Mid-Winter At The Zoo

I went to the Denver Zoo yesterday afternoon to walk around and take a few photographs. It has been a pretty typical January here in Denver - a few days of cold and snow followed by a few days of sun and mild temperatures, such as yesterday. Because of that, the zoo was packed, especially with families. Thanks to the zoo's family membership plan, it is affordable to take the kids to the zoo all year long, which is especially helpful to those who can't afford an annual vacation. And most of those kids seem to love it there, with the possible exception of a few of them (perhaps more than a few) screaming their damn heads off. But I digress.

Many of the animals were not in a very sociable mood yesterday, although the elephants were willing to look at the camera and smile, such as the one in the photograph on the right. The elephants at the Denver Zoo have a large compound called the Toyota Elephant Passage, a $50 million facility no doubt sponsored by - you guessed it - Honda. These are all Asian elephants, and I suspect if they tried to put them together with African elephants, there might be a rumble, no doubt rivaling the Sharks and the Jets.

The giraffes were pretty attentive, too, at least when there wasn't anyone feeding them across the compound at the "Giraffe Encounter." You used to be able to walk over there and photograph them being fed, but these days you have to make a reservation in advance (for an additional fee, of course) and then are escorted to the feeding platform - no one else allowed. To me, that seems pretty chintzy, but that is just a cheapskate's opinion. Still, I was able to take the photo on the left with a zoom lens. Not an up-close, personal experience, but what can you do?

Remembering Winters Past

When my mother Mary lived down in Stuart, Florida, she would come up to Colorado every Christmas and stay with my sister Susan and brother-in-law George in Fort Collins.  She and my father Nelson moved to Stuart from Chicago back in 1976, and from that time on she just hated cold weather. I think that is why Susan was helping her bundle up during a visit to Old Town Fort Collins in the photograph above. This photo was taken back in 1988 in front of the Stone Lion Bookstore, back when bookstores in downtown locales were actually financially feasible. Talk about the good old days. In any case, ironically, it was warmer in Denver yesterday than in Stuart, where it was expected to go down into the mid-thirties last night. I wonder if the snowbirds will still be hitting the beaches in their speedos and bikinis during this cold snap?

Mustard's Last Stand Still Stands!

Mustard's Last Stand (seen in the photo on the left) has been a fixture in the University of Denver neighborhood since 1978. It was started by a native Chicagoan who wanted to serve the large community of Chicago area transplants who couldn't find Chicago-style hot dogs in Colorado. He opened stands in both Boulder, by the University of Colorado, and near DU, and has been going strong ever since. And being a true Chicagoan, during baseball season, he shows Cubs games on TV to entertain his fellow ex-pats. No doubt he is one of those damn North Siders.

Back when I worked at the University of Denver Bookstore as the Finance Manager, I used to have a friendly bet going with Larry, one of the store's Operations Coordinators, and seen in the photo on the right. He grew up in Streator, Illinois and was a died in the wool Cubs fan. Since I am originally from the South Side of Chicago and a White Sox fan, we would bet on which team would have the better record at the end of the season, the loser buying lunch at Mustard's. Each year the Cubs would outperform the White Sox, and each year I would buy lunch for Larry. Finally, at last, the White Sox had a better season than the Cubs. However, Larry retired that same year, left the bookstore before the end of the season, and I never did get my free lunch. He told me he was retiring because his father died young, and he wanted to make sure he would actually have a retirement, just in case he died early, too. Sadly, he did pass away, at the age of 68, and so it was wise of him to leave when he did, and have at least a few years to enjoy the good life. A lesson for us all.

Strolling The DU Campus In The Snow

I took my sister Susan's dog Blackberry for a walk across the University of Denver campus the other day, right after a mid-week snowstorm. It is a very pretty campus, and well-tended, although I do have to confess that I allowed Blackberry to piss on the grounds about 17 times. And - it goes without saying - this had nothing to do with the university outsourcing the DU Bookstore, where I worked for 28 years, to Follett Higher Education Group, and laying off the entire staff back in 2012. I am a much bigger person than that, as regular blog readers can attest. In any case, the photograph above shows University Hall (on the right), built in 1890 and the first building on campus. It was completely renovated in 1995, with the outside preserved and the inside completely demolished and rebuilt. Not exactly an historic renovation, but in keeping with DU's penchant for facades.

Get A Gander At All Those Wash Park Geese

I went for a walk with my sister Susan and her dog Blackberry around Smith Lake in Denver's Washington Park the other day, and took the photograph above of all the geese out on the ice. And let's face it - there are a lot of them in the Wash Park neighborhood. They discover the place, never leave, and seem to keep multiplying every time you look, just like Californians. The city's solution is to cull them every summer (the geese) and give the meat to food banks, a course of action many in the neighborhood have protested against. However, I am not sure what their opinions are concerning all those Californians.

My Mother's 106th Birthday!

Today would have been my mother Mary's 106th birthday if she was still alive today. As I recall, it was hard enough for her to believe she was 93 back when she was staying with me here in Denver, and so being 106 would probably have made her pretty crabby. To celebrate this day, I am featuring a photograph I took of her back in 1979 in Key West, Florida. She was 63 years old at the time, 6 years younger than I am now, and she, my father Nelson, sister Susan and I were taking a mini vacation to the Keys from Stuart, Florida, where my parents had retired to three years earlier. As for Bahama Mamma's, a restaurant in Key West, I suspect it is long gone. And by the way, that was the last time Susan and I were in Key West. I wonder if it has changed any since then? Nah. Probably not. But nevertheless, we'll have to head back down there one of these days and check it out.

The January Mutt Of The Month

I took the photograph above of the January Mutt of the Month sitting in a car parked next to me in the Safeway parking lot. I usually shop at King Soopers - it has lower prices and a wider selection - but employees there were on strike at the time, and I didn't want to cross the picket line, in fear of being clubbed to death (grocery store cashiers are sometimes known to be especially violent). Happily, the dogs of Safeway shoppers seem to be far more willing to have their portraits taken than those at King Soopers. And so, score one for Safeway. Now all they have to do is fix everything else.