BOULDER REDUX

BOULDER REDUX

 Boulder, CO - April 16, 2014

Golden Colorado

I manage to make it to Golden, Colorado before blowing another tire.  I am in Golden because there are no RV Parks in Boulder, which actually pleases me.  I can hardly wait to get to Boulder because it is such a great place but my biggest priority is getting a new tire and solving my dilemma with the stabilizer bar.  The RV Park is out of town in Golden, right near the mountains and The Dakota RV Park is really pretty nice and I consider myself lucky to be there.  I arrive late and use the late check-in and stumble up the hill on Colfax Ave., to a bar and grill named Wrigley’s.  It crossed my mind that this place might have something to do with Chicago, but when I walk in, it is nothing short of amazing.  So guy from Chicago started this place six years ago and it has all the requisite signs, posters and nostalgia about Chicago Sports – Cubs & Bears prominent with a smattering of items about the Bulls and scant mention of the White Sox.  “My God,” I think “No doubt this dude, is a Northsider.”

A taste of Chicago in The Heart of  the Rockies.

What is even more impressive is the atmosphere is exactly like a Chicago bar.  There is a huge square bar in the middle of the room where the bar tender operates out of the middle of the square and all the patrons can easily speak to anyone sitting at the bar, not just to the people sitting next to them.  It is the exact set up in the old McCormick’s in Lake Forest where my older brother spent his life.  Even more remarkable, it becomes obvious to me that everybody in the bar knows each other.  They may not be conversing and it is not some rip roaring party but everyone seems to have their own special spot and the conversation bounces around the bar easily.   People walk in and are greeted like “Norm” from the old TV show, Cheers. It is pretty impressive that this guy duplicated the flavor of a typical Chicago bar at the foot of the Rockies.  I am assured it was intention when I come across their slogan.  “A taste of Chicago in The Heart of the Rockies.”  I  have the special tacos (3 for $6.00) and head back for a good night’s sleep.

My return to Boulder has a broader significance than nostalgia.  As I explore options for the rest of my life, I am seriously considering is to start over where I started: to return 44 years later to Boulder and pick up where I left off.   You know, just because Thomas Wolfe said it doesn’t make it so.  Maybe you can go home again.  It’s worth exploring.  If that were at all possible to go home again, Boulder is the place to try.  As much as Boulder has changed in the last 40 years, it hasn’t changed at all.  Regardless, of who they are and what role they play, the citizens of Boulder understand they are in a special place.  The Rocky Mountains and the flatirons and the great weather all help to set the atmosphere.  But it is much more than that.  It’s the university and the people it attracts and the spirit of the Rockies personified in the act of living and working.  It is obvious that people have worked very hard to protect what is there while simultaneously progressing.  It is no longer the sleepy college town that I knew in 1968.  Boulder is a thriving city in itself and a prominent suburb of Denver.  CU is much bigger.  Corporations have relocated in Boulder.  There is a burgeoning high tech start-up community.  Yet there is still a distinctive free-spirited hippie atmosphere that has been preserved through the decades.  The pot-smoking crowd (now legal) mixes right in with the health conscious adult athletic community.  Bike riding is given a priority in the city, environmental issues are key.  Men’s Journal ranked Boulder the best city to live in in the United States. USA Today named Boulder the thinnest city in America.  Bicycling Magazine named it the third best bicycling city.  It is a vibrant, seemingly healthy and happy place, so why not explore going home again?  Screw Thomas Wolfe.

I am not the kind of guy who can just show up somewhere.  I need a purpose.  In my surfing on the internet I found an interesting thing, Naropa University.  Founded four years after I graduated, Naropa is a small liberal arts college founded by Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Oxford University scholar and father of Western Buddhism, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche along with beat poet and Hippie forerunner, Allen Ginsburg/  It is dedicated to "advancing contemplative education".   What the university tries to do is have students explore the inner resources needed to engage courageously with a complex and challenging world, to help transform that world through skill and compassion, and to attain deeper levels of happiness and meaning in their lives, to quote the literature.  Perfect for Zimbo!  I contacted Naropa by email before my trip started to schedule a tour and a meeting with an adviser in the graduate program.  

