Pam’s Blog

Please join Pam Bennett at Dry Dock Brewery

For lively conversation, campaign updates and of course, famous Dry Dock brews!

  Please invite all your friends and neighbors to come out and meet Pam at Dry Dock as well! 

We’ll lift a glass we chat about the issues that matter to YOU!

 Date:       Wednesday, August 19, 2009

At:           Dry Dock Brewing

15110 E Hampden Ave

Aurora, CO 80014-3906

Time:      5:00pm  to 7:00pm

 $25 requested donation

 We look forward to seeing you there!!

Tracie Sheppard

720-290-9025

What a good meeting I just came from.  The Havana automobile dealers and a few others had a meeting with Rep. Ed Perlmutter at the Budget Car Sales Store on Havana.  We were in the shop area, for those wondering about that – these are the owners of car dealerships, a shop bay is a natural environment.  I like the shop environment too (see my diaries about a NASCAR track).

Talking to the dealers before the meeting confirmed what I expected about the stimulus money, termed “cash for clunkers”.  It worked as intended.  People did buy new cars, people did trade in their older cars.  Also, the dealers worked hard to even try to make deals with those whose cars were not on the official lists.  But, every one of the dealers said the same thing – it needs to be extended.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter came by and the nitty gritty meeting started.  Ed gave us a Congressional run down on what is happening, what happened and what he hopes will happen with the holders of the economic pen.  The encouraging news is the economy may be bottomed.  The bad is that the regulators are not letting loose of the credit yet.

The questions were good, for the most part.  The dealers are business people and asked what is going to be done to help them survive the recession. They also wanted to know what might be happening in the future. Ed had some encouragement, and a lot of “it depends on the Senate”.

For  me the main meeting was being able to talk to all the dealers to get their own sense of what is going on.  We pretty much came to the same conclusion at the same time when Perlmutter noted how large a group was in attendance.  It was because the business owners along Havana had formed their own Business Improvement District to tax themselves to improve their businesses and Havana.  They are working towards a common goal of success.  I know they will do it too. 

A question that nagged me a bit was could this be just a way to “bailout” the car manufacturers and the dealers?  Yes and no.  Yes because getting people buying cars using the incentives of more fuel economy in a new car and getting it at a cheaper price is great for the dealer.  No because this gives people worried about spending any money a reason to buy a major ticket item, a car.  Something not talked about in the media is the absolute stop to people spending money.  This little program is one of the needed government programs to “jumpstart” the economy.

The American economy is consumers buying and businesses selling. Well, there hasn’t been any buying and selling and the American economy is in the basement.  This narrowly targeted 1 (one each) billion of a multi-trillion dollar budget is almost nothing. Yet it can be the little acorn that grows into a new and mighty oak (lame for this could be the start of the new and recovered Aurora and America).

And finally, a great buffet was provided by restaurants of Havana BID. Great.  There was so much left over I got to bring a couple of chili cheese dogs home for late dinner.  This was an excellent meeting and hopefully a nice start to a new economy here.

Libraries are the repository of a community’s knowledge.  To say stored or collected knowledge is unnecessary or only for those willing to pay a high price is to say the community is no longer a community.  Human knowledge is to be shared allowing all people to think and create a better world for all of us. Libraries are where we put our human thoughts for all to use and improve on.

From the earliest of human time when cave drawings were possibly the collected knowledge of the hunters; to Thomas Jefferson providing the books for the Library of Congress; to our modern electronic libraries.  Which contain more information for more people than anyone could have imagined just a few years ago.  It is that information we can study that is what separates us as humans from our pets and livestock.   

Last night at the Aurora City Council Meeting (July 13, 2009) two hundred people came to show their support for changing the way we, the people, of Aurora pay for our libraries.  Instead of relying on sales taxes like we do right now, and there are precious few sales taxes being collected to even pay for our public safety, we will create a steady payment using our own property taxes. 

We pay for our schools with property taxes. It has never been logical to not fund our libraries the same way.  School children need libraries for information and the knowledge that has been stored for them.  The internet is available for those who do not have home computers and internet access.  Fact and fiction, maps and magazines, everything we humans have created over time is and should always be available to better ourselves.

I support the change of how we fund our libraries.  I will proudly mark my ballot to keep our libraries open so school children can have a quiet place to learn, and adults can continue learning; and all can go to find books to sit back and enjoy. I will vote to keep our Aurora the wonderful and modern city we are.

Part 1 was about my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary.  This diary concerns the second anniversary, that of my discovering Dry Dock Brewing.  Discovery is the key word.  Unless you were dedicated to searching you would never have found the original Dry Dock.  There was a tiny sign (Brewery) on the back of a building you would never have thought of as the home of a world class brewery.

