May 2019, Servant's Daughter

     Writing was a reckoning...the page was...a venue for craft, wiring connected...narrative memory and emotional memory.  These were [both] severed by trauma.  My therapist prescribed...narrative retelling. ...through which I rebuilt the connection between what was experienced and what was felt...  And I'd like to think...that I know...text and negative space...personal details and universal themes...  - Asian Avenue, 5/2019

     ...walking away with an integrative packet of sound information...insight into their...state of wholesomeness...  Tears, sorrow and laughter alike have been presents...  ...individual and communal transformation...have followed...  - Colorado YOGA + Life Magazine, Winter - Spring 2018-2019

     Thursday.  Yesterday, my mom's ashes arrived.  This evening, I'm on my way home.from work, coming through the neighborhood across the boulevard on which I live.  On a residential street is a middle-aged blonde woman.  She is standing next to the open car window, handing a loaf of white bread wrapped in plastic to a Hispanic woman.  The latter replies "Thank you" in Spanish.  The former returns to her own vehicle, the hatchback of which has a plastic tub with loves of white bread wrapped in plastic.  The next scene to greet me I first hear from a block away.  In three days, Cinco de Mayo will be upon us, complete with the largest Mexican flags anywhere.  I wonder if I am hearing an early celebration.  Earlier this winter, striking teachers were briefly out here lining this same corner.  On each of the four corners of the intersection where I live are a handful of members of some local church.  I don't know the denomination, but there is an awful lot of yelling and screaming about Jesus and how he will save your life.  "We love Jesus, how about you?"  There is a bullhorn and a sign or two.  They are cheering and clapping.  If it's the same church, they've been here before last year.  I have to make my way around them to get through the crosswalk before turning traffic can see me coming.  They had better be gone is a couple of hours when I will be going to sleep.  The last one of them  I see is a weird motherfucker.  He's young and thin, and his shoulder-length hair is bleached so hard it's almost fucking white.  He's moving up and down my sidewalk clapping his hands and giving a thumbs up to passing cars.  He's across the street from where a young mom lost her life when her car was hit my a drunk driver.

     Neo-hippies use patchouli oil to combat skin problems such as cleanliness.  You smell this person before you see this person, and once you see this person you'll think "Ah, that smell makes sense."  THE CULTURAL APPROPRIATION GUYS-N-GALS  ..."soft" racism.  ...demeaning marginalized minority cultures is "tres chic" and "totes adorbiz."  ...staging "Oh, I didn't see you taking my photo" photos while wearing bindis, face paint, sombreros, headdresses, dashikis...  THE MORE ZEN THAN YOU FOLKS  This person will try to sell you a rock.  Run away.
     "We want to promote gender equity.   This keeps women focused on a passion and...keep away from early marriages."  With...Red Bull's Bianca Haw...pro cycling has a foothold in [Africa].
     What's left of Dimebox, Texas, is as segregated as it ever was.  We've come to understand the intersections that create many of the social issues we face.  The wealth gap...lies in home equity....for generations to come.  ..."generational wealth."  ...the millennial cohort has faced tremendous difficulties with becoming homeowners and building wealth...and black families have struggled at far greater levels.  ...90 percent of black first-time homeowners do it without any familial monetary assistance at all.  ...passing land equity down to...family has dissipated as homes in predominately black neighborhoods are assessed at lower values and predatory loans and financial practices have siphoned wealth away from black families.  - Elevation Outdoors, 5/2019

     He...suffered from a disease that causes his hair to fall out...  ...he acquired a doctor's note...to be exempt from the school's...no-hat and no-hood policy.  ...staff wouldn't honor the rule exemption...  [At another high school, he] was happy there.  He formed a fast friendship with...the former assistant principal, before [the assistant principal was killed] in a dispute over parking.  ...many teachers [there] are white and come from higher-income families than students they teach.  Black Lives Matter...has an initiative calling for [less] security officers [and more] counselors, social workers, therapists and family liaisons.  The idea is to be proactive - not punitive - with non-white students in particular.    That's a big ask.  ...more police in schools.  ...could put minorities at risk.  - Sentinel, 5/23/2019

     The condition of the black family in the U.S. has become ever more fractured...  ...the rate of suicide among...black youth has swelled to more than twice that of their white peers.  ...leaving the 5 to 12 year old population most at risk of taking their own lives.  Over the past five years, the rate of suicide among this age group has reportedly even accelerated.  ...schools are bureaucratic institutions that exist largely to sustain themselves.  Often times they are staffed with people who look nothing like us - who know little, if anything of our struggle.  It is completely counter-intuitive to keep expecting schools, in a high-stakes testing environment to speak with authority to our problems.
     ...students with the best access to summer activities are more likely to be white, live in homes with higher median incomes and have college-educated parents. ... a Denver-based non-profit...is...by building awareness...partnering with...learning providers...to...integrate culture and history into their programming.
     ...extended sadness, toil and strife are experienced as normality for most of us.  The young men with warrior spirits...  ...the oppressive forces in the world know the power of these...  The Black Panthers reminded them.
     ...the machine that steals the lives of young Black men.  ...it's dangerous to be Black and male in the land of the free.  The journey of an activist is not an easy road.  The most painful part...is the wars you fight within your own community.  ...an institutional model that feeds the whole versus the individual...  ...respect...what was, what is and what is becoming.  - Denver Urban Spectrum, 5/2019

     ...writing...about the aftermath of surviving childhood adversity, about immigrant life...about redefining home and family...  ...second-generation immigrants of mixed-race kids, of the Internet age, of children of color living in the vestiges of Southern history and politics...  - Asian Avenue, 5/2019

     ...I have witnessed this bilingual yoga program narrow cultural gaps.  I have observed the cultivation of social justice and the debunkment of myths...  The progressive...defeat of biases such as religious implications, gender connotations, and the nucleus of the "family oriented lifestyle"...
     Spoken word is such a political art form...  In a town that is so homogenous...trying to make everyone feel comfortable, safe and to not hate themselves.  I think there is a bravery required to step into that room if you are like everyone else.  - Colorado YOGA + Life Magazine
   
     ...District 9, which includes downtown, Five Points and Elyria Swansea...saw the most displacement of any neighborhood in the city.  ...from 20th Street over to Colorado Boulevard.  ...north Denver is beginning to see a saturation of development.  More projects are starting to move south...  [Toward me.]  "Part of what makes Denver not affordable is...limited single family homes, we're not creating more...and...prices just keep going up and up."
     ...the city is experiencing...use-by-right development.  ...developers can legally build...even if the neighborhood rejects.  The projects...don't come through city council...  - Life On Capitol Hill, 5/2019

     ...Denver...over the past eight years...  Developers and big business have thrived...while low- and middle-income Denverites have struggled.  City blocks and whole neighborhoods have been redeveloped while longtime residents have been displaced.  Tech and other booming sectors have added thousands of white-collar jobs while many other workers have been left behind.  ...departments...have struggled to fulfill their responsibilities without sufficient resources - including agencies that provide critical services to people in need...  ...the city's...homeless-services agency, Denver's Road Home, "lacks the staff resources necessary to carry out its role."  ...unable to plan strategically and develop effective policies.  It was the second time in four years that [the] Denver Auditor...identified the need for more resources to be invested in Denver's Road Home.  In...2015..."a lack of data analysis and meaningful reporting..."  Denver's Road Home shrunk from...2014...to...2018, leaving...six full-time employees and one intern to cope...  [Requests for] additional staff in 2017 and 2019...both...were denied.  - Westword, 5/2-8/2019

     ...a newly completed examination and audit of Public Works by [the] City Auditor...reveals...  "It's in the best interest of the taxpayers to keep a close eye on the new construction...with all the new bond money."  Biking Boondoggle  The high-profile Executive Director of Public Works...the hand-picked protege of Mayor Michael B. Hancock...was chosen to implement Hancock's "Mobility Action Plan" and thus take attention away from the City's knotty high-density developments.  ...the City's 2019 budget [includes] more and more bicycle lanes.  ...new bike lanes are...clogging traffic and destroying commerce.
     Living in Denver is to live in a never-ending heart health ad.  A bicyclist or jogger at every corner and in between every corner, a steady stream of Denverites walking their dogs.  Check out "Colorado's Bicycling Manual" put out by the "Colorado Department of Transportation."  Bicyclists and pedestrians must obey traffic signs and signals.  Cyclists, look for the bike signs, stay in your bike lanes and bike boxes.  - Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, 5/2019

