Lau Tzu, the poet and philosopher of ancient China once said:
"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don't resist them; that only brings sorrow.
Let things flow naturally in whatever way they like."
WHICH IS WHY I REMEMBER BEING ON ARAPAHO STREET...
"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don't resist them; that only brings sorrow.
Let things flow naturally in whatever way they like."
WHICH IS WHY I REMEMBER BEING ON ARAPAHO STREET...
THE DAY THAT THE LIBRARY BURNED TO THE GROUND. The year was 1946 and I was a boy the age of 10. I was walking with my father and there was a stirring on the street, movement away from 16th Street to the corner of 15th, and then great clouds of black smoke piling into the cobalt sky. You could hear voices: The Library is burning! People began to run then, and we could hear sirens of the Fire Department and saw high arcs of water rising in a majestic way and falling into the flames. Reporters were there and photographers, all of them wearing hats with press cards stuck in the rims, just like they did in the movies. We watched for hours, drawn as citizens always are to the unity of disaster, and saw windows burst and the building collapse into black, wet rubble. The next day, we all read about it in The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. Something that once was in the world was now forever gone, and for the first time in my life I felt a sense of permanent loss.
Back then, Denver was still filled with the sound of Benny Goodman quartets from the radio of the corner drug store, and when almost everybody wore a hat. The taxi cabs were all Checkers with ample room for your legs, cars never double parked, shop doors were never locked in the daytime, cops walked the beat and everyone knew their names. You wore galoshes in the rain. Waitresses called you Honey. And you slept with the windows open to the summer night. That Denver seems to be gone now, hammered to dust by time, progress, accident, and greed and living only in memory. Most of us distrust the memory of how we lived here, not so very long ago. And then, suddenly, you hear a piece of music and you are once again at the Dolly Madison Ice Cream Store on the corner of Cherry Street and Colfax Avenue eating a double-dip strawberry cone. In the cross-cutting of memory, the parents you loved are still alive, and you have just been in Elitch Gardens, sitting on a blanket in the grass on a summer's evening listening to free concerts under the stars and to the music of The Tommy Dorsey Band or dancing to the music of Harry James and his Orchestra.
Things then began to change when the older Denver began giving way to the new, as we watched newsreels in the movie houses showing the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, saw the skeletal bodies and vacant eyes of those who had survived; witnessed the clouds of the atomic bombs explode and destroy the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where people sat on empty streets attempting to comprehend what had just happened to them; and lowered our eyes as soldiers and sailors arrived home after the war minus their arms and legs. Items which had been rationed during the war began to reappear: Cat's Paw soles for shoes, licorice microchips called Sen-Sen, which was guaranteed to keep your breath sweet while kissing; Bazooka and Beechie bubble-gum were back in our mouths, as were candies called Sky Bars, Houton's and B-B Bats, while the price of a haircut went up to a quarter, men were smoking Fatimas and Wings, mothers were in the kitchen using J-O Paste and Flit to rid the house of cockroaches, and boys were tearing-off cereal boxtops in order to get Captain Midnight code-o-graph rings or a Tom Mix Whistle.
Although, in that Denver, you could still wander through the stalls on Colfax Avenue, watch leather-workers ply their trade at the stall on Detroit Street, look in awe at an old Italian shoemaker working in a window with his mouth full of nails down on Champa Street, and see the iceman make his deliveries to the Safeway store on Monaco Boulevard, who seemed stronger than any man on earth. Or you could sit on a bench on Alameda Avenue for the next trolley car to take you to Lakeside Amusement Park for a day at the speedway and roller-coaster rides. If you got sick, the doctor would come by in an hour. And if you got lucky, and all went well, you could sneak into The Bluebird Theater through a side door to watch the Saturday afternoon triple-matinee and see serials of Dick Tracy and Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon. On Sunday nights, you would most certainly turn on the radio and hear that staccato voice: Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea...This is Walter Winchell and the Jergerns Journal - let's go to press...
There were, of course, the great sporting events... .
...Like the much ballyhooed Heavyweight Champion of the World return match of the World Champion Joe Louis knocking out Billy Conn in the eighth round in Madison Square Garden on the 9th day of June in 1946; where every neighborhood window had been opened in order than nobody missed so much as a single punch, and on the 28th day of June, play-by-play games came on the radio for all of the New York Yankees games began...
...And then came the football game of the Century played on the 9th day of November in 1946 between the United States Military Academy at West Point, then ranked number 1 in the Associated Press football poll, and the University of Notre Dame was ranked number 2. The game was played in Yankee Stadium where the radio announcer Bill Stern said, You couldn't fit another person in here with a shoehorn. Both teams were undefeated. Both had averaged 30 points a game. Army had Felix 'Doc' Blanchard, also known as 'Mister Inside,' and Glen Davis, also known as 'Mister Inside,' and a fine quarterback by the name of Arnold Tucker. Notre Dame had Johnny Lujack at quarterback and Leon Heart at end. All four of these men would be Heisman Trophy winners. Despite the much-hyped offenses, the game ended in a scoreless tie, and Notre Dame's defense did something no one had ever done, they held 'The Touchdown Twins' of Blanchard and Davis to a total of 79 yards. Coach Earl Blake of Army called it, The best defensive college football game ever played; and Notre Dame was named the the National Champions by the Associated Press. And for the rest of us, it was the greatest sporting event we had ever heard.
