S T O R I E S

In spite of the medical profession’s warnings against excessive drinking, one of the best benefits of going to bars is the probability of running into journalists. They are mostly newspaper people, some radio, and maybe a few TV people. The good thing about mature age is the capacity to look so far back.

My connection with The Post-News started with helping my four brothers carry papers in the 1950’s in North Denver. My brothers and I used our Schwinns, wagons, sleds and shoulder bags on our earliest jobs. After throwing the Sunday morning route, I would usually have a few extras and would stand at the intersection near the RockyBilt at 38th and Federal so I could sell the extras and buy one of RockyBilt’s “Taka-Homa-Saka” hamburgers. We would rise early, go to the local neighborhood “station” to pick up the bundles of papers, sometimes fold them there (trying to avoid the cost of rubber bands), put them in our paper bags and head off for delivery (my first station manager was Gene Smaldone). Our evening collections often interrupted a subscriber’s viewing of Carmen Basilio or some other fighter on the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports on black and white TV.

After finishing law school, in the late 60’s, I would go to the Frontier Hotel for lunch where Red Fenwick would often hold court with his “Evil Companions Club” – nearly all journalists along with some lawyers.

There are the old names: Bonfils, Tammen, Gene Fowler, Damon Runyon, Gene Cervi, Palmer Hoyt, Jack Foster, Harry Rhoads. They chronicled and put color in Denver’s history.

There were later encounters: Dick Connor (at Regis College in the early 60’s), Gene Amole and John Wolfe at KVOD, bantering, playing classical music, and selling whatever they could. My friend and client Jack Skinner built the Polo Club and was smart enough to have Amole describe the views of the mountains from the $70,000.00 penthouse (now worth millions) along with listening to his birds and helping us wake up. John kept the Denver Symphony and classical music alive for many years. I also read Bob Ewegen during my days at CU Law School in the early 60’s (along with Paul Danish). One memorable quote from the CU Daily: “A thief, a mountebank, no better than a common criminal.” Did it describe Eisenhower or Goldwater? I don’t remember other than the quote (this was not from either Ewegen or Danish, but they will remember). Ward Churchill is not the first person to have caused grief to CU.

Later times included: frequent visits with Gil Borelli, Dusty Saunders, and Bob Threlkeld at Ray Longo’s Subway Tavern for decades, with Dusty always playing Louie Prima, Sinatra, etc. on the jukebox; sitting in a bar booth with Greg Lopez and his beautiful wife Kathleen Bohland; meeting Patty Calhoun, Lew Cady and Dick Kreck at the Bamboo Hut, the Teller House bar (or dozens of other places). I think Paige used to drink; I never met him but I would see him occasionally at Lodo; his writing is still the best (although Troy Renck is approaching fast). My past includes suing to recover Palmer Hoyt’s paintings by Paul Gregg from the Hoof and Horn Steakhouse in St. Joseph, Missouri, where whiskey sours still reign.

The best was Jack Kisling – watching his decrepit grey head and stooped shoulders finally burdened by oxygen tanks as we attended the Central City Opera (that didn’t slow his intake of elixirs at the Teller House bar, Dostal Alley, etc.). I helped him in his last days with his signing legal papers as “Kkssllnng”. (“I can’t find any vowels”, he said). And the brilliant and sweet Jeff Bradley, the music critic who we lost way too soon. And Sue O’Brien, the always spunky, energetic editor lost to cancer a few years ago. And my countryman Pasquale Marranzino. Not all of them were in bars; Howard Pankratz was always in the courthouse with pencil and notebook (after I finished a long trial where we lost $1 and won $1, he inquired as to how I would collect my 1/3 contingent fee).

These people were the core, heart and souls of our City. Economics are always an issue, and maybe this purge is necessary in order to keep the papers in existence. Good newspapers and good journalism are more than entertainment. They are basic education. These losses create an increasing deficit in Denver’s intellectual and cultural fund. In deference to John Temple, and his effort to keep the papers going, my compensation for this piece is extremely modest (lawyers call it “love and affection”). We still have (I hope) Diane Carman, Mary Winter, Kevin Simpson and I am sure many others. I lost my older brother Fred last year, and with the departure of these writers, I feel similar sadness. My words then and now are: “We lost them, but we had them”. Would we be less having not had any of them? Oh, yeah. As Tony Soprano would say: “Waddayagonnado”?

Joseph M. Fanganello, Esq.
1650 Washington Street
Denver, CO 80203
303-832-3393
jfanglaw@solucian.com

(Joseph Fanganello’s family has been in Denver since 1894. He is in his 40th year of practicing law. He is a lover of good food, friends, music, drink, stories and all other things beautiful). Joe can be reached at jfanglaw@solucian.com.