I come from Kansas; a slow, languid little piece of “fly-over” country. We’re a bit behind the socio-ecological curve, and for the most part, prefer it to be that way. When I moved to Colorado, the State that houses the city of Boulder, without knowing it I immediately upgraded to a place that was ahead of that curve. For example, in Kansas, going to the bathroom and emitting our bodily waste was a daily part of our existence; how passé. I learned that in some parts of Colorado, defecation is considered "ungreen", and an affront to the environment; those that are sensitive to our Mother, Earth, hold it in, out of respect for the planet. Perhaps that is why most of them are so full of shit. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Anyway, I’ve stumbled on to some things in Colorado that were heretofore unknown to this Midwestern farm boy; an example, the condition “gluten intolerance”. I was familiar with gluten, but couldn’t have told you much about it, including the notion that there are those that are intolerant of the stuff. The first night our restaurant was open, one of our first customers, (damn sure not Wally Reynolds), said that they were gluten intolerant. I asked, “What does that mean??” - Basically, no grains or grain products of any type – wheat, barley, rye, oats, no pasta. How do you survive in this world without being able to eat bread and pasta? Does this also mean no beer?? I was dumbfounded by this notion. (This isn’t to infer that being gluten intolerant isn’t a serious condition, or that those that are gluten intolerant are abnormal; my wonderment at this condition was more a function of me being ignorant, as I’d never been in the restaurant industry, and was also new to the State that includes Boulder.) So I am now tolerant of the gluten intolerant, however, it makes for tough menu planning when we’re doing a “Chef’s tasting” dinner.
Another new one to me, one that I didn’t run across living on the desolate plains of Shawnee, KS, was that there actually existed the paid profession of “Life Coach”. A Life Coach??? Isn’t that the role of a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a boss, a teacher or a friend? I soon learned that there are those who possibly had no parents, no spouses, no siblings, no bosses, no teachers or no friends to coach them, and by God, these individuals need to be coached; and there’s a market for that.
We entertained for dinner a group of ten people who had signed up with a Certified Life Coach for a mountain weekend of life coaching. They paid $1000 for the two-day experience. This fact alone tells me that they indeed do need some sort of coaching; maybe financial responsibility coaching, maybe common sense coaching, maybe even “yes, we’re certain you’ve lost your mind, but there’s still hope for you” coaching. When this group entered our establishment, I thought about having the “life coach” arrested. Taking money from these people for needing to be life coached was no different than a professional pickpocket hosting a “cash only” vacation to Las Vegas for a bunch of blind billionaires who’d also lost their sense of touch. A more obviously dysfunctional group I’d never seen. (I’m not intending to be mean, supercilious or insensitive – I’m just reporting the facts.) Again, that probably explains why these individuals felt they needed coaching. My guess is if you think you need a life coach, you probably do.
I explained that we’d be having a set small course menu, including a small salad, a gluten-laden ravioli appetizer, a fish dish, and Smoked Chicken Penne Pasta with Vodka Cream Sauce. Immediately, half of the group fidgeted noticeably and murmured amongst themselves. One in the group stood up and said “we don’t drink, and we don’t want vodka in our sauce”. I assured them that the vodka is cooked off in the preparation and there is no alcoholic content in the final sauce. Their collective bodily shaking and continual looking back and forth at each other for support told me that the vodka was still an issue – I reassured them that they’d have no vodka in their sauce, cooked-off or otherwise.
The group sat for dinner, and to describe them as an eclectic mix would shame any other group that would want to be described as an eclectic mix. (Talk about your celebrating diversity, and dammit, I’m all about celebrating diversity. Fishing, golf, drinking martinis, listening to music, and celebrating diversity – that’s me in a nutshell; and not necessarily in that order!) We had women who you’d see working at the Clinique counter at Nordstrom, and we had women who were the antithesis of who you’d see working at the Clinique counter at Nordstrom. There was a young, shy, heavily tattooed Goth girl that weighed maybe 80 pounds, and another who would have been a third, maybe even a second round, NFL draft pick for linebacker. You’d have made the Goth girl jump through the roof if you said “boo” to her – the lady linebacker would have thrown you through the roof if you said “boo” to her. It made for some interesting table waiting.
At one point, as Darin and I were delivering one of the courses, one of the guests loudly made a point to the rest of the table, saying “if all males were castrated at birth, there would be no violence in the world”. I wanted to chime in with my opinion that unsolicited castration might be considered a violent act, but I thought better of it and kept to my ‘seen but not heard’ table waiting. I also surreptitiously took the yet-to-be used knife from her place setting. Darin quickly excused himself and crept back into the kitchen, where I’m certain he slipped into his custom-made Kevlar codpiece. I got so nervous when waiting on her that I almost dropped the vodka-free chicken pasta down her back; however, had I actually made that mistake, the hair on her back fortunately would have kept her from noticing my spill and sending her on a frantic search for her missing table knife, with which she would have attempted a retaliatory castration.
Dinner ended with little fanfare, and the group huddled together and moved out into the night. I will give the life coach credit, as she seemed to have all of her charges in sync, functioning as a group, supporting each other, murmuring together, mutually avoiding eye contact with strangers, etc. The way they banded together and moved out of the hotel reminded me a little of the minimalist animation used in the South Park TV show. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ve seen this group and their foibles in the South Park TV show.
So, one more thing I can chalk up on my Colorado life experience board – there are people that feel the need to be coached, and there are those who, for a not-so nominal fee, will coach them. My guess is that if this particular life coach were to read this blog, she would gladly, and at no charge, coach me as to how I can take my opinion of her chosen profession and shove it up my you know what. Not a problem, as we don’t use our you-know-what’s in Colorado for you know what.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
What I did on my vacation....
The plan was to shut down the hotel and restaurant after an Easter Sunday Brunch until Memorial Day weekend for a few weeks of vacation and a few more weeks of backbreaking labor spent redoing the kitchen, spring cleaning and a general reorganization of things before the big summer season. Our two-week vacation involved driving back to KC to spend some time with family and friends, then a few days fishing and relaxing at The Lake of the Ozarks, then back to KC for a second week of visiting and sprucing things up around the unsold house before heading back to Hot Sulphur. Everything went smoothly and as planned, until we got in the car to leave.
Thursday, April 16, greeted us with the biggest single day snowfall of the winter. This being our first winter in Hot Sulphur, we’d never experienced a snow like this – any synonym for “pounded” that you can think of would aptly describe the inundation of snowflakes that occurred. I would estimate we received two feet of snow in a little less than an hour. Two days prior to this, Julie spent the day in the backyard raking, arranging rocks around a soon-to-be wildflower mound, i.e. readying the outside for spring; she received a nasty sunburn on her back in the process. 48 hours later, we are bundled up to the gills in our LL Bean parkas, walking the dog along the river in a snowfall so thick and so heavy, we literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of us. It was beautiful and spectacular, but quickly reminded us that all is never as it seems in the mountains of Colorado. We’d been lulled into a false sense that the winter was behind us – foolish flatlanders we were still. This blast of December in April also made us all the more excited about leaving it behind to head for the comparatively tropical respite that awaited us in KC.
The Friday morning of our departure dawned clear in Hot Sulphur, the snow having dumped it’s last on us for this winter. (Long time Grand Countians are now laughing at my Midwestern naiveté. They know we’re liable to get snowed on in the middle of the summer. In fact, in 2008 it snowed above 9000’ every month of the year, July and August included.) We headed east and not long out of town you could see the dark clouds that awaited us ahead. Twelve short miles from home, on the eastern edge of Granby, the snow started. By the time we got to Winter Park, 20 miles further east of Granby and 2000’ higher in elevation, that pounded by snow thing was happening again. On to Berthoud Pass – a stretch of road that can be daunting on a clear summer day to those not acclimatized to mountain driving. Try maneuvering it in a blizzard so profound that my windshield wipers couldn’t wipe the falling snow away quickly enough for me to see. Near the top of the pass, elevation 11,000’ and also the Continental Divide, the snow was a foot deep on the roads, and the only way I could see where I was going was to stick my head out the window and look for the guardrails. Once at the top of the pass, the downward decent on the eastern slope of the divide saw an instant decrease in the snowfall; still coming down beyond anything that we’re used to in Kansas City, but decreased enough that I could see through the windshield. 20 miles later we’re on I-70, heading east, still snowing hard, and now you’ve got semi-trucks to deal with. You know, 80,000 pounds of screaming steel, most often piloted by drivers whose IQ’s barely approach the number of wheels on their rigs. The west-bound lane of I-70 was already shut down by two of these cowboys who’d jackknifed their trucks after finding out that when you drive a big truck real fast on snow and ice, and then slam on the brakes, your ability to stop in a timely fashion is greatly diminished. Who’d be expected to know such a thing?!
We stopped briefly in Denver, where it was snowing slushballs – falling globs of slush the size of golf balls that sounded, when they hit your car, as if a group of 20 gloved pugilists were working on your vehicle like they would a taunting sweat bag. Again, we can smile at this because we are in the process of leaving it behind for a few weeks. As we head further east, the slush turns to rain and fog; hard rain and heavy fog, all the way to Salina, KS. Somewhere along the way, maybe between Colby and Hays, KS, we hear a noise beneath the car that sounds as if we’ve run over a rock, and it has hit the bottom center of the car. Nothing seems amiss, and on we drive. When the rain stopped and the wipers finally went off, I began to hear a noise that sounded a little like white noise that you would hear if the radio were on, but not tuned to a station. Not being able to discover the source, I again went back to the matter at hand, i.e. eating up ground in an easterly direction.
I’ll make this brief, because it isn’t interesting and I can’t make it funny. The bad rock under the car noise and undetectable “white noise” noise was a failed transfer case in the four-wheel drive transmission – those are $1400 at your local auto repair shop. It was a long first day of vacation.
Day two finds us at our unsold home in KC. In mid-March, I received a “feedback” email from a realtor who showed the house, which simply said “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded.” It being a buyer’s market and all, his clients decided to pass on our house and look for one without a flooded basement. I’m cool with that. (We find out that the pilot light in the heater has gone off, and there is no heat in the house. This causes the water in the pipes to freeze, and the pipes to burst, including the exhaust line on the sump pump. When the weather warms, and it begins to rain, the sump pump is doing its intended thing, pumping water away from our foundation; except the water isn’t being pumped outside, it’s being pumped right through that ruptured pipe back into our basement – “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded”.) In having the situation remedied from 700 miles away, the repairman tells me that we also have several copper pipes that have burst, and they will need to be repaired before the water can be turned back on. I decide to tackle this myself when I’m back on vacation, and begin to do just that upon our Saturday arrival.
