Wednesday, One Day in the Week
Finally. I awake Wednesday feeling as though I've had enough sleep since last Wednesday. The following day is my big appointment with volunteers who shall prepare my taxes at no charge. Only two days ago did my Social Security card replacement arrive in my mailbox. I look at the clock and decide that I can ride to the tax place inside two hours. Whatever snow and ice is left over has retreated to the shadows. I take the usual route to the nearest train station, and instead of turning toward it I stay on the busy avenue. I cross the bridge over an interstate. It's shortly after 7 AM and rush hour is in the house. I'm waiting to cross the avenue with traffic coming from both directions. And a pedestrian waiting to cross from the opposite side. I make it across the avenue and down the street. At the end is a big park. It has an asphalt drive around it's circumference, with myriad lanes each specific to pedestrians and rollerbladers and scooters and bicycles. The layout is a kind of work of art. I'm through the park, beyond which lay the neighborhood into which I moved when I landed in Denver to stay, in 1991. I ended up staying in this neighborhood for 16 years. Next month I will have been living in the neighborhood, where I moved from here, also for 16 years. I end up on a street named 2nd Avenue. At 2nd and Madison St. used to be a house I rented for a year, from 1992-93, for $600 a month. By 1991, I was the last of our mom's kids to move here, and the following year the sister convinced her to move up here with us. One seventy-eight Madison was the house the three of us moved into. After it was torn down, for some time (surely a couple of decades) it was a grassy plot. This morning, I'm looking for the empty plot before I realize, I'm right where it should be. In its place is a condo unit which fills the entire plot. A couple of guys are spraying weeds along the only grass in the entire place, along the curb. One asks the other if he has a spare nozzle. "I don't need it, I just want to know if you have a spare. This one's fucking up."
The Lesbian Volunteer from Florida and the AARP Podium
A few short blocks straight ahead is 2nd and Jackson St., and on the southwest corner are the Jackson Apartments. This is where the sister had a place where I moved in for a year. When we moved out of the house on Madison, she moved into her own place 3 blocks up Jackson from here. Our mom and myself moved one block up, on Harrison St., and a block down the hill. We lived at 5 Harrison for a year before moving next door to 15. We lived there from 1994 until 2007, when the landlord put both houses on the market. I make my way across Colorado Boulevard, which as I recall is busy before, during, and after rush hour. This stretch of the boulevard has a line of well-kept Victorian homes. A few more blocks is Sundial Park, where I turn onto 3rd. This residential neighborhood is busy in the morning. I stay on 3rd for a while and turn north shortly before I reach the busy parkway upon which is the tax place. I have less than 15 blocks to go from here. This sunny quiet neighborhood of homes, built a few decades later than the Victorians, feels a world away from the dilapidated commercial avenue behind which it's hidden. I don't recall ever coming this way before. When I get inside the tax place, a young Americorps volunteer takes a few of my documents. He wants to make sure I have my W-2. I haven't even had time to open it and hand him the envelope. He lets me know that he can't open my mail. Like a magician I produce everything I need, including my Social Security card. I filled out a couple of forms last week and am directed to a young gay woman. How's that for a sentence? A young gay female Americorps volunteer from Florida, at a clean white plastic folding table, in front of a podium with "AARP" on the front and an American flag on a pole. This is what's left of America's wickedest street. One of the questions she asks me comes from my 1099 consolidated retirement mutual investment company forms. Try saying that 10 times quickly. GayfemaleAmericorpsvolunteerfromFlorida! PodiumwithAARPonthefrontandanAmericanflagonapole! 1099consolidatedretirementmutualinvestmentcompany! To use a phrase I've heard on conservative political broadcasts, hard stop here.
