I was in dire need of a haircut. Damned dire need!
For the past 20 years in Kansas City, I would go every two-three weeks to my barber, Rocky, plop myself into his chair and chat away while he did whatever he did to my hair. I never had to tell him what clipper number to use, or ask that he use scissors, not the razor, or tell him “I don’t think I want a bouffant today, not a mullet either; how about my normal same length on the top as it is on the sides cut.” I never had to say any of that; I sat in the chair, discussed sports, or my job, or whatever, and 15 minutes later, my hair was cut – the way I like it.
(Here’s a tip. If you live in a world where you have a barber who cuts your hair the way you like it, talks sports and roots for the same teams as you, shares your political views, and has a cool barber name like Rocky, don’t get off that horse. Keep riding it.)
When we moved to Colorado, I took for granted the small changes and adjustments that leaving our home of 50+ years behind would bring. The big changes were obvious; they were planned for and the required adjustments were assumed. It was the little things that came with relocation – finding a new church, couldn’t buy the same local bread, beer or BBQ sauce, new doctors, no dry cleaners, no Winsteads….new barber. And it wasn’t the big changes that stressed us; it was the little things that gnawed and ate at our “did we do the right thing by moving?” bone.
Never in Colorado did I get a good haircut. I came close, once, in downtown Denver; close, but no Rocky. It possibly explains why so many Colorado inhabitants – men and women alike – opt for the Allen Ginsburg look.
Off to Mississippi.
I work in an office building with lots of guys, and most of them have hair. So I know that a few questions to the right people will get me hooked up with a Southern version of Rocky – down here, his name will be Clem. He’ll talk sports (although it’ll be limited to SEC football), he’ll probably be on the same political plane as me, and as an added Mississippi bonus, he’ll discuss Faulkner with me. Nah, probably not gonna talk Faulkner with the barber, but at least he’ll cut my hair the way I like it.
After a few queries, I took the advice of a fellow worker who suggested a place in Brandon, “down Highway 80, right next to the Blockbuster.” After a morning meeting at our lab, which is right off of Highway 80, I decided to forgo lunch and head for that clip shop. Driving east on Highway 80 – first time driving here and all new to me – I passed a variety of stuff, but never came to Brandon, and never saw a Blockbuster. In fact, I was in the city of Pearl, MS. I passed a few hair salons, and as Highway 80 got into a residential area, and showed no promise of a complex that would house a Blockbuster, I turned around and headed back towards a shop that I’d seen a few blocks prior.
I pulled up and parked in front of ‘Amy’s Clip & Curl’. There were several women outside smoking cigarettes, and I asked “can I get a haircut here?” They all immediately threw down and stamped out their butts, and hustled me into the shop.
I’m certain you can all identify with the feeling you have of walking into a place, and as soon as you open the door, that little voice in your head, (the responsible little voice that cares about you; not the dominant, drunken, stupid loud voice that tells you to chuck it all and buy a hotel in the mountains), says, no, screams “turn around right now and get the hell out of here as fast as you can!!” That little voice was working overtime, actually, it was beginning to get hoarse, but I ignored it, and in I walked; mostly out of fear, as if I had at that point turned and run, two or three of them would have pursued and captured me – a haircut would have been well down the list of what they would have had in store for me.
The shop consisted of eight chairs, four on each side; each chair was manned, (although they were females, I’m still going to use the term ‘manned’) by women that all looked like Flo. Some of them had a full set of teeth; the one that cut my hair was found wanting in the bicuspid department – she’d only get about every third row of kernels if she were to eat corn on the cob.
She started out by asking, “So, how ya want’cha hair cut, hon?”
I wanted to answer “Properly”, but thought better of it.
“Do ya normally have it cut with electric clippers?”
“No, the man that normally cuts it, (sniff), only uses scissors.”
“Have ya ever had a razor cut?”
“Do you not have any scissors?”
