Through the years I’ve made several of those critical decisions, but the first one happened when I was twenty-two.
The autumn after I graduated college I still hadn’t found a journalism job or any sort of employment that required a degree. I knew I wanted to experience a new city or town, but in my mind that place was warm and sunny. My good friend Rich was moving to Breckenridge where his brother had been living (and loving it). That’s Colorado, where it snows regularly and there are no palm trees or warm breezes. But after a night of polishing off a bottle of Irish Whiskey with Rich and realizing my lack of options, I came to believe that I should make the trip to The Rockies with him. I was all set to make a new life in the mountains.
But, as usual, things didn’t work out as planned.
The apartment we supposedly would be renting was only an illusion. We were forced to stay on people’s couches, and every crash pad had a cat. I’m allergic to anything with fur and we were never able to find a place that we could afford. So I was back in Boston six weeks later. Which was for the best, because I really wanted to move to a tropical island. And I did the next year.
What follows is the beginning of the journal I kept about my Colorado experience. There are many more pages, but for now here is just an excerpt:
DENVER, CO12/3/1992
Continental FL 744
Liftoff speed 161 mph
My time out west has ended and I am returning back to Boston. Before I say exactly why I am leaving, I should begin with why I went.
On a clear but frigid Boston Tuesday afternoon, I embarked on what I though would be a prolonged stay in Colorado. It was November 10th and I was accompanied by my friend Rich at South Station. With bags in hand we boarded a west bound train in search of a new life. I was eager, but also a bit trepid because I had no clue as to what was in store for me.
The train ride wasn’t the adventure I thought it would be. That’s the best I can say about it. Most of the time was spent reading or listening to Jimmy Buffett and Neil Young tapes. The nights were devoted to drinking, which was also a means of relaxing us so we could fall asleep. We had no private sleeping berths and were confined to regular reclining seats. This was the least enjoyable part of the trip.
We changed trains in Chicago, where I got outside for a five minute look up at the Sears Tower. Hard to believe that only four months earlier I’d gone to the top with Darcie, the girl I’d met in Cancun. Weird . . . Spring Break and the subsequent trip to visit her seem like they happened 10 years ago. But here I was in Chicago again, and I had to forget about the last one and just enjoy walking up the steps from The Untouchables. There were no gangsters shooting and no baby carriages plummeting down the stairs, and soon I was back on the new train and heading west.
On this second train we met a memorable character-Jim from Buffalo. Somewhere around 45, he was an unshaven, coarse, and sloppy drunk. Rich and I were getting pretty hammered in the lounge car on overpriced Budweisers, but compared to this guy we were stone sober. Nonetheless he provided good entertainment.
In addition to the other qualities I described, Jim was first and foremost a paranoid psychotic. He was sure somebody was going to attempt to mug and kill him at any moment. This made him anti-city, and an advocate of guns . . . which put him on the opposite side of the spectrum as me. When I told him I would never fire a gun, Jim went into a raving diatribe about the right to bear arms and the need to protect yourself. If I had taken him seriously he might have been insulting, but basically Jim was just a drunk who wouldn’t leave us alone. A barfly who just needed an audience. We slipped away from him when he went to the bathroom after last call.
Another aspect of the trip I remember vividly is looking out at Nebraska. Being from the East, I had never seen land as flat and barren. It wasn’t desert barren (which I’ll get into later) because there was growth, but it had an eerie quality to it, like you were on another planet. Contributing to this bizarre landscape was the lack of housing. You would occasionally- after a hundred miles- see a house (with a gambrel roof), a barn, a tractor . . . and then no signs of life. Cattle dotted the landscape, seeming like the rulers of this strange land.
Third point of mention is the sudden appearance of mountains. Well, maybe by mileage statistics, it isn’t so sudden. But when you’ve been gazing out at smooth ground for hours upon hours, the appearance of giant mountains in the distance will warp your senses. Especially on a train. The way I remember it was we turned and there they were, objects in your window appearing closer than they actually are. They just didn’t belong, like a mound of mashed potatoes on a foosball table. Although probably a hundred miles away, the Rockies looked close enough to spit at.
I guess other than Jim, the Nebraskan Cattle, and the sudden rising mountains, the train ride was uneventful. During the day Rich and I talked, read, and listened to music. At night we boozed it up and got a few hours of sleep sitting upwards. It was 2 days and nights of anticipation, of wondering what our new lives would be like.
And then we were in Denver.
And it was an omen.
We arrived in Union Station, a fraction of its Chicago counterpart with wooden benches and a big Mountain Time clock that would soon mock us, and waited for the luggage. Our bags made it to Denver 40 minutes after Rich and I did. Our ride an hour after that. There’s nothing like traveling for three days to a place you’ve never been and to have the only person you know there be nearly two hours late.
Steve, Rich’s brother, brought us to Breckenridge in a 1970’s Saab or Volvo. It stalled twice before we got out of Denver, and once on the mountain we slipped and slid so much I began seeing a headline in a Colorado paper reading “3 killed on snowy road, bald tires blamed”. As we kept climbing- physically higher than I’ve ever been in my life, I was continually amazed at the ascent. Out the window you could see what you thought was the top shrouded in white flakes, but then you would soon get to that point and see some more.
Rich asked what his brother thought of our new apartment, and that’s when the second bad omen surfaced. Steve was silent as he maneuvered the death car up a bend. After an exceedingly dramatic pause, he delivered the news. Steve told us that the apartment he thought would be ours had been given to somebody else. We had been out-bided.
Now, before I went to Costco with my Mom and picked out brand new luggage and flannel shirts and an air mattress and wool socks, I had sent a five hundred dollar check to Steve that covered my share of the move-in expense (big bucks for the unemployed). Upon arrival I’d give another $250, and we’d be living in a cabin with a fireplace and mountainside views. But that was no longer so. Steve assured us we’d find something better, and in my excitement I believed him. At noon we stopped for lunch at a roadside diner, and then embarked west on I70 to Breckenridge. We would never find that better apartment, or any apartment of any kind for rent.
But although my time out west was short, as I’ll soon describe, I did get my adventure.
. . . .More of my Colorado journal to follow.
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