Helen Fischer
Joyce Kropewnicki
Couple from Northern Ireland
On a warm January Wednesday between snow storms my friend Helen and I ventured out at lunch time to watch the Stock Show parade down 17th Street in Denver. The snow was still piled high on the curbs from the two previous weekend snows.
As we waited in the sunshine for the parade to start, we struck up a conversation with a young couple visiting from Northern Ireland. They wanted to know what we were all doing lined up along the roadway. They had heard we had large quantities of snow and were surprised the streets were so well cleared off. In Ireland they said the snow would still be piled up in the road way. They were traveling through Denver on their way to Aspen to get married. They had known each other for three years and had planned this secret ceremony. They had to do some finagling to arrange for a church wedding as the Catholic Church in Aspen only wanted to marry members. With proper conversations with their priest in Ireland and the one in Aspen it was all arranged. The bride had kept this secret from her family including the purchase and fitting of the wedding gown which she had tucked in her luggage neatly hidden from her groom. There wedding was to be on Monday, January 15th which turned out to be one of the chill stopping days when the next Arctic blast hit Colorado.
Finally, the horseman came trotting down the street containing a herd of long-horns. Not quite the running of the bulls as you hear about in Spain, but bulls in the street nevertheless. The rodeo queens pranced by waiving wildly. Then the Belgiums and draft horses pulling great carriages and stage coaches. The Western Aires trotted by, criss-crossing in formation with flags flurrying. Freshly painted old time tractors buzzed along with one barring the brand name Oliver.
A couple of years ago, my brother Alan took us to the Stock Show. It’s one of those things you don’t go to unless out of town visitors set it up. My favorite was watching the teams of horses pulling fancied up wagons in competition with others. We walked through the cow barns and came across those shaggy cows. I snapped a photo of Alan. He had sent a photo years back with the same type of cow along side a road in Scotland.
No wonder Denver is known as a cow town.