“I just thought ya might wanna try sumpen different.”
‘A good haircut would be something different’, I thought, but said “Thanks, but I’ll just stick with the scissor cut.”
She ended up using scissors, the electric clippers and the straight razor, giving me a layered look that resembled a style of haircut that Paul Klee might have given had he been a barber. I thanked her, paid her, tipped her and asked for her card so I could make an appointment the next time I lose my mind and decide to get my haircut there.
Back at the office, I told one of my cohorts that I’ll probably go to Madison (the tony, northern Jackson suburb) next time I need a haircut.
“Where did you get your haircut?” he asked.
“Pearl” I responded.
“Pearl” he all but announced, “why that’s known as a fine Mississippi community on the move!”
“Really?? Why?” I asked.
“'Lotta mobile homes, that's why.”
To be continued.......................
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?......Conclusion
OK - I admit it.
I’ve fallen prey to the same flights of fancy that I’ve impugned others for ascribing to; i.e. letting your imagination, as it is molded and then overwhelmed by this grand old building, kidnap and stifle your common sense. It could be that I’m simply, and somewhat irresponsibly, letting myself get caught up in the moment; kind of like letting yourself get hornswaggled into going to a KC & The Sunshine Band concert, having a few too many beers and then mid-concert saying to yourself, “hey, this ain’t half bad.” You know better!!!
My nephew used to live at The Riverside when we first purchased the place, and he was full of stories like this one: “I left my glasses out in the lobby, and went to get them at 3:00 in the morning, and in the room above the lobby, I heard someone stomp their foot, and there was nobody staying up there.” So you’re telling me a ghost seized the opportunity of you being in the lobby at 3:00 AM in the morning to stomp his foot, just once, on the floor? I would think a ghost would be a little more, well, creative in its attempts to terrorize the living; maybe rattle some chains, slam some doors, or at the very least, let off with a long, sustained moan of some sort. But a single foot stomp? Pu-leeeeze!
This collision of what we know, what scientific proof exists and what we want to believe is played-out weekly in one of those ghost shows on whatever cable channel it’s on; for an hour they build the suspense, showing nothing of substance, until the end where they've filmed a little flash of light, or a quick blur, the host saying “there!....look closely…there it is...Oh my God, did you see that?....let’s look at it again…there it is…see that blur!....did you see that little flash?”
Did you hear that foot stomp?
We’ve had several guests that have said “this room has a feel”, or “I’m not comfortable in the west wing, because of the spirits; I need to stay in the east wing”, or “I’m not comfortable in the east wing, because of the spirits; I need to stay in the west wing.” So you’re telling me the whole damn place is haunted? Truth be known, some of these people were probably scarier than any ghost you’d ever encounter; lovely people - please come back and visit us - but scary.
To those of you who might read this and say, “No way am I staying at this place!”, please know that in the 100+ year history of the hotel, no guest or resident has been maimed, hacked-up, garroted, disemboweled or beheaded by a ghost. No one has ever actually even reported seeing a ghost. This revelation might be a bit of a letdown for those of you who’d like to visit The Riverside for the purpose of having an encounter with the paranormal; unfortunately, I can’t guarantee you anything ghostly beyond a re-telling of my potentially ‘caught up in the moment’ experiences. And to those of you who shudder at the thought of spending the night in a haunted hotel, let me profess this: there is no bigger chicken in the world than me - if I can live here, and even stay here by myself, then you have absolutely nothing to fear. Except for maybe Lucy, if you're a Bichon Frise. Really!
I saw an old man standing in the hall. Right!
I saw a shadowy figure walk along the patio perimeter. I’ll swear to it!
A bathmat floated down the hall and ended up folded on a bathroom chair. What else could have happened?!
A phantom reached into the shower stall, when my eyes were closed, and turned the water off. Would you have a better explanation?
Are there ghosts at The Riverside? I honestly don’t know.
Are there ghosts anywhere? You tell me.