Let's go back to that house on Madison Street 30 years ago. I heard or read somewhere about a retirement mutual fund into which anyone can deposit as little as $50/month. I signed up, and in 2017 or 18 my current investment company took it over. The original fund I had would send me a statement each year for my taxes. I've had some four financial advisors with my current investor. I don't recall a single one ever mentioning taking taxes out of my investments. It took a young lesbian volunteer from Florida to ask me what she may consider a dumb question before I figured it out. This may explain where my usual $1,500-$2,000 refund disappeared. Instead, I owe the IRS $50. I have an unrelated appointment with my broker on Tuesday. We will discuss the matter. My state refund will, however, cover my homeowner's insurance. I actually have no complaints. Navigating my 1099 form has taken more than an hour. I won't discover until I get home this evening that my coworker has left me a voicemail on my land line, asking me to come in a hour early today. No such luck this Wednesday. I grab a bus back toward the boulevard upon which I work, but miss the most recent one. I could wait here for an hour until the next one arrives. I elect to ride to the next boulevard and perhaps grab a bus there. It's not an easy attempt, racing the clock across sidewalks with flagstones and pedestrians and dog walkers. I end up at a stop with a trepid well-dressed young woman who does not follow me onto the bus when it comes. I can take this bus to a nearby train station, which will take me somewhere in proximity to work, depending on how long I have to get there. There's construction along this stretch of boulevard, stretching several blocks. It appears that all the corners along one side of the street are torn up. The driver must make her way to the curb where the stops are before merging back into single late traffic. At one corner is a police officer directing traffic. A few stops along, we pick up someone who the driver recognizes, a senior with a walker. He's digging out change for fare. The clock is running on my trip to work. He chats with the driver about his day. He forgets that he gets a %100 discount at some places where he goes because he's disabled. He makes his way down the aisle and is facing front as the driver gets going. He falls onto a seat and lands on his butt. The driver apologizes. He assures her he's fine. She replies that she feels as though she owes him a day pass. He assures her it isn't necessary. Jesus. I'll take it if he doesn't want it. I am, after all, going to work. Who knows when I'll get there? And I'm going home after my shift. Who knows when I'll get there? In the melee I fail to notice that we pulled up to a stop for the train station. I approach the front door, where I exit whenever I ride the bus with bike. But a line of passengers are filing through the front door. The driver mentions that the back door is open if I want to exit. The passengers are still doing their best to make their way through the front door, allowing me the time to get to the front bike rack. I ride into the station and catch av train to the station, where I catch the bus to work which I otherwise would have had I waited for it an hour ago. When I get to work, my coworker mentions nothing about my possibly coming in an hour earlier. She does ask me to work for her tomorrow. After work, I grab another dinner at the bakery. I see the Jesus dude with yet another client of the grace. When they are leaving, the Jesus dude looks at me and says hi. I say nothing.
[During a scientific study of near-death experience conducted during the late 1970s, everyone in the study] felt the 'essential' part of themselves had separated from their physical body and this part was able to perceive objects and events visually. During the NDE the 'separated self' became the sole "conscious" identity of the person... - OMNI magazine, 2/1982
...late January...past displays of tarot cards and crystals... ...asked...to remove their shoes. The smell of burnt sage filled the air. ...a woman wearing a pink velvet robe asked everyone to sit in a circle. ..."this is where we're all going to get naked," the woman joked. ...Tantra Speed Date. "'Do you want to go to a woo-woo speed dating event?'...I'm not finding a lot of woo-woo folks on OkCupid." - Denver Herald, 3/2/2023
On Saturday, I'm out on the bike to work. It's chilly out here this morning, 24 degrees F. I'm getting a later than usual start and it's just before 8 AM when I am coming around a roundabout on the trail. Opposite what's left of the Platte River is a big, covered shelter with picnic tables. It's between the trail and the parking lot of a huge golf course. Just inside the shelter is a bundled up homeless guy. He's singing and dancing. On the way home from work, I turn onto the street with a block along an open field. Parked along the block is a homeless cargo trailer. A small homeless vehicle is parked a few yards further, next to the corner. Sunday. The sister is off to see a choral performance and doesn't require my services this weekend. I got a lot done at home. I did a little shopping at two different supermarkets. I'm on the transit system today. I'm giving the bike a break. I'm coming home from the last trip, waiting at a bus gate in my usual train station. Inside the tiny shelter is a woman listening to something in Spanish through a speaker. A middle-aged bald guy comes shuffling up and asks her how to get to a particular corner on my boulevard. It does not appear that she speaks English. He asks me and I suggest that he take either of the two buses which stop at this pair of gates. I get home and get my bike chain oiled. I begin chopping some vegetables. The phone rings. My coworker wants to know if I can work for her tomorrow. Looks like she's gonna get her 4-day weekend. The following morning, I awake from a dream long before my alarm goes off, and I'm out the door at 4:30 AM. It's funny, as I used to do three decades ago, still I'm occasionally getting up this early to go to work. The moon is going down toward the Rockies. I will see it rising again on my way home this evening. Out on the trail, there are a handful of cyclists up this early. It's early enough that the transit system hadn't yet cranked up when these riders left the house. Before the other cyclists, just after I enter the trailhead, I spy a figure ahead in the dark. When I pass whoever it is, it's someone bundled up on this, another morning in the 20s F. In front of them is a shopping cart.
