Around the Town: Catching Up ON the Bartlett House

By Loretta Humble/Around the Town

There are some things I’ve been meaning to talk about, but I’d been waiting till I got a plan. Well, I haven’t got a plan yet, but I guess I should talk to you about it anyhow.

First off, the Bartlett House, and our plans to fix the porch with the money we raised with the “O’Keeffe!” play, Christi Barrett’s generous art classes, and the wonderful reception at the Stewarts’ home. What’s happened there? Actually nothing. We raised right at $4,000, which is safe and sound in the bank, and JoAnn Surls is sitting on the checkbook. Thankfully, not a single dime of the money will be spent on other renovations, as we recently got our roof fixed with the assistance of one of the best Denver commercial roofing companies. The person we thought could fix the porch for us is no longer available, and as far as we can tell, nobody else will touch it for twice that price. So, that is one problem. The other problem is getting our heads together to figure out what the next step is. You see, the Malakoff Area Garden Club has only 5 or 6 active members, and while our small group has made some big things happen in the past, this summer every single one of them has either been sick, disabled, or had other pressing matters to deal with.

I know, I’m the one who was doing the promoting of all this, and promising we’d run right over with the money, plunk it down, and start renovating the Bartlett House. But just as soon as the play was behind us, I checked in to the hospital and got my knee replaced. I didn’t think that would be that big of a deal, and my knee is doing wonderful, but the anesthetics and I guess the shock to my system as well, just threw me for a loop. My brain has been operating in fits and starts since then. I thought I had done my part when I got the play handled, but I didn’t count on the fact that different things were throwing each of our other members for a loop also.

What I thought would happen is that I would get back to my old persuasive self, and charm a bunch of you, particularly the artist community, into joining forces with us and figuring out how we can do something together, that would benefit us all, both to have more culture-type gathering and shows over here, that is maybe music and more plays and art shows, that would be fun and enlightening, and maybe raise a little more money in an easy, relaxed way.

But I have not got my old persuasive self back. Or much energy. Not enough to start pushing a project right now. And neither does anybody else in our tiny Garden Club group. We need reinforcements. Do you know any? It could be fun.

We’ll meet soon, and try to figure out what to do next. You would be real welcome to meet with us. Especially, some of you who have supplied some of the money we are trying to figure out how to stretch might want to put your two cents in. One thing we talked about is, since we don’t have enough money for the porch, maybe we could finish the fence. We have good fences on three sides of the place, and none on the west side. By now, vandals have already done most of the damage they can, but it would still be nice to keep them out.

Or, we could just hold on to the money until we figure out how to get enough to fix the porch. What do you think?

The other thing I have been meaning to address is the disappearance of the bronze baseball player boys that was in the downtown pocket park. Vandals pulled one off its stand, took it around the corner and propped it up against a store door. They broke the bat off the other one. We picked them up and have them in a warehouse. I thought we’d mourn about them a while then see if we could find a way to get them fixed. With all the commotion about the play and then my operation, I actually nearly forgot about them. They were such a wonderful gift, and looked so great in the little park, it is a shame to let them languish in a warehouse. Does anybody know anybody who knows how to fix bronze?

Looks like I haven’t been very good at keeping after things the last few months. But at least I’m finally talking about them now. Maybe I’m coming back to life. Who knows….maybe the Garden Club will, too. I nearly know it would if you’d come join us.

Oh yes, one good thing to report—we finally got our non-profit designation, which should help a lot if we get up the energy to fundraise sometime in the future. It could happen. But if we do, and if I have anything to do with it, it is going to be something wonderful, like “O’Keeffe!” was, so that whatever money anybody gives us will give them something good right back, right then, just like “O’Keeffe!” did.