Tuesday, June 19, 2012

PART IV. GO WEST! COLORADO! My life in New York



MY FIRST USA
MY FIRST "NEW YORK"!

ON THE ROAD TO GREELEY - GARDEN CITY-LOVELAND - TO COLORADO!


Go west!", said Horace Greeley, when people asked him in New York where to go. I follow Horace Greeley' s words. But I don't leave the East as quickly as I would like. I leave the European space of the East. The East of Berlin. I still head for the East. Another East, east coast of the USA - New York with its wilderness and its dangers.  I take just one book with; the precious novel "Amerika" from Franz Kafka to be inspired. I follow Franz Kafka from Prague through Berlin and now to New York, isn't it fantastic? More than that - yes, it is. I am happy. Its my first stay in the USA. I booked my ticket in Berlin to Denver.I have some time to wait in New York to continue to Denver. But in fact I go to Greeley.
But let's visit New York now. I have three hours to spend there. I have exact two hours to go from the JFK airport to the downtown and back. I have approximately  30 minutes to spend in the downtown. Where ever I arrive in the downtown it will be fine. Its a great chance to see NY before going in the middle of the USA, to Greeley. I take the LIRR to be quickly in the downtown. I arrive at the Pen station. So far so good - I can see from the train the skyline of Manhattan. Manhattan its the best place to see it - New York. As well as in Berlin Brandeburger Tor and the 17. Juni Avenue or in Prague The Charles Bridge and Prague' s Castle, all in one; at one place. New York a great atmosphere, heavy traffic and hastily moving people. I am here!

GREELEY SQUARE!!!

I go out from the metro, and first what I can see is in the air proudly hanging the tower of the Empire States Building, wow! That' s it. And the second what I see, my eyes cannot believe it I stand directly at the Greeley Square. That' s really the destiny about Greeley! I take the picture. I have 20 minutes left... I walk to the Empire States Building, I look around and go already back to the Greeley Square... its the best time to go back to the airport not to miss my plane to Denver, sorry to Greeley! I land in Denver. I go to Greeley in the night. I cannot see anything. I am curious about the "famous" town Greeley.
I am going to visit Joe Lee Parker, who I got to know in Berlin, who lives with his very kind mother. And I visit my friend from my childhood Petra who lives in Breckenridge. But firstly I visit the family Parker and the town Greeley. I start there my first stay in the USA. Family Parker and Greeley.  My friends in Europe skype me and ask me where is it? Let's get to know the town in Northern Colorado. Misses Parker tells me some facts about Greeley. Let me tell you how I understand this part of Northern Colorado. Let' s read it with my European eyes and mind.
There is an important personality with whom everything started, his name is Horace Greeley. He was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, and a politician. His New York Tribune was America's most influential newspaper from the 1840s to the 1870s. Mr. Meeker, the manager of Horace Greeley was sent by Horace Greeley to establish a new settlement which was called the Union Colony. The plan was to lay down a foundation of a colony and to make rules like in a paradise. People should live without a sin.  New people coming to Colorado where was just a prairie and the mountains were happy to find a place where to live.
I understand it. A nice idea. For me its not hard to understand what it means a paradise. I was born in Paradise, it calls Bohemian Paradise.  So I know how does it feel to settle down in a paradise and how people could be keen on that idea. What a wonderful deal! The world was made in paradise and of idealism! A paradise means place without a sin! What blessings in disguise!
Well, there is an idealism about the paradise at the beginning; that had people who moved to the paradise in Union Colony.
IT IS A SIN!

From the very beginning people caught the imagination of the Union Colony as a paradise. The Union was good and needed, it filled the empty place of huge Colorado country. They settled down, they worked hard. There was no time for a sin. After a while they needed to be taken off the problems, to have just a fun. The people missed some fun, just to spend a nice time laughing and celebrating. Nothing can go wrong if they have some fun! Not only working! What the people of the Union, mostly the men missed was their "first" sin which was the alcohol.
Did they get to the alcohol? Just opposite of the Union Colony settled another sort of people, sort of rowdies.  Rowdies laughed at them, they said they waste their life. They wanted to seduce people from the Union' s paradise to do a sin, well to drink the alcohol. These rowdies grounded their own paradise, called the Garden City and they organized the garden parties. Many dances and parties were held there. It flamed through the Colony. People from the paradise were envy and suffered by watching the garden's parties. Because there in Garden City people seemed to be luckier than the people of the Union Colony... They realized that they are not so happy as the rowdies look like. Well without a sin there is no happiness. So they used to go very often to the Garden City to drink. The Garden City was wild enough to suit everybody. But after a while they already realized they miss something more! It is a love... to make love with the women of the Colony! But in Colony' s paradise there was prohibited to do any sin... not even to make love there. What to do? Everybody suffered. They suffered again and again. The alcohol was not enough satisfying for them.
"If it goes up any further we will leave", they proclaimed.

NO REAL JOY OF LIFE?

After a long time of celebrations men couldn't commute, there wasn't much breath, they complained again. What a tiny, stratospheric ledge! Especially after the celebrations. everybody wanted to live up. There were the arguments against the rules of the Colony. They wanted to relieve the dreadful evil monotony of jingling glasses and clicking chips. Every species of deviltry can be called into existence at any moment. In the glare of endless rows of candles and kerosene lamps.. there was no real joy of life!

GO TO LOVELAND

When suddenly one man came along with an interesting news, that there is about 20 miles a civilized land called Loveland. A better paradise! Just for a love and making a love to satisfy. What a good news! Most of them were happy to know about this part of country where people are allowed to make a love. Lots of them left Colony for Loveland. Better to live there than in a place without any sin. What a boring life! What a happiness with a sin. And the fame about the real paradise of Loveland spread quickly through Union Colony! Horace Greeley heard about it in New York and became fearful that the settlement, his own paradise could disappear when everybody moves to Loveland. He announced: "People, let's feel free and build town Greeley and do in the town all what you need and want. You need not to go to Garden City to have garden parties and drink only there the alcohol, let's have the bars in Greeley. And you need not to go to Loveland to have and make a love only there, let`s have fun center in Greeley. Let´s live the sins like we do it in New York! The paradise of Union Colony will be now named after me, the town Greeley! " And it happened as Horace Greeley allowed and ordered. It became the shopping center and transportation center and fun center with the bars. Greeley became a free minded city as the land of the USA wants to be. It kept spreading, and enjoying itself. "The people have to come to stay and build their town to last." Everything is true. It was true then; it is still true today. I imagine just a little bit. I travel through this part of country and visit Garden City and Loveland and remember my Bohemian Paradise. Even I also had to leave the Bohemian Paradise to see the world with all the sins we people share.

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