One side of me desperately wants there to be ghosts; it tells us that there’s more to our lives than this single radar blip of time that we’re here on this earth. In the event that I can come back, I’m going to save some money so I can scatter it about The Riverside for the brave souls who end up as the stewards of this place when we’re gone. I might slip ‘em a bottle or two of gin as well - for as sure as there are ghosts at The Riverside, they’ll need all the help they can get.
I’ve fallen prey to the same flights of fancy that I’ve impugned others for ascribing to; i.e. letting your imagination, as it is molded and then overwhelmed by this grand old building, kidnap and stifle your common sense. It could be that I’m simply, and somewhat irresponsibly, letting myself get caught up in the moment; kind of like letting yourself get hornswaggled into going to a KC & The Sunshine Band concert, having a few too many beers and then mid-concert saying to yourself, “hey, this ain’t half bad.” You know better!!!
My nephew used to live at The Riverside when we first purchased the place, and he was full of stories like this one: “I left my glasses out in the lobby, and went to get them at 3:00 in the morning, and in the room above the lobby, I heard someone stomp their foot, and there was nobody staying up there.” So you’re telling me a ghost seized the opportunity of you being in the lobby at 3:00 AM in the morning to stomp his foot, just once, on the floor? I would think a ghost would be a little more, well, creative in its attempts to terrorize the living; maybe rattle some chains, slam some doors, or at the very least, let off with a long, sustained moan of some sort. But a single foot stomp? Pu-leeeeze!
This collision of what we know, what scientific proof exists and what we want to believe is played-out weekly in one of those ghost shows on whatever cable channel it’s on; for an hour they build the suspense, showing nothing of substance, until the end where they've filmed a little flash of light, or a quick blur, the host saying “there!....look closely…there it is...Oh my God, did you see that?....let’s look at it again…there it is…see that blur!....did you see that little flash?”
Did you hear that foot stomp?
We’ve had several guests that have said “this room has a feel”, or “I’m not comfortable in the west wing, because of the spirits; I need to stay in the east wing”, or “I’m not comfortable in the east wing, because of the spirits; I need to stay in the west wing.” So you’re telling me the whole damn place is haunted? Truth be known, some of these people were probably scarier than any ghost you’d ever encounter; lovely people - please come back and visit us - but scary.
To those of you who might read this and say, “No way am I staying at this place!”, please know that in the 100+ year history of the hotel, no guest or resident has been maimed, hacked-up, garroted, disemboweled or beheaded by a ghost. No one has ever actually even reported seeing a ghost. This revelation might be a bit of a letdown for those of you who’d like to visit The Riverside for the purpose of having an encounter with the paranormal; unfortunately, I can’t guarantee you anything ghostly beyond a re-telling of my potentially ‘caught up in the moment’ experiences. And to those of you who shudder at the thought of spending the night in a haunted hotel, let me profess this: there is no bigger chicken in the world than me - if I can live here, and even stay here by myself, then you have absolutely nothing to fear. Except for maybe Lucy, if you're a Bichon Frise. Really!
I saw an old man standing in the hall. Right!
I saw a shadowy figure walk along the patio perimeter. I’ll swear to it!
A bathmat floated down the hall and ended up folded on a bathroom chair. What else could have happened?!
A phantom reached into the shower stall, when my eyes were closed, and turned the water off. Would you have a better explanation?
Are there ghosts at The Riverside? I honestly don’t know.
Are there ghosts anywhere? You tell me.
One side of me desperately wants there to be ghosts; it tells us that there’s more to our lives than this single radar blip of time that we’re here on this earth. In the event that I can come back, I’m going to save some money so I can scatter it about The Riverside for the brave souls who end up as the stewards of this place when we’re gone. I might slip ‘em a bottle or two of gin as well - for as sure as there are ghosts at The Riverside, they’ll need all the help they can get.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?............Part III
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………
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………
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)
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