Life threatening temperatures rolled into the Denver metro area again in late February... ...a "warming site." ...also offers computer use; clothing and hygiene items; help with getting IDs, driver licenses...birth or death certificates...Medicaid health care. ...use its address to receive mail...
...time on a beautiful tropical island or in the majesty of the mountains...things just move a little slower. And that's a good thing. We...save our money so that we can get...get away from...life... - Denver Herald, 3/2/2023
...Dayna Scott, executive director of Broomfield FISH, a non-profit providing help with food and housing. She brushes off...that she could earn a heftier paycheck...for a big business. ...while [currently] bringing in corporate donors and steering clients to legal and housing help. "I was never a corporate person. ...I do more good by keeping 100 people from starving to death at the end of the day." Broomfield FISH was started 60 years ago in a church basement by six women who wanted to provide food and clothing to the city's poor, Scott said. Now aid groups are preparing for the loss of pandemic-related support. Colorado's Emergency Rental Assistance Program...is ending this year... Emergency allotments of Colorado Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, are also ending this month. - Denver Herald, 3/9/2023
...a work force quickly cobbled together...of Americans, Vietnamese, Koreans, Filipinos, and hundreds of other third country nationals...harsh work conditions, low pay, long hours with no overtime, and job hazards... Inflation far outpaced wages... Some...Americans blamed the volatile working environment on the...natives... One journalist offered that the Vietnamese were "small men...often...only 90 lbs or so, and look like children..." - Carter
Perhaps most important. The NDE [near death experience] may affect the will to live...when the life of the clinically dead patient hangs in the balance. ...some patients [during] an NDE yearn to "return" to the body... This yearning may provide...psychological impetus to continue physical life and may contribute to successful recovery... Other patients...who did not survive...may have succumbed because of the NDE. ...feelings aroused by a beautiful scene or the sight of [the] dead...may have persuaded some...not to return... "I flat out told her, 'You cannot die.' ...they don't want to come back. I didn't want to come back. The tranquility was so great." ...quite unlike a meeting with Grim Reaper. The field of "death and dying" came into its own. It's goals: to challenge avoidance and denial of death, to reduce...fear...and to find some theoretical framework in which death could be viewed more positively as part...of life. The NDE largely accomplishes these goals... Those reporting these experiences...were rescued..."very close" to death. ...experiences...only of "near" death... ...'the purely physical brain' and the "spiritual" mind... - OMNI magazine, 2/1982
The following morning is my appointment with my broker. I ride to the bus to make the appointment under cold, dark, grey skies. Another morning in the 20s F. The occasional flurry floats down. This is a far cry from the usual snow dumps of the last two months of winter. My appointment with my broker is nothing but good news. He does not ask me to increase my monthly investment. He makes other suggestions. I ask about the tax situation. He convinces me he has it under control. Filing quarterly taxes is not in the plan. He instead is moving funds in and out of accounts to manage what I owe at the end of the year. He is who the late Hunter S. Thompson would refer to as a "wizard." Meeting with him is like a psychedelic experience. It isn't a visual and emotional rollercoaster ride. It's consciousness expanding. The following evening, I'm riding home from work. Along the first trail home, walking from the direction of the homeless camp below the train underpass, are a couple of derelict guys. Gaunt with grey hair and beards, they match the all-day grey skies of late winter's below freezing daily low temperatures. One walks a bike and the other has a rolled sleeping bag on his back. The first looks at me with a haunting stare, his head inside the hood of his winter coat. Where this trail stops at the intersection with the next, a homeless camper has held court in a gravel parking lot. It has a pair of small 1970s style windows in one corner. Across the small lot is a homeless van. Along the connecting trail, I'm coming up to the last bridge across the river for my part of this trail. On my left is a small parking lot, popular with the occasional homeless vehicle. A pair of them are here now along with a couple of homeless. A trash can at the entrance to the lot is overflowing with trash, much of it on the ground around it. On my right are a pair of shopping carts among the trees along the riverbank. One cart has a plastic sign, such as is available at any hardware store. It's tucked into the child seat facing the direction of the cart's handle. It reads, "no trespassing." The pair of carts are also surrounded by trash. I'm soon off the trail and have just turned onto the street with the block next to an open field. I came through here this morning but wasn't paying attention. This evening, it's clear the homeless vehicle and homeless cargo trailer are gone.
