05 October, 2001 - 20:03 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

City Edens

How wonderful it was to me to go to the park, I never realized how many nice parks we have in Denver, all I knew was there were different kinds of parks here.

The one nearest my home was a full block in extent, had the appropriate trees and bushes and as I grew and learned to love a thing of my admiration, it had a public library at one corner. Another park within walking distance had two lakes. The one at the south end was more or less a look pretty lake. The lake at the north end was where once the pier, tower and bathhouse were. At the other end of the lake was a two story building by a boat dock. This is the park where I learned to ice skate. In winter the city would clear snow and scrape the surface of the lake smooth at the area near the summer boat dock. In the building was a snack bar with hot chocolate and hot dogs, etc. The upper story served as a warming house.

I had managed to finagle a pair of rink skates and went to the park determined to learn to skate. My training probably was no more severe to me than training was to others. But it truly accustomed me to orthopedic discomfort. At the start I had wet noodles for ankles, and by the time I had developed enough strength in them and was able to skate a little bit in the vertical position came my real awakening.

I had been piddling around the little kid beginners area to begin with but chafed at being a little beginner with a sore tail. So rashly one day I ventured out into the big bad world of the people who could really skate. Seemed that every time I stood up it wasn't long before I was inspecting the sky laying on my back once more. I would go home after each session with both hips, both knees super sore and sometimes with a knot on my gourd.

Somewhat in a Masochistic manner I kept going back and attempting to be one of the big kids who could skate. It turned out in the end that I was a little kid who could skate. Well maybe skate well enough to dodge oncomers and had sense enough to stay away from the games going on here and there.

The following winter I began to play in those games of speed and agility and eventually began to hold my own in them and have the utmost of joy in the activity around me. It was somewhat later that I discovered that girls didn't really have cooties and found that going skating with a girl was a real neat thing to do. It kept me pretty well at arms length from the girl I was with and saved me the embarassment of trying that gooshy stuff and just enjoyed being with someone cute and gentle. Ice skating was one of the few times in my life that I truly enjoyed winter and cold weather. The warmth generated in my body from the exertion of rapid skating was heaven after I had milled around enough that the steam was up.

Late spring, when the leaves started coming out and the days warm enough to play outdoors the park lured me again. The boyhood arena of the playground was an attractive bruise generator for this klutzy kid. Skinned knees were a badge of honor to this young squirt. Doing the endurance run on the rings, keeping track of the number of times around the circle helped me gain coordination and strength, but at the time all I knew was those activities were the most fun one could have.

Later I would go up to swim and had the pleasure of becoming natant. Never was a competitor, just enjoyed being afloat. Funny thing, by the time I had grown up swimming was no longer allowed in city lakes and by the time we came back from Florida in 1960 there was no skating on the lakes in the winter either. But the joy of both were my great pleasure as a kid.

Later of course, in the fall was the time to enjoy being with "the" girl while kicking leaves aside and teasingly talking.

At the northeast end of town was City Park. It also had two lakes, one was what we called Duck Lake were the birds reigned. The other lake had a boat dock with row boats and paddle boats and a really good exercise for this young guy was to use a paddle boat and go around the small island at the southeast end and back in time to turn it in at the appropriate time.

The big lake at City Park had a popcorn wagon in the summer time and a snack bar near the boat dock. Seems that I remember a larger boat on the lake, a powered one called The City of Denver that took passengers around the lake on a slow majestic cruise. At the west end of the lake was a band shell out over the water and many of the old wire benches in rows for the audience back on level ground, it was pleasant to sit in the evening and hear nice music. Behind was a building that had restrooms and a snack bar also. It was a two story edifice, where lived the controls of the most wondrous fountain in the world -- at least it was to me. It had many nozzles or whatever they were called and could be contolled as to height of spray and duration, there were also strong lights underwater with the means to change colors at the will of the controlman upstairs. In the evening, sitting in comfort with a light breeze drifting across the area, listening to the fine music and watching the fountian do its symphony of color and spray, sometimes spraying high and sometimes in intricate little patterns down low while the colors would keep changing really made life interesting and worthwhile to all who attended. To me it was heaven on earth.

That was not all the things that City Park contained. It had tennis courts, horeshoe pegs, it also had a great big playground where in the summer arts and crafts were taught to kids. The playground was near the zoo and hearing the occasional roar of one of the big felines made me feel on the edge of dangerous adventure. There was the outdoor aviary, the monkey cages, the seals in their own moat and the bears dens further around.

At the east end of the park was the Museum of Natural History, a fine state of the art institution, a glory of paleontology exhibits, dioramas so very well done of things of nature, it had artifacts from the original landowners, the Indians. The area I spent much time in was the place of mineralogy exhibits, all kinds of gold, silver that had been mined here in our Colorado mountains. Exhibits of various rocks and and core drilling samples.

And then yet more, at the north end of the park from the east side to the west side was the 18 hole golf course, well frequented and well kept up. near the museum was a fire station and the ball fields where the municipal softball leagues played.

As I grew older and explored around town checking out the other parks was a good time passer. There was Rocky Mountain near Federal Boulevard, grassy picnic areas. To the west a few blocks was Berkely Lake where there was a place to swim. Many big family picnics were held there as it was in City Park. A few blocks west of there was one of two amusement parks in Denver. It had its own lake, Lake Rhoda. Lakeside was not a city owned park but was heavily used by our population.

When I began bicycling over town I found many small parks, some with playgrounds, one with a library. I used to ride down to Sloan's Lake, once two lakes Sloan's and Coopers, later joined and called Sloan's. During the time I was coming up there was a boat dock there and boats on the lake, sometimes even there were sail boats out catching a breeze now and then. Sloan's Lake was also blessed with picnic areas which had a fine vew of the Rocky Mountains.

Our town also had some mountain parks where picnicking and ball playing took place in the summer time. But those parks were where the grown ups took us.

But, growning up in Denver I didn't really realize that here we were blessed with many City Edens . . . . . . . . .

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