     It's 24 hours later.  I'm just home from work, around 8 PM.  I can see the opposite corner across the street.  Last evening, these corners were occupied by screaming, yelling, cheering church members exclaiming the positive benefits of Jesus.  Tonight, at one corner are four Caucasian Mormon guys, complete with white shirts, ties, plastic name tags.  It strikes me how alike they look, right down to the same haircuts.  I'm headed to the Chinese place.  I'm stepping behind a tall thin guy on his phone.  I catch up to him and he asks me for change.  When I reply that I have none, he asks me if I have a debit card.  I tell him that my balance is low.  He spots someone else coming out of their car in the parking lot and approaches him.  The Chinese place is connected to a gas station.  The clerk comes out of the gas station to shoo away the panhandler.  As I am entering the eatery, I spot the Mormons coming across the street.  Minutes later, I'm on my way back home.  I pass the apartments where I see Mormons all the time, across the street from where I live.  The four Mormon guys are inside what appears to be a tiny room with an open window.  One of the guys is jumping in and out of the window for fun.  The following day is my turn to work another Saturday.  I'm passing through the neighborhood between mine and the bike trail.  I glance down one residential street to spy a Caucasian mom pushing a child in a stroller.  I'm down a hill and turn on a street with industrial shops.  Around the corner comes a young hip Caucasian couple.  The girl is in a track suit and thick framed glasses, straight from the 1970's.   The guy is in shorts and has a lot of beard.  Then I'm on the trail, down the avenue to the train, and downtown to a coffee place.  When I come out, I spot a couple of monks walking down the pedestrian mall.  I recognize one of them from my own street and up north where I changed buses last year.  They both go into another coffee place across the pedestrian mall.  Screaming Protestants and jumping Mormons, and caffeinated Catholic monks.  The following day is Cinco de Mayo.  I hit the festival in the park downtown.  Along the way, I'm headed through the neighborhood between my home and the bike trail.  I pass a jogging Caucasian guy with a flat top haircut.  When I get to the fest, I realize that I'm out of film and, after the fest, make the pilgrimage to the camera store before grocery shopping at the supermarket next door.  When I get back to my street, I pass one truck with a Mexican flag.  Then I hear them.  The crowd screaming about Jesus is back.  On Cinco de Mayo.  (?)  The long white-haired freak is jumping around and pointing at cars.
     Tuesday of the following week.  I'm headed for the trail to work and am at the far end of the park between there and my home.  I pass a Caucasian runner who greets me.  Out on the trail, under grey skies, sis a single guy in a black hoodie.  He kneels on a concrete alcove between the bike trail and the interstate just a few feet away.  In front of him is an upside down bright yellow bicycle.  At his side is a can of Modelo.  Wednesday.  I'm on my bike in the pouring spring rain, on my way to the gym before work.  I take a shorter route, off the trail, which I don't remember taking before.  At one rain-soaked and busy intersection, I look over my shoulder to discover a doughnut shop.  Why not?  I go inside for a doughnut .  On the wall is reads, "A Kansas City Legend," and "Hand made doughnuts."  The place is a revolving door of polite men in boots, all purchasing doughnuts.  These guys sound as if they know their doughnuts.  "Are you out of fritters?" one asks a clerk.  Another orders a manager's dozen, he guesses.  "And I'll take a small coffee, I guess."  "Right on," says one of the clerks.  She's convinced that I'm having fun riding out in the ran.  She tells me that when she gets home, she will take her dog out to pull her on her skateboard.  I'm getting ready to leave after my doughnut.  A drenched woman in pigtails, an open soaked leather jacket and a Super Mario Brothers T-shirt sticks her head inside the door to ask me for a dollar.
     I believe it was last month when I read an interview with a local twenty-something poet, in a weekly newspaper.  She laments the passing away of the city streets upon which she grew up, and upon which  those who have become infamously known as "longtime residents" continue to be infamously "displaced."  One of those streets is named Inca.  I've never been down the stretch of Inca which I am traversing upon my way home from work Thursday evening.  Around 8 PM, dusk is settling on a snowy spring day.  I'm headed down Inca, south of downtown and a couple blocks from the interstate.  I immediately feel as though what I am seeing is one of the last blocks untouched by the cancerous redevelopment which reaches out to every corner of the metro area.  For the next couple of blocks, I'm passing home after weathered little one and two story home.  Some appear to be turn-of-the-century.  Others appear to be adobe.  All evoke the style of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Smack in the middle of one block is a new glass box of a "home" which Is twice as high as the old ones.  Against the grey sky, it glows orange from within.  The wall facing the street appears as one big pane of glass.  High on one wall is a flat screen TV.  On a couch against the opposite wall is a red-haired, bearded hipster in shorts.  The next morning, I'm coming back this way.  I will have to wait for a train before going to work, and I will have to wait for another headed home.  This is what happens when you live across the tracks.  Before either train, I watch a guy walking his own bike toward me.  His tire is completely off his front rim.  It's somehow both hanging off the rim and locked to the frame.  The tube is completely missing.
     The following day is my turn to have off.  I'm on my way to get blood work done for an upcoming doctor appointment.  I ride to the train, which whisks me across town to a medical office park.  It's a shorts wait to have my blood drawn before I am up the street to an IHOP.  I'm sitting in a booth eating breakfast.  Behind me, a woman approaches a table with children.  She asks them which animal they want her to make out of balloons for them.  She then proceeds to rattle off a seemingly endless list of creatures both real and imagined.  She picks a dragonfly and demonstrates how it's made before their eyes.  Later in the afternoon, across town back in my own neighborhood, I'm on my way to grocery shopping.  I stop into a deathburger down the street from the supermarket.  Inside is a family of what appear to be kids who dress like they are on their way to prison.  Their Dad looks as if he's out of prison.  They occupy a corner of the place while a group of homeless guys hold court at a table nearby.  They are discussing the least favorable places to panhandle when one begins telling another to "shut up."  Yet another homeless guy comes inside and over to the group.  One o them tells him, "Gimme a cigarette.  I need two cigarettes right now."

     Zal, as he was known...not a typical diplomat, not a typical ambassador.  Zal liked control.  He rode in the cockpit of the U.S. military C-130 Hercules...  "He likes to watch."  ...he flew to the provinces and handed out windup radios to women himself.  ...Khalilzad spoke English and...corrected his interpreter's translations.  Zal...fed off the media like a personality feeds off a cult.  He threw elaborate press conferences at the U.S.embassy...calling on reporters by name.  Surrounded by attractive young female aides in hip, occasionally tight clothing, dubbed by some as "Zal's Gals," and always slightly late for any event...  - Whisky Tango Foxtrot, by K. Barker, 2012

     ...alienation as "a mode of experience in which the person experiences himself as an alien."  ...the alienated person is out of touch with himself.  These young people appeared to believe that they had come to Canada to avoid experiencing themselves as an alien.  They equated emigration with ego-preservation.  ...sacrifice of self-hood...  They...trust their own decisions...much more than...the culture or the group.  They saw the parenting generation as trapped...unresponsive...  Although...not...subdued by their society, neither were they able to influence its attitudes...  ...they were alienated from their society, but not from themselves.  - Williams

