The hate inspired by the unknown
I bike just about everywhere, and the...rain...cut visibility down to a handful of blocks...drove me to seek shelter... ...the building was a church... I'd biked past the building...in these summer months I'd even smiled and waved at the kids, and what I assume were camp counselors... I attended Washington University in St. Louis from 2008 to 2010, and I will forget neither the tension there between the black and white city residents nor the...bubble that separated Wash U. from the rest of the city. ...Halloween night...a St. Louis police officer was shot point blank in the head by an African American man. The officer had been filling out paperwork in his car. And, all throughout, police have been killing black men. (The state PBS radio station) ran an amazing segment recently on race relations... According to the Frontline website... White flight still happens. It happens in the form of charter schools and gentrification. Instead of running away, we are charging back and pushing out. What do we do? We opt in. We send our kids to the neighborhood school. We take the bus and sit next to someone we don't identify with and, maybe, talk about the weather with them. - the profile, 8/2016
Welcome to "BikeLife Denver"! This edition is geared to help to ride out the summer in style and prepare for another great year of riding to school. this fall. As a Denver native, it has been exciting to serve the City during this time of record growth. ...the City is committed to building a bicycle network connecting homes to parks, schools, jobs, and all the rest of Denver's community and cultural destinations. 2015 and 2016 have been great years for bicycling in Denver. Mayor Hancock is...declaring Denver a Vision Zero city...to eliminate all traffic related injuries and fatalities on Denver's roads. ...the City's first parking protected bike lanes...new on-street bike parking... More people on bikes helps alleviate many of Denver's growing pains... Sincerely...Director of Transportation.
(Colorado) Governor Hickenlooper...said at Interbike, the largest annual bike trade event in North America. "Biking...is going to fuel economic growth and tourism..." ...in collaboration with...state "bike czar"... ...has brought in...Piep van Heuven to design and lead campaigns...
The Programs Goals: (#)3 Solidify bicycling as a core tenet of our cultural identity as Coloradans...
And just like that you can be an ace commuter showing up to work stress-free... - BikeLife Denver, Fall 2016
In the beginning of 2016, BikeDenver joined with...the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee (MPAC), the Mayor's Pedestrian Advisory Committee (MPAC)... ...February 12th (2016), the Vision Zero Coalition hosted a "Love-In"... ...we signed and delivered almost 300 Valentines to Mayor Hancock... - Bike Denver blog, "Shift how you move"
"You have to re-experience your own growing up, your own adolescence, and your childhood from a different lens. [You have] to understand what it means to live in the world a certain way because you don't have the same kind of experiences other people do to identify with." - Out Front, 8/3/2016
Now, the newspaper itself is a complete afterthought. The writers are clinging to the lifeboat with a laptop and a spear trying to fend off the sharks in the social media water. What's the difference between a reporter from the "Post" with a degree...and a pimply faced blogger that churns out content between his shifts at McDonalds and Rent-A-Center? When I started in radio...cutting out newspaper stories for your "stack" was critical. Nowadays, you're a dinosaur if you roll into the studio with any more than a cell phone. - Mile High Sports, 8/2016
Eufemia Nguyen, Westwood
Does anyone know of anyplaces that's helping out with school supply I have eight kids and money tight right now
Aug 5 in General to 15 neighborhoods - Nextdoor Westwood, 8/5/2016
The profile has a new editor, or at least one who I don't recognize. For those who don't recognize Caucasian rhetoric, his photo is included with the editorial, and he looks young. I sit with people I don't identify with, on the bus and the train and on the train platform and in my neighborhood, all the time. The ones with whom perhaps I identify the least are a minority around here, the Caucasians. Evidence, surely, that I've charged back in. Monday is the first of the month, and one day before my birthday. Last night I did not get as much sleep as I would have liked, and as of 11 AM I am walking through an alley to the bus stop. I pass behind a taco place where the line of vehicles for the drive through is visible. One of them is a small car with the sun roof and windows open. In the passenger seat is the lady of the driver. That she is his lady is an impression which comes across, communicated instinctively. She has long beautiful straight hair and she exhales a cloud of smoke. There is something timelessly American about her. I grab the bus, which takes me to the train, where I sit behind a guy in a Polo shirt. On the back, it reads, "ambassador." At the station where the train deposits me, the bus shows up sooner than expected. He barely waits for me to get on. He's late and hauls ass in a race with lost time. We approach my stop as a senior gets out of his seat. He almost topples over and says, "Woah," as the driver hits the brakes hard. I grab lunch at a buffet pizza place. The customers coming in have all come from the stands at the training camp for the city's football team. Superbowl champs, don't ya know. Now here are some folk to ask about the weather. They'll give ya what for.
The following day is my birthday. My 'direct report' called last night to ask me to work all day today. So...here I am out at the bus stop across the street from where I live. At twenty after 4 AM. I write these words into a notebook by the orange light of a street lamp. To my left is a car magazine and a bottle of nail polish. To my right are three empty beer cans lined in a row. On the corner, at the gas station, is a family with an SUV in the process of having its tire changed. Across the street comes the senior who I usually see here at this hour. Fifteen hours later, I am on a bus home after a nonstop day of working. Headed toward my boulevard, it sounds as if the bus hits something metal. But we feel no impact. The bus blew a tire. The first bus I've been on that blew a tire. A lady in front of me says that it's her second one. I spend 40 minutes of the last hour before my bedtime walking home from a bus stopped with a blown tire. On my birthday. The following day is Wednesday. Already. With plenty of sleep, I'm back on the bike and headed through a neighborhood of nice homes. I pass a woman driving a golf cart. It's roof is lined with what appears to be flowers. In the back are a couple of blonde kids. She says to the kids, "Are you excited to go to Chicago? Wooo!" They're driving to Chicago in a golf cart? At 7 PM, as if on some kind of cue, a clap of thunder erupts and it begins raining, just as I am leaving work. Toward home I see blue sky. From the opposite direction, grey. I decide not to attempt to ride out of the rain, but to head for the train station. When I get there, I climb a ramp to the train platform, where a guy with a ponytail and a skateboard see me in a camouflaged poncho and says, "Hey hey." This train line is right next to the interstate. I watch as traffic crawls.