It was as if the quote from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse 2, were coming true. The one that said: There is a time for everything under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die. A time to uproot and a time to plant. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. We had witnessed Hiroshima and Dachau, seen the wounded return home, listened to Notre Dame defeat Army, heard Joe Louis defeat Billy Conn, experienced a war coming to its final end with something called The Marshall Plan designed to give economic recovery support for Europe as we began our own postwar economic expansion by establishing suburban communities like Levittown where every single block looked exactly alike.
Meanwhile, we were growing-up both content and confused. We were now known as The Silent Generation, where we were neither to speak nor be heard, so we boys turned our attention to the reading of lurid pulp magazines like The Argosy and True Detective Magazine and other slick girlie magazines with pinups by Vargas, like Eyeful and Wink, which were, of course, stowed neatly under our beds each-and-every night in fear that they might be found by our mother or father. Women who who filled our minds with lustful images and heartfelt desire were exotic dancers like Tempest Storm and Lili St. Cyr, and most of us were tickled-pink when we later found out that girls did not automatically become pregnant when you went to bed with them.
As the old faded into memory and life continued to renew, when the 1940's were gone and the 1950's had begun, it was then that you could meet that girl in the polo coat who is arriving at Union Station from college in Albuquerque; the one who you had fallen in love with at the age of 13 at a youth camp called Rainbow Trail 7 years before. And if you were lucky, if all went well, if you had enough money and the courage, you might succeed in taking her to The Ship Tavern in The Brown Palace Hotel on 17th Street for lunch. Or you could take her to The Buckhorn Exchange, the city's oldest steakhouse. Maybe you'll get a grilled-cheese sandwich at LoDo downtown or stroll to the State Capitol Building on East Colfax Avenue to stare at the golden dome glistening beneath the afternoon sun, and then slip into The Cruise Room in the lobby of The Oxford Hotel on 18th Street for a couple of final beers.
It would never happen.
You would receive a Dear John Letter that morning.
And eventually survive.
I suppose that not too many years from now, when I've been safely tucked into the turf at Fairmount Cemetery on South Quebec Street next to my Mother and Father, someone will write about a lost Denver that includes The Buckhorn Exchange and The Bluebird Theater and The Lakeside Amusement Park and Dolly Madison Ice Cream and the loss of young love. Someone might even mourn the loss of Houton's and B-B Bats. Anything is possible. But if so, I hope at least one old and wizened Denverite will reach for a pen and try to explain about our lost glories: and mention trolleys and Flit and 'The Touchdown Twins - if he or she can make it clear, if they have the skill...
...Even say that memory itself is the only place where you are forever young...
...And then recall the words of Lau Tzu, 'Let everything flow naturally in whatever way they like...'
Back then, Denver was still filled with the sound of Benny Goodman quartets from the radio of the corner drug store, and when almost everybody wore a hat. The taxi cabs were all Checkers with ample room for your legs, cars never double parked, shop doors were never locked in the daytime, cops walked the beat and everyone knew their names. You wore galoshes in the rain. Waitresses called you Honey. And you slept with the windows open to the summer night. That Denver seems to be gone now, hammered to dust by time, progress, accident, and greed and living only in memory. Most of us distrust the memory of how we lived here, not so very long ago. And then, suddenly, you hear a piece of music and you are once again at the Dolly Madison Ice Cream Store on the corner of Cherry Street and Colfax Avenue eating a double-dip strawberry cone. In the cross-cutting of memory, the parents you loved are still alive, and you have just been in Elitch Gardens, sitting on a blanket in the grass on a summer's evening listening to free concerts under the stars and to the music of The Tommy Dorsey Band or dancing to the music of Harry James and his Orchestra.
Things then began to change when the older Denver began giving way to the new, as we watched newsreels in the movie houses showing the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, saw the skeletal bodies and vacant eyes of those who had survived; witnessed the clouds of the atomic bombs explode and destroy the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where people sat on empty streets attempting to comprehend what had just happened to them; and lowered our eyes as soldiers and sailors arrived home after the war minus their arms and legs. Items which had been rationed during the war began to reappear: Cat's Paw soles for shoes, licorice microchips called Sen-Sen, which was guaranteed to keep your breath sweet while kissing; Bazooka and Beechie bubble-gum were back in our mouths, as were candies called Sky Bars, Houton's and B-B Bats, while the price of a haircut went up to a quarter, men were smoking Fatimas and Wings, mothers were in the kitchen using J-O Paste and Flit to rid the house of cockroaches, and boys were tearing-off cereal boxtops in order to get Captain Midnight code-o-graph rings or a Tom Mix Whistle.
