Category Archives: Family

Playhouse Gone

April 13, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

Text message yesterday from a realtor handling a Saturday open house. A big tree blew over or just fell down and smashed the grandchildren’s playhouse. Kate had a lot of investment in the playhouse, fixing it up especially for Ruth and Gabe’s visits. Inside it had our old fireplace mantle, a small children’s table, a wicker and metal chair, an heirloom rocker, a crystal chandelier, a nice rug and electricity.

A piece of yesterday still owned by us was gone. And we had to deal with it. I put in an online claim to USAA and we’ve tried to reach them this morning, but no luck so far. The tree has to be removed from the immediate site and the remains of the playhouse will have to be disposed of. That’s something we’ll have to coordinate from here with the help of our realtor.

After time considering it, it came to me that the playhouse was the only object in Andover that had been devoted to the grandkids. It’s summary removal can be seen as elimination of our last family connection there. It’s as if a message were lit above the ruins: Now you have fully left this land. So I’m choosing to see it as a mark of our passage from Minnesota, a passage that will be complete when the house sells.

Art and Culture, Colorado, Family, Music

Dazzled

April 8, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

Dazzlejazz is a the kind of jazz joint I’ve always wanted to discover: an intimate space, good food and great music. We heard music by Claude Bolling, four pieces, a couple of folks we didn’t recognize and one composer, a Ukranian, new to us, named Nikolai Kapustin.

The listening room, where we ate, insists on turned-off cell phones and no conversation during the performances out of respect for the musicians. It appeals to me, but it does take away some of the joint nature of the place. But not much.

The first set featured a saxophone quartet. The manner of the composition echoed throughout most of the pieces. The music began in a classical vein, a slow exposition setting up a more complex rearrangement of the initial lines in movements to come. But. Rather than segue into a gavotte or an adagio or a largo the playing took off in a jazzy, sometimes discordant direction. It became plaintive and solos broke out into innovative twists. This was by a composer named Frederickson.

The next set was the Toot Suite by Bolling, trumpet backed up by a jazz trio. The pianist, in particular, was very good as was the trumpeter. Again, a slow exposition, then, a sudden crash of the drums and the piece was off. The trumpeter reminded Kate of Bradford Marsalis. All the Bolling pieces were wonderful, suites for trumpet, flute, cello and violin.

There were two surprises. The Kapustin piece had a violin and piano, both played by

young women from local universities, both Russian and charismatic. His work is worth getting to know.

The second surprise was the finale, a flamenco played on the harp by a woman introduced as expert in special methods of playing the harp. She glissandoed and strummed, then, near the end, began whacking the harp’s base as the imitated the clacking of castanets. She finished with a flourish, left hand in the air. Ole!

The food was good. The company better and the music just right.

Colorado, Family

Felix

April 8, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

A couple of weeks ago we stopped at the Simms SteakHouse after seeing the Red and Brown Water at Curious Theater. Found the Steakhouse unremarkable, but our waiter told a fascinating family tale. Obviously Mexican, Felix at first observed that he came from a family with 9 sisters so he always gave a woman options. Referring to something he thought Kate might want.

He went on from there to describe his extended family. He has 100 first cousins. When I asked him if they ever got together, he said yes at the patriarch and matriarch’s ranch in the panhandle of Texas near Amarillo. Grandma was the iron law of the clan. One of her rules was never take an argument to the table. “I can fix any argument with food,” Felix said, in explaining this. After the meal is over, the argument is usually forgotten or much reduced.”

Felix, his mother and his oldest sister are the triumvirate. His word. They handle a large family fund, created by donations from all the different family groupings. “We’re basically self-insured. If someone has an unexpected medical expense, repair, that sort of thing, and don’t have enough cash, we loan them the money and work out a payment plan.” This fund also covers the cost of family gatherings at the ranch.

Felix has a restaurant style kitchen in a large dining hall there and he does all the cooking. Before a gathering he announces a menu, the cost and the money flows before the event. At a family reunion, only parts of the family come at any one time, though every seven years they do have a whole family affair, a relative blocks out rooms at a local hotel. “Sometimes every guest at the hotel is a member of my family.”

They organize a shuttle between the hotel and the ranch. Others can stay at the RV park they have built on this 40 acre ranch.

Family, Jefferson County, Mountains, Travel

Getting There

April 4, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

To get to the seder we left Conifer at about 3:30 and drove into Denver, ignoring I-70 traffic, “that I-70 mess” as our mortgage banker called, we stayed on Hwy 285 to Monaco and drove up through the city from south to north. This has the additional advantage–to my sensibilities–of seeing the city as it changes from southern suburbs to its northern most neighborhoods, passing on the way through an area with streets named Harvard, Yale, Bates, Vassar, then Wesley and Iliff. This last is also the name of a Methodist seminary located on the campus of Denver University.

