Lucy...........Part II

We picked Lucy up from a rescue shelter in Denver, and all we knew of her lineage was “Border collie mix.” As are most puppies, Lucy was so cute and cuddly that I actually felt good about throwing the easy part of my dog-less life away and signing up for a 14 year hitch in the Canine Corps. Not only was this black & white little fur ball adorable, but she had personality out the pooch wazoo; you could instantly tell that she was sassy beyond repair. She expressed herself to us and a constant stream of admiring hotel guests through the deliberate and continual use of her razor sharp little bicuspids: “Oh, look at this little darling, she is soooo cute, OUCH. Oh, that’s ok, she’s just a little puppy and she’ll outgrow OUCH!”

While everyone around me was smitten with Lucy to the point of having to wear drool catchers, I kept my focus and concentrated on the job of getting this little hellion potty-trained, as the notion of tiling a 12,000 square foot hotel was absolutely out of the question. Within a short matter of time, she got it; I supposed we trained each other. After a few weeks of intensive training, Lucy would essentially walk up to me, look me in the eye, and ‘bark’ with a purpose, saying “I’ve got to go outside and do business. NOW!”

Poor old Lucky never got that “I’ve got to go to the bathroom, now!” concept down; Lucy had it nailed in a matter of weeks. Lucky was sweet, but dumb; Lucy is smart, and efficient, but sweet doesn't enter into the picture. As the formative weeks went by, our Border collie-mix didn’t get tall like a Border collie; rather, Lucy grew long. Her front paws splayed outward as she sat and challenged us at our every demand. Her Border collie ears didn’t droop like a Border collie, but spiked straight skyward like, well, like a Corgi. Long body, splayed paws, spiked ears – without doubt, we had ourselves a ‘Borgi’. Lucy is a combination of smart, quick, independent, outspoken, multi-leveled herding dogs, with bloodlines that date back centuries; part of her wants to organize and round people up into groups, and the other part wants to punish and nip the heels of those who won’t comply.

Lucy, not aware of her mixed heritage, carries herself as a royal beauty; unique and unusual looking to the point of people asking “what a beautiful dog, but what is she?” Her head is way too big for her body, her plumed tail a natural and fitting accoutrement to her regal demeanor. Within a very short period of time, this sassy little bitch had full and total control our hearts; people would ask, “Are you the owner of the hotel?”, and my clever answer was always “yes, me and the bank”. But I couldn’t look them in the eye and give them that answer any longer; Lucy now owns this place - just ask her!

All Border collies need a job. As they were bred and used in the old country, their job was to herd sheep and cattle. Lucy’s job is to guard The Riverside. No one comes in or out, nor do they drive by, without her scrutiny and approval. She sits in the front window of the hotel and acknowledges all passersby’s with a low growl, a quiet ‘woof’ or an emphatic ‘bark!’ If Lucy doesn’t acknowledge you when you pass The Riverside, you don’t exist. If you happen to be a dog, she lets absolutely nothing back as she talks the worst sort of inappropriate foul-mouthed smack at you as you walk by that window; and God help your worthless canine ass if you would attempt to enter her hotel.

As The Riverside is a pet friendly hotel, the rules of guests bringing in pets had to be modified a bit with the addition of Lucy. No dogs in the common areas – bring them in quickly and get them in your room, and damn sure don’t have them off of a leash or out of your control. The attached link will send you to Tripadvisor, (http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g33479-d1153219-r45506009-The_Riverside_Hotel-Hot_Sulphur_Springs_Colorado.html) a site where guests can share their experiences of your hostelry; some of the shared information is actually factual, but not so much with this particular story. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, suffice to say that the authors of this Tripadvisor review fall into the category of “2%-ers.” Enough said.

Lucy has developed another peculiar habit regarding the intrusion of canine guests into her sanctuary. After she calms down and acquiesces to the presence of these intruders into her territory, she quietly lays in wait until the offending visitors have departed The Riverside. She will then surreptitiously slink up the stairs, never to be seen by us, locate the room where the gate crasher stayed, and poop outside the door. When I said earlier that she was potty trained, I meant it; this act has nothing to do with having an ‘accident.’
This is an intentional, malicious, wanton act of revenge, an “I spit on your grave!” sort of thing. She’s done this four or five times, but never has her “Eat S**T and Die!” pronouncement been as profound as it was on December 28th, 2009.

