At this point, I know a lot of you are still unbelievers, or at the very least, certainly not convinced of the existence of ghosts based upon these few incidences I’ve described. I’m not 100% certain myself, as there are possible explanations for these things, such as, I simply could be mistaken about the absence of the bath mat. I know I took a bathmat off the chair, but it’s possible there could have been another already on the chair; I don’t think so, but it’s certainly possible. And for the water knobs being turned off, someone suggested that you can get a surge of reverse pressure, and it may have sucked the water backwards and made the knobs turn backwards as well. I’d never heard of this, nor have I had this happen before in my 50+ years of showering, so I ran it by Tony, the sober, reliable Plumber; the look he gave me when I asked the question told me the question would have made more sense to him if I’d asked it in ancient colloquial Slovakian. No reverse pressure, or if so, first time in the annals of plumbing history. Anyway, it’s possible there was some sort of never before encountered plumbing thing that made the knobs shut off.
And as far as Lucy’s odd behavior being a reliable source upon which to base your belief in the supernatural, well, come on now! Although she has the title of “Head of Security” at the Riverside, she is a known food and shoe thief, she regularly participates in wanton acts of vandalism and destruction of property, and she has started more street fights than Mike Tyson. If she could actually talk, my guess is she’d be a foul-mouthed, smack-talking liar as well.
Hmmph! Head of Security, my ass! How about Coordinator of Chaos Dissemination?
Twice, my eyes have shown me things at The Riverside that I hope, I pray, were merely tricks of the light, or at the very least, vestiges of the prior evenings’ curative treatment from Dr. Bombay.
One day in late spring, I was upstairs in the west wing, the part of the hotel that overlooks the river and was added to the original construction sometime in the early 1930’s. It contains two of the hotels most popular rooms – ‘Mil’, also known as the John Lennon room, and ‘Tootie’ or #80, the corner two-room suite with the best view of the river and Mt. Bross. It was early afternoon, and I was finishing up cleaning that wing of the hotel; all of the beds were made, the floors vacuumed, sinks cleaned and trash emptied. I was on my final round cleaning the mirrors, and was walking down the western-most hall. As I walked north, from Mil to Tootie, I passed the little feeder hall that joins the two main halls in the western wing. (If you’ve been to The Riverside, you know that this section of the hotel is cobbled together in a maze-like fashion; it ain’t exactly laid out like a Holiday Inn Express.)
Standing in the feeder hall was a man, dressed in a jacket and slacks, with a plain white shirt, buttoned at the collar. His hands were at his sides, and he was looking in my direction. He wasn’t elderly, but he looked old; certainly as if he were from another era.
Now comes the part of the story that will make you say, ‘well, that’s nothing’, but it’s still something to me. I didn’t stand there and face this apparition full on. I was in full stormin’-down-the-hall mode, walking from the southern-most room to the northern-most room at a fairly good clip. I generally walk pretty fast; moseying isn’t something I ever do a lot of, especially when I’m trying to get the hotel cleaned. And I’m admitting here that I saw the vision peripherally, as I flew past the feeder hall. Was it something that was always there that I’ve never paid attention to, and walking quickly past, I mistook it for an old man in a suit? I don’t believe so, as whatever decorations, wall sconces, pictures, etc. might have blurred together in my peripheral to form the full figure of a man, they’ve been hanging there since we bought the hotel and I’ve stormed down that hallway 1000 times and have never seen anything. The truth is, after seeing and sensing the vision, (I also had one of those up-and-down my spine, ghost-induced chills) I took about two more steps and stopped, started back to see what I think I saw, and then lost the nerve to go back; I was afraid I’d see it again. I headed on to the Tootie room, quickly cleaned the mirror, and resolutely, but scared to death, walked right back to the feeder hall to put the cleaner in the linen closet; nobody there this time.
The final apparition was a little more substantive and not viewed from a sideways glance as I was flying down a hall. It was a beautiful summer evening, maybe 10:00 PM, and I was sitting alone on the back patio. As it was a Monday, the restaurant was closed, and no one was staying at the hotel – a rare summer night off. Julie and Lucy had gone to bed, and the rest were in watching TV. Anyway, it was the kind of summer night that makes you want to chuck it all and move to the mountains; oh, that’s right, we did that. I’ve mentioned it numerous times before, but the stars on a clear night in Hot Sulphur are beyond description. You’re 100 miles away from any significant concentration of interfering lights, and you’re at almost 8000 feet. I’ve seen shooting stars that blaze across the entire width of the sky and last for 5 seconds. Also special about that night was a full moon, rising at my back from the east, bathing Mt. Bross in a lustrous, luminescent glow, and making the river look as if it were a rolling jumble of diamonds and fireflies.
I’m sitting in a chair, looking west at the mountain, the river and the spectacular western sky. The western side of the patio has a low limestone wall, a fireplace, and two rather large lilac bushes. There is a 10’ gap, or view, to the north of the northern-most lilac bush, before a 6’ tall privacy fence obscures the view of the river. It is important to note that while I’m sitting in the chair looking at the scenery, I’ve nothing in my hand; i.e. read that as I’m not nursing a martini. In fact, I was pretty much sober as a judge ( though not a Grand County judge); minimal alcohol had been consumed by me that evening, and what had been consumed was quaffed before dinner. I also didn’t have my sound-dock playing; it was quiet, the only sound to be heard was the gentle rush of the sparkling river.
A dark, tall figure walked very slowly along the walk the length of the 10’ span between the lilac bush and the privacy fence. I didn’t hear it coming up the path from the river to the patio, and had it been of this world, I would have. It didn’t walk between the open space to the south of the southern-most lilac bush, and had it been a human walking up the path, it would have. Yet it was as solid and as real as anything you’ve ever seen; and its unworldly silence, as it slowly moved from left to right across my line of sight, was profound.
A man appeared out of nowhere and slowly walked right in front of me; of this, I am dead certain. This wasn’t a peripheral glance; I followed the figure as it walked along the path and disappeared to the back of our privacy fence. I was out of that chair and into the house faster than a shooting star; the only thing faster than my exit from the porch was my pulse.
I’ve made light of ‘out of the ordinary’ things that others have experienced at The Riverside. My standard response is something like “this is a 100+ year-old wooden building with sketchy plumbing and electricity. It moves with the change in temperature, it moans and groans with the winds and it creaks and rattles with the shift of the earth.” I still believe that the climactic movement of this big, all-but-living wooden thing is behind most of the chicanery that people attribute to ghosts. But the wind and the wood don’t explain what I felt and what I saw. What I saw.
To be concluded………
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?...........Part II
I’ll start with Lucy. There are two rooms in the hotel where Lucy is simply not Lucy. In one of the rooms, she always enters with noticeable trepidation before she eventually follows us into the room. She never jumps up on the bed in this room to lounge, while never hesitating to jump on any other bed in any other room. When in this room, she never barks, she never plays and she never strays more than a foot from whoever she is in the room with; she is literally ‘under foot’ when she is in this room. If you could ever consider a dog to be ‘walking on eggshells’, that would aptly describe Lucy’s demeanor while in this room. I don’t have to tell those of you who know Lucy, know that this is far from her normal mode of operation.
Then there is the other room. She won’t go in it. Ever. She follows us everywhere and she won’t go in this room. She sits patiently outside the door in the hallway while we’re in cleaning or making the bed, but she won’t come in. The most chilling thing that occurred regarding Lucy and this room happened a few months back when I was down at the opposite end of the hall, and Lucy was sitting outside 'the' room, alertly, but passively, looking into the room. She quickly stood up on all fours, emitted a low growl, and then began viscously barking at something in the room. Her stance turned to full attack mode, like she’d seen a Bichon Frise, or some other type of over-bred little bitch, but she didn’t lunge forward to attack. When I called her, she immediately stopped barking, ran down the hall with her ears pinned back, ran by me and down the stairs to the lobby. I went back to the room and of course, no one was there and nothing at all was amiss. However, there is no question in my mind that she.... saw….. something.
