Jun. 23, 2007 - 20:33 MDT

SIFTING MEMORIES

Long ago, but in this area and town I had reached the age that I enjoyed stage shows of most any kind. Mom and Dad would occasionally take me to the Manhattan Restaurant (I think was on Larimer Street) for a high falutin� dinner. Me in my best clothes and on my best manners. And then to the theater after dinner. A rather toned down burlesque was the fare usually, singing, dancing, comedy and acrobatic - juggling - and things like that Vaudeville they called it.

This was before the sing-alongs �Follow the dancing ball� were Shown on screens between reels of film.

Thinking about this and leafing through the book I was given on Father�s Day, I spotted a picture of The Broadway Theater. I can�t remember the Hotel Metropole, but I do remember going into the theater itself. The theater was in that hotel.

The shows there were operettas and things like that, I loved them. One show we went to was No No Nanette, which had a villainous character named Gasbarge. The name itself I found hilarious and I did enjoy the music.

I found out that my Grandmother was a housekeeper in the hotel and remained when it was incorporated into the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

The Cosmo has since been torn down, one of the things we bought was a coin drawer from the cash register at the desk, wooden and rasped by coins in and out. Another thing we bought was a semicircular slab of marble, highly polished along with the brackets that allowed it to be mounted as a table against a wall. It was small but grand, mounted in our front entry with a mirror above it and a dried flower arrangement on it.

In a way I was sorry when the movies came to town because they cut the stage shows down so rapidly. The first picture show I saw was Lon Chaney in Phantom Of The Opera, but Hoot Gibson in Cowboy movies became my favorite.. Then, what did the call it ? Vitaphone, the talkies, sound and fury replaced the mood music of the pianists in each movie house.

I didn�t see the Tabor Grand Opera House torn down, but did witness a bit of the demolishment of the Denver Theater, a part of where they tore out the pipes from the old organ, I mourned that sad thing, memories of the rising of the console from the sub-floor of the theater, seemed as if they were tearing out part of my body.

Oh, back then downtown was so different than now. Most every man wore a suit, with vest, necktie and hat and the women dresses, gloves and the latest they could afford in millinery, never did shabby shoes appear either. A different time, a different world it seemed.

So tonight I sit here looking at my book and SIFTING MEMORIES . . . . . . .

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