Two hours and seven trips to the Home Depot later, I’ve got a new sump pump and four new pieces of copper pipe installed. It is time for the moment of truth that all amateur plumbers dread – time to turn on the water and check for leaks. I turn on the main valve, and quickly head for the repaired breaks; all looks good, no leaks. But I hear running water coming from upstairs; lots of water like the sound that a big, pretty waterfall makes. I quickly turn the main off and run upstairs, and am quick to detect the source of the waterfall sound, as water is pouring out of a recessed can-light fixture in the kitchen, out of the center of the ceiling in the family room, and down a wall in the dining room. It splatters as it hits the bare hardwood floor, and the sound of the splatter resonates throughout the empty house. I’m thinking maybe there are more broken pipes than I’ve accounted for. On the bright side, I’m in Kansas City, and I am actually able to get a plumber to 1) answer his phone and 2) show up as promised – sober to boot! Six large holes cut in our ceiling and a $600 plumbing bill later, and we have running water again. However, we still have six large holes cut in our ceilings and walls; another not so appealing feature in a buyer’s real estate market.
The final indignity occurred Monday morning, April 26th. It stormed and rained heavily Sunday night/Monday morning, this on top of already saturated ground. Remember that new sump pump I installed? I commented to Julie at the time, “never has one of my home repair projects gone so smoothly.” I hooked it up right, measured everything right the first time, plugged it in and tested it – Bingo, it worked like a champ; I saved $250 in plumbing labor. However, a real plumber – the ones that charge $250 to hook these babies up - would have known to make sure the float switch was unobstructed. Float switch, unobstructed? What the hell is that all about? It’s about the little ball that, when the pit is full of water, floats to the top of the sump pit and turns the pump on; if the ball isn’t able to float free and unobstructed, the pump won’t turn on and the basement will flood - again, only this time worse than before. All of the new padding that had been installed from the first flood had to be ripped up and replaced, not to mention the cost of drying the basement out with big blowers and dehumidifiers. Thank God for insurance, but damn those high deductibles.
So, as vacations go, this one wouldn’t rate high on the list of providing quality rest and relaxation; starting out with the ultimate ride piloting the white knuckle express down
Mt. Snowdeath, and finishing with an infrastructural nightmare that made us long for our 106-year old Colorado money pit. Between our places in Hot Sulphur and Kansas City, I’d better be getting some big-ass Christmas hams from plumbers this year, as I certainly don’t expect to be getting any from blog-reading semi-drivers; not that there are any.
Thursday, April 16, greeted us with the biggest single day snowfall of the winter. This being our first winter in Hot Sulphur, we’d never experienced a snow like this – any synonym for “pounded” that you can think of would aptly describe the inundation of snowflakes that occurred. I would estimate we received two feet of snow in a little less than an hour. Two days prior to this, Julie spent the day in the backyard raking, arranging rocks around a soon-to-be wildflower mound, i.e. readying the outside for spring; she received a nasty sunburn on her back in the process. 48 hours later, we are bundled up to the gills in our LL Bean parkas, walking the dog along the river in a snowfall so thick and so heavy, we literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of us. It was beautiful and spectacular, but quickly reminded us that all is never as it seems in the mountains of Colorado. We’d been lulled into a false sense that the winter was behind us – foolish flatlanders we were still. This blast of December in April also made us all the more excited about leaving it behind to head for the comparatively tropical respite that awaited us in KC.
The Friday morning of our departure dawned clear in Hot Sulphur, the snow having dumped it’s last on us for this winter. (Long time Grand Countians are now laughing at my Midwestern naiveté. They know we’re liable to get snowed on in the middle of the summer. In fact, in 2008 it snowed above 9000’ every month of the year, July and August included.) We headed east and not long out of town you could see the dark clouds that awaited us ahead. Twelve short miles from home, on the eastern edge of Granby, the snow started. By the time we got to Winter Park, 20 miles further east of Granby and 2000’ higher in elevation, that pounded by snow thing was happening again. On to Berthoud Pass – a stretch of road that can be daunting on a clear summer day to those not acclimatized to mountain driving. Try maneuvering it in a blizzard so profound that my windshield wipers couldn’t wipe the falling snow away quickly enough for me to see. Near the top of the pass, elevation 11,000’ and also the Continental Divide, the snow was a foot deep on the roads, and the only way I could see where I was going was to stick my head out the window and look for the guardrails. Once at the top of the pass, the downward decent on the eastern slope of the divide saw an instant decrease in the snowfall; still coming down beyond anything that we’re used to in Kansas City, but decreased enough that I could see through the windshield. 20 miles later we’re on I-70, heading east, still snowing hard, and now you’ve got semi-trucks to deal with. You know, 80,000 pounds of screaming steel, most often piloted by drivers whose IQ’s barely approach the number of wheels on their rigs. The west-bound lane of I-70 was already shut down by two of these cowboys who’d jackknifed their trucks after finding out that when you drive a big truck real fast on snow and ice, and then slam on the brakes, your ability to stop in a timely fashion is greatly diminished. Who’d be expected to know such a thing?!
We stopped briefly in Denver, where it was snowing slushballs – falling globs of slush the size of golf balls that sounded, when they hit your car, as if a group of 20 gloved pugilists were working on your vehicle like they would a taunting sweat bag. Again, we can smile at this because we are in the process of leaving it behind for a few weeks. As we head further east, the slush turns to rain and fog; hard rain and heavy fog, all the way to Salina, KS. Somewhere along the way, maybe between Colby and Hays, KS, we hear a noise beneath the car that sounds as if we’ve run over a rock, and it has hit the bottom center of the car. Nothing seems amiss, and on we drive. When the rain stopped and the wipers finally went off, I began to hear a noise that sounded a little like white noise that you would hear if the radio were on, but not tuned to a station. Not being able to discover the source, I again went back to the matter at hand, i.e. eating up ground in an easterly direction.
I’ll make this brief, because it isn’t interesting and I can’t make it funny. The bad rock under the car noise and undetectable “white noise” noise was a failed transfer case in the four-wheel drive transmission – those are $1400 at your local auto repair shop. It was a long first day of vacation.
Day two finds us at our unsold home in KC. In mid-March, I received a “feedback” email from a realtor who showed the house, which simply said “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded.” It being a buyer’s market and all, his clients decided to pass on our house and look for one without a flooded basement. I’m cool with that. (We find out that the pilot light in the heater has gone off, and there is no heat in the house. This causes the water in the pipes to freeze, and the pipes to burst, including the exhaust line on the sump pump. When the weather warms, and it begins to rain, the sump pump is doing its intended thing, pumping water away from our foundation; except the water isn’t being pumped outside, it’s being pumped right through that ruptured pipe back into our basement – “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded”.) In having the situation remedied from 700 miles away, the repairman tells me that we also have several copper pipes that have burst, and they will need to be repaired before the water can be turned back on. I decide to tackle this myself when I’m back on vacation, and begin to do just that upon our Saturday arrival.
Two hours and seven trips to the Home Depot later, I’ve got a new sump pump and four new pieces of copper pipe installed. It is time for the moment of truth that all amateur plumbers dread – time to turn on the water and check for leaks. I turn on the main valve, and quickly head for the repaired breaks; all looks good, no leaks. But I hear running water coming from upstairs; lots of water like the sound that a big, pretty waterfall makes. I quickly turn the main off and run upstairs, and am quick to detect the source of the waterfall sound, as water is pouring out of a recessed can-light fixture in the kitchen, out of the center of the ceiling in the family room, and down a wall in the dining room. It splatters as it hits the bare hardwood floor, and the sound of the splatter resonates throughout the empty house. I’m thinking maybe there are more broken pipes than I’ve accounted for. On the bright side, I’m in Kansas City, and I am actually able to get a plumber to 1) answer his phone and 2) show up as promised – sober to boot! Six large holes cut in our ceiling and a $600 plumbing bill later, and we have running water again. However, we still have six large holes cut in our ceilings and walls; another not so appealing feature in a buyer’s real estate market.
The final indignity occurred Monday morning, April 26th. It stormed and rained heavily Sunday night/Monday morning, this on top of already saturated ground. Remember that new sump pump I installed? I commented to Julie at the time, “never has one of my home repair projects gone so smoothly.” I hooked it up right, measured everything right the first time, plugged it in and tested it – Bingo, it worked like a champ; I saved $250 in plumbing labor. However, a real plumber – the ones that charge $250 to hook these babies up - would have known to make sure the float switch was unobstructed. Float switch, unobstructed? What the hell is that all about? It’s about the little ball that, when the pit is full of water, floats to the top of the sump pit and turns the pump on; if the ball isn’t able to float free and unobstructed, the pump won’t turn on and the basement will flood - again, only this time worse than before. All of the new padding that had been installed from the first flood had to be ripped up and replaced, not to mention the cost of drying the basement out with big blowers and dehumidifiers. Thank God for insurance, but damn those high deductibles.
So, as vacations go, this one wouldn’t rate high on the list of providing quality rest and relaxation; starting out with the ultimate ride piloting the white knuckle express down
Mt. Snowdeath, and finishing with an infrastructural nightmare that made us long for our 106-year old Colorado money pit. Between our places in Hot Sulphur and Kansas City, I’d better be getting some big-ass Christmas hams from plumbers this year, as I certainly don’t expect to be getting any from blog-reading semi-drivers; not that there are any.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Colorado River, in spring
It is May 8, 2009, and I’m looking out of our dining room window at the Colorado River. The sun is setting behind Mt. Bross, and the river glows, as if Hollywood’s higher technical powers had grabbed hold of it. I know, that when gazing upon this iconic river of rivers – one that ranks with the Nile, the Amazon and the Mississippi, not because of its size or length, but because of what it has wrought, namely The Grand Canyon – that I am viewing, from my dining room, a living, flowing entity that history was forged from, songs are composed of and books are written about. Imagine that we live on a piece of land that is now our property, a piece of land that John Wesley Powell, Kit Carson, John Fremont and numerous other historical luminaries have paddled by and camped near; not to mention the Native American tribes, particularly the Ute Indians, who’ve called this area home for 10,000 years. I acknowledge that I’m blessed to be here, but also realize that I’m not a spec of what makes this ground relevant to human history.