Although locating the Dry Dock Brewery was difficult, once I did enter I joined in with Aurora’s men and women who enjoy a great beer.  The location was very small, in fact smaller than some homes living rooms.  But, physical size did not keep Kevin DeLange along with brewers Jim Denier and Lachlan McLean from creating world class beers.  World Class Gold and Bronze Medals, State Fair Gold Medals and assorted other awards decorated the wall behind the taps.

It was the original “tasting room” that we said goodbye to last night, June 20, 2009.  Tasting room was more like three feet by 12 feet of get to know who is sitting and standing with you very well.  It was great.  Many friendships developed there due to the very closeness. That was the old brewery.

A couple of years ago Kevin and Jim wanted to expand their location, or move to another location.  The original Dry Dock was cramped and unable to support the growth that was occurring and planned. That began a search of no small matter.  One requirement was for a water supply the same as or identical to what was being used.  Some research showed where the water was.  The problem was finding and leasing a location that was usable.  The market and city code came into play with that.

It took over a year to finally find the building, in this case they were able to stay in the same building, just move east.  More city zoning and code work was encountered slowing down the creation of a larger brewery (micro by Colorado standards).  Finally after months of slow down the building was ready.

A new world class brewery is created from the old world class brewery. And, with a sign that can be seen from Hampden and Chambers. The future is finally now.

OBTW, the shops of a few of the women who got together to develop better ways to market their businesses are in the same shopping center, look for Little Tykes.  Also, there are fine Aurora restaurants there too.

This weekend and the previous have had a couple of different celebrations of the old and the future.  First each was a celebration of anniversaries. Second each had the future in hand.  Last weekend my family celebrated my parent’s 60th wedding anniversary.  This weekend was roughly the 3rd anniversary of my discovery of Aurora’s brewery, Dry Dock Brewery.  This diary is for my parents.

 Many couples (and their family and friends) are often amazed when they are still together to celebrate their 5th or 10th anniversaries.  With the divorce rate about 50% and no reliable number of those who have separated, it is very infrequent to hear about couples celebrating their 50th anniversary and even more rare to hear about couples celebrating their 60th anniversary.  Well, I am proud to say my parents did celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary last weekend. 

10 years ago we held their 50th anniversary in Estes Park and invited all of our relatives and their friends to attend.  It was a major party, with about 100 people coming from around the country to celebrate such an important anniversary.  For the most part, their friends who could attend, the altitude is a problem for many people, had a great time.  The mountains and Estes Park weekend provided a wonderful time in Colorado.

Last weekend was more intimate, only our family and a few of their neighbors were invited. The health of my father is no longer hale and hearty.  He is no longer the athletic father I knew decades ago.  My mother has proven herself to be a computer person; her skills with Adobe Photoshop are amazing. OBTW she is 82.

For my parents it was a weekend of getting to see and hold their great-grandchildren.  For me it was a weekend of meeting and seeing my nieces and nephews AND grand-nieces and grand-nephews for the first time.  Also, my meeting a couple of nephews for the first time.  They are in their 20’s and early 30’s.

What struck me more than anything were the parallels to many stories and poems I have read over the years about aging parents and the new generations coming along.  It was all there.  From my parents in their 80’s, to their great-grandchildren (my grand-nieces and nephews) every one of us could see the generations carrying forth. The future was there.

This Memorial Day was wetter than most other Memorial Days I have experienced.  We have had close calls and “high humidity” during other ceremonies on this special day, but nothing like the downpour of today.  It is good for the living to have such a rainfall.

Memorial Day has always been a special day in my family.  It was known as Decoration Day too, a day when I was always given a poppy to wear by my Grandmother.  Her brother was a member of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI.  My Grandfather, her husband, lost his brother in WWI when the ship he was serving on was torpedoed and sunk by a German U boat.

Many members of my family have served in various branches of the U. S. military for many generations going back at least as far as the Civil War (actually the Confederacy in that terrible war).  Of my family tree, several branches were cut down prematurely because of war.  It is these who we honor on Memorial Day.

Our U. S. Memorial Day has more meaning to me because other members of my family were killed fighting enemies.  In particular is my Great-Grandmother, who died while fighting the Soviets in the Winter War of 1939.  It is important to remember our family’s traditions too on this day of recognition of our military dead.

Wow.  What a day of walking it turned out to be.  We targeted four precincts for our first walk of this campaign season.  Turned out we did great.  Lots of good talking and data about the neighborhoods and issues the good voters of Aurora have.  Issues for the early campaign confirmed along with some points that will be important later.

I have to thank my volunteers for coming out and walking on this gorgeous Sunday afternoon.  Their post walk comments were interesting, most of the comments about how it felt to be out walking for the first time.  All of them had worked and walked for the Obama campaign along with the state level offices.  So Thank You important volunteers!