...with the rise of...empire and its highly organized military power... ...through four remarkable centuries... Many cities were founded. Roman government and Roman settlement gradually reshaped North African civilization without fundamentally changing it. ...cities aquired Roman habits, gods and customs - and perhaps...most important...Roman markets... The North African coastlands became a land of milk and honey... The line of the old rampart became lost within a vast aggregation of suburban dwellings. By now the population...was well pleased to be Roman in its citizenship... ...the "extended family"...would divide and hive off a lesser group...work out new rules of law and order, redefine their morals and beliefs, and...repeat the process. ...they had to cement their new and isolated identity. ...to explain to themselves who they were, what they had become... Out of it there came a large number of political and social systems based on...lineage and family kinship. ...its own...religion and ritual. These forms were applied to the consecration of accepted custom and authority and to..change its custom and authority. ...by the rehersal and cartharsis or rhythum in the...dancing or the power in the...playing of drums...by sanction in the shape of masks and figures...by the persuasion of belief conserved in shrines and gods and ancestors, magic and enchantment. ...a work of long sophistication... ...the embodiment and statement of old and intricate speculations and traditions about...nature...and man's possible place in the world. All this...has belonged to the underlying structure of every kind of political development... ...the vertical divisions of society... Some...remained relatively simple...others ramified and reconstituted themselves into...states and empires. With the emergence of new and stable systems of Muslim law and order in the Near East and North Africa. The arteries of economic growth regained their health. Modern politics...of class differentation... Stone Age simplicity gave way to Iron Age development...lineage and kinship authority began to be matched by...castes of craftsmen, traders, warriors, laborers and kings... Where was the end if every man could have his own spear or sword? ...the monopoly if iron weapons...was utterly beyond...reach. ...one great empire after another crashed... Not until AD 700 or 800 did a new...stability become possible. ...the staples of the trade...were always salt and gold. These were the prizes of political success. These were the means by which the new states and empires could support their soldiers, their governors, craftsmen, courtiers, singers of songs. And the power of these empires became legendary... - Davidson
Thursday. Train station. I see a guy with an ankle monitor, and another guy asking passengers if they are registered to vote. The second one approaches the first one. I am out of ear shot, but I see the second ask the first if he is registered. The first shows him his ankle monitor. The second says something else to him, but the first is not persuaded to register. As I am writing this down, the second one approaches me, mentioning that I appear to be "already registered to vote." I ask him why he tried to register someone with an ankle monitor. He Informs me, "They changed the law. If you're on parole you can vote. I'm out here making sure ensure that our democracy functions properly." I will later hear on the radio that only 9 states still restrict felons from voting. When I get to the pool, I lock my bike up with another kid who asks his friend, "You aren't going to lock your bike?" The fried declines. The kid turns to me and says, "Peoples these days."
Friday. If I may wax a bit philosophic upon returning to a neighborhood, where I lived for 16 years, every six months to see my dentist. I step out of the bus, onto a corner from where I look down a street which I sometimes took on my walk to work six days a week. Twenty-five years ago. Where I stand is the bus stop where I waited for one of two buses to work five years after that. I proceed to walk through streets upon which I used to drive, when I had a car. I stroll past the spot where the mechanic who always worked on my car had his garage. He used to have car shows here, owned classic cars himself. He went out of business because, he told me when I saw him at work some years ago, his former customers were getting deals from the dealers of their new cars. They got a full year of guarenteed service, along with the option to lease for a year, after which they could trade their vehicles in for the new year's model. It killed his business. I pass my sister's old law office building from a couple of decades past. I stop into my old supermarket, with anyone I used to know long gone. The Tower Records where I shopped, gone. The independent bookstore, moved. In my travels by bike, I have become self-conscious about riding on the sidewalk, even when I feel much safer in parts of the greater and not so great metro area. It is I believe an ordinance violation. Walking the sidewalks of my old haunts, I am passed by at least two bikes on the sidewalk. One guy on a ten speed rides with one hand and is on his phone with the other. I arrive at the dentist to have my teeth sandblasted. My dentist loved the story about the blown bus tire. Walking to the pool through the park, I look across a baseball field in the park. At the fence where home plate would be, a guy stands next to his bicycle. He is staring at I don't know what. Another guy passes me on the trail through the park. He's on some kind of unicycle people mover. At the pool are a couple of lifeguards in training, under the guidance of the head honcho. They both have on the trademark tie-dyed T-shirts with "Junior Lifeguard" on the back. It's been a cooler couple of days. Eventually, I am the only swimmer left in the pool.
...we have so many businesses in the Neighborhood celebrating milestone anniversaries. These plus many others...make up this exceptional neighborhood... We also have our beloved pets... Some even have their "store mascots" greet people... And my favorites are the neighbors on their morning walk whose dogs know exactly which stores supply their daily treats. ...the other day...a black lab was not going to let his Dad forget that his treat was waiting for him. Please don't forget to follow...happenings like...trunk shows, and...the 8th annual Food and Wine...and don't forget the Art Feast... As we areall aware, Denver is one of the top cities in the country to live in and as the hustle and bustle of our surroundings grow, there is a sense of community... "Enjoy the Season!"
