Unlike us, it sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere.
Two weeks later, we’re back at the Riverside, ready for one hell of a floor ripping-up, crawl-space draining good time. I didn’t even bother to look in the flooded crawl space before heading to the local equipment-rental place for a portable sump pump. Money down, pump in hand, we sucked it up and opened the crawl space, to find….no water! Closer inspection found a substance that, much unlike water, was indefinable. Several months full of restaurant flotsam and jetsam, discharging through the dishwashing system through the crack in the exhaust pipe, in small dribs and drabs over the past few months, into the dirt floor of the crawl space, to sit, stew and percolate, had turned into a gel, a goo, an all but living, breathing, writhing clot. There is really no better way to describe this substance other than it being a grayish, rubbery subterranean pudding, smelling like no pudding you could imagine. If evil sought out a smell, it would have latched onto this layer of gloosma like corruption seeks out politicians.
“Crap!” I thought, “I planned on being able to pump this problem out of my life.” No, it would require a shovel, some plastic bags, and me kneeling/crouching in the cramped quarters of the Third Portal of Hell. While my chef honorably offered to do this dirty beyond dirty job, I couldn’t reasonably ask anyone that I was paying less than $140/second to perform this horrific task.
I previously might have mentioned that it smelled really bad; it did, but when the gelatinous smelogma was actually disturbed, i.e., turned and probed by the peak of the spade, the odor that was unleashed from this custard of a thousand previous Riverside dinners was indescribable. It was very quick duty; throw a plastic trash bag in the hole, hold my breath, descend and scrape two or three shovelfuls into the bag, stick my head above the crawl space for a breath of air, hold my breath, and repeat. There were a few times I had to exhale and breathe on my way back up, and the gag reflex was major; just a momentary whiff of what I was excavating was potentially lethal. Any bad human act – you name it; robbery, terror, murder, greed, vengeance - could be averted by the threat of having to smell this hellish concoction.
It took a while, but the job was completed. I might have imagined this, but I don’t think so, as the trash dumpster, containing the bags of crawl space sploojisma, emitted a fluorescent greenish glow from beneath its lid as it sat in our side yard, waiting patiently for the 2nd Tuesday of the month pick-up.
The puddinous spoosma collected, a layer of lime was deposited upon the crawl space floor, eliminating any of the remaining odors, and slaying the resident microbial villains that had been wrought from the no-longer festering foodsmegjisma.
I now live in Mississippi, and am fortunate to have a job with a large corporation. People often ask me “Why would you move from Colorado to Mississippi? Didn’t you love the restaurant business? Aren’t you sorry that you gave up your dream?”
Those are fair questions. If you want the real answer, please contact me at:
rwparadise.restaurantconsultant.com/hellportal
Be prepared to spend a Grand. I’ll save you a fortune.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Three Portals of Hell....Part IV
After about twenty minutes that seemed an eternity, the Critter Ridder emerged from this subterranean snake farm empty handed. No writhing, slithering masses were clutched in his clenched fists, nor did he triumphantly hold up a squirming gunny sack.
“I can’t find a single snake. I looked all the way back into the deepest corner – no live snakes, no dead snakes. Whatever problem you had is gone now.”
“Well I suppose that’s good news.” I said; now for the tough part. “How much do I owe you?”
“$140.00”
“Per second?” I asked, praying like hell that he would say “No, per minute.”
“No, I charge $90 per call, plus any materials, and there’s a $50 fee for driving over from Kremmling.”
As I wrote the check, I worried that perhaps crawling around in the dank, moldy darkness had terribly skewed the poor mans cognitive ability, and during his drive home, reality would re-inhabit his skull, the car brakes would be slammed, and he’d steam “Wait just a minute. I only charged that repto-phobic bastard $140 to crawl around in the dark, under his house and look for snakes??” Never have I written a check so quickly, and never have I been happier to write one. Julie went back to sleeping in the house, and never again did we find a snake in the Riverside.
Portal Number Two, the middle portal to hell, contained the plumbing guts to the Riverside. All of the main valves that shut the water on and off were located in this space, along with the main sewage line, which when I inspected the space during the mechanical, had no threaded cap, but a few rags jammed into the open end. I was to learn later that quick access to the sewer line was needed so often, that taking the time to continuously and under duress wrench open a 3” pipe plug would get cumbersome. Again, these little red flags flew right by me, unnoticed, during the due diligence process.
I’ve told previously in this blog the best story relating to Portal Number Two, and for the six of you who’ve already read this story, my apologies.
The Second Portal of Hell
It was January 2nd, 2009, the butt end of a busy holiday weekend. I was back in our living quarters taking my shower, getting ready for the evening, when I noticed the shower drain wasn’t draining so well. Out of the shower, I then notice the toilet is also backed up. Our newly remodeled and re-plumbed living quarters had already had a few issues with the plumbing, so I cursed the plumbing issues and the half-assed contractor who did the half-assed job, quickly got dressed and told Julie I’d plunge later, as the dinner rush had started. I’m not long in the kitchen when I see that one of the sinks, one that is supposed to be used only for washing hands but is also frequently used by our cooking staff as a dump sink for food stuffs, has standing water and isn’t draining. I throw my first bona-fide fit in front of the help since owning the hotel – cussing, throwing things, yelling “how many times have I told you not to dump food in the sink!!” at everyone but no one in particular. They weren’t impressed. I then notice the floor drain isn’t draining. I was then quick to deduce that there was a pattern, a pattern that I’d seen once before – I knew we had a clogged main sewage line.
