2000-03-10 - 01:25:41

THE WONDERING JEW

WPA - PWA

It has been a mild winter here in Denver - - - - so far. But things still are brown and dead.

It made me think a bit about those nice summer days when everything was new to my eyes and every activity was an adventure, and then I realized that it is always summer where I live in my mind. The high arched trees which hold hands across the streets of old Denver. The neatly kept homes and the well trimmed grass and always in my mind I hear a reel lawnmower in the background and smell the aroma of new cut grass.

Laying down on the grass in the shade there is a smell from it all that is like no other, a smell that most of us have lost the ability to perceive.

The embrace of the whole world wraps itself around you, a layer of humidity covers you.

As it was in Denver in my childhood, the area was not totally covered with lawns and shrubs. It was quite some time before blacktop was put down on our neighborhood streets. Back then blacktop was down town. Our neighborhoods had well kept gravel streets. Curbs and gutters yet to come. Denver was much smaller and more of the prairie hemmed it in, the area was very arid and one of the benefits I have been working up to describe is that when we got hot all we had to do is get in the shade and feel the immediate cooling effect.

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I saw an article in our local paper the other day about the W.P.A. ( Works Progress Administration ) building fly free outhouses during the Depression.

During the days of the W.P.A. and P.W.A. (Public Works Administration)many of the bridges were built that are still in use today. In the depression many things were done by one or the other department. The manpower of course was the unemployed men of our country.

The operations were well planned and executed, the rural and semi-rural areas were supplied with many outhouses built in the area near the barns and pigsties to prevent the effluvia from contaminating drinking water. The were actually flyproof, built on a cement slab and made of tongue and groove wood. There are a few of them left, but most of those are now used as well built toolsheds. More Tomorrow. . . . . . . . .

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