One of my favorite pastimes, outside of plotting what to eat next and furtively watching my neighbors from my windows, is sorting out what exactly makes a given place different from other places. There’s climate and topography, sure, but there’s also dialect, food, culture, and retail. During our UK trip I was so excited to go into a Tesco for the first time that I still have the plastic shopping bags, which uhhhh is probably more enthusiasm for different experiences than strictly necessary.
Let’s not talk about what I did the first time I saw a Piggly-Wiggly.
Since moving to Colorado I’ve been trying to get a handle on the local flavor; what makes this region unique. I have to admit I haven’t yet fully figured it out. It seems so obvious with other places I’ve lived. I can easily recite, for example, a roll call of Michigan-centric delights such as Hockeytown references, party stores, cabins “up north,” paczki, pasties, Coney Islands, and Friday fish frys.
But here, I don’t know. The roots seem murky. Or maybe it’s just that it’s many roots all tangled together. Denver is somehow Midwest, Plains, and Mountain West without quite being any of them. It’s a city that manages to feel both urban and small town. It’s also a city that manages to feel more cowboy “old west” to me than anywhere else I’ve ever been, and that damned oversize statue of the bronco with burning red eyes that stands outside the airport doesn’t help.
I may not know exactly what makes Denver “Denver” yet, but I’ve put together a list of what makes it different, at least to me.
A sporting life
Having never lived in a city with an NFL team I have no useful measuring stick, here, but: Denverites seem fanatical about their football. On game day everyone from animals to the elderly are out wearing Broncos jerseys. It wasn’t enough that the contractors we hired to help remodel the house were proud season ticket holders, so they went out and got tattoos, too. In case I have forgotten that football exists during the day I am reminded at night when I catch a glimpse out my bedroom window of the tower lights downtown, which have burned a steady Broncos orange since the playoffs began.
There’s something about brick
California has few brick buildings because earthquakes. But where the Golden State is slacking, the Centennial State more than picks it up. Denver is a veritable brick paradise. A brick smorgasbord, if you will. Oh I will, and I do, sir. Up until this point of my life brick has only been something I see on the east coast or in the Pacific northwest, so imagine my cognitive dissonance every time I go out for a run and everything is awash in warm rusty red tones. My eyes make me think I’m on vacation! Then I go home and do work, and they cry.
Even my house is made of out brick! I don’t recognize my life anymore.
An altitude problem
How many stoners in Denver have turned to their buddies, broken into slow grins, and said: “Dude, man, we’re a mile HIGH right now.” All of them, apparently, because every smoke shop is named “Mile High.” Actually, everything from churches to stadiums to car dealerships to bakeries are named “Mile High.” Somehow people still know where to find things? Not sure how they manage.
Some facts about my altitude experience:
- I haven’t noticed a difference in how quickly my water boils.
- I haven’t noticed a difference in my baking.
- I am noticeably more thirsty.
- I acclimated quickly to exercise here, but when I go back to lower elevations I’m disappointed that it still feels like running and not, say, lying on a couch sipping a mimosa and softly chortling at a joke you just thought of.
- Sometimes I wonder if less oxygen to my brain has made me dumber? But then I get distracted by a blank spot on the wall and stop thinking about it.
If you are the kind of person who is interested in Instagramming yourself at exactly one mile above sea level, note that the 13th step of the Colorado State Capitol building is exactly the right height.
Dry, it isn’t just for names of PJ Harvey songs anymore
It’s dry here. It is so dry. I know you want to tell me a story about one time when you went to some desert place and it felt dry and I am about to silence you with a finger on your lips. No. That wasn’t dry. What you thought was dry was actually something more like a crotch in a pair of lederhosen on a summer’s day. No. I’m sorry, but that wasn’t at all dry.
Yesterday I glanced at an air molecule from across the room and my knuckles started bleeding. I know dry.
Holy rolling
There are so many churches here. SO MANY. CHURCHES. In my neighborhood there’s a different church on every block. Sometimes two. They range from popular assemblies housed in stately stone and glass to shakily hand-painted signs on what looks like a crumbling windowless garage (“Holy Ghost Gospel Bible Church of the Emmanuel John Paul Jehovah + Brimstone BBQ Jerk Chicken”).
