Jul. 15, 2007 - 19:34 MDT

THE WAY IT WAS

My mind works in kinks and spells it would seem. Thing that set me off was "blanched celery" and down memory trails I rode once again.

I was raised in South Denver a few blocks east of the railroad tracks which ran close to the Platte River. Much of that land near the river was farmed for "truck" vegetables to be taken to market downtown.

I remember of an early morning seeing the wagons along Cherry Creek near downtown, all loaded with yummmy fresh greens and crunchies. The grocers would come down and buy their vegies early in the morning in order to stock up for the day.

Out in the working men's neighborhoods most houses had a vegtable garden growing green onions, radishes and such.

As I got a bit older and around more I discovered that much of the land north of town along the Platte River was also devoted to growing things for the Denver market.

It was north of town when I was with Dad when we passed farmers digging ditches, I asked Dad what they were going to do and he said, "Remember that pale crunchy celery that you love ? That is what they are going to do is blanch it." To my mind that was as near a no answer as silence, so I kept asking about it. As near as I can remember he told me that the bottom of the ditch was lined with something to keep dirt out of the celery, then the celery laid in the ditch and something to keep the dirt out laid atop of that, then dirt mounded over the entire thing.

Looking back, I can't really remember what time of year that was, late enough for celery to be grown, and early enough that they wouldn't have to chip celery out of the ice. I do remember the Bluehill pimento cheese packed in the stalks of celery at Thanksgiving dinner. Somehow the blanching gave a special tenderness and crunchiness to the celery.

It has been years since I have seen any for sale anywhere.

Those were the days when vegetables were tender and fresh.

Then the agronomists developed vegetables that could be shipped and last until marketed. Denargo Market at the north end of town along the railroads and Wazee Market near where the Tivoli Union Brewing company had their establishment which also had trackage. And produce seemed to become "big business."

I guess it was then that the people who used to take wagons to Cherry Creek to sell their wares got into the shippable produce business, each one having trucks galore and on railroad sidings.

Time passes and things change, not always the way we would like to have them though. Still out from Denver to the north along Highway 85-87 up toward Greeley there are farms that have vegetable stands during the growing season, fewer now than before but still there. Heather and I through the summer months have a place or two up near Fort Lupton that we go to in order to get fresh vegetables. The quality is good, prices lower than at the supermarkets and if one is careful and eyeballs their pick, a bargain is had. We get sacks of potatoes, onions, cauliflower, broccoli and other good stuff there, and we have done our duty by ABC (Always Buy Colorado) which seems to be fading away nowadays. We are going probably next week to lay in stuff.

This trip to the past meanders a bit, but so did the building metropolis as it grew. Along the Platte River were industrial and commercial places as well, Gates Rubber out south, the meat packing plants to the north and American Smelting and Refining had a big presence north of Globeville. Brickyards here and there as well. And street car lines to take us where we wanted to go in our urban area. One exciting trip for me was the Interurban to Golden, trolley cars they were. Coming out of Denver on the south route the rails twisted and turned and it seemed that the telephone and power poles would surely be wiped out by the trolley, but of course never were. Coming back along 44th Avenue alongside Clear Creek part of the way was the easy way back to the Tramway Loop to catch a trolley home avoiding boredom of covering the same ground out and back. There were automobiles then, but not nearly as many. Dogs and cats ran loose and trash collected in the gutters to be swept away only occasionally. And coal smoke permeated the atmosphere, not noticed by me when I was a kid, but in looking over the book of pictures of Old Denver that Heather gave me, the smoke is very obvious.

The memories are good of those days though some things were not so good, but that is THE WAY IT WAS . . . . . . . . . .

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