Colorado

A Drive Up Dayton

/ bperica / 1 Comment

As I drive Dayton Street north to take my kids to school the city boundaries are so zig-zagged that I may be in Denver one block and in Aurora the next, never really quite knowing which city I am in from the moment I turn onto the street until I turn off of it in the Central Park neighborhood of Denver.

My house borders Dayton in southeast Denver, so I start the drive there, but I am quickly surrounded by the western edge of Aurora, the city that Trump claims has been taken over by a Venezuelan gang. I even drive within one block of the Edge at Lowry apartments, which made national headlines in the late summer/early fall when a ring doorbell camera recorded armed gang members knocking on an apartment door. Further north I drive by Vintage Theater, a staple among theater venues in the greater Denver area.

When Dayton approaches and crosses Colfax is when things get interesting. Colfax is bustling any time of day, but in the morning it’s full of pedestrians and bus riders going to and from school and work. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to how pedestrians cross the street here or how drivers navigate the madness.

Once north of Colfax, Dayton is lined with day laborers who have congregated there for over two decades. They line the sidewalks with their lunches (if they are lucky enough to have them) and wave at any car that drives by, hoping the driver is looking to hire them for a project. When they wave at me, I don’t wave back, out of not wanting to give them some false hope. When a car does pull over though, it is surrounded and overwhelmed by people willing to work on just about any project I imagine. Regardless of the weather or time of year, Dayton Street from Colfax to 16th Ave is lined with those willing to work. I have seen a hundred workers on this block of Dayton.

Naturally, I have been interested in how Trump’s policies would affect this block of Dayton, especially since it is in Aurora and Trump stated that immigration raids would start in this city. Well, he’s a bit late, so he lied again, but they did start yesterday. Even prior to the raids, the number of day laborers drastically decreased. This morning, I counted five of them on the street, still friendly, still waving, still eager to do the work no one else is going to do.

Where have the rest gone? Well, that is a good question and I think in the days, weeks, and months ahead we might get answers or we might not, but for starters here is a fact (remember those?): based on the promised mass deportation, “Gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years.” It is not a stretch to conclude either that day laborers who used to get regular work by lining the sidewalks of Dayton have been forced into a cat and mouse game with ICE agents, in which the immigrants might become more and more desperate to make a living here in Aurora or Denver. Surely, that will be the case for some immigrants. Where do they look for work now? Pushing them off the streets into the dark recesses of an Aurora apartment complex for the entire day can’t be good. They are looking for decent pay and constructive work in the daytime. When forced onto the streets at nighttime, the same might not be said. This would be a very unfortunate result of ICE raids here in Denver and elsewhere, but do keep in mind this is a population that respects the rule of law here in the US more than US-born Americans. So, they have that going for them, even though the strongest and most capable government in the world is not willing to help them anymore.

287 On My Mind

/ bperica / Leave a comment

The fall of my freshman year, 5 days after 9/11, 8 cross country athletes died on 287 when they were hit by another UW student heading in the opposite direction. The deadliest crash in the highway’s history was an enormous event and terribly sad, especially for the UW community, the cross country athletes, and their families. However, on campus and in the news it got lost in that post-9/11 daze the entire country was in. The mourning of the two events blended into each other in what was the worst September any of us alive at the time had experienced.

Highway 287 between Laramie, Wyoming and Fort Collins, Colorado holds a special place in the heart of all UW students. It’s the quickest link between the two cities, with the other option being I-80 east to Cheyenne and then I-25 south to Fort Collins, at least a full thirty minutes longer. When a UW student wants to get away quickly it’s always 287. I am not sure there is a UW student who has ever avoided driving on or being driven on the highway. 287 is a right of passage, although a very risky one, for Cowboys and Cowgirls since the highway opened.

Upon arrival at UW, students learn one way or another that 287 is one of the most dangerous roads in America. Couple that with the fact that many of the drivers on it are college students feeling free and invincible and you get reckless, distracted, daredevil-like driving. I pushed my car to 100mph several times on that road merely because there were miles of empty road ahead of me. I too loaded into a car with other swimmers and was recklessly driven on that road by a crazy Swede senior on our team. I was not aware then as I am now just how many bullets I dodged on that road.

But the highway struck again last week. This time it was the swim and dive team who suffered the greatest loss. Three athletes died when their car swerved, lost control, and rolled several times. It’s been 23 years since a deadlier accident involving student-athletes happened on that highway so I am thinking about it much differently than last time. Even though the lives lost were swimmers, I find myself dwelling again and again on the parents of those athletes receiving that news, their greatest fear. I marveled at how the UWYO Women’s Swim and Dive team competed at their conference championship last week in the middle of this tragedy. I anticipate having the same feeling this week as the Men’s Swim and Dive team start their conference championship meet today in Texas.

My heart breaks for the team and the families involved. I know they will continue to defy the odds and rise up in the face of such loss. Once a Cowboy, always a Cowboy.

Have Preemie, Will Not Travel

/ bperica / 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2015-03-29 at 9.08.48 AM

Oh, the places we’ve been since London was born.

From January 30, 2014 to May 19, 2014 I left Denver once, for a quick trip north to Fort Collins. I was there for six hours. Since London was born I have spent three days outside of the state, not too far away, in Green River, WY. It took me two minutes to draw on a map where I have been in the last 14 months.

Having a baby will naturally limit your geographical existence. Having a 26-weeker will completely shut your travel down. From what I have heard about other parents who had a very early baby, we have been ambitious in our reach across this relatively small map. I have heard of parents who will not take their baby outside the house but for walks. These parents have decided that taking their preemie to the grocery store, the shopping mall, or to Target, puts their preemie at too great a risk of getting seriously sick and going right back to the hospital. My family did not make it out of the NICU without receiving such advice, from a nurse nonetheless. We were blown away by the severity of such restrictions and quickly conferred with other nurses that we did not have to stay under house arrest with our preemie until flu season was over.

We have followed certain recommendations such as, do not fly anywhere with your baby until flu season ends. Locking baby inside an incredibly small area for two hours with 140 other strangers sounded like a really bad idea to us as well. Not flying anywhere for such a long time (our last flight was in mid-December 2013) has been incredibly weird and challenging, but also much better than having a very sick daughter back in the hospital.

The feeling has been similar to putting travel and adventure on probation for over a year. Localized adventure has still been possible and we have taken advantage of that with trips to Wyoming, Breckenridge (twice), Steamboat Springs, and Estes Park. If it wasn’t for weddings, I am not sure we would have made all those trips, but thank God for weddings because these short getaways have quenched at least a little bit of our thirst for travel.

Flu season is almost over. Besides the obvious, this means as a family we are free to move about the country. And again, weddings will be the catalyst of much of that travel, but instead of weekends in the Colorado mountains we will get a weekend in southern California and Nashville, with some excursions in between. The destinations are exciting. The process of getting there, i.e. flying with London and bringing all the baby stuff along with us, does not excite. However, if London’s behavior as a baby can be a predictor for how she’ll be on a flight, I can say she probably won’t put up much of a fight. It’s her 40 lb. car seat that will.