Stories from the Yampa Valley – The Cow, Fixing Fence

If I were to be asked what stories I’ve written are my favorites, I would not hesitate to firstly name “The Cow,” and “Fixing Fence.”

I wrote these stories several years ago, after visiting the Yampa Valley in South Routt County, northwestern Colorado.  More specifically, I visited a friend’s family’s ranch in order to see exactly what went into the task of fixing fence, something that my friend knew a bit about. While there, we traveled the ranch in an SUV, and saw the particular images that I later placed within these two stories.

I’ve self-published these stories at Amazon, the link is here.

Let me give you a taste of both:

THE COW

The forever wind huffed from the north and west, goosing a response from lodgepole pine, fir, spruce and newly leafed aspens that surrounded the bone yard. Brought with it an odor of the land, of spring, the aromas of pine and horse and cow shit.

Jack turned his head and once again studied the old cow. He’d known this cow. Passed into manhood knowing this cow. She’d dropped some fine calves, fat and sassy. But there was something else about her, something since he was eighteen that had caught his eye, his interest. She was independent, usually kept herself and her calves apart from the herd. Went her own way, he thought. She’d never bawl when they took her calves from her for branding and tagging, castrating if needed. She’d just stand off by herself, listen to her calf scream for her proximity, watch the process as though such a thing was an inevitability she could do nothing about.

He never had to check her ear tag to know who she was. She was known.

Jack finished his smoke, snubbed the thing out on the sole of his boot and breathed deep of the land, sighed, and turned to the cow.

After untying the rope he’d secured around the cow’s head and forelegs, he threw the rope in the back of the pickup, turned, stepped to her body, sat to his haunches and took off his glove. He placed his hand on her white face, gently stroked her. “You were a good ol’ cow,” he said. He pulled his hat back down on his forehead, stood up and drove the Dodge back to the home place.

FIXING FENCE

“Fence ain’t gonna fix itself.” Gus pulled the pickup alongside the sagged fence, cut the ignition, and let the truck glide to a stop. He waited for a response from his grandson, Joe. When none came, he turned, saw Joe’s chin resting on his chest, deep breaths, even a little snore. Kid would sleep through a train wreck. He studied the boy for a moment. Joe’s black hair, eyes the color of almonds behind the now closed lids, the slightly brown skin, all of it coming from the boy’s mother, a Greek beauty, the daughter of a sheep rancher from Craig who’d captured his son’s heart. The first instance of a Klynkee not marrying into a German line, Gus now, as he’d done a thousand times, looked for some little hint of his son in the boy’s face. Maybe his nose, Gus thought. He shook his head. Maybe his heart. Gus stepped out of the truck, paused a moment and turned his eyes, hard and gray as iced-over river water, toward the sunrise, his squint defining his face as crinkled paper, deep set lines earned from sixty years of worry about the lives and deaths of cows since he was ten. He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his still full head of purely white hair. Put his hat back on, coughed, spit. Saw blood on the ground. Pulled his red hankie from his back pocket and wiped his mouth. He nodded his head, knew the prognosis.

“No sir, fences just don’t up and fix themselves!”

After he said the words again, Gus slammed the door. The sound jerked Joe halfway out of the few winks he was catching since climbing in and slumping down into the passenger side of the battered pickup. Coming awake now, the jolt of the door slamming sounded like a rifle shot, fired close. Too close. Joe slid up, kept his eyes closed and remembered the orthodontist.

Hancock’s Land Grab, cont’d. – Oh what a tangled web is weaved…

So, let it never be said that George In Denver expects anything less (or more) from Denver’s politicians, most notably its mayors who, like Michael Hancock, just a day after the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB) refused by an 11-6 vote to accede to a de-designation of nine acres of Hentzell Park as a Natural Area, spurned the PRAB’s “advisory” vote, and further characterized the Natural Area as “blighted.” (The details of Hizzoner’s reaction is here. My take on the entire issue, i.e., the trade of the city’s Natural Area for a building owned by DPS, “Mayor Hancock’s Land Grab and Giveaway,” is here.)

I came across an article that appeared in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, entitled “Denver Parks and Recreation – A Department at a Dangerous Crossroad,” written by Charles C. Bonniwell, the publisher. The article details some history of the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) relating specifically to an earlier passion of DPR managers to assure the continuing well-being of the park system, and those later managers whose ineptness has severely compromised that well-being, that passion for beautiful parks and urban open spaces. It’s a good read that ends with the hopeful note that Lauri Dannemiller, the latest Manager of Parks and Recreation, will find her feet–and perhaps her better angels–and become herself passionate about maintaining and nurturing Denver’s precious open spaces.

As much as I would like to expect the best from Ms. Dannemiller, there remains the inescapable reality that she in an appointee of the mayor and, as mayoral appointees are want to do, (their jobs depend upon it), she will carry the mayor’s water regardless of  what logic and passion might otherwise urge her to do. And that, as they say, is politics.

Back to Mayor Hancock’s identification of the Hentzell Park Natural Area as “blighted.”

I won’t bore you with the meaning of that word, blighted, but will share where my thoughts took me upon first reading what the mayor had to say.

Generally knowing how bureaucracies work, especially when some subject matter arises that gains citizen interest, with that interest again generally going against the intent of the bureaucracy, I searched Denver’s Revised Municipal Code (DRMC) for that word, blighted. Here’s what I found:

Sec. 56-200. – Legislative intent.

(a)     Findings of fact. Due to its general terrain and geographical location, the city is particularly subject to damage from stormwaters which, from time to time, overflow from existing watercourses and drainage facilities, and imprudent use of these natural hazard areas called floodplains will pose a continuing and greater danger to life and property in the future unless proper regulations are adopted.