Yeah, in Denver you can have a church on every corner, but a market that sells both booze and food has to keep them in separate rooms with separate entrances because apparently booze is a bad influence on food? Or something. On the other hand, here in Denver there’s also a brewery-slash-distillery on every other corner, so. I guess Coloradans just like to cover all their bases.
One person per sidewalk, please
Now that I live in the city this is almost a non-issue, but when we were living in the suburbs we noticed that the sidewalks were REALLY SKINNY. I thought two people abreast was a pretty standard sidewalk width, and then I came here and had my damn fool mind blown. When the beau and I tried to go on runs together someone either had to trail behind or limp along in the gutter, dodging parked cars. Why? I was baffled then, and I remain so now.
“Natives”
Like any other state which has experienced a population surge due to the misfortune of being ranked on a “Top Places to Live in the US” list, the folks who were born and raised here like to mark themselves as the chosen ones with strategically-placed “NATIVE” stickers. I sometimes feel bad admitting to a Coloradan that I’m one of the foreigners who rolled up in a moving truck to tromp all over their beautiful lands, from CALIFORNIA no less. Ask Oregon, they know all about stupid entitled ex-Californians ruining their 55-mph-limit roadways with dangerous 60-mph-plus driving. But then I remember that I was not a native of California, either, and that I’ve never actually been a native of anywhere. Perpetual leeching is my thing and always will be, I guess.
Wither the produce
No joke, back in California they had banned any food with sugar, salt, “bad” fats, GMOs, “slightly suspicious” fats, calories, and flavor (this is totally a joke). In California every grocery store is just one single aisle of celery, kale, and dried seaweed, lit by an a lone Edison light and presided over by a stern white-robed blond woman named Mother Emily. You had to sneak around to the back alley, knock slow four times and fast three times, and ask for Hector just to get your tofu and hemp milk fix. Once I was spotted by five-o and I had to drop the contraband and run, jumping fences, and I ended up in Tom Cruise’s backyard — well, I’m getting off track. Let’s just say I was shell-shocked the first time I walked into a grocery in Colorado and Cheetos started raining from the ceiling. A smiling clerk thrust a stack of boxed frozen pizza rolls in my arms and a powdered donut in my mouth and the next thing I remember is waking up the next day at home, head pounding, covered in Velveeta cheese and crumbled Mother’s pink and white circus animal cookies.
For real though, you go into a chain supermarket here and the “organic” section is one withered zucchini. Also, I tried to go to a farmers’ market last summer and it was 90% food trucks? I appreciate an artisan grilled PB&J as much as the next lady but I am just kind of at a loss for where to get local produce or, I mean, if they even have any here? They probably don’t. Living at the epicenter of agriculture spoiled me for other states forever. It’s like a WHOLE NEW FOOD WORLD out here in the old cowboy west.
That’s Emperor Supes to you
Speaking of new food worlds, I think Colorado’s regional chain supermarket takes the “weirdest name” prize. Are you ready? King Soopers. King! Soopers! What the fuck is thaaaaat! One of the beau’s bosses unwittingly calls it King Scoopers, so my pet name for this store is Pooper Scoopers, which I’m sure would thrill their marketing team immensely.
No really, my new aesthetician is from Wisconsin
Since I’m still going on about food, a good hint that Colorado is Midwest Redux is the ready stock of cheese curds and saurkraut in the grocery stores. Oh and outside of Denver, most of the state calls carbonated sugar water “pop,” not soda. SO CUTE. It’s like going back home to visit family except with fewer questions about my life choices.
So what’s different in your city or state?
Being a Chicago “native,” I don’t have many insights to offer besides “It’s the best,” or perhaps “it’s WOULD be the best if all of these nutty crime-fearing suburban Ohio moms would heard their masses of children into the American Girl store already and get out of my way. And also, stop taking my reservation at Bavette’s, I’ve been trying to get in for a year.”
Anywho, I laughed my way through this post, starting with your treasured Tesco bags 🙂
And girl, get yourself a humidifier if you don’t already have one! I would be a potato chip if I didn’t have this guy pumping every night: http://crane-usa.com/products/drop/white-drop/
When I moved here, I used to joke about how you could recognize Lawn Ghiland women anywhere in the world: pouffy hair and chrome. And then one day I accidentally pouffed my hair, and it looked kind’ve good to me, and that made me shut up forever.
But this corner of New York could easily be its own state, and I think the rest of NY would say good riddance. Except they’d miss the most excellent pizza.