Thursday. I get a late start, but I believe I can still get to work on time on the bike. The grey overcast pall of death and below freezing temperatures appear as if they may be on the way out. Also out this morning is the sun. I'm on the way to work, at the top of a long downward incline. At the bottom lay the block next to the open field. Up here at the top is a side street. I watch a Caucasian couple come out of the driveway on this street. They both are on bicycles, and neither has a helmet. (Don't these guys have to work today?) In a few minutes, I enter the trail. At the very spot where I saw a figure bundled up in the dark is, this morning, an oncoming cyclist. He's walking a bike with a gym bag slung over one end of the handlebars. He...has no helmet. Just around a corner and through an underpass is a young guy on a bicycle. It has a back rack, with a plastic laundry basket. Inside the basket is a big hard drive tower. He's playing what sounds like a radio. What he doesn't have...is a helmet. A few yards later and I'm over my first bridge across the river, to work. On the other side are the two shopping carts I passed yesterday on the way home. One cart is now on the trail, blocking the oncoming lane. The cart with the "no trespassing" sign is still in the trees, along with a couple of people. I follow the trail all the way down to the second bridge, this one back across the river. A Hispanic cyclist is stopped off to one corner of this side of the bridge. He's in jeans and a flannel shirt, and a trucker cap. He's watching an elderly pair of cyclists reading a sign with rules for using the trail. This pair finally has helmets. One of them is lime green. The following afternoon, I am again out on the trail home. The first trail along the way is full of people out walking their dogs. The high today was 64 degrees F. after a morning low of 29. Onto the connecting trail are the sudden number of cyclists which I haven't seen since the weather turned cold last year. I'm pedaling past the damaged guard rail. On that side of the street is a trail which heads away from the river. A homeless cyclist turns down this trail. His entire body is laden with shoulder bags. I pass an oncoming cyclist with a bandana across his face. He looks at me with a mean stare. It's not long before I'm up along the golf course at the trailhead where I exit onto the street. With the temperate weather, there are some four loud young guys out on the course. One of them is taking a leak on a tree.
The following afternoon, after work. Someone flipped a switch. The mornings are no longer below freezing and the days are turning nice. The trail is filled with walkers of multiple dogs with leashes which stretch across the entire trail. A woman and her dog and someone else in a motorized wheelchair block the trail. I "call out my pass." The woman with the dog turns around (she heard me!) only to tell the wheelchair rider that "no one calls out their pass on the trail." (She didn't hear me? She turned around because she's psychic?) An entire bike riding family. An entire walking family blocks the trail. On the connecting trail home are the fat tire cyclists. One has a motor rigged to his. Another pair pass me, one telling his pal to "fucking go." On Monday of the following week, I get yet another call from my coworker. She needs me to come in to work ASAP. I get out the door later than I want to and, as a result, put the pedal to the metal. Along the block next to the open field is a newly arrived school bus. One side is painted with a psychedelic mural. Far out. I make a bee line for the stop for a bus to work's doorstep. I make it with what can't be more than a couple of minutes to spare. I watch a homeless camper pass through a busy intersection here on the edge of a private university. I spent more time than I wanted to waiting for a couple of eggs to cook, so that I could throw them into a Ziploc bag before I left the house. For the short ride to work, I take off my helmet and balaclava to eat them. I get done just before my stop. Tuesday I stay an hour late at work. After the recent slow down, it's just like slightly less recent times again. I'm just in time for the transit system to take me home. I board the train just as a transit security officer is escorting a passenger off. The passenger is showing the officer his phone, but the officer tells him to "keep going dude." The dude sneaks back on. He's a guy perhaps in his 30s and sounds lucid in spite of his homeless beard. The officer is in the next car. The dude exits at the next stop, but not before fist bumping another passenger, this on in an orange vest and hard hat. The officer comes back onto our car. i can see through the windows at the end of both cars that there's now another transit security officer in the car ahead.