...the first boutique IV nutrient therapy clinic... Intravenous (IV) therapy is...administering essential fluids, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants intravenously, the clinic also offers vitamin B 12 injections. "We took the same procedures, equipment, and staff that you would expect to find in some of the best hospitals..."
...future is bright. More residences, hotels, and office buildings... In 2015, nearly 20 projects were completed, under construction or announced. ...treasured retailers expanding their spaces... ...an exceptional mix of classic and contemporary... - Cherry Creek Now, Late Summer 2016
Hey neighbors-
Tell the city [what improvements our neighborhood requires] by answering a few quick surveys...(like that bus stop piled with trash, and missing a bench or shelter)... Don't let Stapleton and Cherry Creek provide all the answers - we need people to speak up from our part of the city to amplify our message! - Nextsoor Westwood, 8/16/2016
...I coordinated...stories in this edition to entice locals, visitors, and second homeowners...
The tight knit crew...led by...Director of Risk Management and Mountain Patrol. Among the employees...are former Mountain Patrol Supervisor...former Mountain Patrol Foreman and current Operations Coordinator... All three men...understand...tourists...all three left white-collar careers... ...left behind an office-based career in the events industry... ...did not come from a white-collar background...but both men knew their calling...
Does it get any better than a vintage country fair in the heat of summer... Or sweeten the pot and add some quality country-Western acts, or throw in a genuine Western town (what the bigger destinations try so hard to construct and imitate) with stunning red cliffs for a backdrop. - Explore GRAND, summer 2016
...the steady demands of trade drew...rulers...to enclose large areas of trade and production within single systems of power and revenue. Famous markets appeared at the cross-roads of commercial exchange. People who lived...near such trading routes were often impelled, whether as rulers or ruled, into new forms of political organization. Islam...brought new solutions to new problems of power, and often helped the process of centralization. City-states...in the swampland...along the coral seabed...were raised to brilliant life and commerce by...traders of the Indian Ocean...and with...producers...inland... ...in response to manufacturing demand from across the eastern seas...changed their forms of political organization. '...there is nothing of importance in...material culture which outlasts a single lifetime. The labours of one generation hence do not lighten, or make a foundation for, those of the next...a cultural environment which seems unchanging...' ...that the very stability of...life can only be the outcome of successful adaption to a stubbornly hostile environment, and that any less careful or ingenious a compromise must have rapidly destroyed them. - Davidson
...because of the tribal and religious resistance to central government authority. ...suspended the clergy, declaring himself God's representative... He assumed the authority to apply Sharia and declare jihad... The emergence of warlords, criminals, and narcotics... Islam...became...grafted onto...Hindu, Buddhist, and animist customs. Tension between tribe and mosque, however, was never absent. ...a contest for raw power... "Zan, zar, zamin" - women, gold, and land - add up to a triad of tribal property that a tribesman must defend at all costs. ...to avoid...violence between families in the tribe. ...resolved by handing over one or more unmarried women from the offender's family along with a cash payment. The...boy will be essentially nonliterate during his lifetime. The family patriarch will jealously guard his autonomy... ...extended family...can have up to five hundred members. Autonomous tribes in the countryside resisted taxation, and there was little commercial activity from which to draw revenue. The inhabitants of the thousands of rural microcommunities where most...lived were nearly all nonliterate. ...on small subsistence farms... ...generally did not much care about the world outside their tribal territory. Their support for a national..."corporate will" was weak... Only two of his cabinet members could read. His followers marauded through the streets...plundering homes and raping women. State authority and tribal and religious power brokers reached an accommodation. The...Constitution placed all executive, legislative, and judicial power in the hands of the dynastic rulers...for...a multidecade period of economic growth... ...establishing a standing army and acquiring financial solvency were critical to their dynasty's long-term survival and successful...modernization. There was a well armed population. The tribal militias were saturated with loot but could quickly return. It became required, therefore, to "sweeten the mouth" of religious clerics whose loyalty was ephemeral. There grew a multiethnic...population of...detribalized city-dwellers. - Tomsen
Sunday. I decide this afternoon to check out a public pool which I discovered on my way to work. It's at the top of a hill with a great view. The public pools close one week from today, and then the real fun begins. I plan to spend the remaining two weeks of mornings before work swimming at a water park. This afternoon, as I approach the climb up the drive to the top of this hill, there is a sign at the end of the drive. It reads, "Democrats Picnic." At the top of the hill is a band shell and collection of picnic tables. I see a collection of Caucasians gathered among the tables, here at the top of this Hispanic neighborhood. The Democrats are having, it turns out, a gathering at $10 apiece (fundraiser?). It's here in this scenic spot, with a view out to three city blocks in any direction, which is a kind of Lovers' Lane for teenagers who move freely between English and Spanish.
Monday. 4:20 AM. Bus stop across the street from where I live. Wandering the tiny parking lot of the liquor store next to the stop is a familiar-looking guy who asks me when the bus comes past. He guesses the correct time when it will be here. He speaks with a gravel voice which is barely audible. In the dark, he appears to be wearing a jumpsuit, and he has a pair of headphones on as he leans on a cane. As soon as I confirm when the bus shall arrive, he heads out into the dark. And vanishes into the quiet dark. Another guy come walking along. He's thin and balding, and has on a T-shirt and shorts the color of a Buddhist saffron robe. Another guy with a cane comes along, a guy with a hat who I usually see here at this hour. From the direction of where I live, he comes across the street and makes it just as the bus arrives. Just up the street, I head over to my bus stop of yesteryear. The same guy with a walker is asleep under a blanket in the bus shelter. One empty 'tall boy' can of beer sits on the bench. The bus whisks me to the train, and the train to another station. On the train is a guy with a grey goatee and a big skateboard. I wonder what age he was in the late 1970s /early 1980s? Is he OG skate? On the way home I am back here at this same train station. Both this evening and last week, I've seen a young guy who walks with a cane which has four small legs at its base. He makes faces like Bobcat Goldthwait. The following morning, I am on a bus up the street. I'm on the way to downtown. In the back is a Caucasian kid with hair like a black frightwig. He has his earbuds in and he's rapping out loud, loudly. "And if I said I fucked your bitch, I mean it. And if I said I'm making money, I mean it."
