What Is And What Never Will Be Again

 It was a golden pleasure dome. Well, it was brass and a lot of dark wood. It was The Broker, and back in the day it was the place to be seen in Boulder, Colorado. At that time, it was one of the focal points to the story printed in Newsweek magazine describing my hometown as "where the hip meet to trip." In 1980, this was a too-cute way to make the observation that "cool" people were now flocking to this once and future hippie mecca to experience the next wave of hedonism. The Broker, located on one side of campus while the Harvest House sat on the other, comprised the way stations for these cultural pilgrims. I feel compelled at this point to mention that the drug use was rampant at that point for certain, but the chemical of choice was not hallucinogens, but rather cocaine. Lots of it. This created plenty of obnoxious behavior and the money requited to fuel the habits of all those young upwardly mobile typed needed an opulent surrounding. That's what the Broker was.

Back then.

 Recently, my family and I stayed in that hotel while on a visit from California. My wife and I had vivid memories of how things used to be. In those days, we never imagined that we would stay in the rooms adjacent to the restaurant and bar. That was for the cool kids who booked rooms there after the high school dance, where they could drink. And negotiate their virginities. And maybe do some of those drugs that everyone seemed to know about. When I was a little older, the bar became a part of a circuit that included The Dark Horse Saloon, just a short stumble across the parking lot. It was on the Broker's dance floor that I danced before I could walk just a month and a half after my reconstructive knee surgery. The drugs involved in that evolutionary tale were primarily those found in Miller Lite. It was a more profound mix of chemicals and a swing set six weeks prior that had put me in need of that reconstructive knee surgery. Not tripping so much as falling. 

All of this history is what brought me to booking a room all those years later, only to find that the hard times that had fallen on so many monuments to my misspent youth had paid a visit to the Broker Inn. The air conditioner sounded like it was made by Black and Decker when it started up, and the entry way smelled as if a chain-smoking cat had missed the litter box there for several days before we got there. There was no phone in the room to call down to the desk to ask for maid service or even an extra roll of toilet paper, which we solved by borrowing from a nearby room. I tried to imagine how impressed a date would be if I were to drag her up to this room in hopes of resolving the discussion of taking our relationship to the next level. Whatever that was. I'm guessing that the chain-smoking cat would have put an end to that interaction long before we ever discussed calling down for room service. Because there wasn't any. The restaurant had been closed years before, and now the "Continental Breakfast" that was offered came in paper bags: a plastic wrapped Danish, an apple and a can of apple juice. So much for the gilded age glory of my recollections. This forced the phrase, "you can't go home again" into my head. I answered back, "Well, you can go home again, just don't expect room service."

Which is reasonable. The guy at the front desk listened to our complaints with resigned interest, and told us a story about new ownership wanting to return the place to its former glory. And we listened with resigned interest. We had come home again, and it was kind of scary. But I suppose it would be worse if things had stayed the way they were back in 1980. We couldn't have gotten a reservation back then.