When I think about it, it is more than a little humbling; life is built on and around rivers. Most of our great cities are built on rivers, and those rivers are our lore, our past, our present and our future; we sometimes take them for granted but at the same time, we always revere and romanticize them. They are more famous and more vital to our survival than mountains, buildings, streets, cities and people. A river is why Paris and London will be a world destination, and the lack of a river is why Los Angeles will never be anything more than a population center. Here’s the A-list river roll call – Seine, Danube, Thames, Ganges, Indus, Volga, Niagara, Yangtze, Amazon, Nile, Mississippi, Colorado. I might have missed one, but not the one I live upon.
For a fact, The Riverside Hotel is the oldest existing, non-agricultural, business on the Colorado River. It may be the only business directly on the Colorado River that isn’t a farm or ranch – I’m still researching this. Again, that humbles me. We moved to The Riverside in June of 2008; by the time we’d moved in, the river had thawed and was flowing freely. 2009, being our first winter/spring living on The Colorado, was also my first time seeing the river frozen, then thawing, then flowing, then bursting and roiling. I will liken the witnessing of the transformation of the Colorado River from solid to liquid as experiencing the grandeur, spectacle, wonder and awe of seeing fireworks as a child for the first time. Out of my kitchen window, I watched daily as this 30-yard wide, snow covered and dormant piece of river turned into a boiling, rushing and violent living thing that popped, cracked and screamed its way into a new season. It was an “aha!” answer to one of the questions of “why did we give up what we had to move to a place like this?” – The answer, to witness a once-in-a-lifetime liquid fireworks show that lasted a couple of weeks. And it continues on a daily basis. 200 yards south of our river property, The Colorado bends at a 90-degree western dog-leg, and then S-curves another four or five times until it flows into Byers Canyon. Right now, at that first bend south of our property, the river thrashes and rails like a white-capped sea, unaccepting of the Fly fishermen who typically probe its languid pools during the summer months; at its present state, no caddis, no midge, no Wooly Bugger will find respite in this tumultuous stew, nor will a trout indulge.
This was my first, and it may be my last spring gaze upon the seasonal transmogrification of The Colorado. If that is the case, I can say that I witnessed a sight so spectacular and significant that it will be remembered and cherished like the first view of my newborn children, the first glimpse of my beautiful wife and the lingering memory of the love of my parents for their child. It will forever be as essential to my being as water.
If you have the chance, if it’s even for a short while, live on a river.
When I think about it, it is more than a little humbling; life is built on and around rivers. Most of our great cities are built on rivers, and those rivers are our lore, our past, our present and our future; we sometimes take them for granted but at the same time, we always revere and romanticize them. They are more famous and more vital to our survival than mountains, buildings, streets, cities and people. A river is why Paris and London will be a world destination, and the lack of a river is why Los Angeles will never be anything more than a population center. Here’s the A-list river roll call – Seine, Danube, Thames, Ganges, Indus, Volga, Niagara, Yangtze, Amazon, Nile, Mississippi, Colorado. I might have missed one, but not the one I live upon.
For a fact, The Riverside Hotel is the oldest existing, non-agricultural, business on the Colorado River. It may be the only business directly on the Colorado River that isn’t a farm or ranch – I’m still researching this. Again, that humbles me. We moved to The Riverside in June of 2008; by the time we’d moved in, the river had thawed and was flowing freely. 2009, being our first winter/spring living on The Colorado, was also my first time seeing the river frozen, then thawing, then flowing, then bursting and roiling. I will liken the witnessing of the transformation of the Colorado River from solid to liquid as experiencing the grandeur, spectacle, wonder and awe of seeing fireworks as a child for the first time. Out of my kitchen window, I watched daily as this 30-yard wide, snow covered and dormant piece of river turned into a boiling, rushing and violent living thing that popped, cracked and screamed its way into a new season. It was an “aha!” answer to one of the questions of “why did we give up what we had to move to a place like this?” – The answer, to witness a once-in-a-lifetime liquid fireworks show that lasted a couple of weeks. And it continues on a daily basis. 200 yards south of our river property, The Colorado bends at a 90-degree western dog-leg, and then S-curves another four or five times until it flows into Byers Canyon. Right now, at that first bend south of our property, the river thrashes and rails like a white-capped sea, unaccepting of the Fly fishermen who typically probe its languid pools during the summer months; at its present state, no caddis, no midge, no Wooly Bugger will find respite in this tumultuous stew, nor will a trout indulge.
This was my first, and it may be my last spring gaze upon the seasonal transmogrification of The Colorado. If that is the case, I can say that I witnessed a sight so spectacular and significant that it will be remembered and cherished like the first view of my newborn children, the first glimpse of my beautiful wife and the lingering memory of the love of my parents for their child. It will forever be as essential to my being as water.
If you have the chance, if it’s even for a short while, live on a river.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
The 2nd day of the New Year
Friday, January 2nd; Darin is a free man, thanks to the American Express card, and back on the job at The Riverside. That was a good thing, as our hotel was nearly full, as was the restaurant reservation log. I was back in our living quarters taking my shower, getting ready for the evening, when I noticed the shower drain wasn’t draining so well. Out of the shower, I then notice the toilet is also backed up. Our newly remodeled and re-plumbed living quarters had already had a few issues with the plumbing, so I cursed the plumbing issues and the half-assed contractor who did the half-assed job, quickly got dressed and told Julie I’d plunge later, as the dinner rush had started. I’m not long in the kitchen when I see that one of the sinks, the one that is supposed to be used only for washing hands but is also frequently used by our cooking staff as a dump sink for food stuffs, has standing water and isn’t draining. I throw my first bona-fide fit in front of the help since owning the hotel – cussing, throwing things, yelling “how many times have I told you not to dump food in the sink!!” at everyone but no one in particular. They weren’t impressed. I then notice the floor drain isn’t draining. I was then quick to deduce that there was a pattern, a pattern that I’d seen once before – I knew we had a clogged main sewage line.
The State of Colorado Department of Health & Environment – the folks who oversee the safety and sanitation of our restaurant – have a pretty basic rule about not being able to prepare or serve food without access to a free-flowing water and waste disposal system. Damned pesky bureaucrats! I had no choice but to close the restaurant; a nearly full restaurant, with a nearly full bar waiting for tables, as well as numerous reservations for tables later in the evening. My hope was that I could get this problem solved in time to at least re-open in an hour and accommodate the evening’s second seating. But wait a minute….I suddenly remembered we weren’t in Kansas anymore. I remembered that you can’t get a plumber in Grand County to show up for a scheduled job at 10:00 on a Monday morning (unless maybe it’s to fix the dispensing valve on your beer keg), let alone answer an after hour emergency call on a Friday night over a holiday weekend. I tried my best, going alphabetically through all of the Grand County plumbers, all of whose ads touted “24 Hour Emergency Service”, and got not one, not a single one, who could make it to The Riverside that evening.
(Shortly after moving to Hot Sulphur, one of my neighbors told me a story about how they went to one of the local plumbers who lived across the street from them on a Saturday, and begged him to come fix a plumbing emergency. They promised double the amount, in cash, that he would necessarily get for such a job. “Please, Please, Pleeeeze” they begged of him. His simple and direct reply was “I’m not feeling it today.” I’ve come to learn that is pretty much the working man’s mantra in Grand County.)
I was left with no other option than to call my friend Tony, (who lives up the street and is an excellent plumber), of whose good and reliable nature I hate to take advantage. Tony is in Denver and unable to help, but as luck would have it, Tony’s company has a plumber, Ron, on call, and he also lives in Hot Sulphur. I call the number, but it goes to voice mail; I leave my pleading message with Ron, and then go to my second-to-last resort.
I send my son Scott up to the Barking Dog Pub in search of another local plumber who has the same name as a deceased rock star, (first name rhymes with “Jan” and last name rhymes with “Hogleberg”), and is known to frequent the Barking Dog. More to the truth, he lives at the Barking Dog and is occasionally known to frequent his house. (I don’t mean to malign that un-named plumber, as he has saved our plumbing bacon on more than one occasion, and were he to read this blog and figure out who I’m talking about, I thank him for his past fine efforts on our behalf.) Scott triumphantly returns with good news – no, the deceased rock star-named plumber isn’t there, but there was another plumber sitting at the end of the bar who volunteered his services, and he would be down shortly. And who says only the Irish to have such fine luck?
In walks our Johnny-on-the-spot plumber, Ron; this would be Tony’s Ron who was on call that evening. Did I say “in walks”? Perhaps I should say in reeled, in staggered, in swayed, in teetered, in lurched, in weaved; Mr. Roget doesn’t yet have a synonym for the one word you would use to aptly describe Ron’s’ mode of locomotion. I direct Ron, with great effort, back to the kitchen, where he immediately spots the backed-up hand sink. Without saying a word, he plops himself down on the floor and begins to attempt to dismantle the P-trap under the sink. I say to Ron, and I was being very dramatic at this point by raising my voice, waving my arms about and pointing in all directions, “It’s not the P-trap! We’re backed up in our bathroom, we’re backed up in the bar, we’re backed up in the kitchen; WE’RE BACKED UP EVERYWHERE. THE MAIN IS BACKED UP!!” Ron looks up at me and, uttering his first words of the night, says “Shlow down a minute, will ya?” He then turns his glazed eyes back on the P-trap, which he successfully dismantles, and watches as the turbid water rushes from the sink drain into his lap.
I help a very wet and still very drunk Ron up from the floor, and lead him to the main hotel lobby, where the entrance to the crawl space, which contains the main plumbing lines, is located. Down into the space we go, and I point out the main sewage discharge line. Ron looks all around the crawl space as if he was looking for an “Easy” button, or perhaps a detonator that would blow this plumbing problem into the next county. Remember, he’s having a tough time with his equilibrium, so the sight of this man half hunched over in the 5’ tall crawl space looking and pointing at the pipes all about him took on the appearance of a drunken sailor swatting at bees below deck in a violent sea.
