Nobody knows what’s going on inside Colorado’s nursing homes better than Virginia Fraser. One recent morning, Fraser spent several hours visiting the Cherrelyn nursing home in Littleton, introducing herself to residents as their ombudsman. “I’m here to advocate for the people who live here,” she told an elderly woman with…
Bill Coleman is a hardworking man. He’s reliable and responsible, and he shows up on time. In fact, his previous employers have nothing but good things to say about him. “He’s definitely a people person,” says Merilyn Lyons, special events coordinator for Conoco in Colorado. “I would recommend him to…
Alan Prendergast is on a roll. The veteran Westword staff writer has just racked up two more journalism wins — and the contest season isn’t over. Last week, Prendergast’s “Lessons From the Third Grade,” published in the January 27, 2000, issue, was named winner of the Paul L. Myhre Single…
John Denver died in the water — he crashed his experimental plane into California’s Monterey Bay in 1997 — but he lived in, and for, the mountains. So it’s fitting that a group of climbers is now trying to reach, and then scale, the northernmost — and never-before-climbed — mountain…
On May 25, Erik Weihenmayer was sitting on top of the world. Well, technically speaking, he was lying near the top of the world. With his stomach convulsing. He’d just yanked himself over the 39-foot rock face called the Hillary Step, the last technical hurdle on the way to the…
Fire When Ready! Taking aim at ammo: In his July 12 “Attention, Kmart Shoppers,” Alan Prendergast did an amazing job of ignoring the real issue surrounding guns: people who abuse their usage and why they do it. Congrats. Angel Shamaya, executive director KeepAndBearArms.com Freak show: I have to wonder whether…
Electric Company Zap comics: I have all the symptoms described in Harrison Fletcher’s June 28 “Unlucky Strike”: memory loss, loss of balance, general confusion. I thought it was age, but now I know better. I must have been struck by lightning! Great story, by the way. Susan Mulligan Denver Greased…
Wherefore art thou, Tony? Let us count the ways, Cal. America’s love affair with sports heroes can be a pretty sordid business, based more on flash than substance. One year, the madding crowd worships a steroid-stuffed behemoth who whacks lots of Flubber-filled cowhide into the cheap seats. The next, they…
Dan Leventhal has always considered himself a safe motorcycle rider. He makes it a point to obey all posted traffic laws and doesn’t take advantage of his bike’s superior maneuverability by cutting off other motorists or splitting lanes to trace the white line. For Dan, who’s in his late twenties…
Media coverage of the most recent Colorado legislative session concentrated on a handful of grabby issues: the failed attempt to pass a growth package, a pro-marriage proposal popularly characterized as the “Dr. Laura bill,” and so on. But plenty of other goings-on took place at the State Capitol, including an…
Although no-fault auto insurance was once seen as a cure for expensive policies and endless litigation, it’s been far from perfect. The no-fault law in Michigan, however, seems to be working better than most and is arguably kinder to motorcycle riders than any similar measure in the country. But while…
The cookbook looks more like a scrapbook than something a person would refer to for information — much less precise, instructional information. Pieces of torn paper and yellowed newspaper clippings stick out from all sides, and a thin veneer of sugar, shiny and browned, coats much of the back. Both…
Colorado Cache Reading through the three cookbooks produced by the Junior League of Denver serves as an armchair tour of Colorado’s recent culinary history. The now legendary Colorado Cache, published in 1978, featured an intriguing mix of salt-of-the-earth favorites (Spaghetti Pie, Corn-Broccoli Bake, Perfect White Cake), exotic-sounding foreign classics (Twelve-Boy…
Two weeks ago, when Kmart officials announced that their stores would stop selling handgun ammunition, they described the decision as a shift in “merchandising strategy” that had been in the works for some time. It was just a coincidence, they suggested, that Kmart executives had met with filmmaker Michael Moore…
Villa Italia Mall, which opened in 1966 on one hundred acres at the corner of Alameda Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard in Lakewood, will officially close on July 15, another victim of bigger and better malls on all sides of Denver. Although it has been suffering since the early 1990s, Villa…
Sure, Michelangelo was a really, really good sculptor, Francisco Sotomayer says, but what made him special was the ‘Wow’ factor. “It’s a very simple rule. You look at the pyramids, and they make you say ‘Wow!’ You look at the accomplishments of Rome, and they make you say ‘Wow!’ You…
At first, the townspeople couldn’t believe it. And they didn’t want to talk about it. It is, after all, the heart of their community, the only flat spot in the canyon where people can walk their dogs, the only place where kids can play safely away from the highway that…
About 80 percent of the time, the companies that contribute to the contamination of Superfund sites pay for their cleanup, according to Barry Levene, director of the Colorado unit in Superfund Region 8. The statistics are even better in Colorado, where the EPA has had to help pay for the…
The beggars of Denver call it “flying a sign.” The endeavor’s only requirements are a scrap of wood or cardboard, a magic marker, and a willingness to stand all day like a scarecrow in the sun, washing down the taunts of strangers with the exhaust from their cars. Get a…
Western history is filled with stories of sometimes violent conflicts between railroads and common folk. In the days when trains were the only transportation link to the outside world, farmers and ranchers were often at the mercy of the rail line, which could charge exorbitant fees with no fear of…
Five weeks ago, attorney Jerry Stevens was up to his neck in a six-month battle with the Colorado Supreme Court over required continuing legal education courses (“A Real Page-Turner,” June 21). Stevens wanted the classes he’d taken at a mystery-writers’ convention last fall to count; the court’s Board of Continuing…
Father Carl Kabat, the 67-year-old Catholic priest and longtime protestor of nuclear weapons, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 12 for his latest act: an August 6, 2000, “action” in which Kabat and another man climbed the fence surrounding the N-7 Minuteman missile silo near Raymer, Colorado, placed unconsecrated…