A skeptic might say “well she probably saw a bird or a squirrel in the window.” I too thought that might have been the case, but if in fact she saw a bird or squirrel in the window, her little legs would have quickly thrust her over the bed straight at and probably crashing into the window, as there isn’t a squirrel or bird in Hot Sulphur that Lucy’s seen that she hasn’t attempted to impale between her incisors. If birds could pray, the birds in Hot Sulphur surely would pray whenever they light in our backyard, and they would thank God that Lucy doesn’t have wings.
On to my physical encounters…..
The first weekend we owned The Riverside, there was one humdinger of a blizzard, even by Grand County standards. Julie and Rachel, who had (imagine this) been out shopping that afternoon, got caught in the storm while driving back from the outlet mall in Silverthorn. I was at the hotel by myself, and I started getting calls from soon-to-be stranded travelers looking for accommodations. I knew we were going to be busy, so I decided to take a quick shower and get cleaned up for the impending throngs. I was in one of the showers, and just as I began to wash my hair – all lathered up with my eyes closed – the water went dead off. It didn’t slow down and turn to a trickle, as if it were a pressure issue; it flat went off, as sudden and final as a downward light switch. “Oh Crap!” I thought; I stood there and figured that there must've been a massive break in the water main, and envisioned a geyser spouting 20 feet into air in the middle of the street in front of the hotel. What else on earth could make the water just stop, like that! These thoughts rushed through my mind in a matter of seconds, at which point – eyes still closed, hair still soapy – I reached down to the knobs and turned both water knobs right back on! They both had been shut into the full off position; instantly, and at the same time. Upon discovering this, I said something other than “Oh Crap”, and felt an icy chill go down my spine; the kind of icy chill I suppose you feel when you realize you’ve just encountered your first ghost.
I had my hair rinsed and was out of that shower faster than the winner of a Hot Sulphur beer chugging contest. I then quickly dried off, threw on my robe, took the wet towel and bath mat and headed back to my room to get dressed. After getting dressed, I went back into the bathroom, fiddled around a little bit with the knobs (they seemed as normal as any water knobs you’ve ever fiddled with), and tidied up the bathroom to get it ready for the evenings’ guests. (I recount this as though nothing unusual had happened and I was cool as a cucumber; quite to the contrary – I was still shaken and shaking.)
All was in order except for the need of a new, dry bathmat. A short walk to the linen closet and a short walk back with a new bathmat and – there over the back of the previously empty chair back was a new, dry, nicely-folded bathmat. I experienced another one of those spine chills, then tried to calm myself and gather my thoughts. I know I took the bathmat off of the chair, I put it on the floor, I took my haunted shower, got out, dried off, put my robe on, PICKED UP THE WET BATHMAT, and exited the bathroom. After getting dressed, I then went back into the bathroom and fiddled with the knobs, cleaned the sink and mirror, looked over the bathroom and said to myself “you need a new bathmat.” After a brief absence to the linen closet to get that bathmat, lo and behold, upon my return, there on the chair was a new bathmat. I know I didn’t put it there, and no one else was in the hotel; or so I thought.
So we’d been in the hotel but a few days, and already the spirits were making their presence felt. Some internet reading (always a reliable and accurate source), I did on the subject of the paranormal mentioned that ‘activity’ can be ramped up when a new residence takes a place over. At least the ghost seems to have a sense of humor, as well as a good sense of comic timing, as it chose to turn the shower off when I was in my most defenseless state – bare naked, soapy hair and eyes shut tight. And it’s also nice to know we have a ghost who’s willing to help with the housework and cleaning; this will come in handy when we’ve got 10 rooms to turn in a short period of time. It would really be nice if we had a rich ghost – one that would leave $100 bills scattered about. But I know it's doubtful, nay, impossible, that a previous owner/resident of the Riverside, now haunting us, would have any money left to throw around.
To be continued……………………..
Then there is the other room. She won’t go in it. Ever. She follows us everywhere and she won’t go in this room. She sits patiently outside the door in the hallway while we’re in cleaning or making the bed, but she won’t come in. The most chilling thing that occurred regarding Lucy and this room happened a few months back when I was down at the opposite end of the hall, and Lucy was sitting outside 'the' room, alertly, but passively, looking into the room. She quickly stood up on all fours, emitted a low growl, and then began viscously barking at something in the room. Her stance turned to full attack mode, like she’d seen a Bichon Frise, or some other type of over-bred little bitch, but she didn’t lunge forward to attack. When I called her, she immediately stopped barking, ran down the hall with her ears pinned back, ran by me and down the stairs to the lobby. I went back to the room and of course, no one was there and nothing at all was amiss. However, there is no question in my mind that she.... saw….. something.
A skeptic might say “well she probably saw a bird or a squirrel in the window.” I too thought that might have been the case, but if in fact she saw a bird or squirrel in the window, her little legs would have quickly thrust her over the bed straight at and probably crashing into the window, as there isn’t a squirrel or bird in Hot Sulphur that Lucy’s seen that she hasn’t attempted to impale between her incisors. If birds could pray, the birds in Hot Sulphur surely would pray whenever they light in our backyard, and they would thank God that Lucy doesn’t have wings.
On to my physical encounters…..
The first weekend we owned The Riverside, there was one humdinger of a blizzard, even by Grand County standards. Julie and Rachel, who had (imagine this) been out shopping that afternoon, got caught in the storm while driving back from the outlet mall in Silverthorn. I was at the hotel by myself, and I started getting calls from soon-to-be stranded travelers looking for accommodations. I knew we were going to be busy, so I decided to take a quick shower and get cleaned up for the impending throngs. I was in one of the showers, and just as I began to wash my hair – all lathered up with my eyes closed – the water went dead off. It didn’t slow down and turn to a trickle, as if it were a pressure issue; it flat went off, as sudden and final as a downward light switch. “Oh Crap!” I thought; I stood there and figured that there must've been a massive break in the water main, and envisioned a geyser spouting 20 feet into air in the middle of the street in front of the hotel. What else on earth could make the water just stop, like that! These thoughts rushed through my mind in a matter of seconds, at which point – eyes still closed, hair still soapy – I reached down to the knobs and turned both water knobs right back on! They both had been shut into the full off position; instantly, and at the same time. Upon discovering this, I said something other than “Oh Crap”, and felt an icy chill go down my spine; the kind of icy chill I suppose you feel when you realize you’ve just encountered your first ghost.
I had my hair rinsed and was out of that shower faster than the winner of a Hot Sulphur beer chugging contest. I then quickly dried off, threw on my robe, took the wet towel and bath mat and headed back to my room to get dressed. After getting dressed, I went back into the bathroom, fiddled around a little bit with the knobs (they seemed as normal as any water knobs you’ve ever fiddled with), and tidied up the bathroom to get it ready for the evenings’ guests. (I recount this as though nothing unusual had happened and I was cool as a cucumber; quite to the contrary – I was still shaken and shaking.)
All was in order except for the need of a new, dry bathmat. A short walk to the linen closet and a short walk back with a new bathmat and – there over the back of the previously empty chair back was a new, dry, nicely-folded bathmat. I experienced another one of those spine chills, then tried to calm myself and gather my thoughts. I know I took the bathmat off of the chair, I put it on the floor, I took my haunted shower, got out, dried off, put my robe on, PICKED UP THE WET BATHMAT, and exited the bathroom. After getting dressed, I then went back into the bathroom and fiddled with the knobs, cleaned the sink and mirror, looked over the bathroom and said to myself “you need a new bathmat.” After a brief absence to the linen closet to get that bathmat, lo and behold, upon my return, there on the chair was a new bathmat. I know I didn’t put it there, and no one else was in the hotel; or so I thought.
So we’d been in the hotel but a few days, and already the spirits were making their presence felt. Some internet reading (always a reliable and accurate source), I did on the subject of the paranormal mentioned that ‘activity’ can be ramped up when a new residence takes a place over. At least the ghost seems to have a sense of humor, as well as a good sense of comic timing, as it chose to turn the shower off when I was in my most defenseless state – bare naked, soapy hair and eyes shut tight. And it’s also nice to know we have a ghost who’s willing to help with the housework and cleaning; this will come in handy when we’ve got 10 rooms to turn in a short period of time. It would really be nice if we had a rich ghost – one that would leave $100 bills scattered about. But I know it's doubtful, nay, impossible, that a previous owner/resident of the Riverside, now haunting us, would have any money left to throw around.