Ron finally gets his bearings, and faces me with his assessment of the situation. He also delivers this assessment in a dramatic fashion, similar to my aforementioned dramatic outburst in the kitchen. “Everythings backwards down here. Thish pipe ish running backwards, thish pipe should be goin th’other way. Whoever built thish thing got it all screwed up!” He then proceeds to crawl slowly and carefully up the steps, and sits on the edge of the crawl space, his legs dangling over the abyss, his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. He doesn’t move for 15 minutes. When he finally stirs – I wasn’t there to see this but heard it second hand – he gets up, says not a word to anyone present, then staggers/reels/teeters/sways/weaves/lurches his way out the front door and into the cold, dark, January night.
In walks one of our kitchen employees, who happens to have a drug connection who is also a plumber. (This drug connection thing is not uncommon in Grand County, or in the restaurant business.) I previously mentioned that the dead rock star-named plumber was my second-to- last resort – this drug connection plumber was indeed my last resort. That story about “I’m not feeling it today,” - that might also be this guy. But then I figure, “What do I have to lose?” At the very least, I’ll have more fodder for the blog.
Enter Plumber #3, the most unreliable plumber in Grand County. That’s like being the worst sinner in Las Vegas or the biggest drunk at Mardi gras, or…..you get the point.
Not only am I stunned that he showed up when summoned, but he’s bright eyed, he’s clean, he’s sober, and he’s ready to tackle the problem. All those present, at least those who knew this gentleman and his predilections, could’ve been knocked over by a puff of bong exhaust.
Four hours and $400 dollars later, our local hero has the lines flowing free. He worked down in that fetid crawl space from 8:00 until midnight, flushing the line with a high pressure “jetter”, and then cleaning up the offal responsible for the clog - and it wasn't good offal. This was a job so nasty and so incredibly filthy, that the Dirty Jobs guy on TV would’ve hired it out; and our man did it with a smile. No matter what Plumber #3 didn’t do before, or what he may yet not do in the future, the night of January 2nd will forever be known in local lore as the night that Grand Counties most infamous slacker plumber, actually plumbed, and in doing so, saved our bacon and allowed The Riverside to continue to serve some of Grand Counties finest food in a sewage-free environment, per the State code.
The State of Colorado Department of Health & Environment – the folks who oversee the safety and sanitation of our restaurant – have a pretty basic rule about not being able to prepare or serve food without access to a free-flowing water and waste disposal system. Damned pesky bureaucrats! I had no choice but to close the restaurant; a nearly full restaurant, with a nearly full bar waiting for tables, as well as numerous reservations for tables later in the evening. My hope was that I could get this problem solved in time to at least re-open in an hour and accommodate the evening’s second seating. But wait a minute….I suddenly remembered we weren’t in Kansas anymore. I remembered that you can’t get a plumber in Grand County to show up for a scheduled job at 10:00 on a Monday morning (unless maybe it’s to fix the dispensing valve on your beer keg), let alone answer an after hour emergency call on a Friday night over a holiday weekend. I tried my best, going alphabetically through all of the Grand County plumbers, all of whose ads touted “24 Hour Emergency Service”, and got not one, not a single one, who could make it to The Riverside that evening.
(Shortly after moving to Hot Sulphur, one of my neighbors told me a story about how they went to one of the local plumbers who lived across the street from them on a Saturday, and begged him to come fix a plumbing emergency. They promised double the amount, in cash, that he would necessarily get for such a job. “Please, Please, Pleeeeze” they begged of him. His simple and direct reply was “I’m not feeling it today.” I’ve come to learn that is pretty much the working man’s mantra in Grand County.)
I was left with no other option than to call my friend Tony, (who lives up the street and is an excellent plumber), of whose good and reliable nature I hate to take advantage. Tony is in Denver and unable to help, but as luck would have it, Tony’s company has a plumber, Ron, on call, and he also lives in Hot Sulphur. I call the number, but it goes to voice mail; I leave my pleading message with Ron, and then go to my second-to-last resort.
I send my son Scott up to the Barking Dog Pub in search of another local plumber who has the same name as a deceased rock star, (first name rhymes with “Jan” and last name rhymes with “Hogleberg”), and is known to frequent the Barking Dog. More to the truth, he lives at the Barking Dog and is occasionally known to frequent his house. (I don’t mean to malign that un-named plumber, as he has saved our plumbing bacon on more than one occasion, and were he to read this blog and figure out who I’m talking about, I thank him for his past fine efforts on our behalf.) Scott triumphantly returns with good news – no, the deceased rock star-named plumber isn’t there, but there was another plumber sitting at the end of the bar who volunteered his services, and he would be down shortly. And who says only the Irish to have such fine luck?
In walks our Johnny-on-the-spot plumber, Ron; this would be Tony’s Ron who was on call that evening. Did I say “in walks”? Perhaps I should say in reeled, in staggered, in swayed, in teetered, in lurched, in weaved; Mr. Roget doesn’t yet have a synonym for the one word you would use to aptly describe Ron’s’ mode of locomotion. I direct Ron, with great effort, back to the kitchen, where he immediately spots the backed-up hand sink. Without saying a word, he plops himself down on the floor and begins to attempt to dismantle the P-trap under the sink. I say to Ron, and I was being very dramatic at this point by raising my voice, waving my arms about and pointing in all directions, “It’s not the P-trap! We’re backed up in our bathroom, we’re backed up in the bar, we’re backed up in the kitchen; WE’RE BACKED UP EVERYWHERE. THE MAIN IS BACKED UP!!” Ron looks up at me and, uttering his first words of the night, says “Shlow down a minute, will ya?” He then turns his glazed eyes back on the P-trap, which he successfully dismantles, and watches as the turbid water rushes from the sink drain into his lap.
I help a very wet and still very drunk Ron up from the floor, and lead him to the main hotel lobby, where the entrance to the crawl space, which contains the main plumbing lines, is located. Down into the space we go, and I point out the main sewage discharge line. Ron looks all around the crawl space as if he was looking for an “Easy” button, or perhaps a detonator that would blow this plumbing problem into the next county. Remember, he’s having a tough time with his equilibrium, so the sight of this man half hunched over in the 5’ tall crawl space looking and pointing at the pipes all about him took on the appearance of a drunken sailor swatting at bees below deck in a violent sea.
Ron finally gets his bearings, and faces me with his assessment of the situation. He also delivers this assessment in a dramatic fashion, similar to my aforementioned dramatic outburst in the kitchen. “Everythings backwards down here. Thish pipe ish running backwards, thish pipe should be goin th’other way. Whoever built thish thing got it all screwed up!” He then proceeds to crawl slowly and carefully up the steps, and sits on the edge of the crawl space, his legs dangling over the abyss, his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. He doesn’t move for 15 minutes. When he finally stirs – I wasn’t there to see this but heard it second hand – he gets up, says not a word to anyone present, then staggers/reels/teeters/sways/weaves/lurches his way out the front door and into the cold, dark, January night.
In walks one of our kitchen employees, who happens to have a drug connection who is also a plumber. (This drug connection thing is not uncommon in Grand County, or in the restaurant business.) I previously mentioned that the dead rock star-named plumber was my second-to- last resort – this drug connection plumber was indeed my last resort. That story about “I’m not feeling it today,” - that might also be this guy. But then I figure, “What do I have to lose?” At the very least, I’ll have more fodder for the blog.
Enter Plumber #3, the most unreliable plumber in Grand County. That’s like being the worst sinner in Las Vegas or the biggest drunk at Mardi gras, or…..you get the point.
Not only am I stunned that he showed up when summoned, but he’s bright eyed, he’s clean, he’s sober, and he’s ready to tackle the problem. All those present, at least those who knew this gentleman and his predilections, could’ve been knocked over by a puff of bong exhaust.
Four hours and $400 dollars later, our local hero has the lines flowing free. He worked down in that fetid crawl space from 8:00 until midnight, flushing the line with a high pressure “jetter”, and then cleaning up the offal responsible for the clog - and it wasn't good offal. This was a job so nasty and so incredibly filthy, that the Dirty Jobs guy on TV would’ve hired it out; and our man did it with a smile. No matter what Plumber #3 didn’t do before, or what he may yet not do in the future, the night of January 2nd will forever be known in local lore as the night that Grand Counties most infamous slacker plumber, actually plumbed, and in doing so, saved our bacon and allowed The Riverside to continue to serve some of Grand Counties finest food in a sewage-free environment, per the State code.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Our first encounter with authentic Boulder-ites
The town of Boulder, CO sits nestled in the foothills against the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. It is home to approximately 125,000 inhabitants, as well as the University of Colorado. Boulder is a beautiful city – it’s setting against the majestic Rockies, as well as its general design, layout and penchant for cleanliness, make for a wonderful educational and living environment. Perhaps because it is a college town, as well as a bastion of liberalism (as are most college towns - not that there’s anything wrong with that) it is also a petri dish for growing the odd, the arcane and the way, way, way “out-there” amongst the human species. Now, those of our good customers who have visited The Riverside and live in Boulder, I’m certainly not referring to any of you as belonging to this group; in fact, you are all normal to a fault. Sometimes I wish you’d shake it up a bit!
OK, I’ll be honest. There is maybe one of you who might’ve stepped outside the boundaries of normalcy just a bit during your Riverside visit.
It was late in August, and we were winding down our first summer season at The Riverside. It was a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, and we were getting ready for dinner in the restaurant. The hotel had more than half of its rooms booked, so we were hoping that would translate to a busy evening in The River Room – we needed all we could get as we headed into the slower fall season. An attractive couple in their mid-40’s came into the lobby inquiring about a room for the night; upon showing them one of our full rooms with a river view, they gladly took the room, registered and paid in cash. All seemed normal.
The night’s dinner business was brisk, and it included our newly registered guests – they were from Boulder. I’ll call her Jane, but she had four names, which included a normal first name, then three surnames that covered the animal, vegetable and mineral spectrum. I’ll call him Jack, and he had but a first and last name, however, his last name was, I believe, a Native American derivative; he looked about as Native American as Andy Warhol, but he didn’t look like Andy Warhol. During dinner, Jane gathered up several of Julies knick-knacks – a plate her mother brought her from Italy, some colored votive candles and a small statue – and put them on their dinner table for adornment. Hmmmmm. Not that this was terribly unusual, but it made us take a little more notice of these people. After dinner, Jane took the knick-knacks and put them back on their original table, slightly re-arranged from how Julie had them, and then produced from her purse some rather unripe oranges, and added them to the mix – sort of a still life sans the canvas and frame. She beckoned some of the remaining dinner patrons to view her display. They all joined me in a quiet Hmmmmmmmm. (A note to future guests. Don’t ever, ever mess with any of Julie’s stuff. There are very few shit lists to be included on worse than the “You Messed with Julie’s Stuff” shit list. Wait a minute……I just remembered that the “You Minimized Julie’s Birthday” shit list is pretty bad too.)