The State of Colorado Department of Health & Environment – the folks who oversee the safety and sanitation of our restaurant – have a pretty basic rule about not being able to prepare or serve food without access to a free-flowing water and waste disposal system. Damned pesky bureaucrats! I had no choice but to close the restaurant; a nearly full restaurant, with a nearly full bar waiting for tables, as well as numerous reservations for tables later in the evening. My hope was that I could get this problem solved in time to at least re-open in an hour and accommodate the evening’s second seating. But wait a minute….I suddenly remembered we weren’t in Kansas anymore. I remembered that you can’t get a plumber in Grand County to show up for a scheduled job at 10:00 on a Monday morning (unless maybe it’s to fix the dispensing valve on your beer keg), let alone answer an after hour emergency call on a Friday night. I tried my best, going alphabetically through all of the Grand County plumbers, all of whose ads touted “24 Hour Emergency Service”, and got not one, not a single one, who could make it to The Riverside that evening.
(Shortly after moving to Hot Sulphur, one of my neighbors told me a story about how they went to one of the local plumbers who lived across the street from them on a Saturday, and begged him to come fix a plumbing emergency. They promised double the amount, in cash, that he would necessarily get for such a job. “Please, Please, Pleeeeze” they begged of him. His simple and direct reply was “I’m not feeling it today.” I’ve come to learn that is pretty much the working man’s mantra in Grand County.)
I was left with no other option than to call my friend Tony, (who lives up the street and is an excellent plumber), of whose good and reliable nature I hate to take advantage. Tony is in Denver and unable to help, but as luck would have it, Tony’s company has a plumber, Ron, on call, and he also lives in Hot Sulphur. I call the number, but it goes to voice mail; I leave my pleading message with Ron, and then go to my second-to-last resort.
I send my son Scott up to the Barking Dog Pub in search of another local plumber who has the same name as a deceased rock star, (first name rhymes with “Jan” and last name rhymes with “Hogleberg”), and is known to frequent the Barking Dog. More to the truth, he lives at the Barking Dog and is occasionally known to frequent his house. (I don’t mean to malign that un-named plumber, as he has saved our plumbing bacon on more than one occasion, and were he to read this blog and figure out who I’m talking about, I thank him for his past fine efforts on our behalf.) Scott triumphantly returns with good news – no, the deceased rock star-named plumber isn’t there, but there was another plumber sitting at the end of the bar who volunteered his services, and he would be down shortly. And who says only the Irish have such fine luck?
In walks our Johnny-on-the-spot plumber, Ron; this would be Tony’s Ron who was on call that evening. Did I say “in walks”? Perhaps I should say in reeled, in staggered, in swayed, in teetered, in lurched, in weaved; Mr. Roget doesn’t yet have a synonym for the one word you would use to aptly describe Ron’s’ mode of locomotion. I direct Ron, with great effort, back to the kitchen, where he immediately spots the backed-up hand sink. Without saying a word, he plops himself down on the floor and begins to attempt to dismantle the P-trap under the sink. I say to Ron, and I was being very dramatic at this point by raising my voice, waving my arms about and pointing in all directions, “It’s not the P-trap! We’re backed up in our bathroom, we’re backed up in the bar, we’re backed up in the kitchen; WE’RE BACKED UP EVERYWHERE. THE MAIN IS BACKED UP!!” Ron looks up at me and, uttering his first words of the night, says “Shlow down a minute, will ya?” He then turns his glazed eyes back on the P-trap, which he successfully dismantles, and watches as the turbid water rushes from the sink drain into his lap.
I help a very wet and still very drunk Ron up from the floor, and lead him to the main hotel lobby, where the entrance to the crawl space, which contains the main plumbing lines, is located. Down into the space we go, and I point out the main sewage discharge line. Ron looks all around the crawl space as if he was looking for an “Easy” button, or perhaps a detonator that would blow this plumbing problem into the next county. Remember, he’s having a tough time with his equilibrium, so the sight of this man half hunched over in the 5’ tall crawl space looking and pointing at the pipes all about him took on the appearance of a drunken sailor swatting at bees below deck in a violent sea.
Ron finally gets his bearings, and faces me with his assessment of the situation. He also delivers this assessment in a dramatic fashion, similar to my aforementioned dramatic outburst in the kitchen. “Everythings backwards down here. Thish pipe ish running backwards, thish pipe should be goin th’other way. Whoever built thish thing got it all screwed up!” He then proceeds to crawl slowly and carefully up the steps, and sits on the edge of the crawl space, his legs dangling over the abyss, his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. He doesn’t move for 15 minutes. When he finally stirs – I wasn’t there to see this but heard it second hand – he gets up, says not a word to anyone present, then staggers/reels/teeters/sways/weaves/lurches his way out the front door and into the cold, dark, January night.
In walks one of our kitchen employees, who happens to have a drug connection who is also a plumber. (This drug connection thing is not uncommon in Grand County, or in the restaurant business.) I previously mentioned that the dead rock star-named plumber was my second-to- last resort – this drug connection plumber was indeed my last resort. That story about “I’m not feeling it today,” - that might also be this guy. But then I figure, “What do I have to lose?” At the very least, I’ll have more fodder for the blog.
