Perspective Shift

In March of 1984, during “Spring Break”, I was on tour with the Jamestown College Concert Choir.  The annual tour was a big fundraising junket that involved cramming 70 college kids into two buses and caravanning around the US, staying with host families and eating at church potlucks and usually givine 12-13 concerts in ten days.  Those trips, every “spring”, were the first times in my life I’d left North Dakota or Minnesota, and the first times I’d been in cities larger than Fargo. 

The highlight of the trip was always the one “Free Day”, usually at the apex of the tour – and usually more like a manic half-day; the demands of fund-raising often led to a morning or evening gig on our “Free Day”, but no matter; we got to spend a day off the bus, and the college even sprang for a hotel (although usually four to a room – but it beat dealing with host families).  In three years, I’d seen Washington, Seattle (and in 1985 I’d see Phoenix)…

 …and now Denver.

Five of us – Kris Erickson, Ray Zentz, Ellen Aafedt and her boyfriend Tom Krohn and I (2nd soprano, bass, 1st soprano, tenor and baritone, respectively) – without much else to do took off walking in downtown Denver.  It felt like a pleasant enough day; warm (in the ’30s), so we all wore light jackets, and didn’t bother with hats or gloves. 

We put in miles.  We wandered down Colfax far from downtown, into a slightly seedier neighborhood.  The snow came down a little heavier as we stopped into a bakery to grab lunch, and then a pawn shop (where I bought a lockblade knife and a copy of Warren Zevon’s Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School  for a buck); it seemed like a pleasant little snow shower.

We took the bus back to the hotel, and started cleaning up for our evening plans (going out to a restaurant and drinking a lot) when someone turned on the TV. 

“BLIZZARD PARALYZES DENVER”, the graphics screamed, as the anchors voiced over footage of endless rows of stalled cars amid the pleasant little snow shower.

We looked at each other, shrugged, and went out into a city reeling from inches of snow.

I think of that day every time I see that Denver is, yet again, shut down by a blizzard. 

Holiday travelers stranded by a blizzard that paralyzed Colorado’s biggest cities lined up at ticket counters in Denver’s snowbound airport Thursday only to learn they wouldn’t be going anywhere for another day.

Is it just me, or is Denver to blizzards what trailer parks are to tornados?