After their meal and Jane’s attempt at performance art, she came into the kitchen while I was doing dishes. Just walked right into the kitchen – we don’t have a “welcome” sign on the kitchen door – and came up to me for a chat. When I say came up to me, I mean she took the art of being a “close talker” to a whole new level; a very uncomfortable level. She talked about all of the energy she was feeling in the building, and how blessed she felt that she and Jack had stumbled on to this marvelous place. She was very nice, very complementary and very well meaning – in spite of all this, she made me very nervous.
Monday morning started with the normal parade of departing weekend guests, followed by bed stripping and room cleaning. Not yet among the departing guests were our friends from Boulder, who had yet to surface. I was outside on the front walk, sweeping, yelling at Grandpa, whatever, when Boulder Jane greets me with a bright good morning smile, and asks, “Can you marry Jack and me?” I think I said something like, “Huh?” She and Jack decided last evening that they wanted to get married, today, and spend their honeymoon night in the John Lennon room. Jack pulled out $100, handed it to me and said “this should cover our room for tonight and our dinner last night”. It actually covered about 80% of the room and dinner, but Jack didn’t stay around to hear about that. I informed Miss Jane that I could not marry her, but as luck would have it, the Grand County courthouse was right up the street, and my guess was that would be a good place to start inquiring about marriage today, and probably divorce later in the week. Off the happy couple went, followed shortly by Julie and I leaving the Riverside for an always exciting trip into Granby and The City Market.
Back from the store an hour later, we pull up to The Riverside, and what greets us but Jack and Jane, sunning in front of the hotel. All of their belongings from their car were set out on the front walk, as if they were having some sort of yard sale; Jacks shirts hanging from our shutters, Jane’s skirts and tops draped over the open car doors and on our table and umbrella. Hmmmmmmmm.
Jane happily informs us that in fact they were to be married that afternoon at the courthouse, and were going to spend their honeymoon night in our hotel!! The next question was “Did I have enough liquor for Jane & Jacks honeymoon night?” Jane didn’t ask that question – I asked it of myself. The rest of the day involved the two of them behaving oddly throughout the hotel. Jane burned sage to get rid of evil spirits. Jack made sage tea for some of our other guests – luckily no one who drank it sued us. They both were sunning themselves – not naked, but close – on our back porch, coming in and out of the hotel in various states of undress. Jack had that natural BO that people who disdain chemicals and corporations have – the kind that’s real, as if it spews out of his pores from the core of his soul. He reminded me a little of the characters in Kerouac’s On The Road, a throwback to the beat hipster days where everything was cool – he seemed like he was sensing everything around him for the first time, in a feral sort of way. Hipster Jack told me that we were cool, unlike the hotel operators in Winter Park, who’d booted them out the night before. “They were so uptight”, he said; perhaps “uptight” is a Boulder-ism for “concerned about their other guests and their property”.
Jane was as nice as she could be, but she had no boundaries and absolutely no sense of propriety. I made sure I locked the bathroom door in our living quarters if I had business to do, because she would have tracked me down, barged in and had a conversation with me as I sat on the throne, if the mood so struck her. I always tell our guests to make themselves at home – and I mean that they do – but to take it to the literal context that Jane & Jack did has me thinking of saying to future guests, “make yourself at home, assuming your home isn’t currently the zoo.”
The restaurant wasn’t open that night, so we didn’t have to endure any more of Jane and Jack’s antics in the dining room. I don’t know where they ate – maybe down at the river where they caught fish with their hands and cooked them over a sage-stoked fire. During this respite from their loony presence, I welcomed a French family of four, two adults and two small children, who spoke not a word of English. The mother had a French/English dictionary, and pointed to English phrases – “we would like a room”, “we are very tired”, etc. We have only one room with two beds, and it adjoins the John Lennon room, but is separated by a door. “I’ll put you in ‘Phyllis’, our room with two full beds”, I tell them. They wanted a room with two beds – they we’re absolute about this; as absolute as someone can be who can’t verbalize but can only point at phrases in a book. Not even having to read further, you know what a cataclysmic boner this was, putting these poor, tired Frenchies in the room next to our sage smoking honeymooners. I can now picture the mother frantically paging through her French/English dictionary in the middle of the night, looking for the English equivalent of “When can I expect you to quit howling like a dog?”, or “Yes, we too wish God would help us!!”
I was up and out in the lobby very early the next morning, maybe 6:30 AM, and I saw a note on our check-in desk from our French guests that said, “We are eating breakfast, we will be back to pay”. Very shortly, they were in our lobby, looking as if not only they hadn’t slept, but they were up all night experiencing hell and anguish known only to the souls of the eternally damned; I’m certain that they experienced no less. The women pointed to a phrase in the book that said “our neighbors were noisy, we did not sleep” – I swear this phrase was in the book, as if this is something that foreigners commonly experience when traveling in the US. I apologized profusely, saying “sorry, sorry, sorry”, using my best French accent. I also didn’t charge them for their room. My biggest regret was that I didn’t speak French, as I would have loved to have heard their description of the carnal carnage that was occurring throughout the previous night in the adjacent room. I’m also grateful, and still a little surprised, that the family, including the two children, didn’t try to strangle me.
Jane and Jack finally checked out after a joint shower in one of our bathrooms. If you’ve seen the showers in our bathrooms, you’re now scratching your head in wonder as to how anyone could, or would want to, share a joint shower. You might also be wondering how I knew they took a joint shower? Trust me, everyone within three blocks of the hotel knew they took a joint shower.
I actually stood outside and watched them drive off, waving not so much a “goodbye” wave, but a “shoo-fly” wave, as I wanted to make damn sure that they were indeed gone from our hotel, our town and our lives. But they aren’t totally gone from our lives – their memory lives on in our psyche with every mention of Boulder or every whiff of someone else’s BO, and in reality through the permanent essential sage oil stain that they left on the pillow sham in the Lennon room. Seriously – Oxy-Clean, Spray n’Wash, hypnosis therapy and plenty of Dr. Bombay, we’ve tried it all; there’s nothing that will remove the memory, or the stain, of Hipster Jack & Boulder Jane.
OK, I’ll be honest. There is maybe one of you who might’ve stepped outside the boundaries of normalcy just a bit during your Riverside visit.
It was late in August, and we were winding down our first summer season at The Riverside. It was a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, and we were getting ready for dinner in the restaurant. The hotel had more than half of its rooms booked, so we were hoping that would translate to a busy evening in The River Room – we needed all we could get as we headed into the slower fall season. An attractive couple in their mid-40’s came into the lobby inquiring about a room for the night; upon showing them one of our full rooms with a river view, they gladly took the room, registered and paid in cash. All seemed normal.
The night’s dinner business was brisk, and it included our newly registered guests – they were from Boulder. I’ll call her Jane, but she had four names, which included a normal first name, then three surnames that covered the animal, vegetable and mineral spectrum. I’ll call him Jack, and he had but a first and last name, however, his last name was, I believe, a Native American derivative; he looked about as Native American as Andy Warhol, but he didn’t look like Andy Warhol. During dinner, Jane gathered up several of Julies knick-knacks – a plate her mother brought her from Italy, some colored votive candles and a small statue – and put them on their dinner table for adornment. Hmmmmm. Not that this was terribly unusual, but it made us take a little more notice of these people. After dinner, Jane took the knick-knacks and put them back on their original table, slightly re-arranged from how Julie had them, and then produced from her purse some rather unripe oranges, and added them to the mix – sort of a still life sans the canvas and frame. She beckoned some of the remaining dinner patrons to view her display. They all joined me in a quiet Hmmmmmmmm. (A note to future guests. Don’t ever, ever mess with any of Julie’s stuff. There are very few shit lists to be included on worse than the “You Messed with Julie’s Stuff” shit list. Wait a minute……I just remembered that the “You Minimized Julie’s Birthday” shit list is pretty bad too.)
After their meal and Jane’s attempt at performance art, she came into the kitchen while I was doing dishes. Just walked right into the kitchen – we don’t have a “welcome” sign on the kitchen door – and came up to me for a chat. When I say came up to me, I mean she took the art of being a “close talker” to a whole new level; a very uncomfortable level. She talked about all of the energy she was feeling in the building, and how blessed she felt that she and Jack had stumbled on to this marvelous place. She was very nice, very complementary and very well meaning – in spite of all this, she made me very nervous.
Monday morning started with the normal parade of departing weekend guests, followed by bed stripping and room cleaning. Not yet among the departing guests were our friends from Boulder, who had yet to surface. I was outside on the front walk, sweeping, yelling at Grandpa, whatever, when Boulder Jane greets me with a bright good morning smile, and asks, “Can you marry Jack and me?” I think I said something like, “Huh?” She and Jack decided last evening that they wanted to get married, today, and spend their honeymoon night in the John Lennon room. Jack pulled out $100, handed it to me and said “this should cover our room for tonight and our dinner last night”. It actually covered about 80% of the room and dinner, but Jack didn’t stay around to hear about that. I informed Miss Jane that I could not marry her, but as luck would have it, the Grand County courthouse was right up the street, and my guess was that would be a good place to start inquiring about marriage today, and probably divorce later in the week. Off the happy couple went, followed shortly by Julie and I leaving the Riverside for an always exciting trip into Granby and The City Market.
Back from the store an hour later, we pull up to The Riverside, and what greets us but Jack and Jane, sunning in front of the hotel. All of their belongings from their car were set out on the front walk, as if they were having some sort of yard sale; Jacks shirts hanging from our shutters, Jane’s skirts and tops draped over the open car doors and on our table and umbrella. Hmmmmmmmm.
Jane happily informs us that in fact they were to be married that afternoon at the courthouse, and were going to spend their honeymoon night in our hotel!! The next question was “Did I have enough liquor for Jane & Jacks honeymoon night?” Jane didn’t ask that question – I asked it of myself. The rest of the day involved the two of them behaving oddly throughout the hotel. Jane burned sage to get rid of evil spirits. Jack made sage tea for some of our other guests – luckily no one who drank it sued us. They both were sunning themselves – not naked, but close – on our back porch, coming in and out of the hotel in various states of undress. Jack had that natural BO that people who disdain chemicals and corporations have – the kind that’s real, as if it spews out of his pores from the core of his soul. He reminded me a little of the characters in Kerouac’s On The Road, a throwback to the beat hipster days where everything was cool – he seemed like he was sensing everything around him for the first time, in a feral sort of way. Hipster Jack told me that we were cool, unlike the hotel operators in Winter Park, who’d booted them out the night before. “They were so uptight”, he said; perhaps “uptight” is a Boulder-ism for “concerned about their other guests and their property”.