Enter Plumber #3, the most unreliable plumber in Grand County. That’s like being the worst sinner in Las Vegas or the biggest drunk at Mardi gras, or…..you get the point.
Not only am I stunned that he showed up when summoned, but he’s bright eyed, he’s clean, he’s sober, and he’s ready to tackle the problem. All those present, at least those who knew this gentleman and his predilections, could’ve been knocked over by a puff of bong exhaust.
Four hours and $400 dollars later, our local hero has the lines flowing free. He worked down in that fetid crawl space from 8:00 until midnight, flushing the line with a high pressure “jetter”, and then cleaning up the offal responsible for the clog. This was a job so nasty and so incredibly filthy, that the Dirty Jobs guy on TV would’ve hired it out; and our man did it with a smile. No matter what Plumber #3 didn’t do before, or what he may yet not do in the future, the night of January 2nd will forever be known in local lore as the night that Grand Counties most infamous slacker plumber, actually plumbed, and in doing so, saved our bacon and allowed The Riverside to continue to serve some of Grand Counties finest food in a sewage-free environment, per the State code.
To be concluded........
“I can’t find a single snake. I looked all the way back into the deepest corner – no live snakes, no dead snakes. Whatever problem you had is gone now.”
“Well I suppose that’s good news.” I said; now for the tough part. “How much do I owe you?”
“$140.00”
“Per second?” I asked, praying like hell that he would say “No, per minute.”
“No, I charge $90 per call, plus any materials, and there’s a $50 fee for driving over from Kremmling.”
As I wrote the check, I worried that perhaps crawling around in the dank, moldy darkness had terribly skewed the poor mans cognitive ability, and during his drive home, reality would re-inhabit his skull, the car brakes would be slammed, and he’d steam “Wait just a minute. I only charged that repto-phobic bastard $140 to crawl around in the dark, under his house and look for snakes??” Never have I written a check so quickly, and never have I been happier to write one. Julie went back to sleeping in the house, and never again did we find a snake in the Riverside.
Portal Number Two, the middle portal to hell, contained the plumbing guts to the Riverside. All of the main valves that shut the water on and off were located in this space, along with the main sewage line, which when I inspected the space during the mechanical, had no threaded cap, but a few rags jammed into the open end. I was to learn later that quick access to the sewer line was needed so often, that taking the time to continuously and under duress wrench open a 3” pipe plug would get cumbersome. Again, these little red flags flew right by me, unnoticed, during the due diligence process.
I’ve told previously in this blog the best story relating to Portal Number Two, and for the six of you who’ve already read this story, my apologies.
The Second Portal of Hell
It was January 2nd, 2009, the butt end of a busy holiday weekend. I was back in our living quarters taking my shower, getting ready for the evening, when I noticed the shower drain wasn’t draining so well. Out of the shower, I then notice the toilet is also backed up. Our newly remodeled and re-plumbed living quarters had already had a few issues with the plumbing, so I cursed the plumbing issues and the half-assed contractor who did the half-assed job, quickly got dressed and told Julie I’d plunge later, as the dinner rush had started. I’m not long in the kitchen when I see that one of the sinks, one that is supposed to be used only for washing hands but is also frequently used by our cooking staff as a dump sink for food stuffs, has standing water and isn’t draining. I throw my first bona-fide fit in front of the help since owning the hotel – cussing, throwing things, yelling “how many times have I told you not to dump food in the sink!!” at everyone but no one in particular. They weren’t impressed. I then notice the floor drain isn’t draining. I was then quick to deduce that there was a pattern, a pattern that I’d seen once before – I knew we had a clogged main sewage line.
The State of Colorado Department of Health & Environment – the folks who oversee the safety and sanitation of our restaurant – have a pretty basic rule about not being able to prepare or serve food without access to a free-flowing water and waste disposal system. Damned pesky bureaucrats! I had no choice but to close the restaurant; a nearly full restaurant, with a nearly full bar waiting for tables, as well as numerous reservations for tables later in the evening. My hope was that I could get this problem solved in time to at least re-open in an hour and accommodate the evening’s second seating. But wait a minute….I suddenly remembered we weren’t in Kansas anymore. I remembered that you can’t get a plumber in Grand County to show up for a scheduled job at 10:00 on a Monday morning (unless maybe it’s to fix the dispensing valve on your beer keg), let alone answer an after hour emergency call on a Friday night. I tried my best, going alphabetically through all of the Grand County plumbers, all of whose ads touted “24 Hour Emergency Service”, and got not one, not a single one, who could make it to The Riverside that evening.
(Shortly after moving to Hot Sulphur, one of my neighbors told me a story about how they went to one of the local plumbers who lived across the street from them on a Saturday, and begged him to come fix a plumbing emergency. They promised double the amount, in cash, that he would necessarily get for such a job. “Please, Please, Pleeeeze” they begged of him. His simple and direct reply was “I’m not feeling it today.” I’ve come to learn that is pretty much the working man’s mantra in Grand County.)
I was left with no other option than to call my friend Tony, (who lives up the street and is an excellent plumber), of whose good and reliable nature I hate to take advantage. Tony is in Denver and unable to help, but as luck would have it, Tony’s company has a plumber, Ron, on call, and he also lives in Hot Sulphur. I call the number, but it goes to voice mail; I leave my pleading message with Ron, and then go to my second-to-last resort.
