I had lunch with my friend Stuart at the Qdoba in the Denver West strip mall in Lakewood, Colorado this past Tuesday. Lakewood, a suburb just to the west of Denver, has lots of these strip malls, mainly fronting West Colfax Avenue. Along with the used car lots, 1950s era motels, and pawn shops, they make Lakewood what it is today - damn ugly. A real estate developer did build a pretty nice downtown for Lakewood, called Belmar, on the site of a former shopping mall, but it is currently in bankruptcy. I suspect residents of that suburb actually prefer ugly. Years ago, author Jack Kerouac bought a house in Lakewood, lived there for a few months before realizing just how horrible the place was, and then went "on the road" to San Francisco, where he completed that famous tome. And as for Stuart, he is doing well, trying to get through the pile of books by his chair, and enjoying that unique Lakewood mystique. I took the photograph above of him as we left the Starbucks located in the Barnes and Noble, a few doors down from Qdoba. And yes - Stuart actually likes Lakewood. Go figure.
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