To be continued……………………..
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?........Probably
Or so the infamous ‘FAQ’ sign in the Riverside answers to that oft-asked question. Before I get into the ghosts, I’ll take this opportunity to tell the story of the ‘FAQ’ sign in the lobby. The first time I walked into the Riverside hotel, in June of 1993, the first thing that struck me was a 2’x4’, heavily scripted wooden sign hanging on the north wall of the lobby. (OK, that’s a bit of a lie. The first thing I noticed was the Little Shop of Horrors plant collection that threatened to eat you as you walked into the lobby. Then I noticed this creepy little man sitting in a rocking chair. Then I said to myself, “My, how quaint, how charming. Where is my gun, because I’m going to shoot my friend who recommended this place.”)
Back to the sign.
It grabs your eye as you walk in the door, and it answers most of the questions that people would want to ask about the hotel, the town, the river, the hot springs, etc. My guess is that the unknown owner (someone prior to Abe) who put the sign up had gotten sick and tired of answering the same questions over and over and over and over and over; on a larger plane, I’d also guess that he got sick of talking to and dealing with people in general.
Some of the questions/answers:
When was the Riverside built?………………………….1903
What is the elevation?…………………………………...7763 ft.
How cold does it get in the winter?......-30F, sometimes colder
How far is Boulder?..............Not far enough
And so it goes. The sign is written in a colloquial, folksy sort of way; i.e. the answers are given in the form that a friendly, old-timey, homey hotel owner might give them. I immediately loved the sign, and it was one of the little things that made me love The Riverside. Knowing this, you can imagine how I felt when I walked into the hotel on the day we were to close the sale, after pulling a 12’ loaded U-Haul trailer across I-70 in a snow storm, exhausted, frightened to death at what we were undertaking, and the first thing I noticed was the empty space on the wall where the sign used to be. Abe was sitting in a chair, and I didn’t say “Hello Abe”, I said “Abe, where the hell is the sign???” I was, to put it mildly, pissed. Abe kind of cleared his throat, and nervously said “I, uh, er, I gave it to a friend in California.” An obvious lie, but the best thing he could come up with at the time. It was a portent of other surprises to come, much bigger and much more costly surprises, relating to shady things Abe did and didn’t do in his transfer of ownership of The Riverside. I’ve said it earlier – we bury our dead, we dry our tears and we move on.
Two wonderful things came from this missing sign thing. My sister-in-law found a picture of the sign on an old web site, and re-created the thing, right down to the original font. I cried when she gave it to us as a housewarming gift; a labor of love I’ve not seen equaled. We also found out that in fact the original sign wasn’t given by Abe to a friend in California, (surprise, surprise) but sold to a man in Boulder. If there’s any human being on earth that should have this sign, (other than we, who paid for it) it is the man that now has it, and paid for it as well. I am at peace with this issue.
My sister-in-law took some literary license when she recreated the sign; she updated it, and added a few new FAQ’s. In particular, one of the most newly often-asked questions being “Are there ghosts at The Riverside?” and the answer on the sign being….. “Probably.”
This is a natural question for people to ask as The Riverside has all of the qualifications for a place that might have ghosts, assuming of course that there are such things. It’s old, it can be a little creepy, (especially at night, upstairs, when you’re walking down the halls alone), and it’s had numerous inhabitants over the years; one might take the leap that odds are one of the previous owners might have actually assumed room temperature in the hotel.
After we purchased the hotel, one of the locals told me of a murder that happened in the bar. She was a little scary herself as she told the gruesome tale, saying “he was standing right here, and a man came up behind him, grabbed his hair and pulled his head back and slit his throat”, as she dramatically made the now-banned NFL throat-slashing gesture.
"My, how lovely." I thought.
I asked Grandpa (my neighbor who lives across the street, and was detailed in an earlier blog) what he knew about this, and he grumbled “that wasn’t what happened”. His story is as follows: In the early 70’s when they were building the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70, (located about 45 miles south of Hot Sulphur Springs) every hotel for miles around was full with workers who were involved in the tunnels’ construction. Grandpa said that this made for some wild nights in all of the local towns and bars, as these itinerant roughnecks, with wads of money to spend on the weekends, had nothing to do on a Saturday night but get drunk and raise hell.
Times haven't changed much. The locals pretty much get drunk and raise hell every night in Hot Sulphur Springs.
One of the workers, who was staying at The Riverside, got a little too friendly with the spouse of a local, and according to Grandpa, the local went into the hotel late at night, found and entered the offending parties room, and stabbed the man to death. Grandpa said, “he was dead in there for days, before the smell got bad enough that they finally found him.”
Gee Grandpa, thanks for clearing that up for me!
This may disappoint some of you, but it thrilled me when I found out that both of these tales were taller than Mt. Bross; untrue, bogus, BS, hokum, didn’t happen. In fact, there is no record (that I can find) of anyone ever being murdered, or even dying, in The Riverside. What did happen, and what I’m sure was the seed for these grisly recollections, involved several of these tunnel workers who did get into an altercation in the hotel bar, took it out to the street, and one stabbed the other in front of the hotel.
Ghost stories be gone, and on to reality...
Two years ago, prior to our purchase of The Riverside, I would have steadfastly said “I do not believe in ghosts!” I can’t say that now, at least not with the conviction that I used to have on the matter. I have had four instances of things happening- two apparitions I’ve seen and two physical occurrences I've felt. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that what I saw, or what physically happened, simply wasn’t so, I can come up with no other logical explanation for what occurred.
Throw the arrival of Lucy,the world’s coolest pooch, into the picture and her consistently peculiar behavior in certain parts of the hotel, and I’m really starting to change my tune regarding the existence of other-worldly phenomena.
To be continued…….
Back to the sign.
It grabs your eye as you walk in the door, and it answers most of the questions that people would want to ask about the hotel, the town, the river, the hot springs, etc. My guess is that the unknown owner (someone prior to Abe) who put the sign up had gotten sick and tired of answering the same questions over and over and over and over and over; on a larger plane, I’d also guess that he got sick of talking to and dealing with people in general.
Some of the questions/answers:
When was the Riverside built?………………………….1903
What is the elevation?…………………………………...7763 ft.
How cold does it get in the winter?......-30F, sometimes colder
How far is Boulder?..............Not far enough
And so it goes. The sign is written in a colloquial, folksy sort of way; i.e. the answers are given in the form that a friendly, old-timey, homey hotel owner might give them. I immediately loved the sign, and it was one of the little things that made me love The Riverside. Knowing this, you can imagine how I felt when I walked into the hotel on the day we were to close the sale, after pulling a 12’ loaded U-Haul trailer across I-70 in a snow storm, exhausted, frightened to death at what we were undertaking, and the first thing I noticed was the empty space on the wall where the sign used to be. Abe was sitting in a chair, and I didn’t say “Hello Abe”, I said “Abe, where the hell is the sign???” I was, to put it mildly, pissed. Abe kind of cleared his throat, and nervously said “I, uh, er, I gave it to a friend in California.” An obvious lie, but the best thing he could come up with at the time. It was a portent of other surprises to come, much bigger and much more costly surprises, relating to shady things Abe did and didn’t do in his transfer of ownership of The Riverside. I’ve said it earlier – we bury our dead, we dry our tears and we move on.
Two wonderful things came from this missing sign thing. My sister-in-law found a picture of the sign on an old web site, and re-created the thing, right down to the original font. I cried when she gave it to us as a housewarming gift; a labor of love I’ve not seen equaled. We also found out that in fact the original sign wasn’t given by Abe to a friend in California, (surprise, surprise) but sold to a man in Boulder. If there’s any human being on earth that should have this sign, (other than we, who paid for it) it is the man that now has it, and paid for it as well. I am at peace with this issue.