During the last year I had worked on improving how the walks for my campaign were staged and completed.  Much of what a single house or senate district does is good, but when planning for a city the size of Aurora it gets a little more involved.  Today’s precincts were in four different house districts (or four different Aurora wards).  The good news is the new staging methods worked very well, except for putting the voter registration forms in the walk packets on all the clipboards.

We are now ready to bring in all the volunteers to walk the remaining 185 precincts.

The Rocky Mountain Stamp Show (RMSS) was held this weekend, continuing an unbroken string of 60 years of happiness for stamp collectors.  I like to admit I am a long time stamp collector; my first album was given to me when the Eisenhower administration ended and the Kennedy administration began.

I try to volunteer at the RMSS each year because I enjoy meeting other collectors and the dealers.  The highlight though is the exhibition of philatelic collections. The frames contain some of the rarest stamps or letters or postal and post cards, and often the most common.  It is how the exhibitor puts their collection together and displays the information that matters most to me.  This show is one stop of the best of the best too.

This year had a display of the pneumatic mail of Paris, very fascinating collection.  Many major cities of the world used pneumatic mail for various periods of time as a way to speed the mail from one location to another.  Really cool stuff.

The France and Colonies were the theme this year which meant many of the displays were about France and the various French colonies around the world.  I ended up joining the France and Colonies Philatelic Society because maybe someday I will collect the stamps. 

Each year the question of where the new stamp collectors will come from is raised.  With all the fun electronic toys available now the question of why anybody would collect stamps is a good one.  I do not see the hobby as going away just because of e-mail or other fast communications replacing mailing a letter.  Stamp collecting will be a way of acquiring and sorting little pieces of colored paper into a special order for personal happiness at a pace far different from the speed of light our e-mail travels now.

Today, May 9, 2009, was graduation day for the Community College of Aurora.  I enjoy the pomp and circumstance that goes with an education graduation ceremony.  Some of that is because of the traditions that are the base of education, many of the traditions going back hundreds if not over a thousand years. Some of it seeing the recognition for persevering to finish what can be a difficult series of classes to become an expert in a field of study.

I wrote my thoughts about education and returning to school in a diary, Back To School, January 17, 2008.  What I wrote then still has the same meaning today. Education is a lifelong process.  The knowledge and understanding of our world and everything around us is constantly changing.  We must not only have the education to keep up with the changes, but also be the researchers leading the changes.

I worked hard to complete the Paralegal Certificate Program in three semesters.  I enjoyed the year and my internship to finish December 2008.  Although I graduated then, the graduation ceremony was held today.  And, it was a special day.

Today was a special graduation for me.  I did not attend the graduation ceremony at Michigan State University for my Bachelor of Science degree because I was in the U. S. Air Force.  So this was my first higher education graduation ceremony.  I was smiling and loving it the whole time.

What made this ceremony even more special for me was knowing several of the other graduates were the first in their families to graduate from a college.  I can just imagine the pride they and their families must have in this accomplishment.  Other graduates worked for years to make it to this graduation.  Our student speaker needed 12 years, most of the time because of family and work. 

It was a very special day for many of us.

This evening (May 3)  I went to a meeting of Aurora business owners hosted by Kris Ritter owner of the Little Tykes Trading Post.  The idea of a networking meeting of business owners came to her after learning about a useful way of spreading referrals among businesses.  About a half dozen women business owners came to the meeting to share experiences and learn from each other.  The diversity of businesses is something that also impressed me.

Each woman owned at least one and several owned two businesses.  Entrepreneurship was the key to economic success for each of them in this modern economy. Although the recession is affecting all of the women, they were looking at this meeting as a way of coming up with new ways to promote their own businesses as well as Aurora.  One of the women, Monica Minkel owner of the travel agency Adventures With Arnold (Arnold is a little stuffed sheep that travels around the world with Monica), has just become the sole income provider at her house; her husband was laid off a couple of days ago. This is a tremendous burden on her right now, but she is working at success.

As each woman introduced herself and her business or businesses I was very impressed with their desire to succeed.  One of the examples of this is what three consignment stores decided to call themselves.  Kris Ritter of Little Tykes Trading Post was joined by Leta Olszewski owner of Leta’s Loot, a furnishings consignment store in what they call Consignment Row.  They have created a synergy starting with Kris’s maternity, infant and children’s store, next door is the women’s consignment store and finally to finish the shopping day is Leta’s furnishing store.  Working together helps them survive the recession.

Two of the women are photographers, Ann Marie Balon of Balon Photography and Dianne Noda of Studio Noda. Baby pictures, which are a natural extension of the other women’s businesses are another piece of the synergy created at this networking meeting. 

More in Part 2