I send my son Scott up to the Barking Dog Pub in search of another local plumber who has the same name as a deceased rock star, (first name rhymes with “Jan” and last name rhymes with “Hogleberg”), and is known to frequent the Barking Dog. More to the truth, he lives at the Barking Dog and is occasionally known to frequent his house. (I don’t mean to malign that un-named plumber, as he has saved our plumbing bacon on more than one occasion, and were he to read this blog and figure out who I’m talking about, I thank him for his past fine efforts on our behalf.) Scott triumphantly returns with good news – no, the deceased rock star-named plumber isn’t there, but there was another plumber sitting at the end of the bar who volunteered his services, and he would be down shortly. And who says only the Irish have such fine luck?
In walks our Johnny-on-the-spot plumber, Ron; this would be Tony’s Ron who was on call that evening. Did I say “in walks”? Perhaps I should say in reeled, in staggered, in swayed, in teetered, in lurched, in weaved; Mr. Roget doesn’t yet have a synonym for the one word you would use to aptly describe Ron’s’ mode of locomotion. I direct Ron, with great effort, back to the kitchen, where he immediately spots the backed-up hand sink. Without saying a word, he plops himself down on the floor and begins to attempt to dismantle the P-trap under the sink. I say to Ron, and I was being very dramatic at this point by raising my voice, waving my arms about and pointing in all directions, “It’s not the P-trap! We’re backed up in our bathroom, we’re backed up in the bar, we’re backed up in the kitchen; WE’RE BACKED UP EVERYWHERE. THE MAIN IS BACKED UP!!” Ron looks up at me and, uttering his first words of the night, says “Shlow down a minute, will ya?” He then turns his glazed eyes back on the P-trap, which he successfully dismantles, and watches as the turbid water rushes from the sink drain into his lap.
I help a very wet and still very drunk Ron up from the floor, and lead him to the main hotel lobby, where the entrance to the crawl space, which contains the main plumbing lines, is located. Down into the space we go, and I point out the main sewage discharge line. Ron looks all around the crawl space as if he was looking for an “Easy” button, or perhaps a detonator that would blow this plumbing problem into the next county. Remember, he’s having a tough time with his equilibrium, so the sight of this man half hunched over in the 5’ tall crawl space looking and pointing at the pipes all about him took on the appearance of a drunken sailor swatting at bees below deck in a violent sea.
Ron finally gets his bearings, and faces me with his assessment of the situation. He also delivers this assessment in a dramatic fashion, similar to my aforementioned dramatic outburst in the kitchen. “Everythings backwards down here. Thish pipe ish running backwards, thish pipe should be goin th’other way. Whoever built thish thing got it all screwed up!” He then proceeds to crawl slowly and carefully up the steps, and sits on the edge of the crawl space, his legs dangling over the abyss, his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. He doesn’t move for 15 minutes. When he finally stirs – I wasn’t there to see this but heard it second hand – he gets up, says not a word to anyone present, then staggers/reels/teeters/sways/weaves/lurches his way out the front door and into the cold, dark, January night.
In walks one of our kitchen employees, who happens to have a drug connection who is also a plumber. (This drug connection thing is not uncommon in Grand County, or in the restaurant business.) I previously mentioned that the dead rock star-named plumber was my second-to- last resort – this drug connection plumber was indeed my last resort. That story about “I’m not feeling it today,” - that might also be this guy. But then I figure, “What do I have to lose?” At the very least, I’ll have more fodder for the blog.
Enter Plumber #3, the most unreliable plumber in Grand County. That’s like being the worst sinner in Las Vegas or the biggest drunk at Mardi gras, or…..you get the point.
Not only am I stunned that he showed up when summoned, but he’s bright eyed, he’s clean, he’s sober, and he’s ready to tackle the problem. All those present, at least those who knew this gentleman and his predilections, could’ve been knocked over by a puff of bong exhaust.
Four hours and $400 dollars later, our local hero has the lines flowing free. He worked down in that fetid crawl space from 8:00 until midnight, flushing the line with a high pressure “jetter”, and then cleaning up the offal responsible for the clog. This was a job so nasty and so incredibly filthy, that the Dirty Jobs guy on TV would’ve hired it out; and our man did it with a smile. No matter what Plumber #3 didn’t do before, or what he may yet not do in the future, the night of January 2nd will forever be known in local lore as the night that Grand Counties most infamous slacker plumber, actually plumbed, and in doing so, saved our bacon and allowed The Riverside to continue to serve some of Grand Counties finest food in a sewage-free environment, per the State code.
To be concluded........
Friday, July 16, 2010
The Three Portals of Hell....Part III
Sorry for the cheap suspense, but there was no body or human remains under the hump in the floor; just a big heave-ho of expansion and contraction in the floor boards. However, knowing Abe as I did, it would not have surprised me if some unsuspecting visitor to the Riverside ended up bludgeoned and buried under that floor – particularly a sales tax collector from the Colorado Department of Revenue.
