Remembering April 30th, 1975

April 30th, 1975 was the day Saigon fell, bringing to a close the Vietnam war.  I remember the day very clearly, because I was sitting in a cottage along the Indian River in Jensen Beach, Florida, listening to the events take place on the radio.  That was the month my mother Mary and father Nelson and I traveled down to Stuart, Florida for the first time, to see whether my mother and father wanted to retire there.  We drove the long way, down I-57 from Chicago to Biloxi, Mississippi, and then along the Gulf Coast to Florida. Before heading inland toward the East Coast of Florida, we stopped for the night in Panama Beach, at a little motel along the water, where I took the above photograph of my father looking contemplative at the Gulf. My parents did move to Stuart the following year, and my sister and I still own the condo there.  But I will always remember that day in the cottage along the water, listening to the end of a disastrous 10 year war, resulting in thousands of lives lost or destroyed for absolutely nothing.  Unbelievable.

The Denver Zoo Advertises In Chicago Magazine!

Yes, it's true!  The Denver Zoo has a full page ad in April's issue of Chicago Magazine, featuring it's Giraffe Encounter, which allows patrons to get up close and personal with the giraffes and hand feed them. However, the problem is that as far as I can tell, it is rarely open.  The entrance usually has a sign across the gate saying "tummies full," or just shut with no explanation at all.  After driving a thousand miles to have a zoo encounter and finding a locked gate, I think the average Chicagoan would be justifiably perturbed.  Hell, I'm perturbed and I live only 5 miles away.  Perhaps the zoo better find an attractive alternative to feeding the giraffes, such as riding the giraffes.  Now that would be something to drive a thousand miles for.

More Snow? Really? Now?

It's "Springtime in the Rockies" - which means temperatures in the 70s one day and a snowstorm the next. The weather forecasters are once again predicting 10 inches of snow will fall in Denver this weekend, just a few days, if I am not mistaken, before the 1st of May. What is the deal with that?  Of course, this time of year they are often wrong, and even if they aren't, it will be mainly just slush on the roads.  So why do I complain?  It's what I do, and do best.

A Colorado Rockies Update

I went to the Colorado Rockies - Pittsburgh Pirates game at Coors Field Monday night with my friend Mark, along with Mark's cousin and a former co-worker of Mark, both native Pittsburgers (is that a word?) and both, of course, Pirates fans.  One of them was wearing a Pirates ball cap, not unnoticed by the usher, but surprisingly enough, most of the people in our section seemed to be Pirates fans.  And I learned a lot about Pittsburgh during the evening.  I also leaned that the local Denver sportscasters, who say the Colorado Rockies are much improved this year, are full of it.  I have now attended two games this season, and the Rockies have stunk both times.  The end result:  Pittsburgh 6, Colorado 1.  Just what is your definition of much improved, sportscasters?

Dining Al Fresco With Mark

I went to the Colorado Rockies game at Coors Field last night with my friend Mark, who works at the University of Denver's Anderson Academic Commons (the library).  We were running a bit late, and decided to dine Al fresco, but still graciously, at a corner hot dog cart just outside the ballpark.  The owner was attentive and grateful for our business, and we had a great bench to watch all the lower downtown action. Plus the price was right.  What more can a cheapskate ask for?

Me And Travis McGee

I have probably mentioned this before, and even used the same photograph seen above, too, but I am getting old, so give me a break.  When I first started working in the book business, at the Walden Books in North Riverside, Illinois in 1976, I discovered John D. McDonald's Travis McGee novels.  We could strip the covers off the paperbacks and take them home, and so I was able to read all of the McGee stories McDonald wrote, and then bought the new hardcovers as they came out.  When John D. McDonald passed away, Travis McGee died too, and the books of course stopped.  That's why I was so happy when my sister Susan took the above photograph of me at the site of Travis McGee's old houseboat, slip F-18, Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale Florida.  Susan, my mother Mary, and I were at Bahia Mar to take the Jungle Queen on a cruise up the New River, and I just had to see the site.  And there is actually a plaque (seen in the photograph above), marking the spot. How cool is that?  I believe Bahia Mar has now changed hands, and so I hope the plaque is still there.  And if not, I shall want to know the reason why, damn it.

Are Sunset Photographs Cliches?

That is what Roddy, my photography professor, called them.  And I guess if you are a photography professor, you look at hundreds and maybe thousands of sunset photographs during your career, and just get plain sick of them.  Roddy also doesn't like photographs of the golden aspens taken here in Colorado during the fall, and for the same reason.  Of course, I an not a photography professor, and have no qualms about taking both sunset and aspen photographs.  I took the photograph of the left in the parking lot of the King Sooper's Grocery store on south Colorado Boulevard here in Denver just a few days ago.  Not only is it a pretty scene, it is located almost exactly where the Hatch's Bookstore was located, in the long gone University Hills Mall, which was the bookstore I managed when I first came to Denver.  The store faced west and had huge picture windows, and so we saw some great sunsets there, too.

On the other hand, sunsets on East Colfax Avenue seem a bit grittier, even though it has been gentrified and today is far from the "longest, wicked street in America," which it allegedly was back during Jack Kerouac's time.  It is still popular with the winos and homeless, however, and if you take the East Colfax bus there is always a conversation you can overhear about the passenger's latest meeting with their parole officer.  I took the photograph on the right driving down Colfax toward Union Station.  It shows the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on the right, and the State Capitol on the left, with a little bit of a sunset looking down on the scene.  I bet Jack Kerouac would approve.  That's one.