First Monday with Characters

Used to be Left Hand Canyon Road

Edited by Morris Dean

Chuck Smythe above the Great Flood

On Monday night, September 23, it began to rain. The forecast was a few hours of light drizzle. We woke up the next morning to a driving, tropical downpour, the sort that just doesn’t happen in Eastern Colorado. It continued all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday. On Thursday it rained the longest and hardest I’ve seen since New Zealand, nine inches in a single day. It rained all day Friday.
    Colorado hydrology didn’t evolve to handle this. Every creek from Denver to Wyoming burst its banks and started ripping away at the roads and houses that line the canyons into the Front Range. It was a strange experience: we live well above Skunk Creek, and nothing happened to us. A bit of water pooled in the laundry room, a few rocks fell out of the retaining wall. Gutters I hadn’t cleaned yet overflowed. Yet we knew catastrophe was striking less than a mile away; we couldn’t even get to the grocery store, because we’d have to cross Bear Creek. Normally I can step across the creek, now it was a torrent flooding a four-lane parkway from gutter to gutter, tearing up pavement and bridges.

Collapsed bridge at Dillon Road

    Saturday the rain stopped. Sunday it dropped two more inches, for a single storm total of more than seventeen inches. This was more than three times the previous record, and nearly our normal total for a whole year. When the Authorities were able to do more than rescue people, we started to add up the wreckage. In Boulder County alone, about three hundred homes destroyed, a similar number damaged. Every highway into the mountains was destroyed, a hundred miles of road in all, and what was left of the small villages up the canyons was isolated for days with no water or power, only reached by National Guard helicopters and troop carriers. Salina—gone. Jamestown—gone.

Someone's happy home in Jamestown

Lyons—all the old town down next to the St. Vrain River was gone, as was every highway bridge into town. Only (!) four deaths; a couple of teenagers trying to escape their trapped car, the owner of the Jamestown General Store lost when the store collapsed on him, one other body found under mud a week later. Preliminary damage estimate for the state, half a billion dollars.
    It isn’t that we weren’t warned. This is the fourth catastrophic flood in the history of the Front Range, and not even the worst (though the storm is estimated as a 10,000-year event.) It isn’t by accident that I live well away from the creeks. Gilbert White, a well known natural-hazards engineer at the University, warned decades ago that Boulder was more at risk for catastrophe than almost anyplace in America, even more than New Orleans.

Boulder Creek at the Broadway Bridge, downtown

He strongly urged that development along Boulder Creek downtown be controlled and engineered with this in mind. The city government paid attention, thank god: we didn’t lose downtown, or even any major buildings.
    Every trail and road into the mountains is closed for repairs at least until winter. I’m stuck in town, grateful that I wasn’t one of the victims. It snowed today, a couple of weeks early.

A view of the Mountain Park I’m not allowed into for now,
decorated by today’s snow [photo by my friend Ed Schmahl]

The Rogers at stone-cutting in Costa Rica

Pura Vida, mi amigos y amigas,
    We are still in the rainy season here in Costa Rica. We have beautiful blue sky and sunshine in the mornings and downpours by the afternoon. I have got into the habit of getting things done early and being on my porch with a cool one as Nature breaks loose.
    We don’t go out much this time of the year. Once in a while we drive to the beach; the rain isn’t as hard down there as it is here on the mountain. Last weekend we drove down and checked out some of the beaches we have not visited and had lunch at our favorite restaurant in Puntarenas, which overlooks the Nocya Bay.
    That weekend, on the beach across from the restaurant, a stone-cutting contest was taking place. We found out very fast that in order to enjoy the contest it had to be viewed from the water side. The stone dust was so bad a barrier had been placed between the cutters and the street. They did some beautiful work here are some pictures.