Wednesday. After work, I am at the train station as i am approached by a tall, thin, young, blonde guy with a full beard. He looks like an extra from the movie Jesus Christ Superstar. He tells me that I appear as if I "know the area." This has happened since I entered my forties. I appear authoritative. He wants to know if this station is the one listed on his phone. It turns out that he wants one on a new line, which I haven't been on yet. Just when I think I am a veteran, new train line go up. The following day, I am headed to a swimming pool where I haven't been in years. Back when I lived in this neighborhood. I exit the train with my bike, and begin the climb up a bridge which will take me over the interstate. Coming down the bridge is a shirtless guy in his 60s. His T-shirt is tucked into a back pocket. He yells with a pure gravel voice toward the train station, "Hey, Randy!" I look back to see no one to hear him. When I get to the park, I am riding along trails which I haven't been on in 15 years, back when I began first riding a bike to and from work, which is how I found this pool. After I get in the pool, I am reminded what a beautiful pool it is. Cleaner than the ones on my side of town. Grass just past the deck. I recall the jets passing overhead as they do today. Instead of the short half hours before work, I used to spend afternoons here on Sundays. I would watch the lifeguards practice emergency drills, watch then during breaks as they swam as a team and crossed the short end of the pool is perhaps five strokes, back and forth. I was in my late 30s back then. After my swim, I take a route toward where I used to work, on streets which I rode for the first time one day with my sister. I ride past the supermarket where old friends are now long since gone. Past the place I worked for five years, now a dance studio. A flower shop next door which a friend used to own. A time swept away by the wind, as I look at a place I used to see six days a week having changed before my eyes. After work, I am back on my own side of town. After sundown, lightning flashes in distant thunderheads. On the trail through my neighborhood, I see more Caucasians this evening than usual. I pass one couple who command their dog to sit. I hear the lady tell the guy, "See, I think that dogs sense things..."
Friday morning, I am out of the door at 6:30 AM, headed to a dentist appointment. It's still early August...and it's 57 degrees F this morning. I am at the old bus stop across the street from where I live on this early and oddly chilly morning. A young guy goes past the bus stop and toward the gas station before returning to sit down. He lights up what used to be called a roach before he realizes that the bus approaches. Up the street I get out and over to my bus stop of several years past. On the street corner is someone who took a small plastic real estate sign and written his panhandling message on the back. Adorning the top edge of this sign is a line of lollipops. The crosstown bus arrives, and after a handful of us are onboard, a straggler jumps on. I notice that he has an ankle monitor covered by his sock. He has a big cup of soda with a straw. Twice he asks the driver, "I just got this, can I get on with it?" He sounds drunk. He has a seat and speaks to another passenger about his court appearance. "I didn't catch a charge, " he relates, "but I got an area restriction. Trouble just follows me around and shit. Shit, my name's at the end of the docket anyway. No point in getting there early. That's how that shit goes." We pull into the train station and he and his soda disembark. I bet he's taking the train downtown to the judiciary. Right outside my window is a young contemporary hippie guy, asleep on the concrete with a guitar.
Saturday is a long day from beginning to end. I am out of the door at 5:30 AM and headed up the street to my Saturday bus stop. Across the street, in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant, I see a police car parked with its lights on. I see no other vehicle. This lot as well as the gas station across the street are both hangout for the homeless. I arrived at work to a broken glass door. I stayed a couple of hours after closing to finish everything. On my last bus home, I sit across from a guy with two hats on. He suddenly speaks up and says, "There's going to be a tornado tonight. I heard it on my phone...heard it on my phone." When a passenger comes on and asks where the driver is, this guy says, "Smokin' a joint." On Sunday, I take a bike trip back to the shopping center where I worked for a year until last May. I hope to see some old friends at my old pre-work hangout. When I get there, I discover for the first time that they are closed on Sundays. I backtrack along the bike route I used to ride to a waterpark, where before my employer moved me to another store, I thought I would be swimming each day before work. The public pools are closed for the season as of today. This waterpark is open on weekends from now until Labor Day, and appears as a meeting of neighbors other than my own. It's almost as if all the Caucasians have tattoos. And once you've seen both prison and gang tattoos, boy do the ones on the fair skinned men here look dumb. As my public pool visits, my swim here is along side children. Even if some of them are in their thirties. And the men who command the diving board here are the heaviest ones. At the end of my ride back home, I am coming through the park down the street when I pass a casually strolling guy who exhales a cloud of marijuana smoke.