Mothers' Day
     Sunday.  I get home from a Mothers' Day brunch with the sister.  We toasted Mom and had some selected buffet foods for a total of $110, not including tip.  We were up on a hill, looking across the neighborhoods between us and downtown.  The sister dropped me off back home, where I continued rearranging furniture and relocating stuff, moving into the space mom left behind.  In the late afternoon, I took out the small easy chair she lived in, now stained with food, out for large item trash pickup in a couple of days.  I also took out a small broken table, part of a decades old set of Ethan Allen furniture which my parents purchased for the new home they had built.  In Oklahoma.  The home was complete in 1977.  Now it's next to the chair she adopted from our previous residence across town, along with a patio umbrella, from the same period as the furniture.  Green with white polka dots.  And a plastic patio table from our old place on the east side of central Denver.  Up to five large items for pickup per month.  These are the dynamics of how pieces of a life are removed.  Just in time for Spring cleaning.  Across the parking lot, one of my neighbors is working on a truck which he and a buddy have been toiling over since at least last week.  His pal even set up a tarp on a frame over part of the vehicle to work on it out in the rain and snow.  The guy yells at a diapered toddler to return to return inside every time the child comes out of the back gate to see what he is doing.  Before I take out these pieces referred to as "large items", and after brunch, I clean out a drawer with her CDs and DVDs.  I realize that I can take these to a used media store and turn them into cash.  I give the place a call, and they tell me they are "selective these days."  I'm sure every place is.  I grab a bus up the street to the train station.  In the bus shelter, a guy asks someone if they want any marijuana.  He replies that he doesn't smoke marijuana.  A woman in the shelter says, "I smoke marijuana."
     I jump o one crosstown bus, along with a drunk with a cane talking about owning a rifle and shooting people.  The driver tells me that the crosstown bus behind him is leaving sooner than he is, and he doesn't know why I got onto his.  I'm the odd passenger?  Okay.  I get on the other bus and the driver of this one is shuffling up to the door.  He asks a young passenger why he walked away from the bus as he's ready to depart.  "Patience is a virtue, or so I heard," the driver says to me.  Not all drivers for this city's transit system agree.  The drunk wanders over from the other bus and this driver tells him to sober up before he boards a bus.  We're off without him, and I'm out at the music shop.  It turns out the guy looking over my wares "isn't very busy today."  He will have my collection examined no at least 45 minutes. I mention that there's a lot of Pavarotti and Willie Nelson.  He says they have a lot of that already.  I have plenty of time for lunch at a chicken place a few doors down.  I'm inside having lunch at a place frequented by African-Americans.  At one point as I am eating, I realize that Look Away Dixieland is coming over the sound system.  Inside is an old guy in his Sunday best, a high school girl in hot pants, a bald guy with tattoos.  Across the alley is yet another big red brick building several stories tall.  A chain link fence is around it and it's slated for demolition.  For dessert, I try a fried Oreo cookie.  Interesting.  It's like a poor man's beignet.  I think it's been at least 45 minutes and I go outside to my bike.  A street couple are standing next to it meeting each other for the first time.  The guy was here first, stretching his arms out in a gesture known only to those who inhabit the urban spaces.  They exchange small talk as I take off my bike lock.  "What's your name?" asks the woman.  "Loki," replies the guy.  "I'll never remember that," she answers.  She asks him to meet her at a certain location.  She's off to continue her trek down the sidewalk.  "Women..." he says to the street.
     Thursday.  I'm out of work early.  After dinner at the supermarket, I'm pedaling through the neighborhood between mine and the bike trail,  I'm at an intersection on my regular route.  Around the corner comes a nineteen-year-old girl straight out of the 1970's.  She's on a ten-speed.  Long dark hair blows behind her from under a helmet.  She's in a tank top and shorts.  She sees me stop t let her pass through.  As she cruises past me, she says, "Thanks.  Have a good one."
Servant's Daughter
     Wednesday of the following week.  I get to the gym early.  My gym is inside a city recreation center.  This morning, the indoor basketball court is host to a graduation for a high school senior class which appears to have a proportion of students who are developmentally disabled.  Most are dressed in evening attire.  A couple of teenage girls approach.  They don't sound disabled.  One says to the other, "Let me call my dad and put him on speakerphone.  I call him Servant because he serves me breakfast."  Servant does not pick up his phone.  A middle-aged woman exits the rec center.  She recognizes Servant's daughter.  They greet each other.  The younger tells the older, "I'm going to my fiancee's graduation.  We're getting married in August sometime."  A vague wedding date when the bride's Servant will walk her down the aisle...after breakfast.  I wonder how he is with wedding cakes?  A teenage kid also exits the rec center.  He's leaning on a walker as he propels himself with his right foot while he drags his left along the concrete.  I head inside when the gym opens.  One disabled teenage guy is speaking loudly, asking everyone he sees, "What's up?"  Surely unintentionally, he's doing Will Ferrell's part in an opening scene from the movie Night at the Roxbury.

Stanley Marketplace
     "We're guided by our Stanifesto, which reminds us that we care a lot about being a positive force in the neighborhoods and communities we're a part of," says...the chief storyteller...  With...10 boutiques and five fitness-related businesses...including salons for your hair and nails.
The Denver Central Market.
     "I love the hustle and bustle of DCM.  I like to grab a chai latte and a breakfast burrito and pretend to blend in with the people working on their laptops."
Zeppelin Station
     The hipster mecca in RiNo...wants to make sure that your lunch is more than just a quick conversation.  - Thirst Colorado, 5-6/2019

     Unlike on other embeds, the officers here were so strapped, spread so thin, they had no time to worry about what I was doing or writing.  Children did not crowd around the Humvees, asking for pens and candy, as...in the rest of Afghanistan.  When we drove through a village, the women and children ran away.  NATO and the United States claimed to have killed one thousand Taliban fighters in ten weeks - still, the militants kept coming, an endless army.  - Barker

     The first national exile conference...was held in Montreal in the spring of 1970.  The Pan-Canada Conference of Deserters and Resisters...  The exile organizations...discussed...draft resistance, the GI movement, desertion, and the underground railroad.  ...the American movement was recognizing the exiles, and the exiles were throwing off their "nonpolitical" stance.  ...the conference...was one of those rare times when...liberals to Marxist-Leninists...come together for...sensitive political communication...  - Williams

     Thursday.  I'm back at the doughnut shop on the way to work.  There appear to me a Caucasian male population who come in here for a dozen doughnuts, for the office.  They all sound to me as if they are embarrassed about their lack of ability to decide which doughnuts to choose.  They are ill prepared to return to their childhood confidence in knowing exactly which ones are the best.  Or perhaps this kind of choice involves the non-masculine process of "art."  One guy comes in and accepts the manager's offer of a "banana" doughnut. sample.  "Banana," the guy says.  "Yeah, okay.  Awesome.  I'll take that one."  It's painful for him to continue to choose, like taking a test.  "Awesome" is a popular Caucasian word.  It's a cool spring morning.  A bearded hipster in a knit cap comes inside.  He's a regular and the clerk appears surprised about his choice of beverage.  "It's funny," he says, "because I have to explain this to everyone in here."  He's either stopped drinking, or he is beginning to take up, caffeine.  I can't make out which.  I don't want to know.  A second Caucasian guy comes inside.  Shirt and tie, slacks, argyle socks, and raw leather shoes.  He giggles after every other sentence.  The manager is successful also in selling this guy on a banana doughnut.  "They're only here on Thursdays," the manager tells the guy.  Sure as hell, the guy replies, "Awesome!"  The guy tells the manager, "You know more about doughnuts, you know better what's good."  He follows this with another giggle.
     Memorial Day weekend, it's my turn to have Saturday off.  I had put some furniture, a table which is falling apart and the chair my late mom sat in all the time, outside for "large item" trash pickup.  I did this on a day indicated by my copy of the recycle calendar.   The stuff was never picked up.  An email arrived in my inbox from the HOA, warning all residents about a fine for leaving large items outside on inappropriate days, and asking for any photos of residents or non-residents caught in the act.  Today, I notice a pickup truck parked in our parking lot, I suspect owned by a resident.  My mom's favorite chair and the table part of a furniture collection once prized by my late parents now reside in the bed of a pickup truck of someone I will likely never meet.  After a late dinner, I run across the street for a snack.   As I am coming back, I spy a guy on the corner with some kind of long bag over his shoulder.  He looks as if he's a street character.  I don't recognize him.  I first see him whistle at a  guy on a passing scooter.  Unfortunately the corner where he stands with his long bag is one most convenient for me to take back across the street.  He asks me if he can borrow my ID to purchase alcohol.  He appears to be of legal age.
     The day after, I head out to the waterpark which opened yesterday.  I'm across the boulevard and rolling down a residential street.  I stop at a stop sign.  On the corner is a teenage kid with a laminated name tag and a container with a lid.  At first, he looks as if he may be doing yard work, as he's at the edge of a front lawn and is killing time with a twig in his hand, waiting for someone to come along.  That someone is me.  He begins giving me a pitch about his wares for sale, hence the container.  He has games and candy for sale to anyone with children.  The sales allow him to "stay away from drugs" he tells me.  The games age pictures which a child may color and can be erased.  We're not talking about kindles or i pads.  I don't ask him why he agreed to spend his time on a residential corner, on the afternoon before Memorial Day, in a neighborhood next to the poorest neighborhood in the metro area.  I simply tell him that I am on my way to the pool.  I make my way over to the bike trail.  Lately, I take this trail north, into downtown.  Four years ago, I began taking it south, on an hour and fifteen minute ride to work , six days a week for two years and three months.  My employment, long story.  The ride, beautiful year round.  Each day, I would pass the waterpark along the trail to work.  The last summer at that job, I went swimming every weekday before work.  Last year, I took the train back and forth to a trail head for the final stretch of trail to the waterpark.  This afternoon, I elect to do this ride for the first time in almost two years.  The first half of the trail along the way follows the Platte River.  Two years ago, I would see the occasional individual homeless tent on the riverbank.  I see the same when I take this same trail north into downtown where I currently work.  It's now two years later, and along the same trail south, there is a stretch where the back has a long line of homeless tents and encampments.  On the way home along this same stretch, the municipality of Englewood has zip tied a couple of pages in plastic to branches of trees.  They are, I assume, for the homeless.  They are official notices that, for the next two months, these homeless encampments will be removed.  As I read one of the two notices, a guy comes out of a tent with a small propane canister and yells "Hey!"
     I get home and run across the street for a quick dinner of Chinese food.  I forget my book, but that turns out to be okay.  I'm watching one table and listening to another behind me.  To my side is a couple of young adult women and three kids.  They are all Hispanic and dressed in suits and dresses.  The youngest is a daughter, who spins and dances next to the table.  Behind me are four clean cut  young Hispanic guys.  The sound as if they are discussing street racing.  One is doing most of the talking.  All are using "fuck" throughout the conversation.  The loquacious one says something about putting children to sleep at daycare, before he mentions that he "popped a tire racing."  he goes on to mentions that, "We crashed.  We ran."  He also claims to have been charged with seven felonies.  He mentions that his bond was reduced.  They mention a local speedway, and I listen to them watching a motorcycle racing video on a phone.

