April 30th...

Today is April 30th, the anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War back on this date in 1975.  I remember watching this war on the evening news starting in 1964, when I was in the 6th grade at Fort Dearborn Grammar School in the Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago, and no way did any of us realize that the war would go on as long as it did.  I remember years later when I was attending IIT (the Illinois Institute of Technology) walking to the bookstore and opening up the Chicago Daily News (one of the evening papers in Chicago) to see what my number was in the 1972 draft lottery.  My number was over 300, thank God, and I didn't have to go to Vietnam, but many thousands did and died there.  I remember listening to the fall of Saigon in a cottage in Jensen Beach, Florida, on a trip to see if my parents wanted to move to Stuart, where my Uncle Bill and Aunt Elsie had moved.  They did move there the following year, but I digress.  That day, exactly 44 years ago, was the true end of the war, which resulted in over 58,000 American soldiers lost, not to mention the thousands of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed on both sides. All for nothing. A true tragedy.

Watching The White Sox Play The Tigers With Mark

I invited my friend Mark (who works at the University of Denver's library - strangely called the Anderson Academic Commons) over to my condo yesterday to watch the Chicago White Sox (my South Side heros) play the Detroit Tigers.  Mark is a big fan of the Tigers, since his father grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (which has about the same climate as Siberia, but with much more snow). During the top of the 9th inning the White Sox were leading 4 to 1, and you could just see the fans at Comiskey Park (or whatever the hell they call it these days) holding their collective breath, hoping beyond hope that the Sox would actually win the game. But win they did. Can a World Series appearance be far behind?

The Platte River Rowing Club

The temperatures are getting into the upper 70s and lower 80s here in Denver these days, and that means biking weather.  I try to walk the neighborhoods when the weather is cold or it is raining, but feel I need to get out on the bicycle when the temperature gets warmer.  Therefore, I went for a ride through the RiNo and LoHi neighborhoods this past week, and took the above photograph of the Platte River Rowing Club. It is located (Surprise!) on the Platte River, and is currently, according to Google, an "historic" office building (with space available).  The only other reference I found was a visit to the place by Princess Alexandra, a member of the British Royal Family, back in 1984.  I was living in Denver at the time, but can't remember any mention of the event.  And so I ask: why is the building historic? Why was it visited by a member of the British Royal Family?  And does this have anything to do with the death of Princess Diana?  One thing I do know.  The place seems to have nothing to do with rowing.

The G Line!

G Line! It's The G Line! We'll have a Yaba-Daba-Do Good Time! That is my personal ode to the opening of Denver's newest Light Rail, with all apologies due to the Flintstones Cartoon People.  And this is all because yesterday, after a two year delay, the G Line to Old Town Arvada and Wheat Ridge (suburbs just to the northwest of Denver), finally opened.  It was delayed because there was a software glitch that kept the crossing gates down longer than mandated, sparking fears from the Federal Department of Transportation that people would get impatient, go around the gates, and get splattered.  Evidently they don't believe  in letting Darwin's Theory of Evolution take its course.

In any case, I made it a point to take advantage of the hoopla and ride the train out to Old Town Arvada and take a few (by which I mean a lot) of photographs.  Arvada is a lot like the town of Littleton, which I have also featured on this blog.  Both were settled by farmers in the 1860s.  The actual town of Arvada was started in 1870, pretty similar to Littleton, and it grew to be a fairly good sized suburb of Denver, with a very quaint, historic downtown, consisting of a lot of bars, restaurants, boutiques, and brew pubs. What's not to like, especially with trains taking you there every 15 minutes?  Life here in paradise has gotten even better.

