The Diggers

This story follows the story "Molly and Jane Leave California".

The Diggers

The hotel at Twin Lakes was purchased, a complicated months long affair involving SBA loans, business plans, carrying arrangements with the old owners and license transfers. Molly and Jane worked with the old owners for two months learning how to clean rooms, keep the books and run the booking software. They learned where the water shutoffs for the cabins were and how to purge the lines to shut them down for the winter, so that they could be left without heat.

Molly and Jane were owned one share of the hotel and were the general managers. Her father and William each owned two shares and operated as silent partners.

And because they were owner managers, Molly and Jane didn't get salaries for running the hotel. They got a share of the profits. Which meant that a lot of the time they got nothing. Especially in mid-winter when the pass closed and blocked access to Aspen. But the two were relatively adept at living without money, having done so for most of their adult lives.

They had named the hotel the Mountain Spirit Lodge and had carefully painted a sign to hang over the office entrance.

And life at the lodge suited them. There was little walk in traffic, mostly people who loved the lodge, loved to hunt and fish and who returned year after year. They would make reservations months in advance and by mid April the summer and fall would be booked solid. Most of the day to day work then involved prepping rooms for the incoming guests, which Molly and Jane found to be a back breaking and dirty job. One which they hated passionately.

So they were quite receptive when two young women wandered in one morning asking if the hotel needed chambermaids, and wanting to fill out job applications. They had cleaned short term rental housing in Crested Butte, cleaned hotels in Breckenridge and worked at the Little Nell in Aspen. Living in ski towns and supporting themselves with the hotel work.

Jane got their names and numbers and, after a short meeting with Molly, both gladly gave up a portion of their income to get out of the hated job of cleaning rooms. They conned William and Molly's father into chipping in, convincing them that full time chambermaids were needed.

The two women were Kylie and Joanie, two cute twenty somethings who smoked a lot of pot, had massive dreadlocks and talked constantly about moving to Steamboat Springs, the last Colorado ski town where they could rent an apartment on a chambermaid's salary.

But Kylie and Joanie stayed on and never went to Steamboat, because life at the lodge suited them as well. Molly and Jane allowed them to live in a barn, and they had hung blankets and sheets obtained from a thrift store to mark out a nice apartment. The bathroom was back by the washing machines, so they had to cross the cold barn to pee at night. But they paid no rent for the arrangement and so they lived rather well on their meager income.

Besides Aspen, the other town in the region was Leadville. The two towns were polar opposites. Aspen being a playground for the glitterati, with four stores selling fur coats, and only one grocery store. While Leadville was a Victorian mountain town with many semi-abandoned and decaying buildings. A town that had been left to rot by the miners in the mid 20^th Century and which had been resettled by hippies in the early 1970's.

Some of the hippies were a group out of San Francisco known as Diggers. These were street theater types who also fed people in Golden Gate Park on a regular basis. They belonged to a somewhat formal organization, although not a lot is known about it now. And upon arriving in Colorado, they had children. And these children then grew up and had children. And these children grew up and befriended Moly, Jane, Kylie and Joanie.

Molly found them first. After the first few months at the lodge, Molly figured out that she was not needed in the office for a full day. She could compete here work there in the morning and then leave, just taking her cell phone and record book with her. She'd heard about a free lunch program in Leadville and went to investigate.

The lunches were served at Saint Paul's Methodist Church. A large, mostly unpainted, wooden church that dated from 1880 and which rarely held church services. Entering the church at 11:30 AM, Molly found a pleasant restaurant area. Trays of food were lined against one wall cafeteria style. Coffee was available and a table in the corner held desserts. It looked like a commercial establishment.

A woman entered from the kitchen area.

“First time here?” She asked.

Molly nodded.

“Just get a dish from the stack and then go through the line and get what you want.”

Molly complied and noticed that the food was actually very good. Some sort of hamburger dish, chicken and several elaborate dishes of potatoes, rice and vegetables. A choice of several types and salads and many different pies and cakes for dessert. Molly made a selection and sat at an empty table. Another patron finished the line and joined her at the table. Apparently, it was the custom for people here to take any seat available.

“Hi, I'm George”, he said. He was very pleasant. He said he worked for the city and cared for the Mineral Belt Trail, a cross country skiing trail that circumvented the town of Leadville. He was from Canada and, although about fifty years old, he had a Mohawk haircut. It made him look interesting.

“The church does a really good job”, said Molly.

“The church is part of it”, said George. “But the group was doing this before they got the church. They were in a building downtown.”

“Who are they?” Molly asked.