     ...we pick up [a draft] dodger and his girl...scouting for land to buy in British Columbia.  His "thing" is hydroponics, growing plants without soil, and he and twelve fellow exiles...are moving [there] to build a "city" of geodesic domes.  -  Williams

April 2019, "People Are Crazy Out There" & Caucasians Walking Dogs

     Tuesday.  I'm on my way to the supermarket downtown before work.  Just outside the city center I'm riding along a street with row houses.  A woman in her thirties is running back inside her door after having taken something out to one of two homeless guys.  The pair each has a long white beard and a shopping cart.  They stand in the entrance to an alley.  As I enter the alley, one says to the other, "Well that can't be good."  I can't say myself.  Inside the supermarket, I'm in line at the coffee place when I'm approached by a homeless guy inside the store.  His face looks familiar.  He says, "Good morning sir."  I say nothing.  I know what question is coming next.  He turns and walks off.  Some nine hours later, I'm on the trail home after work.  Coming from the other direction is a homeless guy on a bike.  Somehow, he has four full backpacks attached to his bike, as if they were saddlebags.  Shortly after, I come up behind another homeless cyclist.  This one has on a backpack, and on the handlebars is a small metal pail filled with sand, as well as something else hanging from the side opposite the pail.
     Wednesday.  I'm on the bike trail to work, coming out from under the infamous underpass.  On the trail is a Public Works truck.  It pulls slightly to the side and parks.  On an embankment between the trail and the street is a homeless guy packing up his sleeping bag.  I roll past the truck.  In my mirror, I watch as the driver gets out to speak with the homeless guy.  I wonder if he's being rousted.  Around the bend is a guy strolling the trail and conversing on his bluetooth.  In his left hand is a coffee.  In his right, a leash around his Siberian Husky walking along the embankment.  Across a bridge over the Platte River is a young homeless couple.  They are packing up their camping gear and putting on two bikes and a bike trailer.  I exit the trail and am heading up a downtown street.  Walking toward me the wrong way in the bike lane are another homeless couple, before they move into the street.  After work, I stop at the Chinese place before crossing the street to home.  When I come outside, a middle school kid is approaching.  He leans against the building where all panhandlers do, and begins the same way.  "Sir, how's it goin'?"  I respond with, "Bye."  He tells me to ride carefully, as, "People are crazy out there."  Yep.  Out there is where I'm from kid.
     Friday.  Dogs.  I'm out of the house when Caucasians are walking their dogs.  The first is just a block up the street.  On the corner is a small brick ranch home, with a car and a truck in the driveway.  The guy coming  across the front yard is familiar.  I've seen him, on the bus?  He has stringy grey hair coming out of a knit cap.  I had assumed that he is homeless.  Does this guy live here?  if he doesn't, why is he walking this little dog?  Down this crosstown street is a park, several blocks long with a lake comprising at least half of its acreage.  For the past 12 years I've considered this park as part of my neighborhood.  On the trail around the park is a young Caucasian couple walking their dog, followed by a young Caucasian guy walking his dog.  A few years past, I saw a young Caucasian couple running this path before sunup.  They must live around here, but I otherwise never see them.  Last night, I rode home down a street between here and my own boulevard.  I passed a small car with a Janis Joplin sticker.  A Hispanic Joplin fan.  This morning, I'm down the hill, over the bike trail, across the bridge, in a bike lane headed toward downtown.  This morning, the bike lane is full of both trash and recycle cans.  Directly in front of me is a dryer which someone has put out for pickup.  I make my way to c coffee place on the pedestrian mall.  Standing outside is another grey-haired guy.  This one is wearing a coat, his head inside of a hood.  His voice is an almost non-existent whisper.  He asks me if he can "have some money?  Can I have some help?"I turn toward work.  On the corner of two main thoroughfares is a guy in a wheelchair.  In each hand, he is holding up two copies of a Jehovah's Witnesses magazine.  When my day is through, I am making my way back through the same neighborhood across my boulevard.  A Caucasian guy is out running.  Perhaps with the spring they are out in the mornings and evenings.
     The following day is my Saturday to work.   I am standing at the register at a deathburger on the way to work.  A guy is waiting behind me to change a five.  He is pacing and agitated.  He approaches the cashier and asks her to change his bill when she asks him to wait until she completes my order.  More pacing.  When her drawer opens, he holds his five in front of her.  Behind him is another guy asks the cashier to borrow a phone.  When she declines, he decides that this is "bullshit."  After work, I pay a visit to my mom who is in the hospital for the second time in a few weeks.  I don't leave until after 8 PM.  I don't get back to my street until shortly before 10.  I stop at a deathburger, later than I think I've ever been here.  I used to catch a bus on this corner up until five years ago, long before sunrise.  I used to come to this deathburger when they would open in the morning.  This evening, the place has dopey skateboarders, homeless, and assorted youth.  The following day, I am coming back from the hospital earlier in the afternoon.  I'm coming back through the neighborhood next door to mine in the early evening this time.  I pass a Caucasian woman on her own bicycle.  I pass someone sitting in her car in front of what I assume is her place of residence.  With her blond hair, sweatshirt, and Keds without socks, she looks like every Caucasian college girl I've ever seen.  A few blocks past, I roll by a brick Victorian home.  Hangout in front of the entrance are three weirdo gangster wannabe teenagers, all in black heavy-metal style T-shirts and ball caps.  In the middle of the walkway to the front door is a teenage girl who appears as if she is waiting for someone.