More Chicago Nostalgia

I received the April Chicago Magazine the other day (have you received yours yet?) and must say it was a particularly interesting issue.  I especially like the ads, which tell me almost as much about the city's trendiest new neighborhoods as the articles.  As soon as you open the magazine this month, there is a two page ad (the photo from which can be seen above) for NEMA, a recently completed 76 story luxury apartment building on the corner of 12th and Indiana (I actually thought NEMA was some sinister psychiatric hospital in an old Disney movie, but I could be wrong).  In any case, the ad brought back a lot of memories, because the photograph in the magazine shows 1130 South Michigan (the triangular building 4th from the right of the tallest in the photo, which is NEMA).  And 1130 South Michigan is where my sister Susan and brother-in-law George lived for a number of years, and just loved it.

Susan had a studio apartment on the 40th floor, and George had a studio there, too.  That is where they met. When they got married, they moved into a one bedroom with a view of South Michigan Avenue and the lakefront.  I took the photograph on the right around 1970 during one of our visits to that apartment.  From left to right it shows my mother Mary, brother-in-law George, sister Susan, and father Nelson.  From the looks in the photograph, I would say my mother and sister were having issues that evening, but who knows after this long? I brought the magazine up to Fort Collins the other day to show Susan, and she was very surprised at how small 1130 South Michigan looks in the photograph.

Susan thought she was living on top of the world on the 40th floor, but NEMA dwarfs it these days.  I checked out rental rates there, and found you could rent a studio (I am going with the upper range since I assume they are on the highest floors) for $2,000 and a one bedroom for $2,600.  As for a two bedroom unit, don't even go there.   I took the photograph on the left out the window of Susan and George's apartment probably the same time I took the previous photograph.  The neighborhood has obviously change a LOT since then. No more giant Pepsi sign that gives you the time and temperature 24/7.  And I suspect the Hotel Crillon (seen on the right in the photograph on South Michigan Avenue) is no longer there renting rooms for $2.25 a night.  Just a hunch.

Springtime In Wash Park

The temperature reached 75 degrees here in Denver this past Friday, and I biked to the Lower Downtown (LoDo) neighborhood and back to take advantage of the great weather. My route - as usual - took me through Denver's Washington Park both coming and going, and I snapped the photograph above on my way back to my condo.  I have to admit I often take for granted living where I do, and don't fully appreciate how lucky.  And contrary to previous reports, people are still moving here in record numbers, despite the rising cost of living in this city.  As someone recently explained to me, many companies are moving their operations here, and bringing along their high-paid employees, who can afford Denver's ever increasing rents and home prices.  Good news for the economy, bad news for locals who don't own their own homes. Obviously, living in paradise is not perfect.

A Daily Double

Yesterday I had to stay home all day while workers  installed a new radiator in my condo.  The place was built in 1967 (seriously, does that sound old for a building to you?), and so parts were not available to fix the old unit. Hence, while they installed the new one, I sat and read in my den as the installation team worked in the living room.  In that time, I actually started and finished Tuesdays With Morrie, an inspirational book about the meaning of life that was on the bestseller list for 4 years at the end of the last century.  I just knew I would get to it some day, and now I have.  A good book to read if you are one of the few that hasn't.

Tuesdays With Morrie was about a sociology professor at Brandeis University who was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), facing death within months, and a former student who commuted from Detroit to Boston every Tuesday to once again hear his old professor's wisdom and positive outlook while facing the end of his life. The book truly makes you think about what is important in life and how to live while you are still alive.  After I finished the book, the workers were still trying to install the unit (many problems, naturally), and so I wound up finishing reading Clownfish Blues, still another Tim Dorsey novel about Serge, a Florida serial killer with a heart of gold (who prefers to be called a sequential killer, since he doesn't kill unless the person truly deserves it). In the book, when a Miami police detective asks a pizza delivery man if he noticed anything unusual going on in a motel room where he delivered pizza, he replied "not really. The thin one had a beauty contestant sash on him, the chubby one was wearing a panda head, and the dude tied up in the chair wore an orange safety cone on this head." The detective asked if all this seemed normal to him, and the pizza guy replied that the detective must be new to Miami.  Does this seem really funny to you, too, or have I just gone round the bend?