Pueblo, Colorado: Unlike Anything Else

Yesterday, my mom, grandma and I all piled in the car and drove down to Pueblo to visit our relatives there. My whole family on my mom’s side is from Pueblo and my mom grew up there. I’ve been many times and enjoyed it a lot as a kid. All my relatives there were colorful and loving and I had a lot of fun back then playing with my two cousins who are close in age to me.

This trip marked our first time back there in about 4 years. The last time we were there was right before I went off to college and I could remember thinking that Pueblo was awesome back then. This time, I wanted to go as a sponge and try to really take it all in.

After about a two hour drive, we arrived in Pueblo. My mom and Nana had been talking in the car the whole way down about this bakery they used to go to in the 1960s and 1970s. They raved that it had the best cake they’d ever had, an Orange Chiffon cake. It was like a sponge cake only made with oranges and lemons and frosted with orangey vanilla icing. Naturally, I insisted we make a stop at the bakery so I could try this legendary treat.

When we arrived at the bakery, the tiny store was already pretty crowded and seemed to be selling out of a lot of items despite the fact that it was only about 12:15 in the afternoon. My mom and Nana were so determined to get the very last Orange Chiffon that they neglected to take a number. We later found out from my mom’s cousin Carole that this offense could have been punishable by gunshot if it had occurred during Christmas or Thanksgiving when the store actually has an armed guard to make sure things stay in order. That’s just how good the pastries are apparently, so good that you have to be watched at gunpoint because people go crazy at the thought of those cakes. The woman at the store, having not noticed our number indiscretion, happily boxed up the last Orange Chiffon and one Pink Chiffon as well. That was when I saw the area behind the counter with donuts. Finding delicious donuts in a bakery is not that unusual, but sitting right next to them was a whole shelf of funnel cakes. I haven’t seen funnel cakes outside of fairs and carnivals, but apparently in Pueblo, you can get one any time you want. We grabbed our cakes and protected them like a set of Loomis Fargo drivers as we went back to the car.

Then it was time to begin the Pat Sue Reality Tour, as I like to call it. Every time we come to Pueblo, my mom drives me past all the notable places she remembers from growing up there. We go past her elementary school, her junior high, and her high school. But that’s not all! We also go past the house she grew up in, the house her grandmother lived in, our relatives old houses, the house “with the family that made the best tortillas”, the park where she “kissed this one Mexican guy”, the demolition derby where someone “threw a cactus in [her] hair”, the place where the cute guy she had a crush on in junior high lived, the place where she saw her first and only dead kid, and so many other essential destinations. The Pat Sue Reality Tour is probably the greatest part of the trip for me.

During the tour, I also get to hear in-depth accounts of the various events that occurred at these hot spots. She recalls games of “Ditch ‘em”, the time her sister poured fire ants into her pants when she was little, the play kitchen she used to keep a huge knife in just in case someone tried to break into their house, the time one of the neighborhood men tried to show her naked pictures of his wife, and so many more. A good 90% of these things are either illegal or unthinkable today. Just imagine a small child in 2006 hanging out with their friends around the town for hours with no cell phone, no way to contact mommy and daddy, and no one knowing exactly where they are. It’s a recipe for abduction. Yet, back then, the Pueblo kids didn’t fear anything because the world wasn’t a scary place for them. Kids younger than 6 enjoyed almost total freedom in their town because everyone knew everyone and life was just safe.

When I looked at Pueblo and compared the way it was back then to the way it is now, that’s what made me realize what a treasure it is. Pueblo is almost the same exact way today as it was in 1973. Many of the stores are the same and owned by the same families, people work in their jobs for 40 years, the houses haven’t been torn down and replaced by cookie-cutter McMansions, even some of the cars driving around look like they’ve had the same owner for 30 years. While the whole rest of the world changes, and Foleys or Filene’s become Macy’s, Pueblo hangs on to it’s identity and it stays the same. It’s a tiny unique oasis in a sea of cloned suburbs. What I really like most about Pueblo is that there’s no place that is just like it. It’s totally it’s own thing. It’s such a refreshing change from chain after chain of the same crap that you see in most towns.

So, if any of you ever get a chance to visit Pueblo, definitely go for it! And… if you want to know the best places to go or take the Pat Sue Reality Tour yourself, just email me and I’ll give you the works!