Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month
Gabe and Ruth asked for us to come over tonight. We did. We went with Jon and Jen and Ruth and Gabe to an art teacher’s art show. It was in the ‘hood, just off west Colfax, the Latino part of that very long street, not too far from Montview, where Jon met Jen and where he still teaches.
Jon had a cell phone photograph in the show, one taken at table setting level during a Halloween wedding. The composition was clever and the cell phone grain gave the photograph a painterly feel. It was easily the best piece in the show, though I should say the competition was not strong save for a couple of potters and a cartoonist.
Along the way we passed a dulceria where they sell pinatas. It had pinatas hung from the ceiling and lots of brightly colored party favors. Snow White and Cinderella, in large cardboard movie style images, graced the front of the store. Down a bit further was a dress maker, dark on this Friday night with big girl dresses for Quinceañera. Ruth wanted Kate to make her a strapless one, but in the truth telling way she has, Kate said, “Not until you get boobies. You couldn’t hold the dress up.” “Well,” Ruth went on, “Maybe it could have sleeves.”
After the opening, Kate and I took off on our own to give the family a chance to decompress from a full week of grandparents. Tomorrow I’ll see Ruth at her gymnastics, then around 2 pm we’ll board the shuttle for National Grand Western Stock Show. This will be my second time and I look forward to it.
It’s an event similar to the state fair, but limited only to farm and ranch related vendors and activities. Rodeos, judging of champion bulls, pigs, sheep, the Wild West Show we’ll see tomorrow at 4 and barrel races make up the bulk of the events outside of the ranch related wheeling and dealing.
A lot of that goes on in hotel restaurants and bars far from the Stock show grounds. Men in cowboy hats, blue jeans and vests gather around shots of Jack Daniels and beer chasers, talk cattle and land. It all gives January Denver a distinctly Western tone.
It also helps me define myself as a Midwesterner. We’re agricultural, yes, but we’re row crops and feedlots, 4-H and county fairs, small acreages and farmers. The West has ranches and cattle herds, oil and open land, brands and rodeos. Yes, you could point to many similarities, but the differences are what strike me, making me realize I know very little about the West, in our past or in our present.