The building contractors, Farson & McBytemee, were hired to renovate the Riverside living quarters; while they came with a few good recommendations, truth had it they were two bartending ski-bums who, during a normal Grand County night of drunken debauchery (probably a Tuesday), set a friends deck on fire, burning it to the ground, then in a fit of soberness, rebuilt the deck. Rumor has it that the deck rebuild was true, level and square; they then deemed themselves building contractors.
25% over budget and one very expensive month behind schedule later, we had our new living quarters. Caveat Emptor, again.
It was Labor Day weekend, 2008, and the hotel was full for the entire three days. Full hotel means non-stop busy; up at 5:30 AM making endless pots of coffee, chatting with and checking people out, starting laundry, cleaning rooms and changing sheets, more laundry, helping with lunch-prep dishes, more laundry, lunch service, doing lunch dishes, cleaning the dining room and setting up for dinner service, more laundry, chatting with and checking guests in, helping with dinner prep, more laundry, grabbing a bite to eat on the fly, a quick shower, doing dinner prep dishes, dinner service, bartending, closing down the kitchen, bartending until 12:00 AM, closing down, locking up……then to bed.
It’ll start all over in four hours. This was our dream job. WTF were we thinking???
It was Sunday evening of Labor Day weekend, maybe 10:30ish, when Julie came back from our living quarters into a fairly busy bar to announce, in a slight panic, that there was a snake in our bedroom. As I was pretty damn busy manning the bar, I was unable to manhandle that snake, as would have been my normal duty. Yes sir, I would have normally jumped right in and handled that sort of task. Fortunately our good friend and neighbor, Tony the sober plumber, was quick to step in, and went back into our living quarters to slay the monster. After playing a little bit with Julie, telling her that it was a poisonous copperhead, he dispatched the 8” long, pencil thin snake. There’s one nice thing about the Hot Sulphur Springs 7700’ altitude and the long winters – it allows for no snakes or big hairy tropical spiders. The only snakes to be found at that elevation are small, non-poisonous black snakes, and the 9-month winters never give them the opportunity to grow much beyond 12” in length.
But let’s be honest here – a snake is a snake, and you damn sure don’t want them crawling around in your bedroom; not even a tough guy like me likes that sort of thing. Julie calmed down a bit, as I tried to assure her that this was an anomalous occurrence, and I doubted very much she’d see another snake in the living quarters. With the busy day we’d had, doors open and closing all day with people coming in and out, the slinky little fella had probably slithered his way in to get out of the blistering high-altitude afternoon sun, and found a nice, cool quiet place to lie on our closet floor. So back Julie went to bed, and back I went to tend bar.
It wasn’t five minutes before Julie was out the door of our living quarters, looking anxiously into the noisy, crowded bar for the specific purpose of getting my attention. While I’d actually never before seen Julie’s “Holy shit! There’s another snake in the bedroom!” expression, I was pretty sure that I was seeing it now. And in fact, there was another small snake in the bedroom, and another, then another. They were crawling through ¼” gaps between the floor and the trim that our crack deck builders had left open and unsealed. What was strange was why, all of a sudden at 10:30 on this Sunday night, were the snakes coming through all at once, right before our eyes? They even began crawling through another gap in the floor in the back bathroom. Was it a simple game of follow the leader – one snake made it through and then yelled back down into the crawl space, “Follow me boys, I’ve found some people up here to scare the shit out of!”
Most of the snakes were really small, not much bigger than your average fishing worm. But they had that big snake head that a worm doesn’t have, and they glided along the tile floor in that ssssnaky manner that makes those of you wussies that are afraid of snakes even more afraid of them. No question, this was not a good situation, and there was only one thing that could put a temporary halt to this situation – duct tape. I grabbed the roll that I keep on my bedpost for night time emergencies, and began taping the gaps in the floor, temporarily holding the little devils at bay. With the living quarters secured for the evening, Julie finally settled down enough to go to bed; I think she slept in the car.
The next day brought an end to the busy holiday weekend and a trip to the hardware store for a tube of clear silicone caulk to seal the gaps in the floor. I wasn’t sure what I’d see when I removed the duct tape; i.e. would the little buggers start flying through the cracks in an Omaha Beach sort of onslaught? Fortunately that wasn’t the case, as there was no evidence of snakes when they tape was removed, and I quickly went to the task of caulking the gaps, hoping it would dry quickly enough to offer the resistance necessary to forestall another PM snake blitz.
Caulk one up for polymer science and the fine folks at Dow Chemical, as the silicone cured and the reptilian onslaught was abated. That was good enough for me; but not for my business partner.
“Do you seriously expect me to live in a house that’s built over a set from an Indiana Jones movie?”
“Well of course not dear, but, who’s gonna, I mean, how would I……there ain’t no way I’m going down into that crawl space after a nest of snakes. In fact, I wouldn’t go into that crawl space after a treasure chest full of gold coins…..and we could damn sure use some gold coins!”
The internet was perused for methods of getting snakes out of your crawl space. I read numerous links, with a myriad of suggestions – from the ASPCA green, organic, non-kill recommendations (reason with them; tell them in a soothing tone that a better life awaits them in the neighbors crawl space), to the toxic – Ted Nugent’s web site suggested a modified flame thrower, which, coincidentally, he had for sale, free shipping included. Without a doubt, the best method involved hiring someone else to do the dirty work, and I found a business in nearby Kremmeling, CO; the “Critter Ridder”.