Jane was as nice as she could be, but she had no boundaries and absolutely no sense of propriety. I made sure I locked the bathroom door in our living quarters if I had business to do, because she would have tracked me down, barged in and had a conversation with me as I sat on the throne, if the mood so struck her. I always tell our guests to make themselves at home – and I mean that they do – but to take it to the literal context that Jane & Jack did has me thinking of saying to future guests, “make yourself at home, assuming your home isn’t currently the zoo.”
The restaurant wasn’t open that night, so we didn’t have to endure any more of Jane and Jack’s antics in the dining room. I don’t know where they ate – maybe down at the river where they caught fish with their hands and cooked them over a sage-stoked fire. During this respite from their loony presence, I welcomed a French family of four, two adults and two small children, who spoke not a word of English. The mother had a French/English dictionary, and pointed to English phrases – “we would like a room”, “we are very tired”, etc. We have only one room with two beds, and it adjoins the John Lennon room, but is separated by a door. “I’ll put you in ‘Phyllis’, our room with two full beds”, I tell them. They wanted a room with two beds – they we’re absolute about this; as absolute as someone can be who can’t verbalize but can only point at phrases in a book. Not even having to read further, you know what a cataclysmic boner this was, putting these poor, tired Frenchies in the room next to our sage smoking honeymooners. I can now picture the mother frantically paging through her French/English dictionary in the middle of the night, looking for the English equivalent of “When can I expect you to quit howling like a dog?”, or “Yes, we too wish God would help us!!”
I was up and out in the lobby very early the next morning, maybe 6:30 AM, and I saw a note on our check-in desk from our French guests that said, “We are eating breakfast, we will be back to pay”. Very shortly, they were in our lobby, looking as if not only they hadn’t slept, but they were up all night experiencing hell and anguish known only to the souls of the eternally damned; I’m certain that they experienced no less. The women pointed to a phrase in the book that said “our neighbors were noisy, we did not sleep” – I swear this phrase was in the book, as if this is something that foreigners commonly experience when traveling in the US. I apologized profusely, saying “sorry, sorry, sorry”, using my best French accent. I also didn’t charge them for their room. My biggest regret was that I didn’t speak French, as I would have loved to have heard their description of the carnal carnage that was occurring throughout the previous night in the adjacent room. I’m also grateful, and still a little surprised, that the family, including the two children, didn’t try to strangle me.
Jane and Jack finally checked out after a joint shower in one of our bathrooms. If you’ve seen the showers in our bathrooms, you’re now scratching your head in wonder as to how anyone could, or would want to, share a joint shower. You might also be wondering how I knew they took a joint shower? Trust me, everyone within three blocks of the hotel knew they took a joint shower.
I actually stood outside and watched them drive off, waving not so much a “goodbye” wave, but a “shoo-fly” wave, as I wanted to make damn sure that they were indeed gone from our hotel, our town and our lives. But they aren’t totally gone from our lives – their memory lives on in our psyche with every mention of Boulder or every whiff of someone else’s BO, and in reality through the permanent essential sage oil stain that they left on the pillow sham in the Lennon room. Seriously – Oxy-Clean, Spray n’Wash, hypnosis therapy and plenty of Dr. Bombay, we’ve tried it all; there’s nothing that will remove the memory, or the stain, of Hipster Jack & Boulder Jane.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Our First Anniversary, and the ensuing days of hell that ushered in 2009
Our first New Years Eve at The Riverside, three days after taking ownership of the hotel, while noteworthy for a variety of reasons, will be quickly dismissed when compared to New Years Eve 2009, and the days that immediately followed.
New Years Eve 2009 was a booming night, unlike any we’d ever had. A dinner/spa/room special filled the hotel, and we turned as many diners away from the restaurant as we were able to accommodate. Heretofore unheard of bar and booze business along with a full house made for a riotous event; again, as is customary at The Riverside, it included a hodge-podge of people and personalities that would be more diverse than a Boulder phone book.
New Years Day dawned bright and beautiful, the morning sun and the brilliant blue of the Middle Park sky brought the repentant revelers down for a 10:00 AM breakfast and a hardy head start on the New Year. A day of good-byes at the checkout, room clean up, and the occasional glimpse at the football games, were followed by a slow dinner crowd, which afforded us the opportunity to sit down to dinner with our visiting friends from Kansas City on their last night at The Riverside. Darin the mortician/part-time waiter demanded that we sit, relax and enjoy the experience and cuisine of The River Room Restaurant, and was also gracious enough to act as our host and waiter. The wine and the accompanying good times flowed, and the hectic holiday week was indeed ending on a sweet note.
I can’t remember who came and told me that the Grand County police were in the lobby waiting to serve a warrant for Darin’s arrest, but the timing couldn’t have been worse, as Darin was in the process of serving our hot entrees. Couldn’t I have had an opportunity to quaff the fine wine and savor the rib eye before having to deal with our friend being handcuffed by civil servants that made Barney Fife look like the paragon of law enforcement (civil servants that also hopefully don’t waste their time reading blog sites that don’t always accurately describe people). It ‘twas not to be, as our hot entrees sat before us, delivered by Darin as his last act as a free man, looking mournfully at us while he said, “I must go”. The scene in the Garden of Gethsemane must have looked and felt much like this. Except they’d already eaten!!!
Three hours and $3000 on my American Express card later, coupled with a session with a slick, neon-orange business card bail bondsman that made me feel, well, icky, and Darin was sprung from the Grand County Hilton. Grand County is slightly notorious for its ability to generate revenue from unlicensed, defective car-driving neo-criminals that drink, drive, and wind up spending quality time at the county lock-up. Thus the saying; “Grand County – Come on vacation, leave on probation”.
Throw this little situation into the mix. As I was filling out and signing all of the bond stuff, it said that I gave them $3000 right now, but was signing a surety bond for $20,000. If Darin was actually guilty of all of these nefarious charges, and decided to bolt to Cancun, we’d be out some serious money. Wait just a minute! This guy showed up at our hotel/restaurant first as a good customer, then as a friend who wanted to help us by waiting tables and making desserts. It gave him something to do and someone to hang with when nobody in Grand County was busy giving up the ghost. We really don’t know him at all. Don’t know his background, his foreground, his above or below ground. We don’t have a clue about this guy and I just signed a $20,000 surety bond to get him out of jail, for charges we don’t know about. Could’ve been murder, terrorism, kidnapping, hotel/restaurant embezzlement charges - we had no real idea why those cuffs were slapped on him. And I’ve stepped into this deal for 20 grand – 20 grand that I damn sure don’t have. It’s my legs they’ll break, if in fact the Darin-off-to-Cancun scenario turns into reality.
Here’s the deal. Darin was arrested on larceny and “theft of services” charges. It has to do with what the County prosecutors feel were a misuse of pre-need funds that Darin inherited when he purchased the funeral home. The local paper has already essentially convicted Darin, as they’ve published the County’s side of the story (which was nothing more than a factual stating of the charges), and the local readership is left with the assumption – as they’ve not heard the other side of the story – that Darin is a crook. We know the man, and are hard pressed to believe that he is a crook – hard pressed enough to risk $20,000 that we don’t have. We believe he is honest to a fault – almost to the point of being a pain in the ass, as his penchant for playing life by the rules usually makes us feel a little guilty while we try and slide by this or skate by that. We’ve also heard Darin’s side of the story, and feel pretty good about not only risking the surety bond on Darin, but also confident that we’ll be invited to one hell of a blowout when he is eventually vindicated.
As the old saying goes, “Everyone gets their day in court”; nowhere is that more certain than in Grand County.
To be continued……
New Years Eve 2009 was a booming night, unlike any we’d ever had. A dinner/spa/room special filled the hotel, and we turned as many diners away from the restaurant as we were able to accommodate. Heretofore unheard of bar and booze business along with a full house made for a riotous event; again, as is customary at The Riverside, it included a hodge-podge of people and personalities that would be more diverse than a Boulder phone book.
New Years Day dawned bright and beautiful, the morning sun and the brilliant blue of the Middle Park sky brought the repentant revelers down for a 10:00 AM breakfast and a hardy head start on the New Year. A day of good-byes at the checkout, room clean up, and the occasional glimpse at the football games, were followed by a slow dinner crowd, which afforded us the opportunity to sit down to dinner with our visiting friends from Kansas City on their last night at The Riverside. Darin the mortician/part-time waiter demanded that we sit, relax and enjoy the experience and cuisine of The River Room Restaurant, and was also gracious enough to act as our host and waiter. The wine and the accompanying good times flowed, and the hectic holiday week was indeed ending on a sweet note.
I can’t remember who came and told me that the Grand County police were in the lobby waiting to serve a warrant for Darin’s arrest, but the timing couldn’t have been worse, as Darin was in the process of serving our hot entrees. Couldn’t I have had an opportunity to quaff the fine wine and savor the rib eye before having to deal with our friend being handcuffed by civil servants that made Barney Fife look like the paragon of law enforcement (civil servants that also hopefully don’t waste their time reading blog sites that don’t always accurately describe people). It ‘twas not to be, as our hot entrees sat before us, delivered by Darin as his last act as a free man, looking mournfully at us while he said, “I must go”. The scene in the Garden of Gethsemane must have looked and felt much like this. Except they’d already eaten!!!
Three hours and $3000 on my American Express card later, coupled with a session with a slick, neon-orange business card bail bondsman that made me feel, well, icky, and Darin was sprung from the Grand County Hilton. Grand County is slightly notorious for its ability to generate revenue from unlicensed, defective car-driving neo-criminals that drink, drive, and wind up spending quality time at the county lock-up. Thus the saying; “Grand County – Come on vacation, leave on probation”.
