Happy New Year!

I decided to go downtown to Denver's 16th Street Mall to watch the 9:00 o'clock fireworks show last night. I did this last year, too, and wound up standing next to a tall building surrounded by crowds so thick I couldn't see any fireworks whatsoever.  This year it was 10 degrees out (and predicted to be in single digits for the midnight show), and so the crowd was a lot thinner.  I got off the light rail train at 16th Street, sidestepped a pool of vomit, and walked past a homeless man wrapped in a blanket, sleeping on the sidewalk, in 10 degree weather no less.  Just another New Year's Eve, in other words.  I timed it so I would arrive just before the fireworks started, but by the time I finished taking photographs my fingers were so frozen I could not longer press the shutter button.  And the fireworks were just not that impressive - nothing compared to the 4th of July fireworks show at Coors Field.  It just proves that major league baseball teams have lots more money than cities these days.

After the fireworks show ended, I reveled down the 16th Street Mall past the hoards.  At each street corner large speakers were set up blasting out loud, horrible music - mostly rap.  Groups of young people gathered around each speaker jumping up and down to the beat or actually dancing.  I walked down to Union Station and just like last year, our public train station was closed for a private party.  I don't know why that bugs me so much, but it does.  I walked around the back of the station to the entrance to the underground bus concourse (heated, thank God), which leads to the light rail train home.  It was happily open - I guess they don't hold private parties on New Year's Eve in bus stations. In any case, I got to the platform and waited for the train.  Next to me was a couple with a little girl who were standing next to me during the fireworks show.  The little girl was screaming her head off, and the woman was assuring the child that the train was coming and she would soon be warm.  I suspect these were the grandparents, and I idly wondered where the mother - let alone the father - was.  And so I went home and ushered in the New Year watching the ball drop in Times Square on the television in my den, nice and warm, thank you very much. Happy New Year Everyone!