Monday morning, I run out of the door for a quick bike ride down the street to the supermarket, for some things I forgot to get yesterday. I exit my parking lot from another entrance to avoid a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Both she and I are headed toward the corner when a bus pulls up to the stop. I hear her behind me say, "Hey...hey..." It takes me a second before I realize that she is yelling for a passenger to hold the bus for her. Down the street I grab breakfast at a deathburger which is next to both an apartment complex and a trailer park. I watch one character cross the parking lot. He strikes me as having been in prison. In fact, the young woman behind the counter seems a little off kilter, as if she perhaps has done some time herself. A "customer" comes in, a woman with a hairdo from Orange Is the New Black, who strolls slowly to the soda machine with an empty cup she brought with her. She woman behind the counter says hi to her as she get some ice, before slowly strolling back out the door. Another woman comes in, wants to know if the soda machine works. After breakfast, I pedal to the supermarket on the other side of the trailer park. I park a short distance from an outdoor patio table, where employees take their break. Sitting there motionless and facing the wall is a young guy who could be homeless. He's in grey sweats and has a full beard, which he rests on his fists as he stares at the wall.
I scout out an entirely new path crosstown to the only swimming pool left open during the week, from now until Labor Day. It happens to be across the street from a place where I worked from '00-'05, and during those summers, even from across the street I could hear, hidden behind its fence, the laughter and splashing of children. The outdoor pool is part of a complete athletic club. I thought, 'Swimming at a...club. Me?' I never expected to have any health insurance, and therefore a primary care physician, and therefore someone to recommend anything like diet and...exercise. I now have a membership at a community gym. And until I walked I here this afternoon, I thought I knew the health club drill. This place is a for profit health club, not simply a gym. The daily fee is $15 for use of all facilities. This place has a snack bar which looks like a dining room. When I go up to the front desk to inquire about swimming in the outdoor pool, I am asked (by a woman in a vest) to fill out some information on a card while I wait for someone from "membership" to show up. A young guy in khakis and a buttoned down shirt comes out to ask me to come back to his office, some place quiet where he can make his pitch for full membership. Jesus, I've stepped into it now. I haul the bag on the back of my bike along with my helmet (inside of which are my gloves, rearview mirror and sunglasses) and drawstring bag with my lunch back to his cubicle, where he asks me to make myself comfortable. I would, of course, be perfectly comfortable...in the pool. I don't think that I ask for much. And I do in fact have $15, in cash or card. (He will later as me with which I would prefer to pay.) At his cubicle, he wants to know which of the twenty or so listed interests on the card I am interested in. I let him know that the interest in which I am interested is swimming in the outdoor pool before heading off to work. It's the first time I repeat myself. "Ah, aquatics," he says as he checks the box marked aquatics. Nothing appears to be left to chance. I must admit that I admire this kind of clarity. I just can't afford to spend the time on it today. I inquire about the price for a limited period of membership as opposed to the daily fee. He wants me to make the biggest commitment he can get me to make. I mention that I am interested in a possible membership until the end of this month as I am sure that I will be swimming at least that long. He appears to assume that I am some kind of travelling executive. That's what happens when you turn 51. He wants to know if I will be out of town after this month, because...he can adjust the regular price of a three month membership to "reflect" the days I am in town. Jesus Mary mother of God. The minutes are ticking past. I have a longer ride to work from here than the pool I was using, before it closed for the season. I tell him that, yes, I will be up in Bellingham, Washington next month. He wants to know, do I live there or here in town? I steer his probing line of investigation back to aquatics, and he dispatches me back to the front desk, where my pass for the day is printed out on a receipt. And with that, I am on the other side, in a place where I never expected to be. It's a lovely pool. And it's still close to work. And I was told on the phone that they will not necessarily be closed after Labor Day, weather permitting. To turn an optimistic phrase, it's like a dream come true. It simply depends how much I am willing to spend. How often do I mention a thing such as that in this blog? And next week I can use another option to work out. Which may be part two of this adventure. With the experience I have at my own gym, I feel 100% confident that I know what I'm doing at the gym, as opposed to before I ever went inside of one. I will come to find out the following day that the lady in the vest will not charge ,me for another day. So I want to be careful with poking any fun at anyone around here. After my swim, the woman in the vest lets me know that I may refill my water bottle at the water cooler in the snack bar/dining room. Inside, in a couple of cushioned chairs, are two club members. One is doing the talking. "The police will respond to anything which is an imminent threat," he explains to the other. "And that means having a you-know-what pointed in your face. And you heard about the athlete who was robbed in Rio?" Yes, of course sir. Private property. Not in your back yard. I would never mistake the back yard in your neighborhood for one in my own.
Tuesday. I am at the buffet pizza place for lunch. In line are a couple of people talking about work. A guy says to a woman, "I'm working on about four hours of sleep." She responds, "I got home and was still wired. I got up this morning at 4:45 AM." Myself, I awoke far too early, 2:30 AM. I don't recall the last time I was wired. I wonder if it's something reserved for the young. The two join others at a table, and are joking and laughing about the budget. "How is it we always end up talking about work?" the guy says. "Thank you for pointing that out," the woman replies. After work, I am on my last bus home just after 8PM, waiting to pull out of the train station. A dark band of rain flashes with lightning, across the northwest and in front of the last of the setting sun. A young woman with a stroller converses with someone behind her. She has on a red T-shirt, the front of which reads, "Registered to vote." "I got a felony," she tells the other. When we get to my street, I get out and lightning flashes so closely overhead that it sounds as if I can hear it sizzle through the air. In my parking lot, a Vietnamese resident speaks tin heavily accented English to some folks interested in purchasing her car for sale.