Going further north Monaco bisects the Cherry Hill neighborhood, a 1% enclave. Further on housing changes from low rise apartment complexes and condominiums to ranch style, one story smaller homes, but with big yards. Then Monaco becomes a four-lane boulevard with a park-like central strip and brick homes, some resembling small castles, others futuristic. Here the flowers bloom. Finally, we get to Martin Luther King, which extends to the eastern edge of Denver through the Stapleton new urbanism development. But we’ll turn on Pontiac, well before that.

On Pontiac we enter a predominantly African-American neighborhood, a couple of blocks west of Quebec, formerly a boundary street for the old Stapleton Airport and along which hotels were built to accommodate air travelers. Behind the hotels grew up a community filled with one story homes with little square feet and often desperate looking lawns, sometimes littered. It includes, too, the same homes with neatly groomed topiary, lush grass and, on Jon and Jen’s block, some older two-story homes, residue of an era before the airport was built, probably of an era before Denver reached this far toward Kansas and Nebraska.

Jon and Jen’s home was, according to house lore, originally a residence for a local farmer. Could be. They’ve done a lot of rehabilitation, adding on a new kitchen and dining area, plus a bedroom for themselves above. Jon’s done the bulk of the finishing work including tiling and plumbing two bathrooms. Outside Jon has several garden beds, fruit trees, a grape arbor, a tree house and a work shed where he produces hand-built skis.

Commentary on Religion, Family, Humanities, Myth and Story

The Blood of the Lamb

April 4, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

There are historic occasions that are of major cultural significance, then there are occasions of historic significance on a smaller scale. Last night Jen hosted her first seder. It felt good to drive over to their home (see above for the route) for a holiday, especially passover. One of the characteristics of Judaism that has long appealed to me is its emphasis on worship and holidays centered in the home.

Many of the most memorable holidays like Hannukah and Sukkoth are observed in the home. And, in fact, passover, a key holiday for Jewish identity along with Rosh Hoshanah Purim and Yom Kippur, is largely a home based celebration. I’ve been to several over the years, but none of them were as sweet as this one.

A Rabbinic Haggadah guides those gathered through this old, old ritual. Traditional estimates place the Exodus, the story at the heart of pesach, or passover, in 1300 B.C.E. Perhaps three thousand years old pesach links each Jewish family and their seder guests to a time of liberation from bondage, making freedom from slavery an essential part of Jewish identity.

To join family in a celebration with this much history makes my heart glad. Though the metaphysics of Judaism do not appeal to me, the long march, the ancientrail of Jewish identity held constant throughout millennia by these very same observances does. And I felt privileged to be there.

Asia, Family, Latin, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Habitual

April 3, 2015 Charles 1 Comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

New morning habit in process of forming. I’m going to protect the time from 5:45-11:00 am for work with timeout for breakfast. After long experience, I know that I don’t do well if my work times get interrupted. This means I’ll need to make appointments for the afternoons in the future. Yes, this potentially interferes with my workout regimen, which begins at 4:00 pm each day. And, yes, it could disrupt my nap, but I think the advantages outweigh the hassles.

It also means I’ll not be posting here until mid-day, nor will I check e-mails, do other kinds of work on the computer until the afternoon or evening.

What will I be doing in those morning hours? Latin. Moving forward with my translation of Book VII which I plan to be my first complete book translated. There are 15. Writing. I’ll be working on Superior Wolf, writing and researching.

It’s odd, but the sunny disposition of Colorado really leans toward the outdoors, not like the cold and gloomy winters and early springs in Minnesota, where staying inside just made sense. This focus on mornings spent with the mind will have outside interference. I’ll have to focus harder on getting in hikes, plant identification, exploration in the time I have available.

I’ve been taken over the last few weeks with an idea from the Baghavad Gita, action with out attachment to the results. In the Gita this notion prunes karma, since it is the entrapment of desire that bends karma one way or the other. With no focus on the result the action cannot produce bad karma. This is not the way I see it though I understand this more orthodox approach.

Instead I find the idea of action without attachment to the result as a way to cut the final cord tying me to the bourgeois desire for achievement. It was this strain of thinking that cut across my cerebral cortex when living large popped up. In other words I learn Latin with no final end in mind. Being an amateur classicist is what I will do, defining the realm in which I will act. Just so the writing. Writing novels, being a writer is what I will do, what I have done. But the results of that action? Not important. Grandparenting. Gardening. Bee keeping. All the same.

So creating the atmosphere in which I can act is critical. Creating an atmosphere in which I succeed, not so much so.

Colorado, Family, Mountains, The West, Third Phase, Travel, US History

Tourists

April 2, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

Gabe and I had an adventure yesterday. We went to the Agro Mine Tour, ate lunch at Beau Jo’s Pizza in Idaho Springs and finished off the day with a soporific soak at the Indian Hot Springs, also in Idaho Springs.

The mine tour itself is a cheesy, tourist-trappy thing with a clunky video, corny presentations and a self-guided tour after that. Still, the Double Eagle Mine, Gage is at its face (end) in this photo is remarkable in that it was dug by hand, by two men over the course of one year. About three hundred feet long, maybe five and a half feet tall and about 4 feet or so in width, it’s a monument to persistence, if nothing else.