(b)     Statement of purpose. This article is enacted to promote the public health, safety, and general welfare, and to minimize public and private losses due to flood conditions in specific areas, by provisions designed to:

(1)      Protect human life and health;

(2)      Minimize expenditure of public money for costly flood control projects;

(3)      Minimize the need for rescue and relief efforts associated with flooding and generally undertaken at the expense of the general public;

(4)      Minimize prolonged business interruptions;

(5)      Minimize damage to public facilities and utilities such as water and gas mains, electric, telephone and sewer lines, streets and bridges located in areas of special flood hazard;

(6)      Help maintain a stable tax base by providing for the second use and development of areas of special flood hazard so as to minimize future flood blight areas;

It’s important to note this is the only occurrence of that word, blight, in the entire DRMC. And, just to emphasize my eventual point, let me just repeat what I believe is relevant here: (6) Help maintain a stable tax base by providing for the second use and development of areas of special flood hazard so as to minimize future flood blight areas; 

It is my understanding that the Hentzell Park Natural Area is in a flood plain, and am assuming it is in an area “…of special flood hazard…,” although I can find no handy definition of “special flood hazard” in the DRMC. If I am correct, then a little piece I read at Denver Direct intrigues. Entitled, “A Personal Observation about the Hentzell Park Deal,” a retired businessman, Bill Langton, provides:

 So why create this subterfuge? [The city giving the Natural Area to DPS and, in return, DPS giving the city a building] If you take the jaundiced view that the city wants this land for commecial development to increase the tax base, it starts to make sense.

The city could not take public land under the DPR rules because it is classified as natural area and prohibited from such acts. But if the administration reclassified it and the school district took over the land then when the school district determined that it was unfit for an elementary school they could sell it for commercial development.

Ah, indeed, Mister Langton. His conclusion:

So, ergo, the open space is gone, the DPS now can move forward to sell the site for commercial development.

It is hard to imagine building an elementary school next to Havana, one of the busiest state roads in Denver. Children would have to cross Havana to go to school and I assume a 15 mph speed limit would have to be posted during rush hour. This would create a major traffic and safety problems. Children would also use the trail to go to school and run off all of the existing wild life that makes the trail so special. In other words, it is my opinion that school would never be built.

As I said, I know how bureaucracies work. And, if I were the mayor, if some nitpicky, troublesome, otherwise irrelevant open space proponents questioned my yet to be implemented decision to do something, anything, then I would get on the phone with the city attorney and say, “Help me out here!” And, Voila! I’d get my answer: “Blight,” the CA would say. “Call it blighted. It’s in the Code. No judge would give those fools the time of day. It’s LAW!”

The retired businessman, Bill Langton, ends his piece with the observation that perhaps he’s wrong in ascribing some nefariousness to this scheme worked out by the mayor and DPS. I, too, offer my own observation that conspiracy theories usually capture the imagination of pesky nuts who have nothing better to do. Nevertheless, I’m intrigued by this turn of events.

We’re told that Lauri Dannemiller will have her decision to de-designate or to not de-designate that portion of Hentzell Park as a Natural Area by January 2nd or 3rd. Mirroring Charles Bonniwell’s hope that Lauri Dannemiller will do what’s right in this case, I cannot bring myself to imagine that “what’s right” will, once again, as it usually is, become what’s most expedient politically for Hizzoner, Michael Hancock.

Mayor Hancock’s Land Grab and Giveaways

The City’s Underbelly at Work for You! And Just in Time for Christmas!

Denver’s Mayor, Michael Hancock, not unlike most of Denver’s progressive mayors, values the worth of uplifting the downtrodden, occasionally  giving credence to even the mostly egregiously harebrained of bright ideas to achieve that goal with the kind of effusive magnanimity  that damns the better angels of logic for the embracement of good intentions seen through rose-colored glasses that don’t correct for myopia.

This building at 1330 Fox Street is where Hizzoner  and Rose A. Andom–identified as a Denver entrepreneur and McDonald’s franchise owner (who provided $1 Million to the effort)–want to serve victims of domestic violence with a “wraparound” philosophy, offering a number of important triage services to those folks at one place, 1330 Fox, with the intent of rebuilding their lives to happily ever afters. Good stuff, this. A valuable service.

Only problem is, though, that Mister Hancock wants to trade nine acres of the Hentzell Park Natural Area in southeast Denver for the 1330 Fox building. The Denver Public School System owns the structure, while the People of Denver own the Natural Area. So, if a trade of real estate were to occur, the Mayor and Ms. Andom would get the building, DPS would get the Natural Area where they would build a new school, and the people of Denver would get zilch. Nada. Well, that’s not completely true. The neighbors bordering the Natural Area who purchased their homes comforted by the fact that the Natural Area would buffer them somewhat from the dreariness of everyday suburban life, will get a school within shouting distance, parking lots, lots of traffic, lots of kids, school buses, and everything attendant to a public school. Such a deal, huh? Well, not really.

If the above scenario is not played out–and I hope it isn’t–please don’t conclude that the  domestically battered will be left in the cold. Please grant me that if Hizzoner is serious, and I do believe he is, about what will become a legacy project for him, the domestic violence center, then a reasonable means to that end will be found, i.e. the city should just buy the building. (If the city does not have the cash in hand, they’ve never thought twice about using the convenience of a lease/purchase vehicle to get the job done: witness the Wellington E. Webb Office Building.) What is currently proposed, however, is not reasonable. In fact, it’s ludicrous and, for  me at least, exposes the underbelly of city government where slick, quick deals sans the odoriferous output of cigars are still made with the premise that what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them.

Now, here’s a picture of 21st and Delgany/Wewatta in Lodo. Notice the upscale properties on our left, Coors Field to our right across Wewatta.  Amtrak is just behind us. Prime real estate, huh? We’ll come back to this image and the accompanying story later.