     Bright yellow lawn signs dotted front yards in the Cherry Creek North neighborhood...."BALLOT INITIATIVE 300.  Meeting tonight..."  ...the University of Denver professor's...speaking...at the event...as far as she could tell, she was the only non-white person in the entire room.  "...activities...are being criminalized...acts of survival, things every person has to do..."  "...lives are at stake.  ...the human reasons that people move different places...because of the resources there...accessible to their basic needs, because it's quiet.  Ending criminalization practices does support housing goals.  ...this initiative is the result of homeless people, not housing experts."  ...in Cherry Creek...community members nodded along with lobbyists...who repeatedly stated that it was "un-empathetic" to allow the homeless to sleep outdoors.
     ...a love song to Denver as I know it, a multicultural space, a convergence zone...  Many of our family homes in Denver are gone now due to gentrification and the physical and psychological stresses it causes a displaced people.  I avoid driving down Galapago Street and Tremont Place on bad days...the loss of community and the destruction of the historic heart of our neighborhoods.  I don't think we can quantify all that has been lost, for so much of it no longer exists...  It's a type of mourning...  "There seems to be this sense of helplessness surrounding...gentrification...for communities and families...being displaced."  I've spent my adolescence and early twenties experiencing the gentrification of Denver in real time, hardly able to process...what my community is facing.  ...questions...fall on those who are actively gentrifying spaces...  Are you comfortable living in and taking over a historically Latino neighborhood?  Do you know the history of Five Points?  What can you tell me about the nations who were here before Anglos?  - Westword, 4/4-10/2019

     The first stop on the G-line...the Globeville neighborhood...is not far away from..."Fox Island" because of its sequestration from the rest of the city - hemmed in by Interstate 25 on the east, Interstate 70 to the north and multiple lines to the west.  ...the City Council approved rezonings to allow for...120 micro apartments...  [I worked in Northwest Denver  for more than a year...waiting for the opening of the G-line commuter rail, which opens the day of this newspaper story.]
       ...redevelopment...over the last 25 years...the city's core has been left largely untouched.  ...with Five Points and the Union Station neighborhood...  ...Greyhound Lines...is looking to sell its terminal property..."to...a developer to positively  transform the neighborhood."  - The Denver Post, 4/26/2019

     I have spent my career working as a neighborhood advocate...across the United States and the world, building coalitions, pushing back against policies that are detrimental to the community...  We are at a tipping point.  Growth and development has been overwhelming our neighborhoods...  - Jamie Giellis for Mayor mailer

     Members of my congregation...knows [sic] all too well the realities of living in limbo and facing the possibility of being...separated from their families.  None of these families, who have embraced Colorado, just as they fully embraced their faith in the Lord, should be forced to leave behind their homes and families and the community they have helped build in nearly 20 years.  - Denver Urban Spectrum, 4/2019

     ...I asked one of the guys..."I just deserted the U.S. Army," and before I could finish...he says, "Oh yeah?  I'm a deserter to."  ...my guilt number, as a lot of GIs call it.  It's the number...that one's certain to have killed, civilian and military.  I only keep track of the innocent people killed.
     I want to tell that immovable Rock-of-Gibraltar, apple-pie-eating, red, white, and blue bald eagle sitting on his couch with his feet up on his naugahyde footstool watching the war on his color TV that...he is watching...genocide.  ...these hard-hats marching through the streets of New York with the American flag tattooed on their chests...  - Williams

     It would take two hours for the Iraq police to arrive and clean up.  The sun peeked...over the horizon, searching for us.  ...half the neighborhood had seen the carnage.  "Hey Crawford, you got brains on your boot."  There was a flake of bone attached, and it's sharpened edge was lodged firmly into the rubber sole...  A fifty-caliber round is one hell of a big bullet.  [One round impacted an Iraqi  passenger of a vehicle, who fired on U.S. troops.]  ...the man in back...was looking at us, both eyes perfectly focused despite...half his brain...all over the car.  ...his eyes shifted, first from me, then to [another U.S. soldier], then back to me.  ...and he began to mumble in Arabic, holding my gaze, staring at me from the abyss.  I could see halfway through the man's head...
     The shop [owner] had been...in the...war with Iran.  "When America invaded, Iraqi soldiers and police were gone  The looters came and I fought them here."  [This shop owner would pay for] kabobs, chicken and rice [for the U.S. soldiers.]  He would refuse all attempts to pay him back.  "No.  We are friends.  You protect me and Iraq, and I protect you.  It is dangerous for you here."  ...not every soldier in the company got to know him.  After a heated argument [with a U.S. soldier unaware of his relationship with others in the company], his head was crashed through a window that he had once shot looters from.  - The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, by J. Crawford, 2006

     Monday.  I'm out of my door early.  I'm rolling past the park at sunrise.  There is a salt-and-pepper-haired Caucasian guy in neoprene fleece, walking his dog.  The following morning, there are three Caucasians, each with a dog, and the canine trio is congregating socially.  A bowlegged Hispanic male stands in the residential street.  Wednesday.  Spring snow spits with some wind behind it as I prepare to leave work early on my bike in the late afternoon.  A young woman comes out from the restaurant next door.  As she gets in her car, she says to me in a British accent, "Before you leave, I wanted you to know I do some riding myself.  I think you're hardcore.  You made my day."  I wave to her.  Thursday.  I get up to find that the reason I had trouble riding home the evening before is my rear tire is flat.  This morning, I'm off to the bike shop before work.  The bus dispatches me to the train station, where at the gate for my bus, a guy stands asking anyone within earshot if they "have a cigarette they want to sell?"  He gets one from a couple who ask him where the bus goes to.  When the bus arrives, we enter.  Shortly thereafter, he gets out and disappears.
     Sunday of the following week.  I arrive at a train station around 1 PM.  This station is up a boulevard from a physical therapy place where my mom is staying.  A middle-aged guy comes up a light of stairs to the train platform.  He spots my bike, asks me if it's mine, and mentions in a voice which is almost a whisper that I should keep an eye on it.  He appears to be drunk.  He comes back and first kneels, then sits down next to a younger guy.  The younger guy is also sitting on the concrete.  The pair begin a conversation.  The younger one is in assisted living.  He sounds mentally impaired.  Monday.  With the coming of the Spring there are Caucasians all over the place, across the boulevard from my own side.  I pass an elderly Caucasian couple in the park walking their dog.  Just past the park is a young Caucasian father pushing his toddler in a stroller.  I'm down the hill, along the trail, and over the bridge.  I grab a sugar-free hot chocolate at a coffee place and arrive at the rec center just as they open.  I head to the locker room and when I come out, there appears to be a homeless guy laying down on the floor of the lobby.  He's in a winter coat and camouflaged pants, and he appears as if he's so high his eyes are closed.  After my workout, I ask the woman behind the desk if she knows what his story is.  He's diabetic, and was passed out.  They gave him a snack and he's on his way.  After work, I'm on my way home.  I'm crossing a piece of the bike trail which I crossed this morning, when I spotted a homeless camp on the opposite bank of the river.  Then, I spotted a guy sitting in the doorway of a tent.  This evening, he is still there, laying down now.  I can see his camouflaged pants from here.  As I examine this scene, a middle-aged guy in a suit walks past me with his dog.

     ...a fit, intermediate rider who has just never put in enough time to nail the super tech-y stuff - the idea of spending a weekend with fat-tire freaks in a hardcore mountain biking mecca makes your pals sweat.
     After 24 hours in Trinidad, I still haven't seen another bike.  Pick-up trucks with dog and driver bounce down streets paved in rusty red brick.  A gravel riding paradise.  So - where are all the bikes?  At the Mountain Ventures Summit in Mammoth Lakes, California...trying to explain Trinidad.  ...the town's challenges have put Trinidad at the forefront of...the widening gap between urban and rural.  "Cycling...I knew the gravel trend was coming.  Having...used the [municipal] bus and light rail system to get to the start of a ride...  The objective is to get people pulling off I-25 to ride their bike...to see downtown spending, lodging tax revenue and the attraction of small businesses."  - Elevation Outdoors, April 2019

     ...meet this year's Miss Hooters Colorado finalists.  Are you ready to indulge in democracy?  Rank 'em.  Discuss and debate with your friends.  ...submit your vote and pat yourself on the back for being a great American.  - Mile High Sports, 4/2019

     A three-day extravaganza for fans of superheroes, comic book characters, movies, television shows, and all things popular culture.  "We've really tried to create something for everybody," says...marketing director for Pop Culture Classrooms...  "We always get passes to all three days, and...visit lots of stars."  ...TV and film guests require fees...  ...700 plus hours of panels...including...techniques...to incorporate pop culture in their classrooms...  "[We] didn't dress up in 2018.  We feel comfortable in our jeans and T-shirts."  - Colorado Parent, 5/2019