My sister-in-law took some literary license when she recreated the sign; she updated it, and added a few new FAQ’s. In particular, one of the most newly often-asked questions being “Are there ghosts at The Riverside?” and the answer on the sign being….. “Probably.”
This is a natural question for people to ask as The Riverside has all of the qualifications for a place that might have ghosts, assuming of course that there are such things. It’s old, it can be a little creepy, (especially at night, upstairs, when you’re walking down the halls alone), and it’s had numerous inhabitants over the years; one might take the leap that odds are one of the previous owners might have actually assumed room temperature in the hotel.
After we purchased the hotel, one of the locals told me of a murder that happened in the bar. She was a little scary herself as she told the gruesome tale, saying “he was standing right here, and a man came up behind him, grabbed his hair and pulled his head back and slit his throat”, as she dramatically made the now-banned NFL throat-slashing gesture.
"My, how lovely." I thought.
I asked Grandpa (my neighbor who lives across the street, and was detailed in an earlier blog) what he knew about this, and he grumbled “that wasn’t what happened”. His story is as follows: In the early 70’s when they were building the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70, (located about 45 miles south of Hot Sulphur Springs) every hotel for miles around was full with workers who were involved in the tunnels’ construction. Grandpa said that this made for some wild nights in all of the local towns and bars, as these itinerant roughnecks, with wads of money to spend on the weekends, had nothing to do on a Saturday night but get drunk and raise hell.
Times haven't changed much. The locals pretty much get drunk and raise hell every night in Hot Sulphur Springs.
One of the workers, who was staying at The Riverside, got a little too friendly with the spouse of a local, and according to Grandpa, the local went into the hotel late at night, found and entered the offending parties room, and stabbed the man to death. Grandpa said, “he was dead in there for days, before the smell got bad enough that they finally found him.”
Gee Grandpa, thanks for clearing that up for me!
This may disappoint some of you, but it thrilled me when I found out that both of these tales were taller than Mt. Bross; untrue, bogus, BS, hokum, didn’t happen. In fact, there is no record (that I can find) of anyone ever being murdered, or even dying, in The Riverside. What did happen, and what I’m sure was the seed for these grisly recollections, involved several of these tunnel workers who did get into an altercation in the hotel bar, took it out to the street, and one stabbed the other in front of the hotel.
Ghost stories be gone, and on to reality...
Two years ago, prior to our purchase of The Riverside, I would have steadfastly said “I do not believe in ghosts!” I can’t say that now, at least not with the conviction that I used to have on the matter. I have had four instances of things happening- two apparitions I’ve seen and two physical occurrences I've felt. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that what I saw, or what physically happened, simply wasn’t so, I can come up with no other logical explanation for what occurred.
Throw the arrival of Lucy,the world’s coolest pooch, into the picture and her consistently peculiar behavior in certain parts of the hotel, and I’m really starting to change my tune regarding the existence of other-worldly phenomena.
To be continued…….
Friday, October 23, 2009
Guests from Boulder, aka 'Old Abe people'
As they are also children of God, they shall go un-named in this tome, to protect them – from scorn, from ridicule, from the certain disdain and disparagement normal people would heap upon them if they knew them and suffered their eccentricities and outlandishness’s as we have. Nor will I single out the best or worst of them; some of these multi-named guests (for example, but pseudonymically, Laura Moon-Child Temple Bluebird, and I won’t say if she was on the best or worst list), while deserving of a full chapter in this book, detailing their oddities and assaults on normalcy, will quietly and respectfully flow into the pools and eddies of what makes Boulder…….. Boulder.
Boulder, CO can simply and adequately be defined as “24 square miles surrounded by reality.” As the suspected but undefined magnetic power field of the Bermuda Triangle so surreptitiously draws in unsuspecting airplanes and ships, the force of Boulder seeks out and sucks in, from all over the civilized world, the weird, the green, the soy-obsessed/gluten intolerant, the radically vegan, the granola crunching, the humorless, the intellectually arrogant liberal East-Coast Ivy-League rejects, the Allen Ginsburg look-alike, aging hippies who refuse to accept that they’ve aged and the hippie-thing really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be – (certainly not as it’s carried into old age), and variations and agglomerations of all of the aforementioned. Boulder is a beacon for all that live on the fringe, providing a safe haven where they can be amongst those with similar neurosis, and experience a sense of normalcy that isn’t available to them anywhere else in the civilized world. Twenty-four square-miles surrounded by reality.
Having exposed all of these truths, it is important to note that a large percentage of our guests are from Boulder, and they love The Riverside, (or loved the old Abe-owned Riverside) because it so typifies the fringe of what is acceptable as a hostelry. It’s old, it’s eclectic, it’s funky, it’s, it’s…..IT’S SO BOULDER. Or at least it used to be so Boulder. We constantly have to defend ourselves personally (we’re not ultra-liberal, vegan, 60’s radicals, native Coloradans) as well as the improvements we’ve made to the hotel and restaurant to those who we refer to as “old Abe people”, i.e. loyal customers of Abe’s.
Abe had three types of customers: 1) those that liked and patronized the place because of Abe; 2) those that liked the place and patronized it in spite of Abe, and; 3) those that liked the place but never came back because of Abe. If you put percentages on that clientele, my guess is it’s 10% for the first group, 20% for the second, and the remaining 70% we’re trying to recover and win over. Abe’s catering to and relying upon that loyal 10% was the reason for his winding up broke, broke, and broker. (Editor’s note: One of Abe’s best customers is now one of ours; he is an exception to the rule. He loves what we’ve done with the place, joins us regularly, and is a pleasure to have in our house. However, there is no denying the fact that he is indeed, a character; that trait alone makes him a welcome fixture to The Riverside. I don’t believe he is actually from Boulder proper, but should he want the position, he could be elected Mayor.)
I get one of these calls weekly.
“Are you the new owner?”
“Yes, along with the bank”
“What happened to Abe?”
“He sold us the hotel two years ago and moved to Englewood.”
“Oh, we just loved Abe. We miss him so!”
“Wait a minute. You loved Abe, you miss him so, but you haven’t stayed here for two years, and you didn’t even know that he was gone?”
“Well, mostly we stayed at the hot springs, because the Riverside was a dump. But we loved Abe. He was such a character!! Do you have any rooms available this weekend, and do you still take pets?”
“I have some queen rooms that we allow for pet owners. What type of pets?”
“Oh, we have four pit-bulls. The two females are in heat, and the males are fresh from a fight, but they’re small for their breed. But Abe always let us bring our dogs.”
“Sorry, but single dogs, less than 30 pounds.”
“OK, well how much are the rooms?”
“Queen Rooms are $76 plus tax.”
“WOW. $76 dollars? You’ve raised the rates!!!”
“Yes. We’ve made some improvements – new beds, new sheets, light bulbs that actually work, toilets that flush – and these things cost money, but I think you’ll find the place a little more welcoming. Oh, and other stuff has gotten more expensive since you last stayed here in 1994 for $35. Electricity, water, gas, you know, the stuff that puts this place a step above camping out.”
“Oh my!! Please don’t tell me you got rid of the mismatched, paisley, loud-striped, cartoon-character sheets. They gave the place such a unique feel.”
“Well, unfortunately we did. They were, uh, threadbare, and to quantify them as acceptable bed sheets, we would have had to develop a new process for thread grafting. We found it cheaper to buy nice, new, white high thread count sheets. They’re really comfortable. You should try them at your home.”
“Oh, that’s what we have at our home. But I’ll miss those old sheets. Do you still have the restaurant? Abe’s food was so good!”
“We have a very nice restaurant, and I think the food is as good as or better than what Abe used to serve.”
“We loved the old chalk board menu. Do you still use that?”
“No, we have a paper menu, and in most cases, we have all of the stuff available that’s on the menu.”
“We loved the way Abe used to be out of everything and he’d yell at us and tell us what we were going to eat, whether we liked it or not.”
“I think there are still restaurants in Hell where you can get that experience.”
“We’re gluten-intolerant vegan soy-addicts, and no ice in our water!!!! Can you accommodate our needs?”