A++, Lyn.
“Lawn Ghiland” = <3
Well done.
Not sure what to say about Ohio as it is the sort of societal touchstone for “normal” or “boring”. The city people are like city people every where, same for the country people.
Though yesterday, I asked a stranger for directions because I was late for a meeting and was panicking and they were like “Well, why I don’t I just walk you there since it’s on my way, it’s kind of tricky to find” and I was like, Ohio! What is life?
Love your post, and I have this habit too.
Some distinctive things about Boston, to which we recently moved from New York City (where I was also not a native):
-Red Sox mania, even when it is not baseball season.
-“triple-deckers” – the siding-covered, three-story analogues of New York’s tenements, but more spacious and with windows on all four sides, and usually front and/or back decks. This was and remains the dominant middle-class housing form in the city and promotes a pleasing neighborhood density.
-but you can never use your deck because IT IS ALWAYS COLD HERE. SO COLD.
-the subway stops running at like 12:30am, yet last call is at 1am. What???????
-if you go downtown, the average age of the crowd will hover somewhere around 22, so you will get used to feeling like a crone.
-the whole region having seemingly decided to live in peace and harmony, and not particularly caring what their neighbors are up to, you could forget that The Culture War is even a thing. It does not exist here. But racism does (quietly).
-the local produce season is short but the fish is seriously fresh.
-picturesque little steeples poking up everywhere.
-Dunkin Donuts exist at a density such that you can regularly stand in one place and see two of them. There are two places to eat in the local train station. Both of them are Dunkin Donuts. Twenty feet apart from each other. Not kidding.
I love this list. The Dunkin Donuts thing is crazy! I think I’d rather that than the ubiquitous Starbucks.
I think you’ve more or less got Denver down. I’d add “outdoorsy” to my list of Colorado characteristics, but that’s relative to Boston, because NO ONE GOES OUTSIDE HERE BECAUSE IT IS SO COLD. (Lethe, I agree with everything on your list!)
PS: GO BRONCOS
OMAHA!
I hear your King Soopers and raise you Overwaitea, a BC chain. Yes. Presumably pronounces “overweight-ea”. Our Store Will Make You Fat seems like a strange name to me, but BC is strange.
Calgary: faux-rodeo, oil and gas job as a default assumption when meeting someone, a downtown core that has +15s connecting all the buildings so you never have to go outside in the miserable winters, pop (soda sounds stupid to me), bitching about traffic, usually being the only native in the room ever, unless hanging out with friends, who are also locals, because it’s hard to bother making friends with new people because most last 5 years here: collect enough oil money, and go home. Also, glorious chinook winds that can take us from -20 to +10 in an afternoon, making the winter tolerable.
OK, BC wins. Overwaitea? The hell??
I’m from Oklahoma! Ask anyone what region OK is in, and you can get West, Southwest, Midwest, and South. Who the hell knows. I call it the Southern Midwest if I have to. Out of all of the states it’s the most like Texas, but without the annoying attitude. And we have a whole district in Oklahoma City called “Bricktown.” It’s awesome. As for chain stores — ever been to an In’N’Out or a Kum And Go?
Bricktown sounds right up my alley.
OMG, I’ve been to both — Colorado is actually my first experience with Kum and Go and I think I stared at the sign in disbelief for a full minute when I saw it.
As some who once made special stop on a road trip, so that I could check out a Stew Leonard’s, I appreciate your grocery store love!
I live in the District of Columbia (Most known for no one being from here). I didn’t grow up here, but in a few years, I’m going to have lived here longer than anywhere else, and then I’m going to start claiming it. Here are a few things that define DC for me:
Asking people what they do for a living within 30 seconds of meeting them (I am equally guilty of this. I’m curious!)
Khaki and generally being a sort of boring fashion town.
Rivalry between the Washington Football Team and the Dallas Cowboys (you’d be surprised how many Washingtonians are Dallas fans – this is because – in part – the Washington team has a history of being horribly racists and was the last all-White team in the NFL. Lovely).
Lots of Ethiopian food.
Lots of Salvadorean Food.
Half-smokes (DC’s own particular hot dog)
Jumbo Slice (pizza best eaten while drunk)
Following politics.
Humidity.
Everyone leaving town in August.
I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone else’s comments too. It’s neat to think about Place.