But before I head off to Boulder, a stop at Camping World.  Camping World is a cross between WalMart and Cabalas for recreational vehicle buffs.  They have got everything you’d ever need (like WalMart) and it just makes RVers drool (Like Cabalas does for hunters.)  When you think about it, American free-enterprise based consumerism is an amazing mechanism. As soon as Americans get enthusiastic about an activity, enterprising companies spring up ready to serve your needs, whet your spending appetite and offer for sale something you really need,  turning what you thought was an affordable pursuit into an expensive hobby.  As I walk into Camping World I realize there are so many things that I had no idea I needed that now I can’t seem to be able to live without.  Case in point, the pipe that empties your “black water”  (aka poop chute) is this expandable accordion-like 3 inch flexible plastic pipe with a special attachments on each end.  It is called a sewer hose.  I have one.  Everyone has one.  I can’t imagine that they would ever sell an RV with a toilet but without a sewer hose included.  It is not exactly an option – We are talking standard equipment here, positively.  So what?  Well, I so learn that what I also really need is a flexible sewer hose support.  This thing is a interconnected series of little plastic supports.  You stretch it out and you put your sewer hose on it so that the whole thing look likes a miniature Bridge Over the River Kwai bridge.  Why do I need one?  The product description says it all – “Prevents unobstructed flow”.  These little supports gradually grow smaller as you travel from the RV to the sewer.  In other

A stat-of-the art flexible hose support.
Putting it on my Xmas list!

words, it points everything down hill, so whatever is in the pipe (perish the thought!) flows down and away.  Who doesn’t desire and in fact, yearn for unobstructed flow when it comes to sewers.  This is something I have to have.  I am almost embarrassed that I don’t have it.  You aren't really an expert until you have a flexible sewer support.  And they are on sales from $29.99, marked down to $25.88.  By acting now I can save $4.11.  I often think of the Chinese factory worker who spends his days assembling flexible sewer supports having never seen an RV in his life.  Does he ask his supervisor what these things are?  Even if he does, how could the supervisor explain what they are?  “You see, Deshi San, Americans have these homes on wheels which they park in their backyards 51 weeks of the year, but for one week in the summer they drive around in their home on wheels and the bathroom, of course does not have plumbing, because it is on wheels.  So when the Americans stop they plug a pipe into a sewer to empty the sewage.  The flexible sewer support makes certain that their plumbing has unobstructed flow.”

Can you imagine the follow-up questions that Deshi San would have?  “What is plumbing?” for starters.  Or “How can you put a home on wheels?  Won’t that you’re your dirt floor?”  See the problem? 

I, however, am on a mission.  All I need is a pin to hold the stabilizer bar in place…and a new tire… and get out to Boulder by 2 PM when my tour starts. I get there early to beat the rush.  The fellow behind the empty counter in the parts department gives me my first piece of bad news.  We don’t stock that tire.  “But I gotta leave for Dallas in the morning,” I skip the Boulder part.  “Your best bet is to go straight to TDK Tires.  It’s where we get our tires.  If I order it won’t get here until tomorrow.”

“They can put it on?” I ask.

“That’s all they do,” the parts guy answers as  he writes down the type of tire and the address for TDS on a little slip of paper.  Pain in the neck, but not tragic.  I can swing by there tomorrow morning.

I move on to the pin.   When I described the problem, he refers me to a Hispanic mechanic named Noah, who happens to be walking by.  “Take a look at this guy’s rig.” I soon pick up on the fact that no one in the know says, “RV.”  It’s a rig.  I grow more confident as I learn yet another idiom in the lexicon of travel trailers.

Noah, a guy my size but obviously a weight lifter in his mid-thirties in great shape in his tight “Camping World t-shirt, is a pleasant fellow who sees my Texas license plate and asks about my journey.   He takes one look at the place where the missing pin was and says, “Man, we don’t stock that.  How, old is this hitch?”

Of course, I have no idea, but answer, “Ten years old, I guess.  That’s how old the Airstream is.”

