When I first moved to Colorado I lived at the KOA Campground in Basalt. In February. With all my heaviest Florida winter clothes. They weren't much help trying to sleep in sub-zero temperatures. I remember shivering a lot. An awful lot.
If you were standing at the corner of Hopkins outside the police station and turned left, you'd see The Aspen Drug (blue building) and Aspen Mountain (Ajax) in the background.
A view from Cooper Street. The building with the gold turret and flag was the grocery store. The tall brick building on the right is Andre's, a 3-story disco with a roof that opened to let snow fall inside while patrons were dancing. Really.
Yesterday I mentioned something about snowflakes ... we were standing on the curb behind and just a bit to the left of where the guy in the white shirt and denim jacket is. There's Andre's again in the middle, with the blue awnings. The Paragon is just a few steps behind where I was standing, on the right. And Chisholm's is behind the woman's head.
The Aspen Police Department used front-wheel-drive Saabs as their patrol cars.
I forget the name of this place, but they sold handmade mocassins and changed the gorilla's clothes weekly.
The placard might say The Red Onion was a hotel but actually it was a brothel in the late 1890s. The Onion had been turned into a restaurant and changed hands frequently, staying closed for months. At one point Jimmy Buffet was a co-owner. One night I had the chance to walk through the un-rennovated upstairs where the working girls had entertained clients. The rooms were surprisingly small, considering.
Chisholm's was under Crossroads Drugs. Chisholm's was a c&w place that got rowdy, probably in part because they had live music and sold bottleneck beer for a dollar ... but still had nothing like the reputation The Pub brandished ... well, that's another story we'll get to later. Maybe.
Aah, here it is ... The Paragon. The Paragon was a Chicago-style disco: modern on one side and period Victorian on the other. Employees often rented rooms upstairs as a perk. The locals called it by another named that rhymed with tenderloin. Imagine songs like "We Are Family" shaking bricks loose from the walls. One night when it started snowing I parked my motorcycle outside the window on the right. Right on the mall. But I only did it that one time.Wearing Different Hats Department
From my stint at Executive Security International.
The Wine Party was an annual invitation-only event at the top of Ajax. I'd worked third the night before, got off work, caught the ski lift up the mountain to stand around checking invitations till 5PM, skiied down afterwards ... and pulled another shift that night without ever falling asleep.
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