     Thursday.  I'm on my way to work early this morning, chasing a Caucasian cyclist through streets across my boulevard.  He's in black spandex with a yellow stripe.  A single saddlebag hangs on the right rear side of his ten speed frame.  Down the hill, at the entrance to the bike trail, I watch a trio of thirtysomething riders in tight formation.  One has ruby red sunglasses.  I'm on and down the trail and approaching the exit when I pass a homeless guy pushing an empty shopping cart.  He has a leather jacket on over his hoodie.  And his head is turned toward the interstate.  He stands staring at the morning traffic.  I don't know if it's because I'm out earlier than usual, but cyclists are everywhere.  Everywhere.  I'm climbing over a long bridge as ten speed after oncoming ten speed rush past me.  There's room for two lanes but I must stay to the right on this not so wide bridge.  When I get into my last bike lane to work, I'm behind yet another cyclist.  This one is head to toe in black spandex, with odd pink bands on the calves.  A headlamp crests the helmet, and a Camelback is slung across the shoulder.  The rider slowly blows through a red light, tail lamp flashing.  I arrive at the downtown supermarket.  A crazy with a gaunt face and long greasy hair is approaching.  He says to me as he passes by, "You're goin' to prison.  You can't buy your way out of it.  No way out of it."  His voice echoes through the parking garage.  I head inside the supermarket and have a seat at a table for a quick snack.  At a table across from me is a crazy young woman.  Her honey blonde bleached locks are growing out long and stringy.  As they hang, they hide her dark red face.  She holds what appears to be an old transistor radio, complete with black leather case.  She hold it like a cell phone.  But if it is a radio, that she is ranting and singing to no one.  She takes a peek inside of a new book in front of her on her table.  When I am back outside unlocking my bike, a guy comes along and briefly has a seat on the concrete to panhandle.  His voice is barely audible.  He immediately gets some dollar bills from a customer.
     Friday.  Last week, I had a flat on the back tire of one bike.  After I had the tube replaced, I had a flat on my other bike.  Same rim.  I'm lucky the shop stayed open after close to fix it, regardless of the fact they forgot to air up the new tube, because this week I discover a flat in the new tube on the first bike.  I'm wheeling this bike down the street, to a stop for a crosstown bus to the train station.  I will be at the shop in jig time.  The stop  is across the street from housing which is subsidized by the catholic Church.  It's "Section 8" housing.  I follow a guy in a hoodie and shorts over leggings.  He climbs up on the corner of a black wrought iron fence at one end of the homes, and he begins shadow boxing.  He walks the length of the edge of this fence before jumping down and jogging away.  The bus arrives and collects me, depositing me at the train station where I grab another to the bike shop, bicycle in tow.  I have a few minutes before it opens and I go next door to a new breakfast place.  On a small patio is a guy who turns to me and asks how much it is to ride the bus.  (?)  After work, approaching 8 PM, I am riding home through the neighborhood of Caucasians, dogs, and bikes.  I honestly don't remember seeing so many of them here before this Spring.  One Caucasian walks past and says, "Hi there."  A father and son pair turn the corner.
     Saturday is my turn to work.  I'm just on the bike trail, after waiting for a string of cyclists to pass.  I come out from under the infamous underpass when I happen upon a familiar homeless guy.  He's easily a decade or more my junior and is sitting on an embankment, talking to himself.  As I pass, he turns to me ans asks, "Will you take me to a Vanilla Ice concert?"  (Is Mr. Ice out on tour?)  After work, I ride the short distance to a downtown hospital, where my mom has been diagnosed the previous day with cancer.  It hasn't been biopsied, and probably won't be.  But, after living with me the past 17 years, just a week or two past, she suddenly has no appetite.  One day she did, the next she does not.  This week, her blood pressure can no longer stay up without medicine, and her kidneys have stopped functioning.  The following day, I visit her in ICU.  She's had trouble talking since her blood pressure dropped last week.  On Monday, I'm back at the bus stop across the street from where I live.  My regular dentist wants me to consult with an oral surgeon about removing my two lower wisdom teeth.  It's around 7 AM.  A girl who may be a high school senior is sitting in the bus shelter, sucking her thumb.  Standing outside is a guy she walked here with.  I arrive at the oral surgeon's office.  It's a swingin' office compared to my regular dentist's waiting room.  It's full of patients, one of whom is talking about an upcoming vacation.  I go back to a room and wait for the dentist to come it.  I can still hear the party atmosphere out front.  "I'm single.  I have a dog.  I'm going to be 30 in two months," I hear someone say.  The oral surgeon comes in and we meet for perhaps 60 seconds.  he wants to go nowhere near my wisdoms.  I can almost see him backing away from the x-rays.  Minutes later, I am at the downtown deathburger homeless central.  I grab a soda and have a seat.  A couple of middle-aged homeless guys wander past me.  One tells the other, "That's the guy who got shot six times last night."
     Tuesday I see my mom again in the ICU.  The hospital isn't far from where I work and I stop in along the way.  She is asleep and snoring.  She's off the blood pressure meds and the monitors.  The next morning I get a call from the sister, who spends the night in her room.  Between 2:30 and 3 AM, her heart and breathing stops.  She left instructions that she does not want to be resuscitated.  A doctor came in to pronounce her.  A nurse wept.  An overnight chaplain, autocratic toward the nurse, fumbled to find release forms.  The following evening, I am home from work, crossing my street.  I pass a lanky long-haired blonde young Caucasian guy.  He's in a tie-dyed T-shirt and has a skateboard.  He's as out of place on my street as a Sherpa or an aborigine.  The morning after I am out on the trail to work.  I pas a couple of homeless guys walking their bikes.  Around the corner is an elderly woman who does not appear homeless.  She is assisting a homeless guy pack up his bike trailer.  I'm out of work early in the afternoon.  My current helmet is falling apart.  I stop at a couple of bike shops nearby to look at their helmets, before I follow the bike trail to a big sporting goods place on the west side of downtown.  I find a new helmet, and a rain poncho.  My current rain poncho is held together with duct tape.  A trail leading away from here connects with one which I take to work.  As soon as I am off the trail and cross the tracks into the neighborhood across the boulevard from mine, I pass a Caucasian runner.  A watch a young Caucasian guy pull his motorcycle into his driveway, and a Caucasian cyclist comes up from behind me.

March 2019

     ...Mayor Michael Hancock?  He has been able to destroy and/or monetize parks and open space throughout Denver.  He has been able to destroy or damage neighborhoods throughout the city with...high rises built right to the curb.  He has driven out African-American families who have been in the city for generations with his gentrification efforts and making affordable housing in the city a thing of the past.  Driving about Denver has become a chore almost any time of day and parking has become scarcer...
     "When we can't afford to strike, that's when we have to strike."  ...the 93% of DCTA educators who voted...to strike disagreed.  [They disagreed with a district official.]  Newly appointed DPS Superintendent Susana Cordova...  ...hiring more substitute teachers, arranging to pay subs twice their usual rate, spending $137,000 on lesson plans for those subs - revealed teachers' main concern...how top heavy the DPS payroll was with administrative positions...  - Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle

     ...new jobs [in Denver] climbed to 100,000, Denver has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, 8,000 new companies were formed, $300 million is committed to affordable housing, and national publications voted Denver as the best place to live, start a career, and raise children.  - Denver Urban Spectrum, 3/2019

     ...I'm meeting...deserters from everywhere.  ...I knew I made the right decision...  The army...was an experience...insight into a world that I might never have been in...  So I felt that I had certain insights.  ...I just let my head unravel for a long time, mainly with...grass, lot o' hash, some acid, stuff like that.  ...a purging of the inner demon.  ...while you're going through all these changes down in the States.  ...it was a new life and I was glad.
     As far as the States goes...  If repression comes, it's going to be horrible - that no matter who comes out on top, people are going to be shot in the streets, thrown in jail, put up against the wall.
     ...in Paris.  ...I went to the Communist Party, and they just kicked me out...  This was in the fall of 1967...  In December Stokely Carmichael showed up.  He was arrested...at the airport and held for a few hours.  ...I'd do an interview with Carmichael on TV...  Before...I signed an agreement with the French Government not to engage in any political activities.  ...we...decided...to...encourage resistance from inside the army.  ...writing letters to the "Stars and Stripes" having arguments with the editors...  We were publishing...  I decided to leave because after the May revolt I didn't trust the French government at all.  ...in that riot at the Fort Dix stockade.  ...going to prison...for another twenty of thirty years.  It didn't happen to him because of all the publicity he got.  I'm sure it changed him...  ...I came to Canada...  We...in June 1969...got a farm...and we had guys, staying there...  I like Saskatchewan - the socialist reforms...  ...as inflation and unemployment get out of hand, people are turning back to the social democrats...
     I don't feel like getting into...the hippie commune thing.  I don't see why there has to be a split between...the cultural revolutionaries and the political revolutionaries.  ...the majority of the young people are still with the establishment...
     There is going to be a revolutionary movement forming up here, getting ready to go back to the U. S.  ...the most logical cause is for revolutionaries to grab the American power structure...and...destroy it by whatever means necessary.  Che says in revolution one wins or dies.  Perhaps that's applicable to the whole world right now, because if we don't have a revolution, we're going to die anyway.  - The New Exiles, by R. N. Williams, 1971