Throw this little situation into the mix. As I was filling out and signing all of the bond stuff, it said that I gave them $3000 right now, but was signing a surety bond for $20,000. If Darin was actually guilty of all of these nefarious charges, and decided to bolt to Cancun, we’d be out some serious money. Wait just a minute! This guy showed up at our hotel/restaurant first as a good customer, then as a friend who wanted to help us by waiting tables and making desserts. It gave him something to do and someone to hang with when nobody in Grand County was busy giving up the ghost. We really don’t know him at all. Don’t know his background, his foreground, his above or below ground. We don’t have a clue about this guy and I just signed a $20,000 surety bond to get him out of jail, for charges we don’t know about. Could’ve been murder, terrorism, kidnapping, hotel/restaurant embezzlement charges - we had no real idea why those cuffs were slapped on him. And I’ve stepped into this deal for 20 grand – 20 grand that I damn sure don’t have. It’s my legs they’ll break, if in fact the Darin-off-to-Cancun scenario turns into reality.
Here’s the deal. Darin was arrested on larceny and “theft of services” charges. It has to do with what the County prosecutors feel were a misuse of pre-need funds that Darin inherited when he purchased the funeral home. The local paper has already essentially convicted Darin, as they’ve published the County’s side of the story (which was nothing more than a factual stating of the charges), and the local readership is left with the assumption – as they’ve not heard the other side of the story – that Darin is a crook. We know the man, and are hard pressed to believe that he is a crook – hard pressed enough to risk $20,000 that we don’t have. We believe he is honest to a fault – almost to the point of being a pain in the ass, as his penchant for playing life by the rules usually makes us feel a little guilty while we try and slide by this or skate by that. We’ve also heard Darin’s side of the story, and feel pretty good about not only risking the surety bond on Darin, but also confident that we’ll be invited to one hell of a blowout when he is eventually vindicated.
As the old saying goes, “Everyone gets their day in court”; nowhere is that more certain than in Grand County.
To be continued……
Monday, April 13, 2009
The 6'6" Drunk that tried to rape me and throw me off the bridge
It was late after a busy Friday restaurant night at the Riverside. Julie was in bed, and Darin, Rachel and I were in the bar closing things down, when in walks a very large man – I’d say at least 6’6” – with shoulder length wispy gray hair, wearing a ball cap, a filthy Arctic Cat jacket, and reeking of cigarettes and not particularly good hygiene. He wasn’t overly inebriated, but you could guess that we weren’t his first watering hole stop of the evening. He was friendly, a little loud, and said his name was Brian and this was the bar where 20 years earlier he had met his second wife. Darin looked at him with that serious mortician look that Darin uses and says “we’re closed”; not exactly what tall, friendly, loud, slightly intoxicated Brian wanted to hear. In fact, this information quickly transformed him into unfriendly, much taller and louder, and very threatening and intimidating Brian. I immediately became concerned for our safety, as none of us were physically able to deal with this individual, but it wasn’t yet to the point where we could justify calling 911. So my brilliant solution was to placate him; calm him down, give him a drink and befriend this big, furry, lovable Arctic Cat. This was, I was to soon learn, far from a brilliant solution. (The best solution would have been to never get in the bar business in a small town in the first place, but way too late for that.) Brian’s requests started off simply enough – Jack Daniels and Coke, with the normal Grand County request of “light on the ice, heavy on the Jack and a little Coke for color”. Like that isn’t a recipe for disaster!
Brian held court, getting louder and more physically fluid by the minute; his arms starting to flail wildly as he makes his inane points and observations – it’s not as if any of us wanted to engage him in conversation. He was after daughter Rachel, until he found out it was my daughter, and somehow summoned enough functional brain cells to think there might be a problem with his hitting on her, at which point he took up pursuit of young neighbor Cassie, who had come in for a late night visit. He then became overly fascinated with my lingering chest cold – I’d had a Grand County-sized dose of phlegm and mucous hanging around in my lungs for three weeks, making for that machine-gun staccato sound when I tried to clear my airways. Dr. Brian was quite certain that a shot of Southern Comfort would clear that stuff out of my bronchia once and for all, or perhaps numerous shots if one didn’t work. I don’t do shots – ever! But then I’m finding myself doing a lot of things in the hospitality business that I haven’t or wouldn’t do previously. To show me that it’s not as big a deal as I seem to make it out to be, Brian graciously offers to join me in this curative treatment – and he’s paying!!! After two shots of Southern Comfort – exactly two more than my normal limit – I decide that this sure-fire home remedy cure-all is in fact not what the doctor ordered. “The phlegm’s still here, but we’re out of Southern Comfort”, I tell Brian; he rears back and comes straight at my chest – the important part where the sternum, heart and lungs are – with a fist that looks, as it’s coming at me, like the fat end of a large veal shank, shouting “this’ll knock that shit outta-ya”. Thank God that Brian is an experienced enough drunk to be able to maintain a modicum of motor skills after consuming excessive amounts of spirits, and his flying osso bucco fist comes to a screeching halt just as it’s about to find pay dirt in the center of my congested chest. “That would’ve worked if I’d have actually hit you” Brian tells me; “yes” I think to myself, “phlegm probably does dissipate from the lungs as you lie dead in your coffin.”
We are now starting to edge towards that 911 call zone, as a drunk, intimidating Brian is bad, but a drunk, intimidating violent Brian is the absolute last thing I want to deal with. I’ll need someone with a uniform and a sidearm to get through to this mountain of a mountain man. A few shots later, Darin and I start to suggest to Brian that his night at the Jayhawk Bar might be coming to an end. In this regard, Brian is no different than any other drunk at closing time; they never take it as news they’re looking forward to receiving. Closing-time drunks get ugly, argumentative, profane, and quite frankly, not persuasive to the point where you would ever want to placate them by giving them more booze – the only thing they’re persuasive about is making the case for why God came up with closing time.
Naturally, Brian is pissed and more than a little argumentative when he finds that his fount of Jack Daniels shots has dried up – his lack of gentility only increases when Darin gives him his tab, which is just north of $100. (Health care ain’t cheap!) By this time Brian is drunk enough that he is losing his ability to think clearly, which means that he is more receptive to my calm nature and soothing voice – I’ve seen enough of my fair share of 1940 monster movies to know that a serene demeanor will tame the most savage of beasts. I tell Brian that I’ll walk him across the bridge and see that he gets safely to his camper. His camper??? What else does it tell you about Brian to know that he is camping out in January in Pioneer Park, on the banks of the frozen Colorado River, on a night when the temperature will easily hit minus -15F. It tells you that he’s tough, he’s probably a little crazy, and that he’s definitely stupid. That is a really dangerous combination of attributes to combine with $100 worth of alcohol, and here I am about to walk across the bridge with this dynamite keg. All of my sane and sober associates tried to get me not to do this – but my goal went way beyond concern for Brian; we had a hotel full of peacefully slumbering guests, not to mention a few rooms containing people that I loved and cared for, principally my wife and daughter.
I thought I’d gotten Brian calm enough where he’d go quietly, and this would be the end of the story; and it started out that way, as we quietly left the hotel and he reeled his way towards the river. I got him to look at the stars – brilliant beyond what most of you city dwellers have experienced, especially on this crystal clear, sub-zero winter night, 90 miles west of the nearest star-robbing metropolis. The details of the next few minutes are now, as they were that night, still blurry to me. It had nothing to do with the Southern Comfort, as I was pretty much stone cold sober; I think it was the total surrealism of the situation – me on a bridge in Colorado, 700 miles from what had been my home for 50+ years, late on a bitterly frigid night with a gargantuan, drunken human time-bomb, his starting to discuss life in prison and how he’d been raped by bigger, tougher guys than him. Yes, you read that correctly. Out of nowhere, (we’d been talking about the stars), he starts talking about his life in prison, and how he’d been raped, and how he’d killed a man in prison. I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore. Then he sits down on the bridge railing, and teeters back and forth a little bit; I’m thinking there’s a pretty good chance he’ll fall backwards and break his neck on the frozen river that slumbers 20 long feet below the surface of the bridge, bringing a tidy and painless end, (for me at least), to the night and the problem at hand. Nope, even really drunk, he maintains enough coordination to not make what would surely have been his final drunken sway. Again, out of nowhere, as I can’t remember any specific trigger words on my part, he erupts at me, swinging his big paw towards me in a roundhouse sweep, saying something like “ well, I’m gonna show you what it’s all about”, but he missed connections and fell flat on his face on the icy road. Finally, after a night of near hits and misses, that innate ability to manage his drunken motor control thing eighty-sixed itself. He fell flat, in slow motion, and I began running, in what certainly at the time to me felt like slow motion, as fast as shanks’ pony would carry me back to The Riverside.
When I told the assembled crowd, (which now included an awakened and very upset 'disbelieving-at-my-stupidity-what-was-I-thinking?' Julie) who’d been watching from the safety of the restaurant windows, what had happened, they immediately called 911. We were told it would be 45 minutes before anyone could get there – after all, it was Friday in Grand County, and a Friday in Grand County to those with DUI duty is busy like Christmas Eve to Santa Claus. Maybe busier. When they do arrive, I’m told that I’ll have to press charges of assault before they’ll go bother with our friend Brian. (Needless to say, he didn’t get up and run after me. To my knowledge, he still lay face down on the bridge road.)
Another funny, after the fact, side note to Brian’s swing, miss and face dive was one of my local friends, Tony, the only reliable plumber in Grand County, being dumbfounded that I didn’t take the opportunity to kick the living hell out of Brian as he lay face down and helpless in the middle of the road. I haven’t lived long enough in Grand County to have that be a cognitive natural reaction to a fallen drunk. Tony has.
I don’t want to press charges, mainly because I don’t want to prolong this incident any longer than necessary, as my post-meeting Brian goals for the evening were satisfied – Brian was out of the hotel, and I was still a virgin from male ex-con rape. The police took a statement, chastising me a little at having served an inebriated patron in the first place. Easy for them to make that call – they’re swaggering around town with Glocks on their hips! Let me stand behind the bar with an Uzi, and I’ll see to it that no one gets booze who I don’t want to get booze.