“Just a bunch of people who serve free lunch”, George replied. “Did you see the free store? They've been doing that for years too.”

After lunch, Molly inspected the free store. It was a room that resembled a thrift store and was mostly given over to baby clothing.

A woman entered and explained.

“People can take the baby clothes they need and then wash them and bring them back when the kid out grows them. And get new ones that fit. We do coats and boots too. We're getting some nice donations of new stuff that's a couple of years out of style. So we usually have good coats for everyone. Also hats and gloves.”

“Thanks”, said Molly, “But I'm OK with coats for now. My dad gets me one every Christmas. It's his favorite present.”

“Do you need socks?” The woman asked.

“Actually, I could use a new pair of socks.”

From under the counter the woman produced a large box with hundreds of pairs of new socks in it. Molly selected an understated pair of black socks.

“You're allowed to take two pair”, said the woman.

“I only need one”, Molly replied.

“That's the spirit”, said the woman, as she replaced the box under the counter. She then added: “We also have a food bank. Have you seen that?”

“No”, Molly replied.

“In here”, said the woman, leading Molly to another room, a room lined with metal shelves holding canned goods. There were boxes of potatoes on the floor and two large refrigerators against the wall.

“You can take two two things from each shelf on the wall, and each shelf in each 'fridge once per month. Three pounds of potatoes per week. Most of the food is about to expire, or maybe has already expired. That's why the stores donate it. Some of it comes from the county food bank too.”

There was canned soup, rice and canned vegetables on the shelves of the room. Molly saw that one shelf held high quality canned salmon and tuna. The refrigerators held yogurt, bread, milk and eggs.

“How do you do this?” Molly asked.

“We're good at getting donations”, said the woman. “We're plugged in with just about every store in Summit, Lake and Chaffee Counties. People make runs in their cars every day picking up stuff.”

Molly was fascinated by the operation and began coming in every weekday for the lunch. She saw that, by and large, the regulars were seasonal workers in the ski and rafting industry, and perhaps people who simply loved living in the High Rockies and were content to just get by. A few old hippies and unemployed construction workers were also tossed into the mix.

Molly wanted to volunteer. Especially after the many free lunches and after taking a few items from the store and food bank. But she was surprised to find that her offer of volunteer work was met with little enthusiasm. Not much help was needed.

A group of construction workers who had been regularly eating lunch, and felt they needed to do something to pay for it, were told to take the garbage out to the bins that would be fed to the pigs. Nothing beyond that. Molly was given a few dish washing details, but felt she was mostly just in the way. The kitchen had a rhythm to it that volunteers from the outside disrupted.

Molly's first real chance to do something useful for the group came when the game warden delivered an elk. An elk that had been poached and intercepted by the game warden. It lay on a low, flat bed trailer out behind the church. Several large beer coolers had been placed nearby.

Greg was an old ski racer who had hit a tree, or hit something, he couldn't really remember what, but he had lost the used of his left arm after the accident. After several years he realized that it wasn't coming back and agreed to have it amputated.

“Can you help butcher the elk”, Greg asked Molly.

“I don't know how. But I could try.”

“It's not hard. I just can't do it with one arm.”

Another helper was rounded up and the work began. The elk had been hung up and gutted the night before, but still needed to be skinned. Molly and the other helper, would pull the skin back as hard as they could while Greg welded a knife with his one good had and cut the white membrane that held the skin to the muscle. They got the skin off one side and then turned the elk over and did the other. Molly had considered saving and processing the skin, but it was torn and shredded.

Molly was then shown how to butcher the front legs of the elk and she began to work, placing the meat in one of the beer coolers as it came off. It took them about an hour and a half to finish the exposed half of the elk. They then turned it over.

About this time a Hispanic guy showed up. He was whetting a knife on a sharpening steel. He didn't speak a lot of English, but after a minute or so the group understood that he was telling them to get out of his way. He then finished off the second half of the elk, by himself, in about fifteen minutes. He obviously knew what he was doing. The group pulled the now full beer coolers into the refrigerator and Molly washed up. Elk was then featured on the lunch menu for many weeks thereafter. The people loved it.

After her work on the elk, Molly found that Shannon, the woman who seemed to run the show, was less standoffish and a little more approachable. Molly was officially given the job of going to meet with the manager of the Silverthorne Target store each Monday, to load up and return anything he would give them. Usually produce, but sometimes some clothing or other dry goods. She also washed dishes after the Friday lunch, and after a few weeks grew to appreciate the territoriality she had felt when she first came. She would not have been happy to arrive and see someone else doing her job.