     Friday.  The first day of a new month.  I'm sitting behind work before my shift begins.  A young woman comes around the corner..  Rather than a crazy, or homeless, or male, she's cute and alert and in sports gear.  She sees my plastic grocery bag and mistakes it for a brown paper bag.  "Oh, are they giving hood out?" she asks.  She realizes it isn't and says she's "so hungry."  She asks if I have any extra food, and I apologize that i don't.  She bids me farewell.  The following morning, I am off this Saturday.  A chilly wind transports the occasional snowflake.  I'm at the stop for the bus to the supermarket.  If i walk a few steps away, I can see one end of my townhome complex.  Against one outside wall of someone's home sits a homeless guy having a smoke.  I've been sitting on this bench for some minutes, directly across the street from the Mexican place.  For the 12 years I've lived here, it's had the same name and sign.  This morning, it has a second sign with a second name.   On Friday, I was over at the Chinese place after work.  At a table were two Caucasian guys and a couple of girls.  Both guys had beards, long hair, and wire rimmed glasses.  One has his hair in a top knot.  The following day, in line with the Hispanic customers is a Caucasian guy in some kind of a bush hat.  On Sunday, I'm having breakfast at the Mexican place.  It began snowing last night and the morning brings several inches on the ground.  And it's 10 degrees F.  I watch through the window as a Caucasian couple walks through the freeze and comes in.  I don't remember the last Caucasian I saw in here, much less on a 10 degree morning.
     Tuesday of the following week.  I'm next door to work, at the Greek place.  I see a guy behind the counter.  I believe that he can be no other then...Mr. Dennis.  He doesn't appear to be a guy who would forget to give the kitchen my order.  Actually, in his little hat, he appears to me to be bored.  At the register is a customer in leather and fur boots, and a fur coat.  Her face has major plastic surgery.  The skin shines in the light from the ceiling.

     It was refreshing to be so clueless.  "If your mind is empty...it is open to everything...in the expert's mind...possibilities...are few."  ...to sit without trying to achieve results...  ...I vowed to let go of time...  ...if I pushed against time or tried to race it, I would create...resistance and suffering...  - Elevation Outdoors, March, 2019

     ...we marched into the main arena with huge banners - sort of like the Christian crusaders!  ...I spoke to the bishops...  The body of bishops was asked to stand if they supported me...  I thought we may be on the verge of...civil disobedience in the military...  ...other sanctuaries in other cities...continuing to defy the authorities.  I would support a socialist party in the U.S. but there isn't any.  ...a society should be structured so...each individual...can have a full grasp of what...consciousness means.  ...Washington, D.C....the November Moratorium.  ...400,000 people...with marines lined up on top of the buildings, soldiers on top of the Treasury Building, and the Commerce Department, and he trucks full of soldiers, and the White House barricaded.  When the liberal middle class who now think everything is groovy in the States find out that everything isn't groovy, then it's time for me to go back to the States.  - Williams

     ...the first thing she did was call her friend, Rachel Scot t, to make sure she was okay.  But Scott...was the first one killed that day...  In the hagiography of Columbine, Scott's story looms large...the basis of several inspirational Christian books published by her parents.  ...her friend...knew her in a different context entirely...who made friends across Columbine's elaborate social strata...  ...the lives they thought they were going to have had been snatched from them...  - Westword, 3/21-27/2019

     Friday.  Almost the end of another week.  There has been more snow this month than all season.  Before work I stop into the deathburger homeless central for breakfast.  Inside are what one employee refers to as "the riff raff."  He asks me to keep my backpack off the table where I'm sitting because, he says, the homeless fill the tables with knapsacks.  At a table across from me is a young short skinny guy.  It appears from what is visible of his body, that half of it from head to toe is covered in tattoos.  When he's not standing and posing in the lobby, he's conversing with another young guy at his table.  This one has long hair, a beard, and is missing some teeth.  A young woman comes along and gives the tattoo kid a hug.  He looks like he belongs in the circus.  I'm listening to a guy behind me who just came in.  He asks someone else cryptically, "What are you really thinking?"  I don't turn around and actually see him.  I watch as a female employee slowly comes out from behind the counter.  She cautiously approaches the guy behind me.  I don't hear what she says to him, but he answers that he "was just about to put one on."  I immediately understand that he has no shirt on.  He sounds as if he's middle aged.  When i watch him leave, he appears to be in his twenties.  He has no shirt but wears a sleeveless denim jacket.  I watch him outside as he postures and busts out his moves.  Just another day at deathburger homeless central.  As I'm leaving, I see someone with a rotary metal saw.  They're cutting free the empty frame of a bicycle from a bike rack.  I deposit a check into my account from my homeowner's insurance company, and I grab a sugar free hot chocolate from the coffee place with two managers who both claim 1) to be named Jeremy and 2) not to know each other, before I head back to grab my bike.  After I get to work, I am taking trash and boxes out back to the dumpster.  Some yards away, underneath a staircase, is a homeless woman.  from a distance, she sounds as if she is apologizing to me either for throwing something away in our dumpster (which is not possible as we are only one of two businesses with a key to the lock) or for for wanting to do so.
     Saturday.  My turn to work.  A cold wind blows on this March morning before Daylight Savings time begins.  On my way to work, I'm approaching the bridge over the train yard.  A young woman makes her way uphill in front of me.  As I pass her, I hear her softly speaking to herself.  I decide to hit the downtown supermarket along the way for breakfast.  There are tables and seats at a coffee place inside.  I think I recognize a young homeless guy at a table across from me.  He holds a mirror in his hands and continues to run his finger across an eyebrow.  My eyes keep trying to tell me that he's a female.  His hair is dyed red.  He has a silver chain with large links hanging off his billfold, and on the table is a small cloth bag with skulls on it.  The next morning I am on a residential street just across from where I live.  I pass a young Caucasian guy in a track suit, running with his dog.  I'm headed for the bike shop.  Last week I noticed that one of my brakes isn't working.  When I get there, I'm greeted by a tall employee with a thinning head of curly hair.  He's perhaps a decade my junior.  He takes a look at my bike and tells me that one of my brake lines is out of hydraulic fluid.  I have disc brakes and never knew the brake lines had hydraulic fluid.  As he writes up a work order on the computer, he needs help navigating the software from another employee.  He strikes me as someone who is pursuing a natural life.  When I leave he tells me to have a peaceful day.  I head over to a gas station on the way to work.  Inside is a derelict guy in line.  The manager is doing some restocking of the shelves.  The phone rings, and derelict guy says to the manager, "Phone..."  On the second ring, again he says, "Phone..."  The manager responds with, "Shut up."  It's half a block to work.  I turn down the alley to see a guy urinating on a telephone pole.  As I pass him he asks me if I have a cigarette.  I tell him I don't smoke.  He replies, "Well, that's a good thing."  I think I hear a west coast accent.  I sit outside work behind a big truck.  As he walks through the alley, he doesn't see me again until he comes around the truck.  When he does, he asks me if I'm the same guy he just talked to.

