Just Can't Be!

Flirtatious: "I could rub your shoulders, or I could introduce you to BACKWASH."

Real Mood: Intractable

Prediction: A bottle of Merlot will disappear.

I don't know how good this is going to be. I'd just written about a thousand words? I was getting ready to save? I don't know what I pushed,  but it's all gone. Oh, what a sinking feeling. I am bemoaning my fate to Peggy? She simply says, "there's some merlot in the cereal cupboard."

I'll try not to drink the whole bottle.

Photographer Jim Weis and myself spent a good portion of the 90's at the local airport.  We were so journalistically attached to the place that we would quite often begin and end our days on runways. There were weeks at a time when neither of us saw the insides of a newsroom.

Why?  Well in the mid-90's Denver International Airport was a journalist's magnet.  It was the largest and most expensive public works project in the country at the time. Don't hold me to these numbers, but I think there were seventeen thousand people working on it at one point.

Anyway it was some huge number. And it certainly generated some hot stories.  Let's see? It's too far from town, construction fatalities, cost overuns in the billions, bond ratings drop, Continental pulls out, United moves in, a baggage system won't  work, a train system breaks down, fiberoptic system keeps setting off alarms, noise complaints, porta pottie fires, bond ratings dive again, cracks in the runways, cracks in the tarmac, the parking garage will crash, how to get rid of antelope, art program gets panned, fountain over train system leaks.

I wish I'd had a microscope franchise at the time. Everyone owned one and had it aimed at DIA. We, reporters and photographers, spent a lot of time chasing our tails. If the National Enquirer was reporting there were Zombies living in the airport tunnels? We had to go check that out. 

I loved the report that the tower was leaning 7 degrees off plumb.  Wouldn't we notice?  I still have students come up to me and tell me about all the secret tunnels where bodies are buried, and seditious acts are taking place. I shouldn't even tell you this.  I've been in those secret tunnels.  They're pretty boring! 

The problem from my perspective is all this hot  and not so hot news kept us from focusing on some of the superlatives  and fun stories at this BIG FLYING PLACE. So Class!

With help from the airport's Chuck Cannon and Viviana Paz I'm going to tell you all about the other DIA.

So Elisa and Heather join me on a tour.  We are not headed for the terminal.  We are going to drive around the perimeter. This is where you can really get a feel for what 53 square miles look like. It's how you actually convince someone this IS the largest land mass airport in the world. Riyadh challenges that? But no other airport wants to fight.

Well Heather and Elisa, there is one urban myth out here I like to keep alive. It's that one salesman got the sales commission on all the fencing at the world's largest land mass airport. The figure I hear bounced around is 10 million dollars.  It's probably not true.  But when I'm driving by one of those 10 thousand square foot homes on a golf course?  Someone in the car says, "who lives in those places, anyway?"    My glib, quick response is, "the guy who sold all the fencing to DIA, for one."

Now Elisa from out here you get a good look at that tower that's supposed to be leaning 7 degrees. It may have been somebody in Amsterdam that started that rumor.  You see DIA claims to have the highest tower in the world.  By tape measure Amsterdam's is a few feet longer, but DIA argues that since Amsterdam is below sea level?  This stuff can get a little petty at times.

But Heather, the fencing doesn't encompass the entire airport property. People are often surprised to discover the airport is actually in the agriculture business.  It has a number of tenant farmers who pass on a real healthy commission to the airport.  I don't think DIA's take has ever gone under a million.

Wake up Elisa! Take a look at those wheat fields and you notice they are sprinkled with oil and gas rigs. That's right!  The airport is also in the fossil fuel depletion business.  I'm just guessing now. I'll bet the fuel receipts are topping the cereal franchise.  I can't remember which of those two airport enterprises is supposed to be unique in the world. Take your pick.

Oddly you guys, the oil and gas enterprise offers up a unique economic enigma. If fuel prices are low, airline costs are low, and business is good.  DIA makes a bundle.

Conversely if fuel prices go up? Airline costs skyrocket. Business is  bad.  Buuuut, when those fuel prices go up? DIA still makes a bundle. I'm curious to know if anyone was clever enough to actually plan on that hedge against deflation.

Elisa your mother worked out here. She's heard these stories. From the very moment the first back hoe broke ground at DIA,  rumors surfaced on WHOOOOO was buried on this sacred ground. At one point there was concern it might encompass a Native American Burial Ground.  According to a least one Native American report, the plains indians didn't bury their dead. They burnt them above ground.

But catch this ladies. Heavy equipment did unearth some fossils.  My DIA friend Dan Melfi made Jim Weis and me believers by showing us the remains of a fossil bed at a somewhat secret location at the airport.  I say somewhat because I'm sharing this site with the two of you. Don't tell!  And Dan, if your listening, it looks like the fossils are pretty well depleted. I think the secret is out!  

When the airport was built so far away from town, there were many complaints. One bank of those complaints was DIA didn't offer any place like Stapleton where you could just sit under the runways and watch planes land and take off. ( There is really a very serious percentage of the population that's in to that?  No Kiddin'!)

Well let me blow away another myth.  Yeah there are at least two such places at this big ol' honkin' airport where you can do that.   But I'm not telling.  Neither are Elisa or Heather.

I overheard them talking about bringing their dates out here. They would just as soon you weren't anywhere near the place.

"I want to introduce you guys (Elisa and Heather) to a physical phenomenon that takes place when large jets land. Just stand here. Don't get impatient. This will take about 30 seconds."

30 seconds later?

"OOOhh"

"Wow!"

"Cool!"

"Weird!"

This eerie sound and sensation envelops you. I think it's called backwash by pilots, but I think physicists have another name for it.  You have to get out of your car to experience it.

AND YOU'LL NEED TO GET OUT OF YOUR CAR TO TRULY APPRECIATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. IT'S GOING TO KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT WILL DO TO YOUR FEET. PLAN A PMM PARTY...JUST A MONTH AND A HALF TO GO.

i drank the whole bottle