“Wait a minute! Abe served trout, steak or Cornish Game hens with Spanish rice. What part of that accommodated your diet??”
And so it goes. Weekly I get these calls from Boulder-ites. They usually end up giving us a try, arriving late in the day in their late-model, bumper-sticker laden (COEXIST, Impeach Bush, Go Green, blah, blah, blah) Subaru’s, ready for a soak, a meal and a bed.
We bend over backwards to try and win them over. In most cases, we do. But this goes back to the fact that The Riverside is exceptional because it is The Riverside. It’s not about us, our personalities or our politics. It’s not about comfortable beds and new sheets. It’s not about whether you’re from Boulder, CO or Shawnee, KS. All you need to ‘get The Riverside’ is a heart, a soul and an appreciation and understanding of what makes life unique and special. Twenty-four square miles, surrounded by reality, is Boulder, Co; and fortunately for us, it’s loaded with people that get it.
Boulder, CO can simply and adequately be defined as “24 square miles surrounded by reality.” As the suspected but undefined magnetic power field of the Bermuda Triangle so surreptitiously draws in unsuspecting airplanes and ships, the force of Boulder seeks out and sucks in, from all over the civilized world, the weird, the green, the soy-obsessed/gluten intolerant, the radically vegan, the granola crunching, the humorless, the intellectually arrogant liberal East-Coast Ivy-League rejects, the Allen Ginsburg look-alike, aging hippies who refuse to accept that they’ve aged and the hippie-thing really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be – (certainly not as it’s carried into old age), and variations and agglomerations of all of the aforementioned. Boulder is a beacon for all that live on the fringe, providing a safe haven where they can be amongst those with similar neurosis, and experience a sense of normalcy that isn’t available to them anywhere else in the civilized world. Twenty-four square-miles surrounded by reality.
Having exposed all of these truths, it is important to note that a large percentage of our guests are from Boulder, and they love The Riverside, (or loved the old Abe-owned Riverside) because it so typifies the fringe of what is acceptable as a hostelry. It’s old, it’s eclectic, it’s funky, it’s, it’s…..IT’S SO BOULDER. Or at least it used to be so Boulder. We constantly have to defend ourselves personally (we’re not ultra-liberal, vegan, 60’s radicals, native Coloradans) as well as the improvements we’ve made to the hotel and restaurant to those who we refer to as “old Abe people”, i.e. loyal customers of Abe’s.
Abe had three types of customers: 1) those that liked and patronized the place because of Abe; 2) those that liked the place and patronized it in spite of Abe, and; 3) those that liked the place but never came back because of Abe. If you put percentages on that clientele, my guess is it’s 10% for the first group, 20% for the second, and the remaining 70% we’re trying to recover and win over. Abe’s catering to and relying upon that loyal 10% was the reason for his winding up broke, broke, and broker. (Editor’s note: One of Abe’s best customers is now one of ours; he is an exception to the rule. He loves what we’ve done with the place, joins us regularly, and is a pleasure to have in our house. However, there is no denying the fact that he is indeed, a character; that trait alone makes him a welcome fixture to The Riverside. I don’t believe he is actually from Boulder proper, but should he want the position, he could be elected Mayor.)
I get one of these calls weekly.
“Are you the new owner?”
“Yes, along with the bank”
“What happened to Abe?”
“He sold us the hotel two years ago and moved to Englewood.”
“Oh, we just loved Abe. We miss him so!”
“Wait a minute. You loved Abe, you miss him so, but you haven’t stayed here for two years, and you didn’t even know that he was gone?”
“Well, mostly we stayed at the hot springs, because the Riverside was a dump. But we loved Abe. He was such a character!! Do you have any rooms available this weekend, and do you still take pets?”
“I have some queen rooms that we allow for pet owners. What type of pets?”
“Oh, we have four pit-bulls. The two females are in heat, and the males are fresh from a fight, but they’re small for their breed. But Abe always let us bring our dogs.”
“Sorry, but single dogs, less than 30 pounds.”
“OK, well how much are the rooms?”
“Queen Rooms are $76 plus tax.”
“WOW. $76 dollars? You’ve raised the rates!!!”
“Yes. We’ve made some improvements – new beds, new sheets, light bulbs that actually work, toilets that flush – and these things cost money, but I think you’ll find the place a little more welcoming. Oh, and other stuff has gotten more expensive since you last stayed here in 1994 for $35. Electricity, water, gas, you know, the stuff that puts this place a step above camping out.”
“Oh my!! Please don’t tell me you got rid of the mismatched, paisley, loud-striped, cartoon-character sheets. They gave the place such a unique feel.”
“Well, unfortunately we did. They were, uh, threadbare, and to quantify them as acceptable bed sheets, we would have had to develop a new process for thread grafting. We found it cheaper to buy nice, new, white high thread count sheets. They’re really comfortable. You should try them at your home.”
“Oh, that’s what we have at our home. But I’ll miss those old sheets. Do you still have the restaurant? Abe’s food was so good!”
“We have a very nice restaurant, and I think the food is as good as or better than what Abe used to serve.”
“We loved the old chalk board menu. Do you still use that?”
“No, we have a paper menu, and in most cases, we have all of the stuff available that’s on the menu.”
“We loved the way Abe used to be out of everything and he’d yell at us and tell us what we were going to eat, whether we liked it or not.”
“I think there are still restaurants in Hell where you can get that experience.”
“We’re gluten-intolerant vegan soy-addicts, and no ice in our water!!!! Can you accommodate our needs?”
“Wait a minute! Abe served trout, steak or Cornish Game hens with Spanish rice. What part of that accommodated your diet??”
And so it goes. Weekly I get these calls from Boulder-ites. They usually end up giving us a try, arriving late in the day in their late-model, bumper-sticker laden (COEXIST, Impeach Bush, Go Green, blah, blah, blah) Subaru’s, ready for a soak, a meal and a bed.
We bend over backwards to try and win them over. In most cases, we do. But this goes back to the fact that The Riverside is exceptional because it is The Riverside. It’s not about us, our personalities or our politics. It’s not about comfortable beds and new sheets. It’s not about whether you’re from Boulder, CO or Shawnee, KS. All you need to ‘get The Riverside’ is a heart, a soul and an appreciation and understanding of what makes life unique and special. Twenty-four square miles, surrounded by reality, is Boulder, Co; and fortunately for us, it’s loaded with people that get it.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Living Life Lakeside
I used to live in a magnificent 12,000 sq.ft. historic building perched right smack dab on the banks of the Colorado River; I could walk out my back door to the edge of my property and either fish or pee into a stretch of Gold Medal trout water that people from all over the country would travel to and pay big bucks for the opportunity to flick San Juan worms and caddis flies into its eddies and pools, hoping to land many rainbows, browns or brookies, but thrilled to land one, and if skunked, happy to have been there trying. My wife and daughter still live there, although they haven’t the proclivity to either fish or pee in the river. My hope is that when they look at the river, they think of me and wish that I were fishing or peeing there still; but I am not, nor will I be anytime soon. Maybe even never again.
I now reside in Flowood, Mississippi, an eastern suburb of Jackson, in an apartment complex called Reflection Point, on a little body of water known as Mirror Lake. In my previous Colorado life, I would revel in and delve into the history of the river we lived on, initially known as the Grand River, carver of the Grand Canyon, until 1922 when it was renamed the Colorado. Needless to say, Mirror Lake doesn’t quite have the pedigree of the Colorado, nor does its run-off contribute to anything other than duck soup. In fact, Mirror Lake is a man-made 40-acre body of water that was built to accomodate and add asthetic value to a large, mirrored office building and the subsequent apartment complex (Reflection Point / Mirror Lake – get it?). I live in the apartments, and I work in the office building.