He says I need a new hitch. Noah leads me back inside to Camco Elite Weight Distributing Hitch Kit - 1000 lbs Capacity.  It is cool looking – all shiny and new.  It’s also $169.00 (at least its “on sale” Pretty much everything in the store is “on sale”.   “Much better than the one you have,” comments Noah.  I

Yes, it's a Camco Elite.  Cool, huh?

am starting to feel that I will be proud to own one.  Chalk up another score for  free-enterprise. 

Noah says now all I have to do is go back to the Parts Department guy, buy the part and then schedule to have it installed with another guy, who is with the Service Department. I pay for it and walked up to the Service Department counter to schedule having it installed.  The fellow behind the counter, a balding white guy, pushing 60, sporting that classic rim of white hair around his a hairless shining dome, looks at his computer and says, “I can schedule it for May 3^rd".

I respond, “No, you don’t understand.  I am headed to Dallas.  I need this done now.  I have to be in Boulder by 1 PM,” I instinctively add an extra hour on my 2 PM deadline to be in Boulder, sensing this is going to be a problem.

“No, you don’t understand,” he says, leaning in over the counter looking me square in the eye over his half frame reading glasses with the little chain around his neck.   Our noses now about six inches apart.  I can see the veins starting to pulse through on his temple as his face reddens.  “It’s the week before Easter.  Every body wants their rig serviced in time for spring and guess what?  It’s Spring!  We are jammed for the next month.  May 3^rd.” 

Before I can respond I notice Noah.  Our eyes meet (I am sure mine look like a scolded puppy’s.) he tilts his head sharply upwards and throw his eyeballs at an angle indicating we should rendezvous behind the Satellite Dish Display (another thing I suddenly realize I need!)  “Let’s go talk to, Wade,” he whispers to me, as if I knew you Wade is.  He starts to walk across the store.  I follow him without comment.  Noah has just assumed that the only option is to talk to Wade and I have no choice but to agree.  I do so without comment. 

We walk over to the far side of the store.  There, without a doubt, is Wade.  Wade weighs a cool 350 lbs. and has got to be 6’5”.  He is a huge, imposing man with a brown goatee and a flattop haircut.  He is big in a John Goodman type of big.  Not fat, as much as big.  An imposing presence, husky voice, thick necked, hitch up your pants kind of guy - The undisputed boss of Camping World.  Wade has a walkie-talkie in his hand, barking orders to someone, who replies in a crackling response I could never hope to understand.  There is no doubt in my mind or anyone else’s that Wade is the man.  He finishes and looks at us with a deep authoritative, no bullshit voice, “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

Noah, immediately takes over.  Talks straight to Wade like I am not even there.  “This gentleman just bought a Camco Hitch.  He needs it installed now because he’s coming from Texas and has to be in Boulder by 1 pm.”

“OK,” Wade says and turns away from us as he growls another order over the walkie-talkie.

Without comment, Noah turns and walks back to the Service Counter with me in tow.  “Hey, Dudley,” he says to Mr. Grump.  Of course, this a-hole’s name is Dudley.  Noah, in the most matter-of-fact manner, as casual as can be, as if he knows nothing of what happened prior to this says, “Dudley.  This gentleman just bought a Camco Hitch.  Has to have it installed right away.  He’s gotta be in Boulder by 1 o’clock.”  Dudley turns fixes his practiced deadeye stare over the top of his glasses and the temple veins start to pulse.  Before he can open his mouth Noah adds, “Wade says bump him up.” 

For a brief second I swear Dudley’s eyes dilated fin fear or the briefest instant, but he never skips a beat as he replies, “You spoke to Wade?”

“Yeah, he says, it’s fine with him.”

Dudley’s mood changes in an instant.  He looks at me as if he never saw me before in his life.  “First name,” is all he says.  We fill out the form.  He creates his ticket and finally apologetically acknowledges the previous confrontation.  “You know how it is.  No one books ahead of time.  Then they all want their rigs ASAP.  Two days ago we were a week behind.  Now, I am scheduling a month out.” 