Although, in that Denver, you could still wander through the stalls on Colfax Avenue, watch leather-workers ply their trade at the stall on Detroit Street, look in awe at an old Italian shoemaker working in a window with his mouth full of nails down on Champa Street, and see the iceman make his deliveries to the Safeway store on Monaco Boulevard, who seemed stronger than any man on earth. Or you could sit on a bench on Alameda Avenue for the next trolley car to take you to Lakeside Amusement Park for a day at the speedway and roller-coaster rides. If you got sick, the doctor would come by in an hour. And if you got lucky, and all went well, you could sneak into The Bluebird Theater through a side door to watch the Saturday afternoon triple-matinee and see serials of Dick Tracy and Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon. On Sunday nights, you would most certainly turn on the radio and hear that staccato voice: Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea...This is Walter Winchell and the Jergerns Journal - let's go to press...
There were, of course, the great sporting events... .
...Like the much ballyhooed Heavyweight Champion of the World return match of the World Champion Joe Louis knocking out Billy Conn in the eighth round in Madison Square Garden on the 9th day of June in 1946; where every neighborhood window had been opened in order than nobody missed so much as a single punch, and on the 28th day of June, play-by-play games came on the radio for all of the New York Yankees games began...
...And then came the football game of the Century played on the 9th day of November in 1946 between the United States Military Academy at West Point, then ranked number 1 in the Associated Press football poll, and the University of Notre Dame was ranked number 2. The game was played in Yankee Stadium where the radio announcer Bill Stern said, You couldn't fit another person in here with a shoehorn. Both teams were undefeated. Both had averaged 30 points a game. Army had Felix 'Doc' Blanchard, also known as 'Mister Inside,' and Glen Davis, also known as 'Mister Inside,' and a fine quarterback by the name of Arnold Tucker. Notre Dame had Johnny Lujack at quarterback and Leon Heart at end. All four of these men would be Heisman Trophy winners. Despite the much-hyped offenses, the game ended in a scoreless tie, and Notre Dame's defense did something no one had ever done, they held 'The Touchdown Twins' of Blanchard and Davis to a total of 79 yards. Coach Earl Blake of Army called it, The best defensive college football game ever played; and Notre Dame was named the the National Champions by the Associated Press. And for the rest of us, it was the greatest sporting event we had ever heard.
It was as if the quote from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse 2, were coming true. The one that said: There is a time for everything under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die. A time to uproot and a time to plant. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. We had witnessed Hiroshima and Dachau, seen the wounded return home, listened to Notre Dame defeat Army, heard Joe Louis defeat Billy Conn, experienced a war coming to its final end with something called The Marshall Plan designed to give economic recovery support for Europe as we began our own postwar economic expansion by establishing suburban communities like Levittown where every single block looked exactly alike.
Meanwhile, we were growing-up both content and confused. We were now known as The Silent Generation, where we were neither to speak nor be heard, so we boys turned our attention to the reading of lurid pulp magazines like The Argosy and True Detective Magazine and other slick girlie magazines with pinups by Vargas, like Eyeful and Wink, which were, of course, stowed neatly under our beds each-and-every night in fear that they might be found by our mother or father. Women who who filled our minds with lustful images and heartfelt desire were exotic dancers like Tempest Storm and Lili St. Cyr, and most of us were tickled-pink when we later found out that girls did not automatically become pregnant when you went to bed with them.
As the old faded into memory and life continued to renew, when the 1940's were gone and the 1950's had begun, it was then that you could meet that girl in the polo coat who is arriving at Union Station from college in Albuquerque; the one who you had fallen in love with at the age of 13 at a youth camp called Rainbow Trail 7 years before. And if you were lucky, if all went well, if you had enough money and the courage, you might succeed in taking her to The Ship Tavern in The Brown Palace Hotel on 17th Street for lunch. Or you could take her to The Buckhorn Exchange, the city's oldest steakhouse. Maybe you'll get a grilled-cheese sandwich at LoDo downtown or stroll to the State Capitol Building on East Colfax Avenue to stare at the golden dome glistening beneath the afternoon sun, and then slip into The Cruise Room in the lobby of The Oxford Hotel on 18th Street for a couple of final beers.
It would never happen.
You would receive a Dear John Letter that morning.
And eventually survive.
I suppose that not too many years from now, when I've been safely tucked into the turf at Fairmount Cemetery on South Quebec Street next to my Mother and Father, someone will write about a lost Denver that includes The Buckhorn Exchange and The Bluebird Theater and The Lakeside Amusement Park and Dolly Madison Ice Cream and the loss of young love. Someone might even mourn the loss of Houton's and B-B Bats. Anything is possible. But if so, I hope at least one old and wizened Denverite will reach for a pen and try to explain about our lost glories: and mention trolleys and Flit and 'The Touchdown Twins - if he or she can make it clear, if they have the skill...
...Even say that memory itself is the only place where you are forever young...
...And then recall the words of Lau Tzu, 'Let everything flow naturally in whatever way they like...'
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