    Our summer is right around the corner, it starts in November.
                                Until next time, Ed & Janie

Ralph Earle at his verse

Here is a poem for October:

Sleeping in the Ocean

When you come to yourself, you are floating
naked and warm. Trusting, close to shore,
you fell asleep, and trusting, you wake
to a horizon of clouds, no land, and looming
in the distance, a vessel. The glistening ocean

sustains you. When the time comes
to return to land, how will you know
which is dream and which is waking?

    Anybody who would like more is warmly invited to come hear me read at the following event: Creative Writing Instructors Reading, Central Carolina Community College, on Friday, October 11 at 7 pm at the Chatham County Library in Pittsboro, NC (197 NC Hwy 87 N).
    Or come see me at 12 noon on Saturday, October 19 at the West End Poetry Festival in Carrboro, NC. I'll be leading off a panel on nature poetry. For more information on the West End Poetry festival and its many great participating poets, see their web site.

Madison Kimrey on stage in North Carolina

I'm playing the character Pepper in Sherlock Holmes this month. Pepper and her companion in crime, Ginger, are Professor Moriarty's main foot soldiers. We control the robot Suffragettes, whose purpose is to help us fund our evil plans. Will we succeed in helping Professor Moriarty destroy the young detective Sherlock Holmes? You can find out at the Paramount Theater of Burlington October 11-13 and October 18-20.

Can you spot Madison?

James Knudsen on stage in California

From Up Here, by Liz Flahive, opened Friday night at Fresno City College, benefiting from the good rehearsals I mentioned on September 28 in "Fourth Saturday's Loneliest Liberal".

Zumba at Alvin Ailey's

Susan C. Price going to New York

We are going to New York City next week. For 8 expensive days of theatre, wine, cocktails, food, and luxury hotel to celebrate my 65th birthday. This hotel has a great gym, but I also needed to keep up with my Zumba classes (the only truly aerobic thing I do). I googled "zumba in Midtown" and found that the Alvin Ailey dance company has a studio 3 blocks from the hotel and offers classes for "non-professionals" including Zumba. So excited just to be there, near the professional dancers! I love New York. According to my mother, I was conceived there....

Jonathan Price going to Washington

As a past Fulbright Fellow, I've been asked by the Fulbright Commission to come back to Washington to review some prospective candidates for new Fulbright Fellowships. It's a small panel, meets once a year, and reads the applications online. We don't get paid but we do get a yearly free trip to DC; I'm taking Janice.

The Neumanns glad of a lucky break

September on Pineapple Girl started with a window being broken in one of those slow-mo type incidents that happen every once in awhile...let's just say that if you are leaning against the side of the boat as you are pushing it away from something with all your might—you "might" want to check that your backside is not pushing against a window, as the window "might" just break before the boat moves...September ended with me ordering a new window at the glass shop. The nice man at the counter told me several times that we had the right kind of glass, as the film sandwiched between the two layers of glass kept us from getting glass everywhere. Otherwise we "might" have been pulling glass out of the aforementioned backside. That was a lucky break.

In my office at AUBG

Geoffrey Dean managing and performing

Two main focuses for me last month were managing the second annual Rila Music Exchange (Rila ME2) and preparing for the fall semester at the American University in Bulgaria—my 22nd fall semester, in fact.
    Rila ME2 was a very intense, all-consuming process, with participants this year from a dozen countries, who gave back to the communities that hosted them by enlivening village squares in the region and performing together with local folk ensembles.
    In the "Second Monday Music" column for this month (October 14), I'll say more about Rila ME2 and show you photographs of the event. I'll also describe the sort of identity crisis that Rila ME is having.
    And, this month got started with preparations for the AmBul Festival of American and Bulgarian Music, which began yesterday with "Trio: Three AmBul Anniversary Composers," with the Ardenza Trio and guest performers of the Windart Quintet.

Dawn Burke in the season

This character has been chauffeuring kids back and forth to school, gazing at the moon, and enjoying the oncoming Fall-like weather.