To be continued..........

Lucy

When all is said and done and we look back on our adventure in Colorado, no matter how many difficulties we’ve suffered or victories we’ve celebrated, there has been one shining light that blinds the memory of all of the good or bad: we found Lucy.

Those of you who know me well, know that my love and devotion to this dog is more than just a bit out of character for me. I’ll be honest and admit that I’ve never been one that you would classify as a ‘dog person’. Lucky, our family pooch of the previous 15 years, was thrust upon me after the fact of her acquisition. Julie and the kids were in Nevada, MO visiting her parents, while I remained in Kansas City for a rare, weekend business meeting. The year was 1991; Rachel was 6 years old, Scott 4 years old and Julie and I young enough to add to our family. After the aforementioned business meeting, I called Julie to check in and she opened the phone conversation with an excited:

“Guess What!!?”

“You’re pregnant??” I guessed, holding not only my breath, but my wallet, my heart, and had I a third hand, you can guess what else I would have held and tried to disable.

“No, we found a dog!” she replied.

“I’d rather you were pregnant.” I said. And I meant it, at the time.

Lucky, a misfit mutt found in the Nevada city park, was the best dog a family could have; sweet, docile, loving, good with children, etc. She never did get the potty trained thing down; her favorite bathroom area was our living room, in which I eventually ended up taking up the carpet and putting down tile. My Dad said “what are you gonna do, tile the whole house? She’ll find another place to go!” In fact we did end up tileing and hardwood-flooring the whole downstairs, but ever resourceful, Lucky found carpet upstairs to pee upon.

After spending her last few years as the neighborhood snack whore – she was all but a furry keg with legs – Lucky gave up the ghost on Thanksgiving Day, 2006. She had a stroke the day before Thanksgiving, and was in obvious pain and disarray as Turkey Day unfolded. Scott and I took her to be put down, brave Scott at her side during her last minutes on earth. I couldn’t do it; after filling out the paperwork and paying for things, I went back to the car and bawled. It was a quiet, teary-eyed, father-and-son ride home, back to family and the impending feast.

It might have been the morning after Lucky died, or perhaps the afternoon, when Julie began the slow, steady, deliberate, resolute chant of “we need to get a dog, we need to get a dog, and we need to get a dog.” “Good grief!” I said, “let’s give it some time.” For unlike true ‘dog people’, I had the good sense to examine the realities and know the consequences of getting a dog; there’s way more to it than the wonderful feeling you get when you acquire your cute, fuzzy little bundle of puppy love. Hell, I’ve seen the worst of it, where you eventually have to rip up pee-stained carpet that you paid good money for and bust your ass tileing the living room.

My anti-pooch ass-holiness won out for the better part of two years – no pooch, no problems; then fast-forward to January, 2009, living life Riverside. Before I knew and had a chance to react, Julie pulled a fast one and arranged to have a rescue pooch adopted for us by her sister in Denver. I was busy doing…I don’t know what I was busy doing, when Julie told me, “we’ve got a pooch. We’re picking it up in a few days.” “Oh crap”, I thought, “my days have changed, my nights have changed and my life has changed.”

The morning that we were to leave to pick up the dog, I was visited by our friend, Rick, who manages the hot springs. Rick is a transplanted pig farmer from Iowa, who made his nut and decided he wanted to live in the mountains. He’s an absolute breath of fresh air in these Colorado Rockies, the kind of person who you’d refer to as ‘real people’; a guy’s guy, a straight shooter and happy as if he had good sense. When I told Rick, in a rueful voice, that we were going to Denver to pick up a dog, Rick noticed my obvious distressful/regretful tone and mood and asked “What are you bitching about?? What kind of an asshole doesn’t like a dog??”

My glib, clever, not a dog person-ass didn’t have a quick answer for that one. In fact, Rick shamed me to the core; with his ‘from the hip’ challenge, in the form of a question, he made me question what I was really all about. And I didn't like the answer.



Enter Lucy……………..to be continued.

Living Life Lakeside.......Part II

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.......................

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.

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………

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……………………..

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…….