Ergon’s headquarters are in the Mirror Lake Building, a large, multi-storied building with a mirrored glass exterior. The city of Flowood, located in Rankin County, MS, is your typical bedroom community, comprised of single and multi-family housing, strip malls, a new shopping area with the requisite Lowes, Target, Kohls and all of the supporting cast, and an anonymous, big-time taxpaying corporation quietly hiding in a large mirrored structure on the banks of Mirror Lake. Unless you work for Ergon, you drive by and don’t think about or have any idea who or what resides in the big building on the lake, as the small street-level ‘you’d miss it unless you were looking for it’ sign is the only clue as to whom or what occupies the structure. Ergon is the Greek word for ‘Work’ – while ‘ego’ is part of the word, it’s not part of the Ergon picture.
The Ergon building is rather unspectacular – a six story rectangle joined to a smaller three story section. Like the organization, the building is practical, serviceable and not the least bit ostentatious. It stands out only because at a height of six stories, it is five stories taller than anything else for miles around. I work on the third floor of the six-story building. I’d been there numerous times in my previous life – the life where I knew I was a short-timer, and knew I wouldn’t ever work for a big company, because I knew that I was ultimately going to live life riverside. Then two weeks ago, at the end of my first day at corporate, I punched the down button on the elevator to head home and said to myself, “Holy crap! After 30 years of doing everything humanly possible to avoid working in this sort of situation, I’m now working in a place with an elevator, and I’m excited and thanking God that I’m standing here pressing this button.” Flirting with poverty has a profound way of changing your perspective.
Colorado vs. Mississippi; lots to compare, lots to say. I’ll start with the topography. Colorado has big time mountains, and Mississippi is flat – no point higher than 1000 feet above sea level. (There are five states that have no point exceeding 1000 feet above sea level; I’ve given you one, for $1000, name the others.) They both have lots of pine trees – Colorado has rigid, upright, lodge-pole pines, while Mississippi has a fat-needled, droopy, almost sensuous kind of pine tree. The Colorado pines are always on guard, ready-for-a-big-snowfall and up to whatever nature throws at them; the Mississippi pines are lush, fat, lazy and look as if they’re thinkin’ about fixin’ to do nuthin’. They are both beautiful.
Colorado has Trail Ridge Road, at 12,183 feet elevation, the highest paved roadway in the US. As you wind to the top, the views make you wish you had something beyond a mere camera to record them. When you get to the top, (unless you’re from Boulder) you know that someone way beyond human is responsible for this vista; someone like, maybe, God. But God also did some road work in Mississippi. Little known to outsiders but spectacular in a way that makes serenity a much sought-after religion is the Natchez Trace Parkway. This languid stretch of two-lane, beautifully-paved, commercial-vehicle free road traces a 444-mile stretch from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN. The road, or ‘Trace’, was carved through heavily wooded forest by Native Americans who knows how long ago, and used in subsequent years by all form and fashion of our ancestral travelers. The National Parks Service now maintains the road, and dots it with historical stop-offs and points of interest. I drove the Trace from Jackson to Natchez and back on a recent Sunday. I love to drive, and the days’ misting rain, the heavy pine forests and gentle hills and curves made the trip an unexpected, indescribable narcotic pleasure - not to compare the Trace to Trail Ridge, nor Trail Ridge to the Trace; both are singularly spectacular.
No one has the market on beauty cornered. You don’t have to be looking at mountains and rivers to be happy. The view of a man-made lake from a third floor office can be breathtaking. It’s all a matter of perspective.
To be continued…
(Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Rhode Island and Delaware)
I now reside in Flowood, Mississippi, an eastern suburb of Jackson, in an apartment complex called Reflection Point, on a little body of water known as Mirror Lake. In my previous Colorado life, I would revel in and delve into the history of the river we lived on, initially known as the Grand River, carver of the Grand Canyon, until 1922 when it was renamed the Colorado. Needless to say, Mirror Lake doesn’t quite have the pedigree of the Colorado, nor does its run-off contribute to anything other than duck soup. In fact, Mirror Lake is a man-made 40-acre body of water that was built to accomodate and add asthetic value to a large, mirrored office building and the subsequent apartment complex (Reflection Point / Mirror Lake – get it?). I live in the apartments, and I work in the office building.
Ergon’s headquarters are in the Mirror Lake Building, a large, multi-storied building with a mirrored glass exterior. The city of Flowood, located in Rankin County, MS, is your typical bedroom community, comprised of single and multi-family housing, strip malls, a new shopping area with the requisite Lowes, Target, Kohls and all of the supporting cast, and an anonymous, big-time taxpaying corporation quietly hiding in a large mirrored structure on the banks of Mirror Lake. Unless you work for Ergon, you drive by and don’t think about or have any idea who or what resides in the big building on the lake, as the small street-level ‘you’d miss it unless you were looking for it’ sign is the only clue as to whom or what occupies the structure. Ergon is the Greek word for ‘Work’ – while ‘ego’ is part of the word, it’s not part of the Ergon picture.
The Ergon building is rather unspectacular – a six story rectangle joined to a smaller three story section. Like the organization, the building is practical, serviceable and not the least bit ostentatious. It stands out only because at a height of six stories, it is five stories taller than anything else for miles around. I work on the third floor of the six-story building. I’d been there numerous times in my previous life – the life where I knew I was a short-timer, and knew I wouldn’t ever work for a big company, because I knew that I was ultimately going to live life riverside. Then two weeks ago, at the end of my first day at corporate, I punched the down button on the elevator to head home and said to myself, “Holy crap! After 30 years of doing everything humanly possible to avoid working in this sort of situation, I’m now working in a place with an elevator, and I’m excited and thanking God that I’m standing here pressing this button.” Flirting with poverty has a profound way of changing your perspective.
Colorado vs. Mississippi; lots to compare, lots to say. I’ll start with the topography. Colorado has big time mountains, and Mississippi is flat – no point higher than 1000 feet above sea level. (There are five states that have no point exceeding 1000 feet above sea level; I’ve given you one, for $1000, name the others.) They both have lots of pine trees – Colorado has rigid, upright, lodge-pole pines, while Mississippi has a fat-needled, droopy, almost sensuous kind of pine tree. The Colorado pines are always on guard, ready-for-a-big-snowfall and up to whatever nature throws at them; the Mississippi pines are lush, fat, lazy and look as if they’re thinkin’ about fixin’ to do nuthin’. They are both beautiful.
Colorado has Trail Ridge Road, at 12,183 feet elevation, the highest paved roadway in the US. As you wind to the top, the views make you wish you had something beyond a mere camera to record them. When you get to the top, (unless you’re from Boulder) you know that someone way beyond human is responsible for this vista; someone like, maybe, God. But God also did some road work in Mississippi. Little known to outsiders but spectacular in a way that makes serenity a much sought-after religion is the Natchez Trace Parkway. This languid stretch of two-lane, beautifully-paved, commercial-vehicle free road traces a 444-mile stretch from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN. The road, or ‘Trace’, was carved through heavily wooded forest by Native Americans who knows how long ago, and used in subsequent years by all form and fashion of our ancestral travelers. The National Parks Service now maintains the road, and dots it with historical stop-offs and points of interest. I drove the Trace from Jackson to Natchez and back on a recent Sunday. I love to drive, and the days’ misting rain, the heavy pine forests and gentle hills and curves made the trip an unexpected, indescribable narcotic pleasure - not to compare the Trace to Trail Ridge, nor Trail Ridge to the Trace; both are singularly spectacular.
No one has the market on beauty cornered. You don’t have to be looking at mountains and rivers to be happy. The view of a man-made lake from a third floor office can be breathtaking. It’s all a matter of perspective.
To be continued…
(Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Rhode Island and Delaware)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Leaving Life Riverside
That isn’t a typo. Many know the changes that are afoot, but for those who don’t, here’s the story.
In late April, I had discussions with two separate entities that set some things in motion that couldn’t be stopped. The first discussion involved a sit down with my old employer, ERGON ; (http://www.ergon.com/ ) they offered me an employment opportunity that was simply too good to ignore, especially at my age, with my limited capabilities and in this economy. It’s not in the beautiful Rocky Mountains on the banks of the Colorado River – it’s in Jackson, MS. (Note to those in Colorado: Jackson, MS doesn’t suck. Not even close.) How could I consider this, you ask? I mentioned that there were two discussions. Shortly after the Ergon discussion, an individual sat me down, looked me straight in the eye and told me “I want to buy The Riverside.” “Wow”, I thought, “the stars are in alignment, the gods have spoken and the Three Princes of Serendip have just booked rooms at The Riverside!”