André (R) at the chess center in St. Louis

André Duvall at the boards

Over the past month, I've been organizing a handbell ringer's ensemble. As of this week, I've reached my initial goal of organizing a ten ringer choir. We've had three rehearsals, and things are off to a good start. The ensemble contains a mixture of beginners and more experienced ringers, so it will be interesting how the group progresses. My eventual goal for the spring is to also organizing a children's chime choir (or youth bells choir) open to the community; I've received positive feedback so far from area schools that are in the vicinity of where we rehearse.
    The chess tournament in St. Louis was highly enjoyable. I didn't return in time to report back for last month's character update. My friends and I had a good time; we each won 2 games and lost 3. I had a great time, and I was satisfied with my score, because I happened to be paired against much stronger opponents for most of the rounds. Sometimes the games you lose can be just as rewarding (and sometimes even more so) than the games you win (given that you didn't lose due to what we call a "blunder," or silly mistake), because the journey through the game may have provided interesting twists, turns, and discoveries. Most local chess clubs meet in a location that serves a different primary function, such as a restaurant, library, or hospital. St. Louis has a very impressive facility that is specifically for chess. Set in the heart of the Central West End district, the St. Louis Chess Center is located in a quaint, two-story building, set amidst local restaurants, historic homes, and beautiful trees. The center is used almost daily; in addition to once-a-week regular chess club meetings, the center offers quick-chess tournament nights, classes for beginners, adults, children 3rd grade and below, children above 4th grade, a night for lady beginners, and nights focused on improving certain strategies. The center even provides high-quality boards and clocks for tournaments (usually you bring your own), as well as very nice wooden chairs and drink coasters. Carvings of the chess logo are engraved on both the chairs and the coasters. The St. Louis Chess Center has attracted grandmasters from around the country, and just recently featured a match between four of the top players in the world. Lining the walls are portraits of all of the World Chess Champions, as well as portraits of all of the masters, international masters, and grandmasters that have visited the club.

Moller organ

    I've had the chance to play two wonderful pipe organs in Memphis in the last couple of weeks that I'd never played before: a Reuter organ, and a Moller organ at a Catholic church downtown. Both are older, three manual instruments with some great sounds. On Monday, our local chapter of the American Guild of Organists is having their chapter meeting at the Scottish Rite Temple featuring transcriptions of famous works for other instruments played on the organ.
    I discovered new hiking trails and a nice disc golf course last weekend at Shelby Farms, a 4,500-acre park in Memphis. I look forward to exploring more of the new features of this park this coming weekend, along with visiting a city-wide crafts fair.

Allen Crowder going pro

Getting ready for my next fight, October 18 in Wilmington. Will be my last amateur fight. Going pro after this one.
    I decided to go ahead and make the move. I feel ready.I have beaten the best amateur heavyweights, and I really am ready to get paid to do this, plus my biggest reason is I want a rematch on my only loss. The difference between amateur and pro is that kicks to the head and knees are legal.
    Will keep you updated when I find out when my first pro fight will be.

Allen signs autographs for some of his fans

Sharon Stoner on aging

Had an MRI Monday evening, and Tuesday morning my doctor's nurse called for me to come in. Had torn something, big long words, and had some Arthritic bone spurs. Surgery to repair the tissue and remove the spurs. How interesting is that?
    As the saying goes, "Old age ain't for wimps"!
    Flying to Fresno on Wednesday. Hate flying! I'm sure nothing interesting is happening there but if it does, will let you know.
    My Prosaic cat is finally getting friendly, at least she no longer attacks.

Tom Lowe almost back

I am still recovering from foot surgery: getting the house in order, sorting out my meds, finding the balance point between feet, and considering writing up the ideas generated by my stay in the hospital and rehab. As my energy comes back so will the right words. Soon, folks, soon....

Morris Dean back in good shape
    Lower-back pain indicated physical therapy, and five weeks of twice-a-week of it so far have me feeling much better and enjoying newly found flexibility and pain-free uprightness, even first thing out of bed. Previously, I couldn't stand up straight immediately out of bed at all, and the almost straight I could struggle into provoked #8 pain.
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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

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