Wednesday is my first chance to get to the gym this week. Barely. I race out the door and am coming down the long incline toward the block next to the open field. Halfway down is a memorial to a 20-year-old, placed there almost a year ago. I've attempted to look his name up online, and found nothing. I know not how he lost his life here of all places. This morning, a newly arrived homeless camper is parked right next to it. At the bottom of the hill and around the corner, the magical homeless mystery tour school bus has gone back into the magician's hat. I grab a train to the gym and step on the gas during my workout. I do the same on the ride to work and get there with 5 minutes to spare. instead of my coworker, it the owner, who today has covered for her a second time this month. And it gets better. I'm covering for her tomorrow, and possibly the next day. I will get home later this evening to find my tax refund check in my mailbox, and I may not be able to deposit it until Monday. And, of course, he includes his thanks. "You got this, tight?" he wants to know. Hey, that's what I'm here for. Someone has to cover my extravagant spending. Seems as though the money always gets spent, and I'm never home to enjoy the extravagance. Never mind home, just get me to the bank. The day flashes past and I decide to grab dinner at the bakery, where I'm told they are out of lettuce. My sandwich in the form of a salad must return to the form of a sandwich. The Jesus guy is here with yet another buddy. His buddy tells him that he will see him next week and rushes out. The Jesus guy follows his routine of using the men's room before leaving. He doesn't say hi to me. He makes a bee line for the door. I don't know if there is anything in the bible about cause and effect.
...Susan Sontag said..."to photograph people is...having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed." Photography can tell a thousand stories. ...selfhood, personal behavior...deep, personal struggle. ...erasure, anger, and stereotyping. ...invisibility, poverty, and violence. ...family...community, and the value of memory. ...questions of identity, governance... ...existence, rights and cultural commitment. ...what it means to belong...dislocation...or disconnection...
...the economy is uncertain, the demographics of the city are uncertain and what people want is...uncertain. ...the city's affordability... Some...are happy about the growth, others are frustrated... ...rising crime...alternative means to...community safety. ...the struggles of...and the effects of homelessness... ...better transportation...recreation centers and homeless shelters. ...the mayor can shape everything from the design and the economy of the city to the spirit of the place. ...how you live, play and go about living in the city. - Washington Park Profile, 3/2023
The countryside...needed to be remade. The American mission needed to make [the] rural...countryside['s] complex and variegated features legible and coherent. ...centralization, coherency, categorization, and an accounting. As anthropologist James S. Scott has written,[development requires] "the creation of state spaces where the government can reconfigure the society and economy..." - Carter
And I'm like, "Hey, this is crusty stuff, like maybe you don't recognize your husband, he's knocking off a six pack in front of the TV every night, falling asleep. This could be depression. He's the only one at work and everybody else at work lost their job. and he's got no cronies and men are crappy at making friends." And nobody would say anything. And then when you go in the restroom, they just pounce on you. ..."that's just whet my husband is doing." But there was no way they were going to raise their hand. No one wanted to be first. I have firefighter friends, and they're like...people step over somebody who's passed out and dial 911. So what if you had a way to say... I'm not going to be the one, but there is a number I can call where somebody can come check on them. There are bus drivers and they think she's drunk. You get this line, "I didn't take this job to be a counselor." That's not what we're asking you to do. We just want you to know what to do next. - Denver Herald, 3/16/2023