When we bought the hotel, there were always discussions about how long we wanted to operate it, provided we were financially able to keep it afloat and the banks and our creditors didn’t make the decision for us. Five years for sure, and maybe as long as ten years; unless someone came along and wanted it more than we did, at which point, we would consider the offer. Well here was this someone, and his unexpected overture just happened to coincide with an out-of- the-blue, over-the-top, once-in-a-lifetime, multi-hyphenated job opportunity.
I accepted the job, and began to work with the buyer on the due-diligence details. The potential buyer did all sorts of things that made me think he was serious – he loudly, openly and publicly told people he was buying it. Without consulting or getting approval from me, he invested in capital equipment for the kitchen and hotel. He continually brought in friends and associates and showed them what he was going to fix, change, improve, add, subtract, divide and multiply.
I thought this guy was serious!! So much so, that I basically checked out of the business, let him take control of it, and began making plans for the next chapter in our life journey. I gave him our offer sheet, and it went unacknowledged for three weeks. I started to wonder what the hell was happening – no counter offer, no discussion, no “are you crazy, I wouldn’t give you half of what you’re asking for this dump!” Nothing. Upon finally being pressed for a response, he simply said “I’m not interested, and I've decided to concentrate on other issues.” Huh?? What about the crowd of friends you had in here two nights ago speaking as if you were the soon-to-be owner?
Here are a few links that might help describe me and my ability to trust and judge other humans, especially regarding this particular human interaction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmuck
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dupe
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sucker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_(person)
http://www.oxfordenglishdictionary.org/stupididiotwho
We bury our dead, we dry our tears and we move on. We also hopefully learn from our mistakes – trust needs to be earned, not passed out like candy on Halloween night to any neighborhood spook that shows up at our door.
So the second part of the serendipitous equation went away like a foul smell, but part one remained a reality. The position of VP of Sales for Ergon Armor http://www.ergonarmor.com/ awaits me in Jackson, MS. The Riverside is for sale, and we have five interested parties. I say to those interested parties, know that it is an acquired taste and not for everyone. Know that we are selling more than a house and a building that generates revenue – we are selling a historic Grand County icon, a building that comes with a luscious past that transcends any who would own it and all who now visit. Know that if you are lucky enough to be able to own this place, your life will be sometimes cursed, but mostly blessed. Know that your daily life will be filled with the very best of what humanity has to offer, 98% of the time. But be very wary of strangers bearing gifts. Welcome them with open hearts and open arms, as we did.........but be wary.
To be continued….
In late April, I had discussions with two separate entities that set some things in motion that couldn’t be stopped. The first discussion involved a sit down with my old employer, ERGON ; (http://www.ergon.com/ ) they offered me an employment opportunity that was simply too good to ignore, especially at my age, with my limited capabilities and in this economy. It’s not in the beautiful Rocky Mountains on the banks of the Colorado River – it’s in Jackson, MS. (Note to those in Colorado: Jackson, MS doesn’t suck. Not even close.) How could I consider this, you ask? I mentioned that there were two discussions. Shortly after the Ergon discussion, an individual sat me down, looked me straight in the eye and told me “I want to buy The Riverside.” “Wow”, I thought, “the stars are in alignment, the gods have spoken and the Three Princes of Serendip have just booked rooms at The Riverside!”
When we bought the hotel, there were always discussions about how long we wanted to operate it, provided we were financially able to keep it afloat and the banks and our creditors didn’t make the decision for us. Five years for sure, and maybe as long as ten years; unless someone came along and wanted it more than we did, at which point, we would consider the offer. Well here was this someone, and his unexpected overture just happened to coincide with an out-of- the-blue, over-the-top, once-in-a-lifetime, multi-hyphenated job opportunity.
I accepted the job, and began to work with the buyer on the due-diligence details. The potential buyer did all sorts of things that made me think he was serious – he loudly, openly and publicly told people he was buying it. Without consulting or getting approval from me, he invested in capital equipment for the kitchen and hotel. He continually brought in friends and associates and showed them what he was going to fix, change, improve, add, subtract, divide and multiply.
I thought this guy was serious!! So much so, that I basically checked out of the business, let him take control of it, and began making plans for the next chapter in our life journey. I gave him our offer sheet, and it went unacknowledged for three weeks. I started to wonder what the hell was happening – no counter offer, no discussion, no “are you crazy, I wouldn’t give you half of what you’re asking for this dump!” Nothing. Upon finally being pressed for a response, he simply said “I’m not interested, and I've decided to concentrate on other issues.” Huh?? What about the crowd of friends you had in here two nights ago speaking as if you were the soon-to-be owner?
Here are a few links that might help describe me and my ability to trust and judge other humans, especially regarding this particular human interaction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmuck
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dupe
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sucker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_(person)
http://www.oxfordenglishdictionary.org/stupididiotwho
We bury our dead, we dry our tears and we move on. We also hopefully learn from our mistakes – trust needs to be earned, not passed out like candy on Halloween night to any neighborhood spook that shows up at our door.
So the second part of the serendipitous equation went away like a foul smell, but part one remained a reality. The position of VP of Sales for Ergon Armor http://www.ergonarmor.com/ awaits me in Jackson, MS. The Riverside is for sale, and we have five interested parties. I say to those interested parties, know that it is an acquired taste and not for everyone. Know that we are selling more than a house and a building that generates revenue – we are selling a historic Grand County icon, a building that comes with a luscious past that transcends any who would own it and all who now visit. Know that if you are lucky enough to be able to own this place, your life will be sometimes cursed, but mostly blessed. Know that your daily life will be filled with the very best of what humanity has to offer, 98% of the time. But be very wary of strangers bearing gifts. Welcome them with open hearts and open arms, as we did.........but be wary.
To be continued….
Saturday, September 5, 2009
The Town Meeting, Part II
In Part I, we talked about the town's plan to raise needed revenue for infrastructural repairs to the town's water system, resting heavily on the backs of the businesses, and to a lesser degree, the residential customers. The monthly water bill for the Riverside was arbitrarily raised from $150/month to $750/month. I say arbitrarily because it is obvious that those on the town council or whoever refigured this new rate have no concept of cash flow as it relates to running a business. That $600/month increase translates to an additional 103 room rentals per year – and that’s just to maintain our current levels of income vs. expenses. Multiply that by the 5, which is the total number of hotels in town who will also have similar rate increases, and that requires an additional 515 room nights spent in Hot Sulphur; this increase needing to occur in a depressed economy, where average bookings were down this year by 20%. So we know this isn’t possible; memo to town council – wishing and hoping don’t make it so! One of the town council members actually said “if the business owners aren’t smart enough to figure out how to come up with the extra revenue, they shouldn’t be business owners.” Smacks a little of Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake” attitude, doesn’t it? I say to you, town council person, “if you’re smart enough to be on the town council, you’ll be smart enough to figure out where to come up with all of the lost tax revenue you’ll need to recover from the stupid business owners who’ve gone belly-up!”
So the first round of elevated water bills hit our mail boxes in mid-July, and the much discussed “what-ifs” became reality for all of the business owners, complete with an August 15th due date. (One of the other problems with the increase is that the water bills are quarterly, so you need to come up with three months worth of $750 all at once. That's a big check for water that the town pulls out of the adjacent Colorado River.) This spurred several of the business owners to band together for a meeting – not a town hall meeting, but a meeting of business owners-only to discuss what could be done to stop this municipal cash grab from all of those Hot Sulphur business’s million dollar war chests – yeah, right. I was informed that we were to meet on Wednesday night at 7:00PM at the Barking Dog Pub. Unlike the last town meeting I attended, where the participants had to stoke up on hooch at home before spending the next few hours at the HSS Town Hall, the meeting planners decided to skip that formality and just have the damn meeting in the town bar. Anybody yet see a potential problem with that? Let’s get a bunch of people together who are already fuming mad, then let’em pound down brews before and during the meeting, and then have a heated argument. That should make for a productive evening.