The Critter Ridder showed on time, with an assistant, equipped with flashlights, ladders and glue traps. When I explained the situation, the man quietly went to the truck, and returned with a TyVek jumpsuit, a respirator and a miner’s hat.
“Where’s the crawlspace?” he quietly asked.
I took him to the first portal of hell, the entry to the crawl space under our living quarters with the three full feet of headroom; the crawl space I’d never been in, and was certain I’d never have any reason to enter, in spite of the possibility of it containing a fortune in gold coins.
Mr. Critter Ridder donned the jumpsuit, strapped on the respirator, and topped it all off with the miners hat. He switched on the miners hat light, switched on his kick-ass big-time halogen flashlight (the kind most guys would kill for), and slowly descended into the first portal of hell. Off he crawled, without a “wish me luck”, into the inky darkness, in search of this nest of vipers.
Two things immediately occurred to me as our brave servant disappeared beneath the floor joists. One, suppose he finds the snake nest, he appears to be totally unarmed; what will he use to eradicate them? He had no flame thrower, no AA-12 automatic shotgun, no light saber – what in the hell would he use to kill these slinky little bastards? Two, how much was he going to charge us to do what he was in the process of doing? We didn’t discuss this before his descent into the abyss, and it quickly occurred to me that I wouldn’t climb down there, and LOOK FOR SNAKES, for a penny less than $500,000. While I didn’t have that sort of ready cash, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he would have emerged from beneath the floor, the flashlight between his teeth, and hundreds of writhing, tiny snakes clutched in his fists, saying through clenched jaws “You owe me $500,000!” Let’s be honest; any guy that would be man enough to crawl under your floors and capture live reptiles would have no problem shaking you down for cash.
To be continued……..
The building contractors, Farson & McBytemee, were hired to renovate the Riverside living quarters; while they came with a few good recommendations, truth had it they were two bartending ski-bums who, during a normal Grand County night of drunken debauchery (probably a Tuesday), set a friends deck on fire, burning it to the ground, then in a fit of soberness, rebuilt the deck. Rumor has it that the deck rebuild was true, level and square; they then deemed themselves building contractors.
25% over budget and one very expensive month behind schedule later, we had our new living quarters. Caveat Emptor, again.
It was Labor Day weekend, 2008, and the hotel was full for the entire three days. Full hotel means non-stop busy; up at 5:30 AM making endless pots of coffee, chatting with and checking people out, starting laundry, cleaning rooms and changing sheets, more laundry, helping with lunch-prep dishes, more laundry, lunch service, doing lunch dishes, cleaning the dining room and setting up for dinner service, more laundry, chatting with and checking guests in, helping with dinner prep, more laundry, grabbing a bite to eat on the fly, a quick shower, doing dinner prep dishes, dinner service, bartending, closing down the kitchen, bartending until 12:00 AM, closing down, locking up……then to bed.
It’ll start all over in four hours. This was our dream job. WTF were we thinking???
It was Sunday evening of Labor Day weekend, maybe 10:30ish, when Julie came back from our living quarters into a fairly busy bar to announce, in a slight panic, that there was a snake in our bedroom. As I was pretty damn busy manning the bar, I was unable to manhandle that snake, as would have been my normal duty. Yes sir, I would have normally jumped right in and handled that sort of task. Fortunately our good friend and neighbor, Tony the sober plumber, was quick to step in, and went back into our living quarters to slay the monster. After playing a little bit with Julie, telling her that it was a poisonous copperhead, he dispatched the 8” long, pencil thin snake. There’s one nice thing about the Hot Sulphur Springs 7700’ altitude and the long winters – it allows for no snakes or big hairy tropical spiders. The only snakes to be found at that elevation are small, non-poisonous black snakes, and the 9-month winters never give them the opportunity to grow much beyond 12” in length.
But let’s be honest here – a snake is a snake, and you damn sure don’t want them crawling around in your bedroom; not even a tough guy like me likes that sort of thing. Julie calmed down a bit, as I tried to assure her that this was an anomalous occurrence, and I doubted very much she’d see another snake in the living quarters. With the busy day we’d had, doors open and closing all day with people coming in and out, the slinky little fella had probably slithered his way in to get out of the blistering high-altitude afternoon sun, and found a nice, cool quiet place to lie on our closet floor. So back Julie went to bed, and back I went to tend bar.
It wasn’t five minutes before Julie was out the door of our living quarters, looking anxiously into the noisy, crowded bar for the specific purpose of getting my attention. While I’d actually never before seen Julie’s “Holy shit! There’s another snake in the bedroom!” expression, I was pretty sure that I was seeing it now. And in fact, there was another small snake in the bedroom, and another, then another. They were crawling through ¼” gaps between the floor and the trim that our crack deck builders had left open and unsealed. What was strange was why, all of a sudden at 10:30 on this Sunday night, were the snakes coming through all at once, right before our eyes? They even began crawling through another gap in the floor in the back bathroom. Was it a simple game of follow the leader – one snake made it through and then yelled back down into the crawl space, “Follow me boys, I’ve found some people up here to scare the shit out of!”