It's after work, now, on the last day of this long week. 5:30 PM. I am at the train station alongside someone walking his bike to the platform. We are surrounded by a group who are headed downtown to see a preseason football game. I hear someone ask him, "Who are we playing tonight Bill?" Bill has new shorts and Tivas, and his panhandling pitch is written on the front of his white T-shirt instead of a piece of cardboard. Sunday, I have a late birthday adventure of breakfast on the front range, swimming at a cold spring, lunch at a tea house and a brief stop at a festival in a park. The following day is my turn to work open to close. At 4:30 AM, I am across the street at the bus stop. Upon this fortnight's Monday before the dawn, on the bench are a trio of men. One of them is both young and appears to be awake. He is the first to depart, for the gas station next door. The other two are down and out-looking characters who are mumbling to each other. The second one, sitting with his chin in his hands, turns to me to ask, "How's it goin' brotha? It's not too bad out here as for cold." He gets up and tells his pal that he's "gonna go buy a joint." He turns to me once again to ask if I smoke before he shuffles out into the dark. Where the joints are. The third is wearing a light coat with his bead inside the hood. He's doubled over, dozing off. He begins to lean to the side before he catches himself ever so slowly. he is the picture of someone so exhausted that it defies imagination. I never come to any kind of understanding as to how these guys, not so much end up looking as they do or being on this block, but how they come to converse with words such as 'brotha" and "as for being." How does this folksy jargon from decades past fit in with being homeless?
Ten minutes later, I am up the street at my bus stop of old. I sit down at the other end of the bench from a woman on her phone. She's in a low cut flowered print halter which her boobs are falling out of. It sounds as if she is asking someone at the other end for directions to the Greyhound station. She has no luggage with her. After she hangs up, she asks me for permission to light up a smoke. "Going to work?" she asks me. "Early shift? I used to do that shit. I had to be at work at 4 AM." And currently she's, what, unemployed? I don't ask. I'm glad that I appear as if I am going to work. At the train station is another guy who is asleep sitting up. This one is in a hoodie and a sleeping bag. On the ground rests his skateboard. I don't know if he is employed either, but he skates. I take a train down to the next station. At the front end of any train platform is a ramp for wheelchairs. From this direction, I immediately hear a dog begin barking. I assume that it is a service dog, but I have seen passengers come on the bus with dogs with the claim that these are service dogs, yet which appear suspiciously like their pets from home. A sign perhaps that such passengers have no home. I take a seat on a bench when I watch a passenger being followed by a transit system vehicle. The driver speaks to him as they both move alongside the train platform. The transit system supervisor puts his car in park, gets out, and says, "I'm gonna get you on that train." This passenger, whatever drug he took hours before, he's still on, and I wonder if this supervisor doesn't know it. The passenger is looking, looking all around, looking up and down a track upon which the train will only come from a single direction.
When I get up on Tuesday, I feel as though I went to bed on Sunday and woke up Tuesday morning. My ride to the heath club results in my scouting out the most expedient route. I am suddenly headed down a trail which I haven't been on in fifteen years. I head past another health club I suddenly remember from somewhere in the past couple of decades. They have a sign announcing an open outdoor pool. When I give them a call, they don't do day passes. After my day is done, I am headed home on the bike when tiny raindrops begin to fall. I decide to head for the train station. I get to the elevator for the train platform, where a couple of identically dressed mechanics are discussing part of the station. "The fucking roof is gonna look bad with those bolts." When the elevator door opens, a young guy inside waits for me to enter with my bike before he slowly shuffles out. He is wearing jeans with both of the front pockets torn and hanging open, and patches of his hair appear to be shaved off. He's smoking one cigarette and has another behind his right ear. The elevator smells as if he has been smoking inside of it for a year.
Wednesday. A rare morning of rain right into the afternoon. I elect to take the train downtown to grab more transit system tickets. When I step out of the train, who is in front of the entrance to the transit hub but Mr. I'm Out Here Making Sure Democracy Functions Properly himself. It's the volunteer from the other train station, out registering people to vote. He appears to believe that he is an engaging individual, and he's got a weird smile when he gets going. Not to mention shorts with a Ben Franklin portrait from the bank note. I grab the tickets, I grab lunch, and I run into a branch of my bank I'm never in anymore. The teller there tells me so. He also tells me that I appear to have lost weight. Yep, an entire;y new ordeal in my life. Just what I need.
As of June 30, $4.4 billion of total investment in development had been recently completed or was under construction in downtown Denver, according to...the Downtown Denver Partnership. "We have an old code that needs to be updated. For years, staff and council have been inactive in taking our 1970s code and bringing it into the new century." "We built affordably priced condos that created an uplift in a community that didn't want displacement in this predominantly Latino neighborhood. Over a third of our buyers were Latino, which never happens. It was such a great set of wins for the community, the neighborhood and for the owners." "...buildings that create a choice for walking instead of taking elevators... ...opportunities for better food and opportunities for greater social interaction, which creates better mental-health outcomes." ...the redevelopment of the old Olinger Mortuary complex, now home to popular restaurants... ...to align...with organizations that empower women... "You see how the other 90 percent of the world lives, and you want to help." "It's a working-class neighborhood that's stable, and the houses are still affordable. It's a neat little neighborhood that's not on the radar yet. This was just such an unusual place to find in the city of Denver." ...promoting healthy living with community gardens, production gardens... "...going on the edges and into neighborhoods that have not been discovered yet, that are a little more pioneering." Denver's first live/work artist community...features New York-style industrial lofts with huge windows, exposed ductwork, open floor plans and gourmet kitchens. ...the rising demand for affordable workforce housing. "We want to see what the future is and be a part of it." "The idea was to find eight people like me who didn't want a car." "Largely...suburban developers...have found higher revenues in downtown. They are...sucking out the higher revenue that downtowns provide, but they're not giving anything back."
