It’s no wonder Harold Hasselback, a longtime defensive end for the Denver Broncos, didn’t make the team this year — he was too busy cooking to practice. Specifically, he was perfecting his “Come and Getty Your Shrimp, Shrimp Spaghetti.” And Hasselback isn’t the only ex-Bronco (along with ex-Broncos’ current wives)…
Gene Amole should have known that old pals would be coming out of the woodwork about now. After all, the veteran Rocky Mountain News columnist made the announcement that he’s dying in a rather public way — on the front page of the October 26 News, which reaches over 600,000…
Paul O’Neill, the dour, longtime New York Yankees outfielder, won a world championship with the Cincinnati Reds in 1990 and four more rings with the Yankees in the last six years. Suddenly, that’s not much of an achievement. It looks like the Arizona Diamondbacks will now get a shot at…
The Cheese Stands Alone Turds and whey: Thank you for Patricia Calhoun’s November 8 “Cheese Wiz,” on the Denver Public Library. Back in February, my manager at work had me read Who Moved My Cheese? I was similarly underwhelmed and horrified by the sappy pop psychology presented in the book…
The digital clock in the dashboard of the black Nissan Maxima read five minutes after five in the morning as Frank Lontine took a swig from the bottle of Bacardi Limón he’d been working on since midnight. It was Friday, August 11. Lontine pushed six bullets into the cylinder of…
The Denver Botanic Gardens has emerged from a two-month investigation into accusations of “unethical administrative practices” with a promise to “take some action.” But at least one DBG boardmember believes that the organization hasn’t gone far enough to fix the problems. In May, a group of former and current employees…
Confused? So are we. Parents, teachers, kids — everyone involved in public education in Colorado, it seems, eagerly awaited this fall’s release of the School Accountability Reports (SAR). Pushed by Governor Bill “No Excuses” Owens, the reports represent the first statewide effort to evaluate schools objectively, using student scores on…
Hundreds of grass-guzzlers lined up at the one-and-only Mile High Stadium late last month to buy rolls of souvenir sod lifted off the soon-to-be-paved-over playing field. The turf, which sold at $10 for a six-foot section, was so popular that the city — with a big assist from Denver City…
Bob Newman is talking on the phone when his call-waiting tone clicks. He apologizes for the interruption, a hint of irritation in his voice, before checking to see who else is on the line. Upon his return, he explains, “It was Tom Tancredo,” referring to the Republican Congressman from Colorado’s…
At 4:45 in the morning, the streets are empty. Devon Harris, captain of the original Jamaican bobsled team, and Rick Lunsford, Olympic coordinator for the city of Evanston, Wyoming, are racing down Speer Boulevard in a massive Ford SUV. The U-Haul in back holds a bobsled. Lunsford jams down the…
Doom With a View School daze: Is it really a wonder? In regard to Alan Prendergast’s “Back to School,” the shockingly tragic, but stunningly true, article on the Columbine massacre published in the October 25 issue, I have but a few things to say. I may be young, but I…
The 69-year-old woman shuffled into the courtroom slowly, towing an oxygen tank behind her. She’d made the trip to the Chancery building at 1120 Lincoln Street to defend herself, to explain to an administrative-law judge that, no, she hadn’t given her two-year-old grandson a blow job, as her former daughter-in-law…
In 200 words or less, do you dream of owning a restaurant in the Colorado mountains? Taking inspiration from The Spitfire Grill, a 1996 film in which an ex-con convinces an aging cafe owner to give away her small-town Maine restaurant to whoever sends in the most convincing essay and…
For as long as anyone in Golden can remember, there have been some surefire ways of knowing you are at a Colorado School of Mines football game. One: You pay six bucks and sit almost by yourself at 5,000-seat Brooks Field. Two: There are mules grazing in the corral beyond…
For years, activist Adrienne Anderson has been a thorn in the side of bureaucrats who would rather bury the garbage of Colorado’s past than make it public. But this fall, that thorn came out smelling like a rose. In May 1997, less than a year after Anderson had been officially…
Columnist and National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu came to town to speak at the University of Denver last month — but it was his trip back to New Orleans that made headlines. “I waited two and a half hours to go through security at the Denver airport. The people…
On October 7, the Denver Post published a pair of articles commemorating the six-month anniversary of its joint operating agreement with the Rocky Mountain News — and predictably, the pact, which combined the longtime rivals’ business operations, was portrayed as a timely compromise. Staffer Kelly Pate’s main report acknowledged that…
Swingtime in the Rockies Bonds on the run: Regarding Bill Gallo’s “A Swing and a Myth,” in the October 18 issue — I have a short list of grievances. “Barry bin Ladin” is right. Shame on you for trying to defend a human being as detestable as Barry Bonds. It…
It was back in July 2000 when Pat Dobiash, who watched the herd for the Henrys, first noticed that one of the alpacas was missing. A full month passed before Dobiash found the animal, a young female: On August 26, he stumbled across its decomposing remains on a small island…
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch There goes the neighborhood: I just read the October 18 “Home Sweet Clone” piece by James Hibberd. I don’t live directly in Highlands Ranch, but am close enough to it that I might as well. I can only surmise by the tone of the story,…
The Fire Last Time They dreamed of fire. It would be a cleansing fire, fueled by propane, gasoline, gunpowder, homemade napalm — and their own savage hatred. Explosion after explosion, building to a conflagration that would settle all arguments and consume hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives. At first, when the…
For the past eighteen months, ever since Columbine families filed nine lawsuits against him and his agency, Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone has refused to talk to reporters about the school massacre. When other county officials deign to comment on the police response to the attack, they invariably parrot the…
