This situation is Kathleen Cain’s fault for being burglarized. She came home to find her front door kicked in. Among belongings impossible to replace, the lousy thieves took a box of checks. If that hadn’t happened, Kathleen would not have gone to the bank to get her account changed. And if she hadn’t gone to the bank, she wouldn’t have started talking to Amanda Duran, the bank employee who helped her. Of course, Kathleen had to mention how the robbers tore open a little treasure chest, hoping for diamonds, only to find her collection of shells and stones
“When they rob a poet, that’s the kind of treasure they’ll find,” Kathleen said.
“My grandfather was the first poet laureate of Colorado,” Amanda offered.
“Lalo Delgado was your grandfather?” Kathleen exclaimed.
Connections were made and a few days later, Amanda found a copy of that infamous Westword cover for the article I wrote and posted it on Facebook. Obviously it’s Kathleen’s fault that I started thinking, “I know I have copies of that somewhere…”
* * *
Several weeks earlier our neighbor Eric popped over with half a loaf of banana bread. “I just made it,” he said, clearly proud of himself.
“Very impressive,” I replied, oven-fresh warmth in my hands.
“Well, it wasn’t that hard. I used a mix,” he admitted.
Nonetheless it was endearing. So a week or two later when I happened to make a banana cake with nuts and chocolate icing from scratch, I took a slice over as a thank you.
Disclaimer: I should say now that Eric’s partner Jenn is not guilty in any of the ensuing proceedings.
“He won’t take that lying down,” Phil said sagely.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
* * *
I ransacked the basement fruitlessly, next tried boxes stored on a top closet shelf. A ladder is required. I do not have time for this. I’m supposed to be grading student stories and translating a biography. Instead, I’m wiping off grimy box lids. Two dust-induced sneeze attacks later, at the bottom of a box, I find my yellowed copy of the Westword cover of April 22, 1982. It has word balloons scrawled in ink all over it.
* * *
I found out what Phil was talking about. Last week, Eric appeared at the door with another tinfoil package. He was wearing gloves, one of which he threw down on my doorstep. “Oh, right,” he said, “nuts and chocolate and everything. Take this.” Apparently Phil understands men better than I do. I baked something and so why not return the favor, right? I guess men don’t really think like that. I mean, he threw down his glove right there in my doorway. And his new banana bread had blueberries in it.
* * *
Ray Gonzalez grabbed my Westword a few days after it came out and wrote word balloons for everyone. His own says, “What am I doing with these lesser talents?” (Sorry, Ray: you had to know this would come back to haunt you eventually.) Kathleen’s says, “You gotta be kidding!” Mine says, “I hope they still speak to me after this.” In fact, as Ray knew, some poets who were not in the photo or article did stop speaking to me after that. What the hell, I say now: that article was a collection of amusing anecdotes and there were some poets about whom I had no amusing anecdotes. Young and naive, I was disillusioned. I’d thought poets were more high-minded than the average human. I like Lalo Delgado’s balloon best: for him Ray wrote, “What a bunch of silly gringos!”
* * *
“You’re in a bake-off now,” Phil said, rubbing his hands together, after Eric retrieved his glove and left. “So here’s my idea for the next banana bread…”
See, I just love the way Phil has great ideas for things I should do. I also just love the way men turn everything into a competition. Blueberries in banana bread, though: that’s just wrong.
Two of those cover poets are gone: Lalo Delgado, Colorado’s first poet laureate, a gentle man with a thunderous reading voice and Craig Crist-Evans, who left Colorado and died too young. This April, 1982 issue included the guide for the Fifth Denver Film Festival, now in its 33rd year, and an article titled “El Salvador: Another Vietnam?” Ad phone numbers did not include area codes: we only had one. To paraphrase Joan Didion, we keep such artifacts to remember what it was like to be us.
Kathleen said she was going to reread the article. “Oh, my God, I wouldn’t do that,” I gasped. Luckily, I didn’t come across it in my search, only these photos. Let dead dogs lie, I say. I have a chapter to translate and need to go to the store. Phil’s given me an idea for banana bread that will blow Eric right off the block. But the fact that I don’t have my chapter translated? That’s still Kathleen’s fault.
Top row, L to R: Jess Graf, Beth McKee, Ray Gonzalez; middle, Doug Anderson, Kathleen Cain, Little Jess Graf, Pat Dubrava; front, Lalo Delgado, Craig Crist-Evans
Loved reading this post on the day I also decided to bake banana bread. I won’t share any with my neighbors though. Lesson learned!
I love reading you.
I also love such coincidences: banana bread baking in Mexico and Denver at the same time. Sorry I missed you on your visit Zara.
What great memories of years past and just yesterday!! I love the picture!!
Oh yeah forget to complain that we got a great picture but I noticed you are not sharing any banana bread!!
Jana, that’s because half of any banana bread I bake has to go to the neighbors now. What a predicament!
I am thoroughly enjoying this bake off… Eric just read the blog, and he is going to try the still warm, hand delivered, baked good – before he replies. I can hear him in the kitchen as I type this… he said, “Wow!”… It will be interesting to see what happens next.. he is plotting out loud. I never thought that baked goods could be the start of something like this, even though I consider myself from the south. I guess we will see… Good luck contestants, may your waistlines not be the spoils of this war.
Poems are the blueberries in the cultural banana bread. So there.
I was a pretty regular reader of the Westword in those days and think I probably read that article! Funny to know you after all these years! You made me smile today. Thanks!
Fun blend of events. There’s more to my story, but guess I’ll have to wait & tell it in a blog post of my own. Still have not gone back to read the story, but I will – after all, some of the dogs are still frisking around! 😉
A wonderful description of fragmented distraction—how looking for a paper clip leads to cleaning out the office, etc., etc. —how too many days seem to go—but what an adventure, and with banana bread to boot (blueberries, hmmm)!
Love this post, Pat. The “duplicity approach” to the two very different topics of your stories just simply makes each story so very differently explain how people are.
I see you’ve stepped up your game Dubrava, your bread was delicious. An interesting combination of chocolate chips and nuts. Round 2 goes to Pat, but beware, I have barely begun to fight! Enjoy the calm before the storm, cause I’m gonna MAKE IT RAIN!!!!!!!!
Clear skies are expected through the weekend, then a new front is developing next week. Forecast for next week: RAIN!!!!!!!
You trying to scare me? Not working…
I know/knew these folks!! What a step back in time…. a good time…
So glad you found and enjoyed it, Jesse!
No.. thank you. That’s a great memory for me and was when my dad was in his “prime”.. life got hard on poets like him in the 90s and he only gave a handful of readings between 2000 and his death in 2009… he loved reading and I know he missed the scene and his friends in Denver. Thanks again and have a great holidays. You are loved…
It’s also a great photo and I was pleased you somehow ended up on my lap: I’ve always been a little camera shy and that made me more comfortable. I have another memory of you and your Dad: I was walking with a friend in Wash Park and a run was being held, a parent and child event. I saw you and your Dad cross the finish line. It must have been several years after the photo was taken.