The coordinators of Field Day Camp Show are not in it for the money. "We're going to be paying out of our pocket for this." ...sipping happy-hour-priced PBR longnecks. ...were producing an EP...at local DIY hub Seventh Circle Music Collective when they met...operator of...Studio. ..also happens to own...land... ...he offered the property for a full 24 hours... ...the organizers aren't charging bands to play at the festival... It's a common strategy... ...bands aren't being paid... ...All the...ticket sales must go to recouping the cost to put on the event... ...encouraged every act to bring merchandise to sell. ...decided against creating festival merchandise so as not to take profits from bands. - Westwood, 8/25-31/2016
...can provide...rental gear...including electric bikes.
...the Grand Valley was home first to the Freemont and then to the Ute tribes. In 1881, the U.S. government ordered the forced removal of Utes from the area...
This valley masters the art of being so close and yet so far away. ...it's a world away from everywhere else. This lush cradle of everything you would want to eat or drink is a lush cradle away from the everyday bustle. It's the kind of place people come to relax and enjoy life... The perfect day here is about...interacting with the locals... The owners live on the property in the geodesic dome... Try the hand-made gnocchi primavera, served in a beurre blanc mushroom sauce with seasonal vegetables and homemade bread...with...house-whipped butter. ...goat egg rolls... ...oatmeal with carmelized coconut topping...or a savory shakshuka...poached in tomato sauce... - Palisade Fruit & Wine, summer/fall 2016
DALLAS, TX / 1975 BACK THEN, WE WERE KNOWN AS THE HAMBURGER HIPPIES - OUR HAIR WAS LONG AND THE IDEA OF CASUAL DINING WAS JUST TAKING OFF. NOW WE'VE BEEN AROUND FOR 40 YEARS. #FORKINAWESOME - silverware wrapper from a chain restaurant
...the towns became Muslim...while the peasants of the countryside, caring little or nothing for trade but much for their own traditions, remained faithful in their own beliefs. This...goes far to explain the instability of these medieval empires. The Islamic system of belief and government...the town-central empires could quickly fall apart. ...as People A and People B intermarried...People A...will have inherited a great deal more from People B, the indigenous streak. ...that People A took wives from People B...People A's language will have disappeared, since it was the mothers who decided what the children spoke...and with the loss of its language, much of People A's culture will have gone as well. ...a marriage between local conditions and new social social and political solutions whose origins may have lain elsewhere but whose forms had peculiar to...city-states... Trade and production for trade, and all the new social and economic problems and needs...appear...as a root cause for major changes in political organization, for the emergence of a state. ...economic development...impinged on social structures. - Davidson
Thursday. I'm back out on the trail, passing along a creek in my neighborhood. Out in the tall weeds are a couple of guys, each with huge pesticide tanks on their backs. I hear children's voices once again, out at recess. Some kind of strange cold front has moved in this week, and I am wearing a hoodie at the end of August. I have been taking a different route to the health club and haven't been on the trail to work in a week. In case I have been wondering what I've missed, I hear behind me a motorized vehicle. I wonder if it's some kind of Park and Recreation vehicle when I am passed by a young woman on a tiny motorcycle. There are no motorized vehicles allowed on the trail, but it appears as if she needs to be somewhere at an appointed hour. And it's probably too dangerous for her to ride on the street. After work, I'm on a bridge over the river where I stop to put on my front and rear lights. It's been getting dark on the way home. Another cyclist stops to check and see if I am okay. It's a courtesy among riders. Of course, back when I began riding to work years ago, I never saw anyone around when a gear from my gear assembly went flying off into space, and I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't let my chain pass through the mechanism until I finally noticed that one of the two gears was actually missing. Or when I watched the bearing housing come apart on my front axle while I was riding along. I don't know, am I okay? Hey, that's life in the big city. The following evening, I am riding home through a residential neighborhood not far from work. There are families out of front yard swings and on bikes. I smell Italian food cooking somewhere. A late August evening in a neighborhood near work. An hour later, I am riding through a park just off the trail. I see the same guy on a bike who I saw yesterday, same time and place. Long grey hair and beard, same black T-shirt and camouflaged pants. He appears as if he belongs at an outdoor music festival. An evening in my own neighborhood.
...do I need to wear bike-specific shorts? ...I'm a bit young to look like I'm sporting adult diapers. And do I have to don a skin-tight shirt with strange pockets for my daily commute? Should I wear a helmet? I've decided to document my journey into this unknown world... - BikeLife Denver, Fall 2016
The following day I am working a half-shift. I don't remember the last time I left this late to work on a Saturday. 10:30 AM. From up the street at a bus stop, I watch as a bicycle rider comes along, downshifting gears as he stops for the light. And. If I didn't see him, his helmet and lycra jersey with something about aid to "RWANDA" across the back and his black and grey lycra shorts; I couldn't have guessed that he is Caucasian with a groovy capital C. The bus whisks me out to the train platform, upon which marches a guy (yes, with a beard) in a red T-shirt which reads, "Fear the beard." (Because of lice, or as the mark of an ISIS member?) Seven and a half hours later, I am on a train home from work. It's one of four new lines which are opening this year, and one I haven't heard of, and one which is not on the map posted above the windows.
I see some neighbors more than others around these parts. The children it appears I see mostly during the summer. One teenaged boy I've seen out on his porch for a couple of days now. It's the most I've any neighbor anywhere at one time. He's sitting in a camping chair, in a camping hat and camping socks with no shoes. Some eleven hours later, I am headed to a nearby restaurant for dinner. I can see across the street, the gas station parking lot is completely full of police cars, lights on, officers standing. I go into a Vietnamese place to eat. Two different Caucasian couples inside are the ones keeping their eye on the scene across the street. When I am finished and I exit the place, I see and hear a line of people marching down the sidewalk. They have at least one bullhorn and one placard as they march past, across the street from the gas station. I wonder, are these guys protesting the police? As they get closer, I can hear that they are shouting and yelling...about Jesus. One guy hands me a postcard-sized announcement for a church service, a couple in a suit and dress on the front. "Here you go," the guy says as he hands it to me." Changed my life."