Most of the snakes were really small, not much bigger than your average fishing worm. But they had that big snake head that a worm doesn’t have, and they glided along the tile floor in that ssssnaky manner that makes those of you wussies that are afraid of snakes even more afraid of them. No question, this was not a good situation, and there was only one thing that could put a temporary halt to this situation – duct tape. I grabbed the roll that I keep on my bedpost for night time emergencies, and began taping the gaps in the floor, temporarily holding the little devils at bay. With the living quarters secured for the evening, Julie finally settled down enough to go to bed; I think she slept in the car.
The next day brought an end to the busy holiday weekend and a trip to the hardware store for a tube of clear silicone caulk to seal the gaps in the floor. I wasn’t sure what I’d see when I removed the duct tape; i.e. would the little buggers start flying through the cracks in an Omaha Beach sort of onslaught? Fortunately that wasn’t the case, as there was no evidence of snakes when they tape was removed, and I quickly went to the task of caulking the gaps, hoping it would dry quickly enough to offer the resistance necessary to forestall another PM snake blitz.
Caulk one up for polymer science and the fine folks at Dow Chemical, as the silicone cured and the reptilian onslaught was abated. That was good enough for me; but not for my business partner.
“Do you seriously expect me to live in a house that’s built over a set from an Indiana Jones movie?”
“Well of course not dear, but, who’s gonna, I mean, how would I……there ain’t no way I’m going down into that crawl space after a nest of snakes. In fact, I wouldn’t go into that crawl space after a treasure chest full of gold coins…..and we could damn sure use some gold coins!”
The internet was perused for methods of getting snakes out of your crawl space. I read numerous links, with a myriad of suggestions – from the ASPCA green, organic, non-kill recommendations (reason with them; tell them in a soothing tone that a better life awaits them in the neighbors crawl space), to the toxic – Ted Nugent’s web site suggested a modified flame thrower, which, coincidentally, he had for sale, free shipping included. Without a doubt, the best method involved hiring someone else to do the dirty work, and I found a business in nearby Kremmeling, CO; the “Critter Ridder”.
The Critter Ridder showed on time, with an assistant, equipped with flashlights, ladders and glue traps. When I explained the situation, the man quietly went to the truck, and returned with a TyVek jumpsuit, a respirator and a miner’s hat.
“Where’s the crawlspace?” he quietly asked.
I took him to the first portal of hell, the entry to the crawl space under our living quarters with the three full feet of headroom; the crawl space I’d never been in, and was certain I’d never have any reason to enter, in spite of the possibility of it containing a fortune in gold coins.
Mr. Critter Ridder donned the jumpsuit, strapped on the respirator, and topped it all off with the miners hat. He switched on the miners hat light, switched on his kick-ass big-time halogen flashlight (the kind most guys would kill for), and slowly descended into the first portal of hell. Off he crawled, without a “wish me luck”, into the inky darkness, in search of this nest of vipers.
Two things immediately occurred to me as our brave servant disappeared beneath the floor joists. One, suppose he finds the snake nest, he appears to be totally unarmed; what will he use to eradicate them? He had no flame thrower, no AA-12 automatic shotgun, no light saber – what in the hell would he use to kill these slinky little bastards? Two, how much was he going to charge us to do what he was in the process of doing? We didn’t discuss this before his descent into the abyss, and it quickly occurred to me that I wouldn’t climb down there, and LOOK FOR SNAKES, for a penny less than $500,000. While I didn’t have that sort of ready cash, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he would have emerged from beneath the floor, the flashlight between his teeth, and hundreds of writhing, tiny snakes clutched in his fists, saying through clenched jaws “You owe me $500,000!” Let’s be honest; any guy that would be man enough to crawl under your floors and capture live reptiles would have no problem shaking you down for cash.
To be continued……..
Friday, July 9, 2010
The Three Portals of Hell................Part II
The arrival of the automobile brought about the departure of the livery stable. I don’t know the exact year that the Riverside converted the stable into additional hotel rooms, but I have to think by looking at the pictures that it was in the early 1920’s. The transformation from horse house to guest house - (horse house to whore house would have been more alliterate, and possibly more accurate) - gave the hotel 11 additional guest rooms and new living quarters for the owner or manager. In subsequent years, two of the downstairs guest rooms were converted into the laundry room and tool room, while the remaining two downstairs guest rooms were seldom used by the paying public.
When Abe owned the hotel, the living quarters were separated from the hotel lobby by two doors, always closed and somewhat foreboding. It was a bit of a mystery as to what was actually behind the doors, as Abe himself was….uh… a bit of a mystery; but Abe is for another chapter. It’ll be a long one.
During our tire-kicking phase of deciding whether or not to buy the hotel, we made four visits over the course of the spring and summer of 2007. We never saw the owner’s quarters, the place where we would live the next X years of our lives, until the fourth and final visit. The truth was, we were both afraid of what lay beyond those doors – afraid that it would be so despicable that it would immediately squelch our desire to make this radical lifestyle change in this idyllic setting on the banks of the Colorado River. While we wanted a change, we didn’t necessarily want to leave our house in Kansas City – a beautiful house that we built and in which we raised our family.
At the end of that fourth visit, our cars packed and goodbyes being said, Abe finally asked if we’d like to see the owner’s quarters. With just the slightest bit of trepidation (I’m being sarcastic here) we headed through the foreboding doors, back into the unknown world of Abraham Rodriguez. We were accompanied by friends from KC who went with us on this trip to see, as they couldn’t help but believe, if we’d totally lost our minds.
