Regular starting catcher Jayhawk Owens struggled to pull on his pants, his sprained left thumb encased in a wad of Ace bandage big enough to gift-wrap a Cadillac. Most of the prematurely weary relief pitchers had their shoulders packed in ice, like flounder headed for market. Roger Bailey, who sprained…
Drive, He Said Thank you, Patricia Calhoun, for your two wonderful columns on Greg Lopez. They said things that badly needed saying. In the first, “Good People” (March 21), you made an eloquent case for what an extraordinary writer he was and what a loss his death will be for…
Randolph Kelly’s house is full of family photos. They’re stacked on the television and on tables; they cover the walls. On the north side of the living room hang two large and faded photos, their sepia tones encased in oval frames. One of the pictures is of Kelly’s dead wife’s…
With layoffs looming, AT&T has been offering courses for employees exploring second careers–including “floraculture” instruction in the company’s own cafeteria. The course, given by a local occupational school, was represented as a state-approved program taught by licensed instructors and promised to deliver a diploma and good job prospects in the…
Last week, as Denver Public Schools officials announced they would not permit another Nation of Islam rally to take place at George Washington High School, Alvertis Simmons was asked to comment. “Don’t lump us all together,” Simmons complained. “I’m sick and tired of people trying to pigeonhole us as one…
Who’s on First? For about an hour there Monday, the race for retiring congresswoman Pat Schroeder’s First District slot got really interesting. That’s when concert impresario Barry Fey, subbing for vacationing KTLK talk-show host Peter Boyles, took the early-morning opportunity to announce that he was running for Schroeder’s seat. “I’ll…
Denver General Hospital and the city’s neighborhood health clinics will soon launch their first-ever marketing campaign, but don’t expect to see it in high-rent neighborhoods. It’s aimed at Medicaid recipients–many of them poor people and minorities. The $200,000 marketing program also is supposed to provide a “corporate identity” to the…
Workers of the World, Unite! Thanks for Stuart Steers’s “Still Hurting,” in the March 28 issue. It seems that the rich just keep getting richer–and the poor keep hurting. Stan Brackett Denver I enjoyed “Still Hurting,” by Stuart Steers, very much. The ancient Roman policy of bread and circuses still…
When Spicer Breeden crashed into Greg Lopez on March 17, two worlds collided. The ironies piled up quickly. Just a year separated Lopez and Breeden in age; the two had grown up mere miles from each other. And both men were familiar faces in Lower Downtown hangouts–although Breeden frequented the…
Kim Eli, a 39-year-old single mother with two daughters, knows firsthand just how compassionate Colorado’s workers’ compensation system is toward people who are injured at work. For years she worked in the delicatessen departments of area King Soopers stores, including the Mayfair branch at 13th Avenue and Krameria Street. Slicing…
It may be old-fashioned, but it is a dream many people still hold: to start and run a family business. What could be more satisfying than earning a living while working closely with loved ones? The answer, if you’re a member of the Lewis family, is, just about anything. Nine…
Drive, he said: Yes, that was Ben Klein, the only RTD boardmember who’s been officially certified sane, schmoozing two weeks ago with Transportation Secretary Federico Pena at a White House ceremony marking the feds’ agreement to fund an extension of Denver’s light-rail system. Klein, the current RTD chairman, knew Pena…
Last fall, as Jet Aspen, a start-up airline that plans to link several major cities to Colorado’s most noted ski resort town, prepared its flight application to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the company’s chief executive officer boasted that he had accumulated $8 million in financing. That was a problem–but…
As allegations of ethical misconduct by House Speaker Newt Gingrich continue to mount, prominent Colorado Republicans once again find themselves ensnared in the embarrassing fray. Familiar names such as Bo Callaway, Kay Riddle, June Weiss and Glenn Jones keep popping up as both the House Ethics Committee and its newly…
Guadalupe “Lupe” Salinas was controversial long before he was appointed to head up Denver’s regional Social Security Administration office in 1991. But five years into his tenure at the SSA, it’s hard to track the many bureaucratic tiffs involving Salinas without a Social Security scorecard. Not only have nine of…
At first glance, the morning mail holds few surprises. Two spring seed catalogues. The April issue of American Assassin. Hefty bills from the fishmonger, the liquor store and our regular supplier of badminton birdies. There’s a postcard from Elvis (vacationing in Grand Forks this week), a Republican flier recommending the…
Run for Your Life! Regarding Steve Jackson’s “Life…and Death…on the Run,” in the March 14 issue: Clack clack clack. With his fingers pounding the keyboard at three cliches per second, Steve Jackson knew in his bones his latest story was right on schedule–and in big trouble. Because Steve Jackson knew…
Colorado’s political caucuses are often dull affairs–neighborly barn-raising reminders of our state’s origins, when the real action now takes place in banks and boardrooms across town. But the gathering next Tuesday at Loveland’s Monroe Elementary promises to be a true barn-burner. That’s the caucus where Democratic precinct committeeman Tony Brown…
In winning a $350,000 settlement against his former employers at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Carlos Renteria got his job back at the Labor Standards Unit (LSU), received a promotion and raise–and nearly caused the unit to shut down. Some of Renteria’s critics are practically choking on the…
Some people would say that the hit man is an emotionless, cold-blooded killing machine; that he has no fear and no belief in God. On the contrary, a hit man has a wide range of feelings. He may be excruciatingly tender towards his woman. He may be extremely compassionate towards…
The run-down Evans School towers over the so-called Golden Triangle, surrounded by a sea of asphalt parking lots and empty, weed-strewn fields on the south edge of downtown Denver. The century-old school at 1115 Acoma has sat untouched and vacant for 22 years. But now that the Golden Triangle is…
Clyde Hoeldtke, the Evergreen developer who built Florida houses under the name Beacon Homes, liked to think of his customers as satisfied. “Thirteen thousand happy Beacon homeowners,” he’d called them, even after he left numerous buyers with incomplete homes or liens filed against them by subcontractors Hoeldtke hadn’t paid. Now…
