2001-08-19 - 20:46 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

It Takes A Village.

Once I lived in a town that had room to grow. At the foot of the Rocky Mountains, it had room to spread even up to the mountains. There was plenty of space for businesses and industries, room galore for residences. A town which had anything you wanted to buy in one spot, with very few exceptions.

My town, the town I committed to memory and loving every inch of it.

I grew, but my town grew faster.

There was a creek joining a river down back of the Union Station, both watercourses were subject to flooding occasionally. By the creek houses encroached and periodically the creek would rise, wiping out a bridge or two and hinder the normal life of our town.

I think I remember when the Castlewood dam broke, I think Dad was off one day and then had to find a new route to town until the bridges were repaired. After Castlewood the huge Cherry Creek Dam was built. Then the low lying areas along the creek were filled with residences and businesses. Cherry Creek Dam has held even during the 1965 flood, in fact I read that there was more water flowing into Cherry Creek Dam during the flood than was going down the Platte River at that time. The Platte rose high enough to take out a bunch of bridges and leave a watermark 6 feet up in the buildings behind the Union Station.

Then the Chatfield Dam was built south of town to dam the watercourse which was mainly the cause of the flood. Now in the Platte Valley we have a Six Flags, the Pepsi Center, Coors baseball field and the new Invesco stadium which replaces the old Mile High Stadium. Many other things have been built there and many more are in the offing.

All over the Denver area the vacant lots began filling up, some areas big houses were being bought and bulldozed to accomodate a group of dwellings in the same space. Now they are doing pop-tops in neighborhoods, much against neighbors wishes.

In the outlying suburbs vacant spaces began to fill with residences, apartment buildings and businesses. From the first in Denver, Cherry Creek Mall with its huge parking places encouraged a proliferation of Malls every where north, south, east and west. The Malls with their huge parking places pretty well wiped out the downtown area where all the stores used to be. The merchants down there I think were too chintzy to provide enough parking and enough free parking -- thus Malls took over.

So now we are a Metro Denver area, huge compared to the town where I grew up. For the most part we still have lots of trees, pretty boulevards, attractive residences and nice businesses. But the crunch is coming I fear.

The military gave up Lowry Air Base which had been given them by Denver. Now many developers are putting in houses, apartments and condos there as well as some businesses. Some are already there to begin with. I call it Lowry City, which it is, a city in itself.

Since the monstrous DIA was built old Stapleton International was vacated and that area is in the beginning stages of development for residences and businesses. And still housing and business buildings are going up at an increasing rate.

It seems to me that people work clear across the metro area from where they live. Right at this time during the morning and evening rush hours the arteries are full, bumper to bumper, traffic light to traffic light clear across Denver. It is almost impossible during that time to make a turn onto on of the arteries because they are too full. No room at the inn or anywhere else for that matter. Morning and evening rushes are getting closer and closer together now, running longer and longer. There are a couple of arteries I try not to use because it is permanent rush hour during working hours.

Pollution is getting worse here despite the measures taken to alleviate smog.

The improvements of the streets, avenues, throughways, one ways, noways and highways seems to me will never improve fast enough to keep up with the thundering herds.

There are now many different names for this place, Greater Denver Area, Denver and Vicinity and now Metro Denver. The whole kaboodle is similar in action compared to some of these science fiction things one sees where the far flung parts seem to flow together

It is my home town, I still love this overgrown lummox of a burg but it is getting more and more difficult to live here.

It has in a relatively short time almost reached its physical limits I think.

And so, I think to make a town It Takes A Village . . . . . . .

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