When we enter the Barking Dog for the meeting, there were only a few of the business owners present, and only two that I had previously met. There was one man whom I didn’t recognize holding court down at the end of the bar. He was a tall, slim fellow, made all the taller by his outlandishly conspicuous white cowboy hat – not a 10-gallon hat, but maybe a 7.5 gallon hat. He wore a grey tank top, the armpit areas of which were truncated with dark sweat stains. He was loudly waving his arms about as if he were below deck in a rolling sea swatting at…..…..…wait a minute, it was Ron, the drunken plumber who tried unsuccessfully to unclog our pipes on New Year’s night. What in the hell was he doing here?? What the hell kind of a business does he own?? I didn’t know being the official Hot Sulphur Springs “Town Drunk” qualified someone as a business owner. Can “Town Drunk” be some sort of a new franchise opportunity I’m not aware of? (And let me tell you something; earning the moniker of ‘Town Drunk of HSS’ is no easy feat, as the competition is ferocious!) Ron was at the meeting not because he was a business owner; he was at the meeting because he lives at the bar, and the meeting was at the bar. WHY IN THE HELL DID WE HAVE THE MEETING AT THE BAR?? (Maybe that town council member was right to question the intelligence of the local business owners after all.)
At about 7:30, when all of the owners arrived, we ordered one more round for the discussion and moved from the bar to a large table to begin the meeting. Including Cowboy Hiccup, there were 11 participants at the table, representing three of the five hotels, owners of most of the towns’ apartment units and the owner of the Barking Dog. The meeting started badly, as Ron the plumber was dominating the conversation with inane drunken babble about how he personally ran the water treatment plant for 20 years and how he was the town’s master plumber and everything is this town is screwed up and blah blah blah blah blah. After about five minutes of this, the meeting organizer asked that we limit our responses to two minutes, and then suggested that we appoint a ‘Sergeant at Arms’ in the event that participants got out of order. How many informal meetings have you attended where the first order of business was to appoint a ‘Sergeant at Arms’?
We went around the table, with everyone getting their two minutes to state their issues, offer solutions, ask questions, etc.; except everyone’s two minute allotment turned into five minutes as the Popped Plumber kept interrupting with his nonsensical blather, which would then bring the Sergeant at Arms around the table to shake a finger in his face and threaten to throw him out – several times he actually grabbed Ron in a bear hug and tried to pull him out of his chair. Again I ask, ever seen this sort of thing in one of your neighborhood meetings? But then I don’t suppose you have your meetings in a bar.
One of the apartment owners, a lovable old curmudgeon named Lou, barked so loudly at Ron to shut up that he was actually able to get him to shut up and make the two most sharply perceptive points of the evening; point one being that they should no longer officially refer to the town of HSS as the ‘county seat of Grand County’, rather, it should henceforth be known as the ‘toilet seat of Grand County’. His second point, the highlight of the evening, involved the importance of water conservation in this water starved area, and suggested a citizens awareness campaign with a slogan of “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down!”
It was at this point, after picking ourselves up off the floor, that Julie and I excused ourselves from the proceedings and headed back to The Riverside. The end result of the group meeting was a decision to show a united front as business owners and write a formal letter to the town, demanding to know specifics on forthcoming stimulus money, educating the council as to the catastrophic end this town will come to – on their watch - if they run all of the businesses off, and finally, a strong suggestion that all future town hall meetings be held at the Barking Dog and Ron the Plumber be installed on the town council as it’s voice of reason. He couldn’t do any worse.
So the first round of elevated water bills hit our mail boxes in mid-July, and the much discussed “what-ifs” became reality for all of the business owners, complete with an August 15th due date. (One of the other problems with the increase is that the water bills are quarterly, so you need to come up with three months worth of $750 all at once. That's a big check for water that the town pulls out of the adjacent Colorado River.) This spurred several of the business owners to band together for a meeting – not a town hall meeting, but a meeting of business owners-only to discuss what could be done to stop this municipal cash grab from all of those Hot Sulphur business’s million dollar war chests – yeah, right. I was informed that we were to meet on Wednesday night at 7:00PM at the Barking Dog Pub. Unlike the last town meeting I attended, where the participants had to stoke up on hooch at home before spending the next few hours at the HSS Town Hall, the meeting planners decided to skip that formality and just have the damn meeting in the town bar. Anybody yet see a potential problem with that? Let’s get a bunch of people together who are already fuming mad, then let’em pound down brews before and during the meeting, and then have a heated argument. That should make for a productive evening.
When we enter the Barking Dog for the meeting, there were only a few of the business owners present, and only two that I had previously met. There was one man whom I didn’t recognize holding court down at the end of the bar. He was a tall, slim fellow, made all the taller by his outlandishly conspicuous white cowboy hat – not a 10-gallon hat, but maybe a 7.5 gallon hat. He wore a grey tank top, the armpit areas of which were truncated with dark sweat stains. He was loudly waving his arms about as if he were below deck in a rolling sea swatting at…..…..…wait a minute, it was Ron, the drunken plumber who tried unsuccessfully to unclog our pipes on New Year’s night. What in the hell was he doing here?? What the hell kind of a business does he own?? I didn’t know being the official Hot Sulphur Springs “Town Drunk” qualified someone as a business owner. Can “Town Drunk” be some sort of a new franchise opportunity I’m not aware of? (And let me tell you something; earning the moniker of ‘Town Drunk of HSS’ is no easy feat, as the competition is ferocious!) Ron was at the meeting not because he was a business owner; he was at the meeting because he lives at the bar, and the meeting was at the bar. WHY IN THE HELL DID WE HAVE THE MEETING AT THE BAR?? (Maybe that town council member was right to question the intelligence of the local business owners after all.)
At about 7:30, when all of the owners arrived, we ordered one more round for the discussion and moved from the bar to a large table to begin the meeting. Including Cowboy Hiccup, there were 11 participants at the table, representing three of the five hotels, owners of most of the towns’ apartment units and the owner of the Barking Dog. The meeting started badly, as Ron the plumber was dominating the conversation with inane drunken babble about how he personally ran the water treatment plant for 20 years and how he was the town’s master plumber and everything is this town is screwed up and blah blah blah blah blah. After about five minutes of this, the meeting organizer asked that we limit our responses to two minutes, and then suggested that we appoint a ‘Sergeant at Arms’ in the event that participants got out of order. How many informal meetings have you attended where the first order of business was to appoint a ‘Sergeant at Arms’?
We went around the table, with everyone getting their two minutes to state their issues, offer solutions, ask questions, etc.; except everyone’s two minute allotment turned into five minutes as the Popped Plumber kept interrupting with his nonsensical blather, which would then bring the Sergeant at Arms around the table to shake a finger in his face and threaten to throw him out – several times he actually grabbed Ron in a bear hug and tried to pull him out of his chair. Again I ask, ever seen this sort of thing in one of your neighborhood meetings? But then I don’t suppose you have your meetings in a bar.
One of the apartment owners, a lovable old curmudgeon named Lou, barked so loudly at Ron to shut up that he was actually able to get him to shut up and make the two most sharply perceptive points of the evening; point one being that they should no longer officially refer to the town of HSS as the ‘county seat of Grand County’, rather, it should henceforth be known as the ‘toilet seat of Grand County’. His second point, the highlight of the evening, involved the importance of water conservation in this water starved area, and suggested a citizens awareness campaign with a slogan of “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down!”
It was at this point, after picking ourselves up off the floor, that Julie and I excused ourselves from the proceedings and headed back to The Riverside. The end result of the group meeting was a decision to show a united front as business owners and write a formal letter to the town, demanding to know specifics on forthcoming stimulus money, educating the council as to the catastrophic end this town will come to – on their watch - if they run all of the businesses off, and finally, a strong suggestion that all future town hall meetings be held at the Barking Dog and Ron the Plumber be installed on the town council as it’s voice of reason. He couldn’t do any worse.
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