CROSS COUNTRY #8 Snaking Up on Boulder

Goldie: Industrial district dotted with Mexican families reclining on porches in the sweet evening breeezes. We are lost. We keep calling the restaurant for directions but can't quite grasp the lilting Japanese voice which answers. We are rewarded for our persistence by

Barry: the emergence at the next intersection of an authentic Japanese country house. The building had been a gift from Japan. Dojo, museum  complex and meditation gardens are provided for "wondering" through while waiting for the food. All signals were good (no sushi and the signs said "don't ask for soy sauce"). It reminded me of the time in Italy when the waiter scornfully slammed down a bowl of olive oil - at our request to go with the bread - muttering "tourists!"

Goldie: It's called Domo in Denver, Colorado....sake was served in a laquer box....I learned from Cousin Bennie that Japanese houses are measured by the number of floor mats it takes to carpet them.

Barry: We knew we were in the West because a little while earlier we had seen men handsomely dressed with tuxedos and cowboy boots entering the opera house. The downtown Denver area is booming, areas previously dangerous have
been gentrified. Magnificent modern buildings have sprung up. Yet the streets are filled with people estranged from society and economically disadvantaged - ( politically correct.)

Goldie: He's learning! My social-worker eye wrestles with artist-awareness as pierced and spiked haired men and women cruise by our street-side café seats. Harleys roar past, shining neon greens, deep reds, topped by leather
coated studs smiling for sheer joy in the sunshine. Stark contrast to peachily prom-dressed daughters on the arms of
dads and moms heading to the opening of Romeo and Juliette at the opera.

Barry: In contrast, Boulder just forty minutes away nestled between the mountains, is a booming college town. The downtown area is alive with gardens, parks, music, expensive cute stores and restaurants. The sky is so deep deep blue, the clouds vividly contrasted - like looking through polarizing filters. The backdrop is the mountains, so close one can hike up
from any part of town. The town water supply is drawn from a zillion year old   melting glacier. Everyone is friendly and polite. Streets are lined with the healthiest, thin, athletic people I have ever seen.

Goldie: Though I'm not, I feel fat, have stopped looking in the mirror.

Barry: Nagging thought. This place is so perfect, what's wrong? The closest I can come to finding what it is, is that housing is expensive and with all these healthy young people and their alternative health practices, doctors cannot possibly make a living. They cannot even do counseling, because almost everyone is a therapist. Reb Zalman tells us the therapists survive by
counseling each other. Jan says that therapy has been replaced by something called "coaching" since people have either been through therapy or turned off by it. On the other hand, it's hard to find a house painter. Guess it's easier (and cheaper) to do guided visualization and learn to live with a bad paint job.

Barry: We hike up Chatauqua mountain trail behind Reb Zalman's home. It's sunny and hot, we are short of breath because of the altitude. Coming to a fork in the path, we take the right one up. There is a sign about one area being closed, but Goldie assures me it's the other fork. A couple of hundred yards further up, I see a ranger coming down round a bend in the path. He looks at me, raises his hand, and in a very authoritative voice says "stop."

Goldie: Uh, oh. I assume we're in trouble for being on the trail.

Barry: The ranger then points and not three feet from me is a five foot snake. He says not to worry ......it rattles and looks like a rattlesnake, but is in fact harmless.

Goldie: Synchronicity. Read a Smithsonian piece about camouflage that morning. Did you know that protective coloration wasn't an accepted theory until the 1950's!? Came upon a rattler on a trail in California last year and ran for my life. Ranger says (when I run smack into him on the trail) "never run, stand stock still if you see one or they'll go for you." Got
lucky! (Dry mouth, heart was pounding....)

Barry:    We drove about an hour north to visit Cindy and Jack Gabriel and DAVID in Fort Collins. (There never was a fort there, guess they called it that to scare away the Indians.)

Goldie: I won't wait in line for concert tickets, but the roadway to friends always feels easy to travel. Delighted to learn that Jack (ok, Yaakov) is half way through a new CD....did he say reggae-klezmer flavored!? Have you ever met a child prodigy? Thought I had but learned differently upon spending time with their two-year old son David. Reb Levi Yitzhok is
supposed to be in this kid's lineage somewhere.....such precision in language, kindness and ability to engage with people. Wow.

Goldie: Cindy fill me in on "co-housing." I have a passion for community     (Jan and Steve have found an safer version of Mt. Airy, PA to live in here - just great!) When Barry and I decide where to live when we grow up it must be rich in community.

Co-housing is where you own your own home or "unit", with a central commons that might have a guest house (that way one's home can be sized more efficiently), play areas, gallery space, communal meals a few nights a week..
usually no traffic allowed in and parking is on the periphery. Cindy took us to see an example....bunches of small children playing happily independently in the center, it was immediately congenial to my soul.There's a web-site for such projects around the nation (have to get the address from Cindy Gabriel) and it's rumored some Jews around San Diego hope
to form their own co-housing community. Those who know, please tell us more!
(Anything near NYC?)

Barry: Back in Denver, I am amused to find, after driving through miles of shopping malls and stores of every kind, a sign pointing to the shopping district. The Jewish population here has doubled in the past ten years (so that's where the Jews from smaller towns like Pottsville and Denver are migrating to.) Apparently they are all united by an interest in shopping, but
few are formally affiliated with synagogues.

Goldie: Steve's community is fascinating...some 800 members, initially made out of a confederation of havurot. Primary identity for most is through their specific havurah. He is treated with such appreciation and respect....lucky "wabbi".....they
must really get who he is!

Barry: In the intense Denver affluence, manicured lawns abound. Just read that a hundred years ago, lawns were rare and only owned by the rich. Now there is enough lawn in the USA to cover the entire state of Pennsylvania.
What about the butterflies, and the birds and the bees?
    Let them eat grass!

Goldie: Did we tell about the lost Jewish family of nine from Pakistan that has shown up in Denver...saris and all? Hmmm. That will be for the next posting.