Thursday. The flakes float down with varying size throughout the day. We are not yet out of the sub-freeze. I'm unsure about either road or temperature conditions. I end up, perhaps because I'm up too early and tired when I leave the house, catching the bus after the one I want. Without realizing it. The bus whips me the short distance down the dark street. I think I have a 40-minute wait for my first connecting bus. It's no trouble to cross this busy boulevard in the middle of the street at 5 AM. I'm on the median between the two lanes when I see the bus is already waiting at the light. The stop is on the opposite corner. This one whips me crosstown to the stop for my last connecting bus, which whips me straight to work. Though I work open to close, the day flies past. I grab another dinner at the bakery, where again the Jesus guy is there with yet another pal. The flakes have more or less subsided by 5 PM. Forty-five minutes later I'm on a bus to the train, to another bus home again. This bus usually ends up headed down a street a block from my own, before it turns toward my own street. This evening, it continues straight. I'm not paying attention when the driver asks "Here?" He's speaking to a passenger and referring to the street upon which he would otherwise turn. I look up to see that we've past it and I disembark on the next corner. I don't notice until I walk back to the corner before that my street is blocked off down the block, and he's on a detour. This is why the driver was asking anyone if they wanted off on the block where he would have otherwise turned. Mystery revealed. The good news is, I get some sleep overnight. I'm preparing to leave some five hours before I start work. Along the way, I'm going to stop and pick up a product I can't find at my regular supermarket, grab breakfast, and deposit my tax refund check which arrived yesterday in the mail. The friendly lesbian Americorps volunteer from Florida sent my return in with the option of having it direct deposited. However, a letter came with the check in the mail, explaining that the paper check is a form of security against fraud. Hey, it works for me. Five hours before my begin my shift is also when my coworker comes in. She calls me at home just before I leave, to remind me that I am due there an hour earlier than the rest of the week, as today is Friday. She jokes that I can come in two hours early. I tell her I can do that. She's okay with it. I'm out the door and down the long incline toward the block next to the open field. The homeless camper next to the memorial has backed up a few yards from it. I complete my three scheduled tasks and make it to work two hours...and fifteen minutes early.
His Last Trip
Sunday. Yesterday, grocery shopping, done. Laundry, done. Tax refund in the bank. Was it earlier this week? Home owner's insurance annual premium obtained in the form of a money order, so I don't have to wait for it to clear my checking account, and mailed. Done. It's back to the sister's for another lunch and trepid attempt to sit on the front porch for coffee, temperature depending. Hey, this afternoon is more nice than last Sunday. She has lived for almost a year now in such a quiet suburban neighborhood. A family plays basketball ion the street. Owners walk their dogs. I'm definitely out of my own neighborhood. After lunch, I ride to the gym, where I purchase a season pass to the waterpark. I get 10% of for purchasing it before May 1st, along with my "senior" discount. AS long as I'm here, I get this week's workout in. Then I'm off to the pizza place downtown for an early dinner. This weekend was a kind of metaphysical fair. I decided to skip it. Too damned much to do. On Monday, I decide to rab a salad for dinner at the bakery a few doors down from work. I wonder where the Jesus guy is before I realize that I'm here an hour later. The place where I work close later on Mondays. He's here so often that I know his schedule. Since I'm taking the time to eat before I head home, I will take the transit system home. I step out of the train at my usual station. A bus home is at the gate. The driver is the guy who likes to say that he's glad this his last trip. This early evening, he earns the right to say this. I step aboard with one other passenger. It's just us sitting there before the driver comes back from his smoke. He takes a seat when an drunk steps up. I don't hear what the drunk says, but the driver tells him, more than once, that he's too drunk to ride. "I told you the same thing yesterday," the driver says. "You let this motherfucker on," says the drunk, referring to me. The drunk doesn't care, he takes a seat. The driver gets up and stands across from the drunk, next to me. He continues to tell him he can't ride this drunk. Referring to me, this time the driver tells him, "This guy has fare. He rides all the time." The driver mention calling the police and the drunk is fine with it. A transit security officer comes aboard and the drunk is unfazed. The pair return outside. After a few minutes of mumbling to himself, the drunk stands and makes his way to the door. He steadies himself before making his way back down the steps. If this guy is an actor, he deserves an Oscar. The driver jumps back on as the drunk stands next to the security officer. Both watch us make our escape.