I resist the temptation of responding, “Sucks to be you, Dudley” and instead opt for, “I know how it is.”  I retreat for a second time, only now it is to the “customers’ lounge” to settle in, enjoy a bad cup of coffee and lounge around reading “Trailer Life” and “American RV” until over the loud speaker at 12:45, I hear, “Bruce Thomas.” As I approach the desk, Noah, who should go into investment banking, he’d make a fortune, is long gone, back to the shop.  It doesn’t matter because Dudley greets me like an old school chum.  “Fifteen minutes to spare. Pretty good. Gotta get you to Boulder on time,” he says cheerily.  “Man”, I think, “Wade must be one kick ass boss.” I know I wouldn’t want to cross him. 

The road from Golden to Boulder is unchanged from how it was forty years ago.  No new buildings.  The land, I think to myself must be protected.  From the road, which runs straight south to north, parallel to the front range of the Rockies, has no development.  The land, which is rolling and green with the coming spring, is clear of buildings or sub-divisions, which is what I feared I might run into.  The only building on the west side of the two lane highway is a old tavern.  I pull off into the driveway on impulse. 

I don’t believe it.   “The Hummer.”  Still standing.  The Hummer, as least that is what we called it, I’m not even certain it had a name back then, was a rundown roadhouse.  The only time anyone went there was Thursday night – always with the guys – to start the weekend.  They had the worst system you could ever imagine.  They served not 3.2 beer like the rest of Boulder but real booze.  It $8.00 for all you could drink.  You paid your $8.00 and got a stamp on your hand.  But you had to be 21 to get the stamp.   But if you weren’t 21 they would let you in.  So, naturally, we’d all go out to The Hummer with Baby Huey (one of our fraternity brothers who looked exactly like Baby Huey, the cartoon character) who was the ancient age of 23.  Baby Huey, his real name being Jerry Robinson, had an extended career at CU.  He hadn’t quite graduated yet.  In fact, by the time I met him, Baby Huey didn’t even go to classes.  He just hung out at the fraternity, served as impromptu historian, professional hell raiser and all around great guy.  The rumor was Baby Huey’s father was the president of Pan American Airlines.  Baby Huey was just waiting around until his trust fund kicked in.  No one bothered to verify this.  It was part of the Baby Huey legend.

The Hummer Lives On!  Still nameless.

You go out the Hummer with Baby Huey.  We’d give him the money so he could get his hand stamped and all drink off of his stamp.  ($8.00 doesn’t seem like much now, but back in the late 60’s with $5.00 you could fill up your car with gas. The bartenders all knew Baby Huey and his reputation.  So when he would order, “Give a gin and tonic no one questioned when, five minutes later he’d order a bourbon and coke, then a beer, then another gin and tonic at five minute intervals all night long. The legendary status of Baby Huey was so solid that no bartender questioned that he was capable of drinking all those drinks himself.   Nostalgia washed over me as I snapped a picture with my phone, noting with no small irony that the joint still had no visible name.  Maybe it still was The Hummer. 

I arrive in Boulder and Naropa University with more than a little trepidation.  Not only would I be older than my fellow graduate students, I would be older than my professors.  Plus, this is a Buddhist University.  Buddhist University.  How weird is that.  It seemed like a great idea, but now I feel more than a little foolish.  I fall into the typical tour with a group of kids, parents with kids and, one 65 year old man (me!)  Thankfully, no one says, “What the hell are you doing, here?”  I sense that would be very un-Buddhist.  I am safe I my anonymity, standing in the back of the group as it wanders from the administration building, to various classroom buildings, the café, the art room, typical college tour.  Naropa is small. 400 hundred students we are told by the smiling tour guide who is very un-Buddhist in her high heels and black business suit.  She is superficially cheery.  The group giggles nervously yet politely at her practiced jokes. Typical college tour.  She begins to talk about the history of Naropa and it’s founder, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche who is thought of as the father of modern American Buddhism.  I am curious if she will mention that he was also a notorious womanizer, drinker and drug user who drank himself to death at the age of 45.  (I did my cyber homework.)  She fails to mention this but speaks with such reverence, like they talk about Jefferson at University of Virginia that I begin to wonder if she even knows.  On second thought, the tour guide at University of Virginia probably skips over the fact that old T.J. fathered a child with his live-in slave.  Although both facts would liven up the tour they are both probably best unspoken.  We move on to the graduation green.  The entire tour, with full explanations takes maybe twenty minutes.  By the end I am pretty much convinced that this is no place for me.  I feel ridiculous, but keep my appointment with the advisor.

