At 81, Ted Alexander has every right to be picky about what sort of piano student he accepts. He is down to five now, and most will stay with him for the foreseeable future. Over the years, though, nearly 800 musical hopefuls have taken instruction from him in the room…

Littleton police detective Bryann Lynch unlocks the storage building, slides open its metal garage door and surveys, once again, the ninety-odd wedding dresses that hang there, their trumpet beads winking in the dim light. A few trains have drifted to the concrete floor. A bag of what Lynch calls “those…

In 1957, Bill Thom, then a high-school student in Hartford, Connecticut, played Vice President Alexander Throttlebottom in the senior production of Of Thee I Sing. Remember Of Thee I Sing? No? Well, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie…

Here’s my tortured premise. Just after 11:59 p.m. December 31, 1999, the Y2K disaster occurs, all right, but not exactly as foreseen. Instead of moving into the year 2000, not only do our computers roll back to 1900, but so does our computer-driven society. And so do we. At first…

The people in the picture on this page are all Denver musicians with at least twenty years’ seniority. Every one of them played with guitarist Tom Butters, who died of an overdose last week at age 46. And they are just a handful of the players who show up for…

Somewhere in all the historic hairdo magazines is that one article that will remind Ethel Gomez how to build a beehive. Here, under the candy dish? There, by the invoice for the faux Titanic jewelry sitting in the display case next to the Kewpie dolls that double as air fresheners?…

It is always at the least practical time–with black-ice season just around the corner, with kids requiring hauling to school activities, with a heightened awareness of passenger safety–that anyone who is truly hooked on motorcycles suddenly needs a fix. I want a new bike, and I want it now. Although…

Prepare yourself. I’m about to drop some impressive names. Well, two of them, anyway. 1. Jane Smiley. Author of A Thousand Acres and Moo. Famous writer and writing professor. 2. The New York Times. I am too old to be overly impressed by two such symbols of the writing world…

Maria Garcia is a listener of such intensity that strangers at the coffee shop where she’s sitting feel her presence as a prickle on the backs of their necks. With both hands on the table, she sits, listening, making mental notes of everything. If this meeting were work-related, she would…

You will be treated very hospitably by Vivian Brock, retired art teacher and lifelong raspberry zealot. If you are even remotely civil, she will fix you a cup of raspberry tea, give you a couple of perfect raspberry plants, autograph a copy of her new book, Raspberry Story, and perhaps…

For six hours we’ve been surrounded by elk we never see. They move around us in tight circles, mating, pooping, bugling, but always invisible. How can this be? After all, between the two of us, we have one person who knows hunting backward and forward and one who at least…

For years you have had the same fleeting thought as you drove by: Jeez, that place looks old. I’ll bet it hasn’t changed since 1944–or 1896, or the Seventies, or Prohibition. And as it turns out, looks are rarely deceiving. Because one day, when you finally stop and open the…

Here is the gospel according to Miss Hill: “You have five seconds to make a good impression. It’s packaging. You don’t buy things in a yucky package, do you? And perhaps you’ve bought inferior products because they were in a nice package, haven’t you?” I have, I now realize. And…

True glamour is something I achieved one night three years ago, when I accessorized a $15 silver evening gown from TJ Maxx with plaid Wile E. Coyote sneakers and a child’s toy tiara. Although I have not worn the dress since, the tiara has proved a remarkably useful hair ornament,…

There are no farm implements left at the Clatworthy Company, the Fort Morgan business that was once the oldest International Harvester distributor in the United States. They’ve all been auctioned off. In 1990 Clatworthy decided to concentrate on automobiles instead of farm machinery. But because of the GM strike, there…

Sonja Winfield works in the trenches–the pink, lacy trenches of the Joslins Intimate Apparel department. What goes on here, though, is neither rakishly romantic nor deliciously self-indulgent. Most of the time, it’s not even fun. “It’s a good thing I like -ologies,” says Sonja, the chain’s expert bra fitter. “Psychology,…

There’s not a cloud in the sky. If Neil Slade were just another picnicker at Mt. Falcon Park, this would be an auspicious sign. But Neil was looking forward to something cushy and cumulus. If it were floating in the sky above him right now, he’d deign to show off…

There is one point of fact upon which Ron Siegfried and the City of Lakewood agree. Here it is: When code-enforcement officer John Holmes came to tell Siegfried that his grass was too long and neighbors had complained, Siegfried was indignant and unrepentant. “I’m an American,” both parties agree he…

In honor of Take-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day, I am taking my daughters to fish. I am not much of a worker and even less of a fisherman, but everyone knows that fishing is more fun than work. Also, it requires two tons of mojo to raise a girl. Girls are scary. A…

Jim and Amy’s most ambitious number may never be seen. Three years of practice, and it keeps getting tangled in twists of fate. Last year, just before the State Artistic Skate Meet in Greeley, Jim and Amy were rear-ended; the accident landed them in therapy for months. The year before…

“Miss? Hey, Miss! She wants to–” “Miss who?” Miss Holder asks, fixing the two girls with her gunfighter look. “Miss, uh, you know…” “Nope. I don’t. You tell me.” “Miss…Holder! Miss Holder, she wants to talk to you, Miss.” “Aha! And you’re her interpreter?” “That’s right, and she–” “And how…

Monica Thomas is in the enviable position of being able to say yes to almost all the requests she gets–and she rarely gets the same request twice. “Now, who is that woman in Arvada?” Thomas asks herself. “She called for permission to dress up her RTD stop, to change it…