The following Monday, I awake having had some sleep. I run out of my door at 5 AM. The gas station parking lot is no longer wall to wall police, and the boulevard sidewalk is empty of Jesus crispies. I am headed toward the train station, down a redisential neighborhood street which feels more like the lot of a car dealership. I don't know how many residents can possibly live inside each one of these tiny postwar bungalows, but it's almost as if every single one has their own truck parked on the street, or four in the driveway, and anyplace else one will fit. During Sundays, my boulevard is packed full of trucks, and overnight they all park on this street. As I approach the intersection of a highway, I watch a pickup move forward with the crossing traffic. Mounted in the bed are a couple of flagpoles. The right one is flying the stars and stripes, and the other has the stars and bars. Making America Great. (Please not again.) On Tuesday, I am on the way to a doctor's appointment, at the train station at morning rush hour. I am surrounded by groovy Caucasians on their way to work. Individual members of this crowd step around a guy asleep on the concrete, in front of a special events ticket booth. A middle aged female comes along and takes the hoodie which is draped over him. Back out on the train platform is one young guy in a British cap, grey vest and maroon shirt with collar, and tiny goatee. When a train comes to a stop, he waves his hand before the door opens. I get onboard with my bike, and at the next stop another cyclist comes on with his bike. He is followed by a transit security officer who is checking fares. The cyclist tells him that he has a pass through his school, but that he left it at home. The officer tells him that he will, as a result, have to get out at the next stop to purchase a fare. The cyclist wants to know if this is really necessary. The officer lets him know that the alternative is to write him a ticket. The cyclist replies, "Really? It will probably just get thrown out (of court.)" The officer repeats the limited choices, as in two. The cyclist professes that he should have kept his mouth shut. As we pull into the station, he asks the officer which door is closest to the ticket kiosk. He must not be familiar with this particular station. And, as it is the stop on a private university, this must not be where he goes to school.
...assaults that took place on a bike trail in the metro area. The victim managed to snap a photo of the suspect... When police returned to...look for the suspect, officers found him with...a skateboard...
A 17-year-old driver who had only a learner's permit was arrested...in a fatal drag-racing hit-and-run that killed a 26-year-old pedestrian Sunday night. The two vehicles were moving at "interstate highway speeds"... "Those living" (in my neighborhood) "are fed up," said...president of (my) Residents' Association... "This is not new. It has just gotten worse." At times when traffic is heavy along (my) Boulevard, cruisers will slow down and block vehicles in both directions to create space for a race... In most cases, by the time police hear about a drag race...the vehicles involved are usually gone along with any witnesses. "...how do you stop it?" A week prior to this fatality, another 26-year-old, a physical therapy student, was also killed in a head on from a drag race. - The Denver Post, 8/30/2016
After I leave the doctor's office, and grab breakfast on my boulevard of a decade ago, I am off to the health club down a trail I haven't been on since the same previous decade. It's been a trip coming back to this neighborhood through which I used to ride, and am now coming back to for the brief use of this health club. This morning along the trail, I cruise behind some kind of assisted living place. Out next to a back door, I hear someone playing drumsticks. There with a practice pad is a middle aged guy in a wheelchair. At the club, I workout to music coming out of the sound system, some kind of Caucasian class-affirming pop. After a workout and swim, I grab lunch at a pizza buffet place, where I listen to bluegrass covers of popular radio hits from the past four decades. It's class-shock. A pair of Japanese women share a table. A woman wanders around asking anyone "is there a pizza you recommend?" A trio of senior men in button down shirts are at the salad bar. They are discussing how long it takes to shave in the morning. Some hours later, I am ready to leave work at 7 PM. As if on cue, thunder erupts at the strike of 7. As rain begins to trickle down, I head for the train station. I can see the deluge coming over the mountains. When I board the train, the rain is still the occasional drop. Just up at the next station, the door opens to pouring rain. I stand at the front end of the car, and I watch as waves of rain wash against the window. I get out at my station where lightning flashes directly overhead. Half the sky has clear twilight through holes in the clouds, and the other half is gray. A couple of other riders wait with their bikes alongside myself under the shelter. We are all waiting for our moment to head out into the weather. I sit on a bench and watch lightning arc, waiting for it to move along. I make my move and am out on the avenue, where the rain washing down the concrete does nothing to deter the speeding traffic. What a way to end the month. On the way through my neighborhood, someone lights off a firecracker.
Wednesday morning I am back out on the streets I took home some fourteen hours earlier. I roll past a bar with a patio, where a bouncer is arranging metal chairs. He has a long black beard, and looks like the strangest guy I have ever seen. In a short while, I am across the street from the health club, here where I used to work during the first half of the previous decade. There is a Chinese place which is still here. I used to get take out here when I worked next door. I stop in for lunch. The owners have a daughter who was a little girl, and used to visit the employees of the business on this side of the shopping center. She used to come and visit me. I ask my waitress how the girl is and if she still remembers me. When I am finished with lunch, the waitress tells me that she spoke to her on the phone, and said that she does indeed remember me. Hours later, it's after work and I am coming up a street in my neighborhood. A loud dirt bike goes past me in the dark, no headlight or taillight, and continues all the way down the street this way. And it's lights out on this month. I arrive home as the neighbor next to my townhome complex is backing a giant diesel pickup onto his gravel front lawn. He works downtown on the pedestrian mall, picking up trash.
