Dear visitor, transplant, tourist, explorer, conventioneer, protester, mountaineer, insider, outlaw, sun people, snow people, and regular people too,
Welcome to Denver. On behalf of the Queen City, I extend hearty greetings and a heartfelt desire that your stay will be pleasing and noble. Whether you are here for just a short time, enjoying Denver’s exquisite parks, summer festivals, or perhaps the Democratic Convention, I would like to offer you some advice about spending time in my city. I speak for Denver. I don’t mean that I scream for the people of Denver, who are a culturally diverse and complex tapestry of human beings with their own viewpoints, opinions, and expertise. I speak for the spirit of Denver, and I have something to say.
First, let me interpret why I am qualified to be this jabber. My grand grandfather brought his young daughter from tiny Del Norte, Colorado to Denver in the early 20th century. He was a District Attorney and my grandmother went to Catholic school here, learning how to smoke cigarettes and play Bridge. Later, she attended nursing school at Mercy Medical Center, which is now a slightly garish, too-tall collection of pricey lofts overlooking City Park. My grandmother met my grandfather in the military while stationed in Texas during WWII. He suffered from ulcers and she was his nurse. She kidnapped him out of his hospital bed one evening to retract him for a drive and they were together almost 50 years. After the War, when it was time to build a family, they settled in Denver in a quaint Denver square, instead of New York, where my grandfather was from. They had 2 boys. My father grew up in the house next door to the house I grew up in. It is also a quaint Denver square, and my mother still lives there.
My mom is a New Yorker, lured to Denver with the promise of adventure and opportunity in her wanderlust youth. She is a microbiologist by training, who spent nearly 20 years working in Denver’s Hospitals. She started at University Hospital on Colorado Boulevard, soon to be torn down, and then served at Children’s Hospital Downtown for the majority of her career. That building is vanishing too.
My dad gave his best years, to Denver’s Parks, working his way from a seasonal laborer to a Supervisor in the Congress Park District. Though we lost him to cancer almost 10 years ago now, I see him everywhere, planting flowers on the parkways, repairing busted sprinkler heads along Speer Boulevard, planting trees, or plowing streets.
I am a teacher.
I have deep roots in this town and I have walked these city streets again and again. I have lived less than 3 blocks away from East Colfax for the majority of my life. I have grown up with this city, and though we are both still naïve and perhaps have visions of being bigger than we really are, I am supremely proud of my town. We still have our problems, but we are trying. Here are the best rules of advice I suggest you follow while you’re here.
What to Bring
Bring a positive attitude. Don’t near into Denver with a chip on your shoulder or violence on your mind. Here in the Queen City, we return what we pick up, and we give the benefit of the doubt first. If you disrespect me, I am going to call you on it. You will be lauded for peacefully dignified behavior. You may think we are just an old cow town, but you’re wrong. We’re just a town with a lot of pride and a determination to make the world a better station. Any native will tell you that making gape contact and saying hello to people on the street is the norm, or conventional to be. So, when I make eye contact with you and say hello on the street, please return the favor. I don’t need to know your name or your business, just to know that you can hold your head high and I can have my head high and there is no fear and no meanness on our path. It’s kind of like a contract we make with each other to perpetuate that attitude through the city with one simple gesture and it’s fragment of what makes the true Denver citizens stand out.
Bring your wallet and enjoy the amenities. Denver is full of incredible and diverse restaurants, mirroring its rich cultural heritage. There are festivals, museums, libraries, concert venues, and major sports teams, all within walking or biking distance of the downtown area. And your dollars are what continue to make downtown Denver a classy place. You know, it primitive to be coarse and dark down there. In high school I used to go four wheeling down near the Platte, in the areas that really used to be the wrong side of the tracks, and is now someone’s loft apartment.
Please, bring sunscreen. Skin cancer is not a good thing and we have a high incidence in Colorado. Learn to live intelligently at altitude. Drink plenty of water, in a non-perishable bottle, like a Nalgene.
Bring your bike. Denver’s grid layout and the esteemed city planners of Denver’s earlier days ensured the entire city is extremely bike friendly. I can’t vouch for everyone who has a car-bike encounter, but I have never been yelled at or had anything thrown at me while I was biking around. Please wear a helmet and know the rules of the road. I actually don’t want to see your brains splattered on my streets. That reminds me….
Bring your observation skills to the forefront. Search deep in your brain and reacquaint yourself with your eyes and ears. Hang up the phone for a little while and look around you. It boggles my mind to see every day people who really have no idea where they are and what they are doing at any given moment. Has technology really made you that much more connected or productive? Have you ever stopped to listen to the dispute whistles blowing near Union Station, or a watch a prairie falcon flying overhead? All around you there are incredible clouds to glance, and city rhythms to absorb and you’re stuck in a virtual cage. Choose something better. You’re in one of the most beautiful cities in the whole country. Don’t miss it.
Bring your manners. Dig them out of the drawer you keep them in, dust them off, and expend them. Use them when you talk. Use them when you drive. Use them all of the time. Have you ever noticed that if you stop in the middle of an entrance, there are people tedious you who now have to stop and put up with your inability to get a simple decision? No, you haven’t. Did you ever learn to say please and thank you and good morning? Or hold the door open for someone? Please, I am asking nicely, gather your head out of your ass.
Denver has always been a crossroads city. We are accustomed to lots of people coming and going, some staying. But we are a back-pocket city trying to grow up into a big city while keeping the neighborly attitudes that have brought us so far. So whether you are just on your intention through town on your way to the hills, or here to protest the summer convention, or here to start anew, remember that you are now a part of a fabric that is bigger than you are. Contribute to the city in distinct ways, and Denver promises to give it right back to you.