Wednesday. Off to work. I'm proud to say that I haven't been usurping my exercise requirements by riding to a train or bus as of late, but riding to and from work the entire way. This morning I turn onto the long street a block from my own. There is a crew of people working on a plot of empty space along the extended pedestrian and bike path. I will refer to this as the path, as opposed to the bike trail further along. They appear to be turning the soil. What they don't appear to be is from around here. Just an impression. Most of them are wearing T-shirts which mention what appears to be their organization. It's called DUG. Hmm. I'm busy all day at work, so I must wait until I get home to look up DUG online. I wouldn't have guessed. DUG is an acronym for Denver Urban Gardens. Their volunteers design, build and support garden organization, leadership, outreach, and maintenance. Connecting gardens...through our Micro Networks. They build one garden each spring. Approval takes 3 years. They seek community support in an area where greater food access and food sovereignty are needed. A critical mass of at least 10 people from...(school, administration, community, neighborhood partners) need to be involved... After work, I'm on the way home, off the trail and climbing up the long incline. I decide I want some chicken tenders for dinner and I stay on this street to get to the chicken tender place. I'm up on the sidewalk along this busy avenue, on the side of the street facing oncoming traffic. Out on the street in the wrong lane is a homeless cyclist. He's on a bike rigged with a gas-powered motor. He's headed for oncoming traffic before he turns off into a parking lot. The following early evening after work, I'm coming up an incline as I exit the trail. Across what's left of the Platte River is Platte River Drive. On Platte River Drive just now, I spot a big flatbed tow truck. Up on the bed, instead of a vehicle, is a dilapidated Starcraft pop up tent. And the tow truck has hitched to the back a homeless trailer.
Bobby and Billy, Bibbity Bobbity Boo
Friday. I'm out the door to work. On my corner, in front of the Vietnamese grocery, is a homeless woman. She's waving to each car, and bike, that passes by. I forgot that on Mondays and Fridays now, I'm expected at work an hour earlier that before. I just bought my season pass to the waterpark. This will interfere with my swim before work upon those days. But I will make more money in the process. It's too late to ride the entire way to work, so it's time to make a bee line for the bus which takes me directly there. At the stop for the bus, I arrive shortly before a guy who it appears is not long out of prison. He sets his coffee down upon the bench and pulls out his phone. He calls a lady named Bobby. He tells her that he had to "sneak back into the halfway house last night." He's going to discuss the matter with his case worker. Directly behind us is the campus of a private university. It's beautiful despite the characteristic grey overcast death cloud of this early spring. And this is the conversation to which I am privy. The bus comes to collect us. He continues his conversation on the bus. He mentions to Bobby that he's good at portraits. He has to hang up he says because he's getting off the bus to go to work. He disembarks at my stop and vanishes into the air. The ride home is more perplexing still. I'm on the connecting trail which runs through two golf courses. The first on the way home has a patch of tall trees which have been popular this winter with homeless campers in a couple of tents. Just before the tents, there are on this late afternoon a couple of shopping carts parked a few yards apart next to the trail. One is filled, including with some golf clubs, and the other is empty. I hear someone swing and hit a golf ball next to me on the golf course. I stop to take a shot of the carts. They are hardly an unusual sight out here, but they are stolen from a super Target just up the trail. They are bright red against the grey early spring colors under an overcast sky. My experience tells me that the current stewards of these hot carts are hardly far away, somewhere off in the dull colored weeds. No sooner do I suspect this then I hear a voice calling to me. It's the rustic female voice of some forgotten character from a TV show, perhaps Green Acres. A male voice which sounds younger calls to me as well. I stay silent. I've never seen anyone else address anyone homeless. I'm not sure what the protocol is. The woman asks the man, "Is that Billy?" referring to myself. He replies that he does not know. I doubt that neither Billy nor this pair volunteer with Denver Urban Gardens. I abandon my plans to photograph the carts. A guy easily straddles across what's left of the Platte River. He asks me if I'm alright. I say, "Yeah." I leave them to their quest for Billy.
