Things I would miss if the Stock Show leaves Denver

A customer in Common Grounds, Lodo, prompted this reflection when she said she would miss the smell of all the cows and horses during January. I told her the smell which oozes down to Lodo during the stock show is partly bovis excrementum, but more likely, the odors from the Purina Dog Chow plant just south of I-70 near Swansea. But this got me to reminiscing about what I would miss too about the Grand Daddy of 'em all, Denver's Ntional Western Stock Show.

1. I would miss the parade of long horns up 17th Street. The people of Denver have come to love that parade and the children especially. And it affords me the opportunity to say in response to horse pockey and bovine rounding or splashing clumps, "Stand back, everyone, I work in the Auditor's Office, I deal with this stuff all the time.

2. I would miss visiting the Grand Champion Bull with Tom Noel when the bull stays in a pen in the grand lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel. Tom and I always get our picture taken with the grand old big bull. We always wear name tags so folks looking on can tell which is the real bull.

3. I would miss the Mexican Rodeo and the Martin Luther King Rodeo.

4 I would miss seeing all the little creatures, the chickens, the rabbits and goats on full display in the exhibition hall.

5. I would miss the sellers and hawkers demonstrating vegetable crushers with the voices of auctioneers.