 

Naropa U.  Home of the Bodhi Cheetahs

Her name is Meghan Schardt.  She is an energetic, bright eyed, sandy redhead in her early thirties, from Connecticut, dressed in a style conscious modified hippie, granola style with a scarf wrapped several times around her neck, a present type dress and Dr. Martin boots.  She greets me with complete enthusiasm and a quick, bright smile.  She asks if we might sit outside rather than her office.  I agree and she finds a table where we can talk.  I had decided, regardless of her age, I was going to hit her with my complete story.  This marks the first time I have laid out the Triple Whammy to anyone.

I start with, “My story starts here in Boulder, four years before Naropa was founded…”  She listens intently.  She winces in polite sympathy at the cancer and divorce elements of the Triple Whammy,” but just enough to indicate feeling.  Otherwise she listens intently.  When I finish she does not ask a single question but launches into her recommendation.  It is candid and concise.  I should apply for a low residency MA in Ecopysychology, starting this summer.  She absorbed that my life is in flux and says that the low-residency program will give me two weeks in Boulder this summer and then online courses wherever I am, be it Boulder or somewhere else.  She further recommends I tack on a week of the summer writer’s series they hold just to give me an idea of the program.  The program continues the same summer/online format for two years.  I have no earthy idea of what Ecopsychology is.  Meghan immediately responds that it is mans’ relationship to the earth but adds quickly that it doesn’t matter.  The important thing, she says, is it will give me a two-week exposure to Naropa (three week if I tack on the writer’s series.) and time in Boulder.  I am surprised how insightful she is and how easily she found what seems like a good fit for me.  Perhaps it is my wishing for a little kismet.  Haven’t had a lot of kismet and truthfully have been looking for something to break my way.  Whether self-delusion or providence I am glad to be feeling better about the place.

I leave Meghan and go visit Kristin Daly who lives in Boulder with her growing family.  She is at the Boulder Recreation Center (something that didn’t exist when I went to school.) sitting through day long session with her kids.  She is doing gymnastics, swimming and tennis all in one day.  I am shocked that Kristin is such a Mom – organized lessons.  It just kills me.  Well, hardly organized when I find her along with Morrissey her four year old and Roman who is approaching two.  Morrissey is wearing a sun dress and sandals for her tennis lesson, if you call it a lesson.  Her group out on the court can barely keep her interest.  She would rather draw with chalk on the sidewalk.  Roman meanwhile is spending his time trying to squeeze his body through the gate of the chain link fence that encircles the tennis court.  He was locked out by the tennis teacher and is not happy about it.  But he does not cry or complain about his situation.  He just tries to break back onto the court.  Being two head size is a problem otherwise he could make it.  Rather than repeatedly smashing his head against the steel pole of the door frame as he tries to squeeze through he goes for a feet first approach.  Smart kid.  He could have made it too if it hadn’t been for the head issue.

Kristin takes all this in, occasionally laughing while she chats with another Mom and me.  Kristin is familiar with Naropa as is her friend.  When I mention the dates Kristin days, “You are kidding.  That’s when we are going on vacation.  You can have the house.”  I am thrilled, until I realize the catch is I will probably be asked to take care of their killer dog, Millhouse.  When Millhouse was young he was as dangerous as Charles Mansion on Halloween in Laurel Canyon.  I hope against hope that Boulder and advanced age have calmed him down some.  The last time I saw Millhouse, he, Kristin and, husband, C. C. were living in a townhouse in the East Village in Manhattan.  How Millhouse survived an urban existence I have no idea.  I brush it aside at the prospect of three weeks in Boulder in Kristin’s great home that is an old house in a great neighborhood walking distance from all the Pearl Street restaurants in one direction and the mountains in the other.

We chat a while longer but I am anxious to get back to Golden and solve my tire problem.  Driving 800 more miles without a spare tire is not a possibility.