Saturday. The end of another week. For the end of March it's friggin' cold. I'm out of the house a little early, on the way to work. The grey overcast death cloud has retreated to the eastern horizon overnight. The dawn is delayed from breaking over what's left of it. I coming around the bend where a single bright red stolen super Target shopping cat is still parked. It's the one full of stuff. It's right next to the bike lane which I'm in. All I need do is stop right next to it to get a shot of the golf clubs with a pair of homeless tents in the background. There's even a driver in the cart. They don't have to wait for a tee time, they can start playing as soon as they wake up. But I don't even stop. I don't want them to possibly get suspicious and have to crawl out of their tents in the cold. Further along, onto the connecting trail, I'm coming along the dog park. I hear an odd ring. A cyclist passes me who has a digital bell. Sunday. After I wake up, even before I head upstairs, I take a shirt out of the washer I left in there last night and hang it up. I run out of the house to do grocery shopping. On the bus are a trio of middle-aged street folk. A pair of guys are getting out with a handful of grocery items. They collect them off the floor and from over the right wheel well. The third is a woman who bids them farewell. It's another below freezing morning today, and one of the guys has on just a windbreaker. The lady is in just a fleece jacket. I run in and out of the supermarket and jump on a bus back home. I step out and cross my street. I'm headed to the other side of my boulevard, to the Vietnamese grocery, where I attempted last night to grab a couple of vegetables. I got there just as they were closing. This late morning, I lug a pair of 12 pack diet sodas through the intersection and into the grocery for my veggies. I lug everything home and drop it there before running out again, this time on the bike. Parked at the curb in front of my townhome complex is a police cruiser from the traffic department. Across the street from this vehicle, a uniformed police officer has just stepped out of an unmarked black SUV. He appears to be headed for the apartments across the street from my place. I head down the sidewalk along my boulevard. On a bench in front of a deathburger is the woman I saw on the bus.
Monday. When I get up, it's snowing. Not a wet spring snow, but regular winter flakes. It will have melted by the next day, and I will be out on my bike again as if nothing has happened. But the overnight low will be 19 degrees F. And this morning, I'm supposed to be at work an hour early, now at the beginning and end of each week. The snow has stopped when I run out of the house with the largest bag I have. It carries a 12 pack of diet soda, bananas, two cans of soup, and other items. I turn toward the nearest stop for a bus to work. I see it coming and know I will never make it. I decline to take another bus down my boulevard, in spite of the fact that it will get me to another bus which hooks up with a last bus to work's doorstep. I'm not sure if it will come before a third bus I can take, and I opt for the last option. I walk a couple of blocks and lug my load. From the stop for this bus, I can see someone wearing a blanket across the street, at a self-serve car wash. They are using a hose connected to a blower to dry themselves off. A car turns the busy corner at rush hour, honking its horn. It pulls into the lot of a Vietnamese Pho place, drives around back, and comes around to park in front. A car in a lot across the street honks its horn, as if the two are honking at each other. The following morning, I stop to pick up a prescription before work. I'm exiting the clinic as a young homeless guy comes inside. It's a 19 degree F. morning. He's bundled in multiple layers of a black hoodie, black snow pants and a black coat with a big hood. He heads for the men's room. In the late afternoon, after work and I'm on the connecting trail home. Someone has written on the concrete trail in blue chalk. Use your bell. Let out a yell. Call your pass. It's a reference to alerting cyclists and pedestrians ahead of you that you are behind them. I didn't see this stuff when there was snow on the ground. Oh yeah. I ride year 'round...and they don't. I don't call out my pass to the homeless couple around the bend. A third party is helping them pack up their camp and put it in a U-Haul truck parked on the brief stretch of running track along this section of trail. There are four shopping carts stacked as they would be before they were stolen. The following morning, when I'm back through this very spot, there is no one and nothing left but the four stacked shopping carts. As for this evening, it's not long before I'm off the trail and along the street with the block along an open field. There is a newly arrive camper parked behind the magic bus.
The following morning, the magic bus has vanished again and the camper remains. I'm on the way to open the store, out here before the dawn. At the crest of the hill I take, on the way home in the evening, is a big trailer. Along the way to work in the dark, there are three intrepid cyclists I pass on the trail. On the connecting trail, I spy the flames of a homeless campfire as I smell the burning plastic grocery bags. When I get home after work, my coworker calls me a half hour before my bedtime when I don't have to open. She asks me to open again tomorrow. Friday's ride before dawn is one in which I am alone on the trail. When I came down the block next to the pen field, the single camper is now gone. But in a lot next to where I change trails, there is a camper which looks a lot like it. Toward the end of this week, the overnights are in the high 20s F, not the teens. And the mornings when I leave are in the lower 40s. Though the past couple days have been windy enough to blow down twigs and knock over parking lot lights, the end of March may be the long-awaited turning point in a frigid winter and chilly spring. There are already golfers out on both golf courses I pass to and from work. Tomorrow is April Fools Day.