In we went, me in front with the others lagging behind. I didn’t spend much time in the place, and didn’t talk or discuss with the others what we were seeing. I had no questions for Abe, who kind of stood back, very quietly, with a sheepish look on his face that said “I sure hope they don’t notice that 500-pound turd sitting in the middle of the room.”
When we got in the car to leave, Julie started peppering me with question after question – “did you see this”, “did you notice that”, “could you believe what was in that one room”, etc. The truth of the matter was, I didn’t see or notice much of anything, as I walked through that place much like you’d walk through a busy hospital emergency room trauma ward – with your eyes straight ahead, not looking to either side for fear of what horrific thing to which you might be a witness.
There was a simple answer to this hell on earth, this fetid collection of cobbled-together rooms, shelves, nooks and crannies that was the Riverside living quarters – “don’t view it as it is, view it as what it can be.” That philosophy, adopted before I ever set foot in the place, was what allowed me to walk through and not be affected by the horrors contained in this sub-human dwelling. If only there had been a 500 pound turd to be affronted by; trust me, it would have been a classy addition to the actual contents of Abe’s inner sanctum. Pure and simple, the place had to be gutted down to the studs. Any vestiges of the previous owner had to be banished, burnished, bazooka-ed, burned, banned, bulldozed and buried; then fumigated.
The Riverside was purchased, and a contractor hired to literally strip the living quarters to the studs and the bare earth below, down to the floor of the crawl space. This would be the first time in 130 years that the earthen floor had seen daylight. And although Geraldo has moved on to less risky stunts, there was a little bit of ‘what would we find??’ when we exposed what lay beneath those floors. The biggest question came from a noticeable hump – a hump shaped suspiciously like a human body in repose – from a floor section in Abe’s bedroom. No lie; to the right of Abe’s bed, in an open spot of floor in front of the entry door – conspicuously hidden under a throw rug – was an 8” hump that was 6’ in length and 2.5’ in width. Poe’s vulture-eyed antagonist surely would have fit nicely in such a space. What could be the cause of this unnatural protuberance?
To be continued…………..
When Abe owned the hotel, the living quarters were separated from the hotel lobby by two doors, always closed and somewhat foreboding. It was a bit of a mystery as to what was actually behind the doors, as Abe himself was….uh… a bit of a mystery; but Abe is for another chapter. It’ll be a long one.
During our tire-kicking phase of deciding whether or not to buy the hotel, we made four visits over the course of the spring and summer of 2007. We never saw the owner’s quarters, the place where we would live the next X years of our lives, until the fourth and final visit. The truth was, we were both afraid of what lay beyond those doors – afraid that it would be so despicable that it would immediately squelch our desire to make this radical lifestyle change in this idyllic setting on the banks of the Colorado River. While we wanted a change, we didn’t necessarily want to leave our house in Kansas City – a beautiful house that we built and in which we raised our family.
At the end of that fourth visit, our cars packed and goodbyes being said, Abe finally asked if we’d like to see the owner’s quarters. With just the slightest bit of trepidation (I’m being sarcastic here) we headed through the foreboding doors, back into the unknown world of Abraham Rodriguez. We were accompanied by friends from KC who went with us on this trip to see, as they couldn’t help but believe, if we’d totally lost our minds.
In we went, me in front with the others lagging behind. I didn’t spend much time in the place, and didn’t talk or discuss with the others what we were seeing. I had no questions for Abe, who kind of stood back, very quietly, with a sheepish look on his face that said “I sure hope they don’t notice that 500-pound turd sitting in the middle of the room.”
When we got in the car to leave, Julie started peppering me with question after question – “did you see this”, “did you notice that”, “could you believe what was in that one room”, etc. The truth of the matter was, I didn’t see or notice much of anything, as I walked through that place much like you’d walk through a busy hospital emergency room trauma ward – with your eyes straight ahead, not looking to either side for fear of what horrific thing to which you might be a witness.
There was a simple answer to this hell on earth, this fetid collection of cobbled-together rooms, shelves, nooks and crannies that was the Riverside living quarters – “don’t view it as it is, view it as what it can be.” That philosophy, adopted before I ever set foot in the place, was what allowed me to walk through and not be affected by the horrors contained in this sub-human dwelling. If only there had been a 500 pound turd to be affronted by; trust me, it would have been a classy addition to the actual contents of Abe’s inner sanctum. Pure and simple, the place had to be gutted down to the studs. Any vestiges of the previous owner had to be banished, burnished, bazooka-ed, burned, banned, bulldozed and buried; then fumigated.
The Riverside was purchased, and a contractor hired to literally strip the living quarters to the studs and the bare earth below, down to the floor of the crawl space. This would be the first time in 130 years that the earthen floor had seen daylight. And although Geraldo has moved on to less risky stunts, there was a little bit of ‘what would we find??’ when we exposed what lay beneath those floors. The biggest question came from a noticeable hump – a hump shaped suspiciously like a human body in repose – from a floor section in Abe’s bedroom. No lie; to the right of Abe’s bed, in an open spot of floor in front of the entry door – conspicuously hidden under a throw rug – was an 8” hump that was 6’ in length and 2.5’ in width. Poe’s vulture-eyed antagonist surely would have fit nicely in such a space. What could be the cause of this unnatural protuberance?
To be continued…………..
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