Even though I decided against pressing charges, the officers decided to mosey down to Pioneer Park and see just exactly what our friend was up to; he was, in fact, not any longer face down in the road, but back at his homey little Big Chief pop-up camper, just kickin' it in January in the middle of a frozen tundra. We all watched the officers’ progress from the safety of the River Room; it was too dark and too far away to see any details of what was transpiring beyond the lights of the parked police cruiser, which included the omnipresent police car spotlight on the subject vehicle. After about 20 minutes, the lights went off, and the police car drove by the hotel and away towards who knew where. We all went to bed in different states – me, glad that the event was over without me having to go for a late night swim, and pretty sure that Brian was in such a drunken slumber that I damn sure didn’t have to worry about him anymore that evening, and remotely confident that he probably would have no recollection of what he’d done and who he’d threatened the night before. Julie went to bed, for the second time that evening, very upset with me at the fact that I’d so stupidly put myself in harms way.
We later found out that Brian’s night didn’t end in a drunken slumber followed by a Grand County-sized hangover. No, our friend wasn’t only in the mood to tangle with this puny-assed bartender/hotel owner, he was after any swinging Dick who came his way, including two of Grand County’s finest. He had gotten more than a little belligerent with the two officers, and after an ID check with the local authorities, they found that our friend had several outstanding warrants from the Great State of Wyoming – outstanding assault charges and numerous parole violations. Brian was wanted, and not for unpaid tolls!
Needless to say, I learned a few new lessons that evening. One, when you’re closing down the bar, the first step is to LOCK THE DOOR!! Second, when you’re escorting someone from the bar, let them go out the door first, then quickly shut it behind them – don’t ever, ever take a walk with them. But back to sur-reality; we live in a public building with a bar that people feel they have the right to enter because it has an “Open” sign on the door – fair enough, it’s the life we chose. Most often it’s Seth and Sonya from Boulder who wants to see what lies behind the doors of this charming old façade. Once it was 6’6” Mr. Arctic Cat, January-camping Brian; drunk, horny and wanted in Wyoming on assault charges.
Brian held court, getting louder and more physically fluid by the minute; his arms starting to flail wildly as he makes his inane points and observations – it’s not as if any of us wanted to engage him in conversation. He was after daughter Rachel, until he found out it was my daughter, and somehow summoned enough functional brain cells to think there might be a problem with his hitting on her, at which point he took up pursuit of young neighbor Cassie, who had come in for a late night visit. He then became overly fascinated with my lingering chest cold – I’d had a Grand County-sized dose of phlegm and mucous hanging around in my lungs for three weeks, making for that machine-gun staccato sound when I tried to clear my airways. Dr. Brian was quite certain that a shot of Southern Comfort would clear that stuff out of my bronchia once and for all, or perhaps numerous shots if one didn’t work. I don’t do shots – ever! But then I’m finding myself doing a lot of things in the hospitality business that I haven’t or wouldn’t do previously. To show me that it’s not as big a deal as I seem to make it out to be, Brian graciously offers to join me in this curative treatment – and he’s paying!!! After two shots of Southern Comfort – exactly two more than my normal limit – I decide that this sure-fire home remedy cure-all is in fact not what the doctor ordered. “The phlegm’s still here, but we’re out of Southern Comfort”, I tell Brian; he rears back and comes straight at my chest – the important part where the sternum, heart and lungs are – with a fist that looks, as it’s coming at me, like the fat end of a large veal shank, shouting “this’ll knock that shit outta-ya”. Thank God that Brian is an experienced enough drunk to be able to maintain a modicum of motor skills after consuming excessive amounts of spirits, and his flying osso bucco fist comes to a screeching halt just as it’s about to find pay dirt in the center of my congested chest. “That would’ve worked if I’d have actually hit you” Brian tells me; “yes” I think to myself, “phlegm probably does dissipate from the lungs as you lie dead in your coffin.”
We are now starting to edge towards that 911 call zone, as a drunk, intimidating Brian is bad, but a drunk, intimidating violent Brian is the absolute last thing I want to deal with. I’ll need someone with a uniform and a sidearm to get through to this mountain of a mountain man. A few shots later, Darin and I start to suggest to Brian that his night at the Jayhawk Bar might be coming to an end. In this regard, Brian is no different than any other drunk at closing time; they never take it as news they’re looking forward to receiving. Closing-time drunks get ugly, argumentative, profane, and quite frankly, not persuasive to the point where you would ever want to placate them by giving them more booze – the only thing they’re persuasive about is making the case for why God came up with closing time.
Naturally, Brian is pissed and more than a little argumentative when he finds that his fount of Jack Daniels shots has dried up – his lack of gentility only increases when Darin gives him his tab, which is just north of $100. (Health care ain’t cheap!) By this time Brian is drunk enough that he is losing his ability to think clearly, which means that he is more receptive to my calm nature and soothing voice – I’ve seen enough of my fair share of 1940 monster movies to know that a serene demeanor will tame the most savage of beasts. I tell Brian that I’ll walk him across the bridge and see that he gets safely to his camper. His camper??? What else does it tell you about Brian to know that he is camping out in January in Pioneer Park, on the banks of the frozen Colorado River, on a night when the temperature will easily hit minus -15F. It tells you that he’s tough, he’s probably a little crazy, and that he’s definitely stupid. That is a really dangerous combination of attributes to combine with $100 worth of alcohol, and here I am about to walk across the bridge with this dynamite keg. All of my sane and sober associates tried to get me not to do this – but my goal went way beyond concern for Brian; we had a hotel full of peacefully slumbering guests, not to mention a few rooms containing people that I loved and cared for, principally my wife and daughter.
I thought I’d gotten Brian calm enough where he’d go quietly, and this would be the end of the story; and it started out that way, as we quietly left the hotel and he reeled his way towards the river. I got him to look at the stars – brilliant beyond what most of you city dwellers have experienced, especially on this crystal clear, sub-zero winter night, 90 miles west of the nearest star-robbing metropolis. The details of the next few minutes are now, as they were that night, still blurry to me. It had nothing to do with the Southern Comfort, as I was pretty much stone cold sober; I think it was the total surrealism of the situation – me on a bridge in Colorado, 700 miles from what had been my home for 50+ years, late on a bitterly frigid night with a gargantuan, drunken human time-bomb, his starting to discuss life in prison and how he’d been raped by bigger, tougher guys than him. Yes, you read that correctly. Out of nowhere, (we’d been talking about the stars), he starts talking about his life in prison, and how he’d been raped, and how he’d killed a man in prison. I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore. Then he sits down on the bridge railing, and teeters back and forth a little bit; I’m thinking there’s a pretty good chance he’ll fall backwards and break his neck on the frozen river that slumbers 20 long feet below the surface of the bridge, bringing a tidy and painless end, (for me at least), to the night and the problem at hand. Nope, even really drunk, he maintains enough coordination to not make what would surely have been his final drunken sway. Again, out of nowhere, as I can’t remember any specific trigger words on my part, he erupts at me, swinging his big paw towards me in a roundhouse sweep, saying something like “ well, I’m gonna show you what it’s all about”, but he missed connections and fell flat on his face on the icy road. Finally, after a night of near hits and misses, that innate ability to manage his drunken motor control thing eighty-sixed itself. He fell flat, in slow motion, and I began running, in what certainly at the time to me felt like slow motion, as fast as shanks’ pony would carry me back to The Riverside.
When I told the assembled crowd, (which now included an awakened and very upset 'disbelieving-at-my-stupidity-what-was-I-thinking?' Julie) who’d been watching from the safety of the restaurant windows, what had happened, they immediately called 911. We were told it would be 45 minutes before anyone could get there – after all, it was Friday in Grand County, and a Friday in Grand County to those with DUI duty is busy like Christmas Eve to Santa Claus. Maybe busier. When they do arrive, I’m told that I’ll have to press charges of assault before they’ll go bother with our friend Brian. (Needless to say, he didn’t get up and run after me. To my knowledge, he still lay face down on the bridge road.)
Another funny, after the fact, side note to Brian’s swing, miss and face dive was one of my local friends, Tony, the only reliable plumber in Grand County, being dumbfounded that I didn’t take the opportunity to kick the living hell out of Brian as he lay face down and helpless in the middle of the road. I haven’t lived long enough in Grand County to have that be a cognitive natural reaction to a fallen drunk. Tony has.
I don’t want to press charges, mainly because I don’t want to prolong this incident any longer than necessary, as my post-meeting Brian goals for the evening were satisfied – Brian was out of the hotel, and I was still a virgin from male ex-con rape. The police took a statement, chastising me a little at having served an inebriated patron in the first place. Easy for them to make that call – they’re swaggering around town with Glocks on their hips! Let me stand behind the bar with an Uzi, and I’ll see to it that no one gets booze who I don’t want to get booze.
Even though I decided against pressing charges, the officers decided to mosey down to Pioneer Park and see just exactly what our friend was up to; he was, in fact, not any longer face down in the road, but back at his homey little Big Chief pop-up camper, just kickin' it in January in the middle of a frozen tundra. We all watched the officers’ progress from the safety of the River Room; it was too dark and too far away to see any details of what was transpiring beyond the lights of the parked police cruiser, which included the omnipresent police car spotlight on the subject vehicle. After about 20 minutes, the lights went off, and the police car drove by the hotel and away towards who knew where. We all went to bed in different states – me, glad that the event was over without me having to go for a late night swim, and pretty sure that Brian was in such a drunken slumber that I damn sure didn’t have to worry about him anymore that evening, and remotely confident that he probably would have no recollection of what he’d done and who he’d threatened the night before. Julie went to bed, for the second time that evening, very upset with me at the fact that I’d so stupidly put myself in harms way.
We later found out that Brian’s night didn’t end in a drunken slumber followed by a Grand County-sized hangover. No, our friend wasn’t only in the mood to tangle with this puny-assed bartender/hotel owner, he was after any swinging Dick who came his way, including two of Grand County’s finest. He had gotten more than a little belligerent with the two officers, and after an ID check with the local authorities, they found that our friend had several outstanding warrants from the Great State of Wyoming – outstanding assault charges and numerous parole violations. Brian was wanted, and not for unpaid tolls!
Needless to say, I learned a few new lessons that evening. One, when you’re closing down the bar, the first step is to LOCK THE DOOR!! Second, when you’re escorting someone from the bar, let them go out the door first, then quickly shut it behind them – don’t ever, ever take a walk with them. But back to sur-reality; we live in a public building with a bar that people feel they have the right to enter because it has an “Open” sign on the door – fair enough, it’s the life we chose. Most often it’s Seth and Sonya from Boulder who wants to see what lies behind the doors of this charming old façade. Once it was 6’6” Mr. Arctic Cat, January-camping Brian; drunk, horny and wanted in Wyoming on assault charges.
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