     ...out of the church and onto...campus.  "There's sadness and isolation.  Everyone's walking around with headphones on and nobody's saying 'hello' to anyone.  There's a lack of 'joy'.  We need to change the culture of our campuses.  Those students need...to see a building that's going to inspire them to want to go inside...  I think people are seeing the tremendous battle."  - Denver Catholic, 3/9-22/2019

     They imagined a community where naming their fears, uncertainties, anxiety, and doubts were not only supported, but normalized.  They realized the need for a new vocabulary...  ...for...creators and rule-breakers to flourish...  ...to create...representation and culture change...  ...health...family and relationships, sex and intimacy, finance, creativity, career, culture, and politics.  We discussed where we currently stand...  ...a Friendsgiving Potluck, and...cocktails, crafts, and conversations about self-love.  ...searching for belonging and space...  - Asian Avenue Magazine, 3/2019

     After...an employee at the [deathburger homeless central] was stabbed in the chest by an unruly man outside the restaurant last month, he was fired.  "...my termination paper, saying I didn't have the right to ask that individual anything...  I lost my job for doing my job."  [This employee] gave away warm clothing to homeless people...  ...a wide range of individuals and organizations...dropped off clothing in growing amounts that seemed to irritate the restaurant's management.  "Brand-new stuff would be in the dumpster, and I would literally would have to go dumpster-diving to salvage things before it was too late."  Word of the efforts...circulated among the homeless who congregate on the 16th Street mall, with even more of them heading to the [deathburger] than previously.  ...these gatherings were flagged by the Downtown Denver Partnership, which instituted a new security plan in 2016 to combat the area's unwanted reputation as a magnet for homelessness, drugs and crime.  At the same time...simple measures capable of preventing some problems weren't taken.  ...that the bathrooms be kept locked until a customer requested to use them...  "Heroin. meth. marijuana...  ...people masturbating in the stalls or women in there buck naked, shaving and showering and washing clothes in the sink."  - Westword, 3/14-20/2019

     ...Tom Hayden's definition of a "liberated zone".  It houses...850 students.  ...the "People's Gallery" for contemporary art...  The halls and elevators are a graffiti museum, a fierce assault of revolutionary slogans and gentle poetry.  ...a bookbindery, a bakery, and myriad craft shops.  ...free concerts by the Revolutionary People's Concert band.  The rooftop...is...for nude sunbathing...
     Like in the hostel, I've seen dozens of guys go through their first acid trips.  One guy...he was an "Ayn Rander," and then he did his acid trip and got into Zen, and, a few months later, he was a freak.  Another guy was CIA in Vietnam...deserted from Army intelligence...  ...his father is general somebody or other, and like he's afraid of being kidnapped.  Like, I'm really fed up with America.  I wouldn't go back.  I really try to stop people from going back before they do.  - Williams

     ...the 30th annual Rocky Mountain Conference of Dementia...  The author of "Tears in My Gumbo, The Caregiver's Recipe for Resilience"...will be the closing keynote speaker.  The conference will include...Safety Panel Topics: Guns, Driving, and Home Safety.  The Joy of Dementia - an improvisational workshop.  - Prime Time For Seniors, 3/2019

     Monday.  I'm just on the trail to work.  As I approach an underpass, I see a grey-haired guy with an orange bike.  He's taking a photo of a goose up on a concrete wall.  On the other side of the underpass, I see on the bank of the river a young guy with shaggy blonde hair.  he has a tree branch and is talking to his own geese.  The following evening, I approach the underpass on the way home.  The sun is setting.  On a concrete ledge sits the shaggy-haired guy.  In the middle of the trail are a couple of geese.  I pass between them at a crawl.  Not a word is spoken...or a honk.  Wednesday.  I leave work early.  I'm not usually on the bike trail in the late afternoon.   The trail is full of Caucasian cyclists.  I turn off the trail, and between there and my boulevard, the neighborhood is full of Caucasian pedestrians.  I see one woman come out of her front door with a pair of dogs on leashes.  One couple is out with a golden lab.  The guy is walking the dog and the woman is slowly following on a bicycle.  He somehow appears older.  He has no hair on his head.  Her own hair is dyed red and she has designer sweats on.  Friday afternoon.  Out back of work, across the alley are three homeless guys.  They have a couple of big open garbage bags.  They appear to be full of leafy greens, perhaps from a grocery dumpster.  They are sitting on the cement and appear to be weeding out I know not what from the individual stalks.  Every few minutes one of the trio takes whatever has been selected out of the mass over to another trash can.  In the afternoon, a little guy comes into the lobby.  He's young, perhaps 20 years younger than me.  He's bow-legged, and walks slowly.  His skin is the same shade of brown as every stitch of clothes on his body.  He wears a cowboy hat under the hood on his hoodie.  I speak to him in Spanish.  He's looking for work as a cobbler.  He asks for change for coffee.  Later in the afternoon it begins to lightly rain.  In the early evening, I'm on my way home on the bike trail.  I'm coming out the other side of what is becoming an infamous underpass.  Climbing the hill is a middle-aged guy with a camping pack on his back.  The rainfall has become steadier.  He's taking slow, tired steps.  In his arms is the very first part of any bicycle frame.  It has no front fork, no handlebars, no pedals, no seat.  It's a completely bare trapezoid with one bar connecting the closest opposite corners.  He soldiers down the wet cement in the dark.  The following day, it's my Saturday to work.  On the way home, more trouble out from under the infamous bike trail underpass.  Up on the street, a truck is coming around a bend at too high a velocity.  It slides off the road, down a shallow embankment, and ends up driving along the bike trail.  It's headed straight for me before it climbs back onto the road.

     ...on Highway 40...the worn-out husk of an old gas station/mini mart.  Now, it's...the cultural heart...of Granby.  With an artsy facelift...reclaimed wood and retro signage, the site is now...burgeoning gallery Westside 40...  ...upscale milk paint furniture, raku pottery...nestle in with aromatherapy candles, Chapstick cozies and dog sweaters.  There's...a wall of tea cozies with witty messages.  - Winter Park Magazine, Winter 2018-19

     Wednesday of the following week.  It's after work and I'm on the trail home at twilight.  Cyclists are all over the trail,, coming and going.  Up an embankment which leads down to the Platte River, a homeless guy pushes a shopping cart backwards.  Inside is a single folded blanket.  Around a bend is another homeless guy.  Between the trail and the interstate on the opposite side from the river, a middle-aged guy cradles a single plastic water bottle in his arms.  He's wearing a grey denim buttoned down shirt the same hue as his skin, and he stumbles along the grassy rise.  Homeless guy number three is coming over the top of the trail.  He's in a black and white Jack Daniels sweatshirt.  Tucked under an arm is what appears to be a folded plastic sheet.  He steps off the trail and climbs toward the highway.  Twenty-four hours later, I am coming home along this very same trail.  I'm riding along a stretch with a narrow space of perhaps a couple of yards between a concrete ledge against the interstate, and a chain link fence.  In this narrow space is a homeless guy with a full camping pack and bedroll on his back.  He's bending over to pick something out of the weeds.  Friday.  I have a dentist appointment, a six-month check-up.  Before I go there, I swing by the place of employment of someone I used to work with 15 years ago.  She works on the same side of town.  She's an old friend I reconnected with just a couple of years ago.  She's now the age I was when we worked together.  Still tall and beautiful.  Same sense of humor and quick, nervous movements.  We have a brief chat before she tells me that I should call the general manager to ask about coming back to work for him.  They are desperate for employees who are interested in doing the job.  Funny.  That's how I got hired three months ago where I work now.  And the current general manager is the same one who fired me back then.  Well, she's his longtime employee, she's probably just trying to help him out.  I say my goodbyes and head off to grab breakfast before the dentist.
     At the dentist, I get a full set of updated x-rays.  I mention a tooth which is bothering me.  The dentist tells me it's being disturbed by a buried wisdom tooth.  He recommends I have two wisdoms pulled, as well as have two new crowns.  The crowns alone, with my current insurance, will be a cool $1,600 alone.  Today, I need a deep cleaning which, with my insurance, is another $480.  I sit in the chair waiting for my dentist, pondering how I will move money around to pay for all of this.  I could go back to work for my old boss, and perhaps acquire better insurance.  But I my old friend just confirmed that he still cares nothing for his customers.  Which is why I'm glad he fired me.  I meet with a new investment broker next month.  If I have to skip some payments, I may have to get more aggressive with my investment strategy t make up the difference.  My old broker, a remarkable young woman, quit the business.  Perhaps there's more money in dentistry.  After work by my own dentist and an oral surgeon I have yet to meet, I had better come away with one good looking mouth.  When I get to work, I notice the former governor walk past.  Shortly after, I'm talking to the owner of the Greek place next door.  He tells me that the former governor's presidential campaign headquarters is nxt to his place, on the side opposite us.  It's in a former halfway house.  Saturday is my turn to be off work.  I'm coming back from across the street, where I had dinner.  I'm crossing through the intersection with a little old woman who I never saw before.  When we get to my side of the street, a passing car honks at her.  I turn to see a van with a couple of young people in the back who are smiling at her.  I assume they know her.  Then I notice that she is actually walking in the street, next to the sidewalk.  She begins cursing the van, along with the other traffic, as she walks in the street until she gets to my townhome complex.  I follow her into my parking lot and watch as she goes into one of the homes.