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John Sadwith sees a neighbor up ahead and lets his foot off the gas, bringing his gold Toyota Camry to a stop in front of a split-level house in Denver’s tony Crestmoor neighborhood. “We won!” he yells out the window. “Won what?” the woman asks. “Ambrosia Bistro,” Sadwith explains. “Oh,…

Two guys, one with a walker and the other with a cane, sit at opposite ends of a long table at the boarding home. “Hey, there. How are you doing?” “Getting along. Getting along.” “Better than me.” “Oh, I don’t know about that.” The guy with the walker is William…

Last Friday night was not Sam Riddle’s finest hour–on or off the clock. But his arrest for disobeying a lawful order and mouthing off at a pair of Denver police officers–followed by a sobering night in the slammer–was just the capper on what had been a truly lousy week for…

A Word to the Wives Juliet Wittman’s July 15 “Dead Reckoning” was an excellent story. Well-researched and very evocative as to person, place, time and the circumstances of both women’s lives. I loved how a “rough-and-tumble” life such as Robson’s was still presented in the context of her value as…

By the beginning of this year, Deanna Furlong had been thinking about divorcing her husband, Michael, for over two years. On the afternoon of January 5, she left work early and returned to their Longmont home, intent on getting him to sign divorce papers. By evening, she lay dying at…

There was a time when Louis Colaiannia gave up playing the piano. The decision to quit came shortly after a large, drunk and clearly unhappy patron of the arts tried to heave one on top of him. This was twenty years ago, in the decade of wide lapels and Earth…

No lawyers, jurors or judges are in this small room in southwest Denver, but a seventeen-year-old boy is about to be sentenced for spray-painting four buildings along Federal Boulevard. Minutes before he is led into the room by his father, five community members–including the store manager of one of the…

Out of Focus: You’d never mistake Peter Boyles for a member of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family broadcasters. Although the KHOW talk-show host boringly believes we all must take responsibility for our actions–he makes no secret of the fact that he’s been sober for well over a decade–Boyles is…

Here in Rocky the Leprechaun’s converted Evergreen garage, Mark Speck has reached ground-zero for his Y2K doubts. He eyes the display of thirty No. 10-sized cans of Mountain House freeze-dried foods. Rocky looks on. “I only carry main dishes,” says Rocky. “Mmmm. Chocolate,” says Mark, before turning his attention to…

Beer Today, Gone Tomorrow I can’t thank you enough for the incredibly realistic portrayal of the Coors Field vendors in Justin Berton’s “Blood Sweat and Beers,” in the July 8 issue. Having been a vendor with the Rockies for their first five years, it brought a smile to my face…

Unit 500 of the Denver Dry Lofts will be complete in sixty days and then, if you have a million-three, you can have it all: Four-thousand square feet indoors and four thousand out on a roof garden dotted with fountains and French doors. Since most of the indoor space is…

Monty Dalrymple was feeling dizzy and had just lain down in his motel room when the pain hit. It is nearly impossible to explain that kind of pain to someone who has never had a heart attack. “It’s almost like Arnold Schwarzenegger takes your chest and twists it like a…

The first triple play ever at Coors Field happened during the bottom of the fifth inning of a night game on June 14. With runners at first and second base, Colorado Rockies batter Edgard Clemente hit a sharp ground ball to San Francisco Giants third baseman Bill Mueller. Mueller quickly…

Separation anxiety: Now that Ocean Journey is open, it looks like the Denver Zoo recognizes it has some competition for cute and cuddly animal stories, an area it used to have all to itself. A billboard at 15th and Platte streets–a corner that is conspicuously close to Ocean Journey, with…

An urban anthropologist looking for the perfect example of the place where Denver’s past and future come together couldn’t do better than the neighborhood around 20th and Park avenues. On one side of the street, Post Properties is spending millions of dollars to transform the old St. Luke’s hospital site…

The doughy smell of pig in a blanket hangs heavy in the air. Grapes that either rolled out of their cold white fruit cups or were thrown during a food fight are squashed by a parade of feet. Puddles of milk gather in the corners of yellow lunch trays. Above…

Tom Broemmel and his wife, Lani Lee, received a prompt welcome-to-the-neighborhood gesture when they moved from North Carolina and opened the LoDo Inn at 16th and Wazee Streets last October. The couple got a letter from nearby LoDo’s Bar & Grill that read, in short: Stop using the name “LoDo”…

Sam Riddle is Colorado’s man of the hour. The $250 hour. Next Monday, members of the Legislative Audit Committee (who, as lawmakers, collect considerably less for their labors than Riddle does for consulting) will dissect the state auditor’s report on Riddle’s deal, a personal-services contract with Secretary of State Victoria…

Ron Domenick, dealer of model trains and antique china, gulps the dregs of his morning coffee and slams a meaty fist on the counter. “You want to know what’s really going on?” he asks. “Come on, I’ll show you. No bullshit.” Domenick, a burly guy with a beard, ponytail and…

When Cartoons Are Outlawed … Regarding the July 1 Off Limits: M. Wartella’s “Sell Your Soul to Evil” cartoon clearly expresses satire and was not meant to be taken seriously–it was in part to amuse, and also to make us think. The other responses reinforce the age-old observation that people…