The rest of the tour focuses not on a mine, but on the Agro mill, which in its prime, produced $100,000,000 worth of gold when gold was at $18-35 an ounce. It was fed by the Agro tunnel, a 4.5 mile tunnel dug through solid rock to remove waste water from various mines and to create a small railroad to deliver ore buckets to the Agro mill.

The Agro mill closed in 1943 when, on the last blast of the day, four unlucky miners dynamited a wall holding back water filling up an abandoned silver mine. The resulting flood geysered water from the tunnel for 9 hours. In addition to killing the miners the flood weakened walls and caused cave-ins along the tunnels length making the railroad tracks no longer usable.

The mill itself went down in stairstep like levels since most of the work proceeded through the aid of gravity. The Agro tunnel fed ore in from the top of the mill and the processing went in stages toward the bottom. A structure made of wood it looked like an unsafe place to have worked.

Idaho Springs is about 30 minutes outside of Denver to the west and well into the mountains. The Colorado Mineral Belt, which begins in the San Juan Mountains in the far southern part of the state, makes an arc up through Leadville and finds its terminus just a bit further north from Idaho Springs. Along this arc lie most of the mines in Colorado, many of them producing, like the mines the Agro Mill serviced gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc. Some have molybdenum and other metals. There’s a big, working molybdenum mine outside of Leadville.

Idaho Springs is a tourist town, primarily, located on either side of a long main street paralleling I-70. It has some residential housing, but not much. Service stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants, curio shops, a knife shop, a hardware store which sells gold panning supplies, that sort of thing.

And the Indian Hot Springs. The facilities, both the main building and the adjoining motel, saw their better days many years ago. The springs, though, deliver. Gabe and I swam in a large pool of water, 100 degrees +. There are, too, hot springs caves, a men’s and a women’s cave where clothing is optional. Kids under 16 are not allowed in the caves.

After all that, it was back to Denver and a quick exit so Grandpop could beat the rush hour traffic on the way home.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Vulnerable & OK

March 28, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

Quick note to say I’ve moved past the mood of the last post. Business meeting this morning with Kate at the Wildflower. We shared some of our mutual vulnerabilities: mortality, worthiness, relationships with kids and grandkids. In that unusual alchemy of love vulnerabilities shared become a source of strength and self-forgiveness. 25 years now of letting each other in, hearing and the seeing each other, loving each other. A gift beyond measure.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holidays, Myth and Story

Éirinn go Brách

March 15, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Black Mountain Moon

N.B. The “snakes” that Patrick ran out of Ireland were the Druids, priests of the Auld Celtic faith, so I’m celebrating Celtic heritage today, not Patrick. Though he did have the good sense, when returning to Rome after his missionary work in Ireland, to take several Irish Wolfhounds with him.

We’re getting ready for our second party in two months. That’s approximately two more than we hosted all last year. Today our neighbors Eduardo and Holly, Ann Beck (real estate agent) and Jon, Jen, Ruth and Gabe will eat corned beef, cabbage and other fixings with us.

This is a holiday I have celebrated at Frank (the Mic) Broderick’s for many years. It’s a Woolly traditional meal and the one tomorrow night will be the first one I’ve missed in a long time. Having a Celtic meal of our own might be the start of a new, Colorado tradition for us.

Just got done mopping the floor, after vacuuming. I can do this now with minimal huffing and puffing though there’s still a ways to go on being fully acclimatized. Kate’s got corned beef in the slow cooker, cabbage and potatoes ready to boil and a mango popover for dessert. I made an Irish soda bread yesterday that looks pretty good.

In a nod to the digital age I just retrieved my Pandora password from my password program on this computer. That way, I can go downstairs, enter it on our TV! (Roku) and provide some holiday appropriate music.

69 degrees here in Conifer, a sunny bright day for St. Patrick’s. Strange. And, when I just checked, I’m very surprised to see that in Andover it will be 71 today. Stranger yet.

Colorado, Family, Mountains

Off to the Wildflower Cafe

March 14, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Black Mountain Moon

Drove down Shadow Mountain on Brook Forest Drive. We wondered what it will look like with the snow melted, gone. The mountain scenes change much more often than I would have thought with snow, ice, hoar frost, melting, fog, early morning mists and evening. We have three quarters of a year yet, the Great Wheel yet to turn through spring, summer and fall. There will be green, flowers, dry dusty days with fear of fire and times of aspened yellow.

On to the Wildflower Cafe where we learned that Christa, the tall blond who now recognizes us and brings us coffee right away (we’re their first Saturday morning customers), worked as a bartender at Lord Fletchers for a couple of years while her sister lived in Waconia. The sister moved to Colorado and so did Christa. Minnesota connections abound here: the park ranger for the Pike National Forest from Hastings, a neighbor here from the ‘burbs of Minneapolis. Others whose particulars I don’t recall.

Back up Brook Forest Drive in the oncoming morning, a fierce sun appearing every so often through a notch in a mountain or a small valley, then back into the shade, driving through the Arapaho National Forest.