Molly began bringing Kylie and Joanie to the lunches. Even though they both made an industry standard hourly wage, and they usually worked forty hour weeks, and they paid no rent, the were often destitute. The local bars, the pot shop and ski equipment ate a lot of their money. They knew most of the rafting and ski hill employees at the lunch, being in the same age group, and they found the food bank to be a great resource. One that freed up even more funds for booze, pot and ski equipment. They soon had jobs taking down the chairs and sweeping the dining room after the lunches.

Molly became better acquainted with Shannon. She was about fifty and very Celtic looking. Hints of freckles and long, thick, wavy red hair to her waist. She ran a yoga studio up the street and lived there with a guy named Robert, who rarely came around. She had a daughter who was studying acupuncture.

“So, how did you people get the church here?” Molly asked one day after lunch.

“I'm a Methodist Priest”, Shannon replied. “I'm the pastor of this church.”

“Wow”, said Molly. “Did you go to a seminary?”

“No, I was a social worker and I was associated with the church under the old pastor. I did work for several churches in those days. When he retired, he had me trained to take over. I trained locally under several other pastors. I didn't have to go away.”

“Was the kitchen and dining room here when you took over?”

“No, we built that. When we moved out of the storefront downtown. This used to be just one big room. One big church. We divided it up.”

“Were you a church downtown?” Asked Molly.

“No, just a group of friends. We had always run a lunch service and the free store. My great grandfather and his people started that when they first came to Colorado back in the sixties. We just took over as they got too old to work it.”

The actual church was huge, but generally only used for the really big dinners the group put on. The ones at Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Easter. The town knew about these and often more than a hundred and fifty people would show up for the ham and turkey. The main church was rarely used for a church service, save for perhaps an evening Christmas pageant where children would sing.

The problems began when a woman named Julia completed her nursing studies at Colorado Mountain College and obtained a good job at the local hospital. She and her two little girls moved from being people who survived on Section 8 housing, the lunch program and other handouts to a middle class family. Julia, however, needed someone to watch her girls when she worked. Being just out of school, with only a bachelor's degree, she didn't as yet make a lot of money for day care.

The four cooks, the highest status people on the lunch crew, were all older Hispanic women who had raised many children in their lives. They saw Julia's problem as being slightly silly and told Julia to just drop the girls off at the church for the day. There would be at least one of them there from 8:00 AM until perhaps four. And if Julia wasn't back by then, the girls could just go home with one of the cooks. And this worked very well.

So well in fact, that other women soon began to avail themselves to the service. And one of the cooks recruited her old aunt to watch the kids full time and keep them out of the kitchen. Shannon was able to pay her minimum wage out the the church funds. So the aunt now kept the kids in the church proper. The church pews were movable and the huge, clear, indoor space provided a fine playground for the kids during the bitter cold Leadville winter. Tricycles and and other toys for the kids were brought in. There were wooden Gothic arches along the sides of the central room of the church and ropes and tires were hung from these for the kids to swing on.

Shannon inquired about insurance, given that a day care service was now in operation, and this got back to the Methodist regional office. A representative came up from Breckenridge to see what was going on. She really had no problem with the day care service, and actually thought it was a good idea, but then the woman inquired how they got the church back together in time for Sunday service. Right now it was a huge open space with trikes, bikes and other toys parked everywhere, and rope swings hanging from the rafters. Shannon sheepishly confessed that “recently” there had not been a Sunday service.

This caused problems and the normally calm Shannon became visibly worried. She put together a crew to clean up the church every Saturday afternoon so that services could be held there on Sunday. But nobody showed up for church services. There was very little interest among any of the regular crew for such a thing.

Molly, Kylie and Joanie were sitting with Shannon at lunch one Friday afternoon about three weeks later.

“I have a new job for you three”, said Shannon.

“What?” Asked Kylie.

“You have to come to the church service and participate.”

“Oh no”, said Kylie. “We go out on Saturday and it's hard for us to get up that early the next day.”

“Yeah”, said Jonaie. “We don't get up on Sunday until eleven or twelve.”

“I know”, said Shannon. “That's why I moved the worship service to five in the evening. All of you should be up by then.”

Joanie and Kylie looked at each other, feeling trapped.

“It's only for a half an hour”, explained Shannon. “And we'll have a dinner afterwards. And you two can cook.”

“We can?” Said Kylie.

“Not anything elaborate”, said Shannon. “Probably just soup and bread. We don't want to be there cleaning the kitchen all night.”

“That would be fun”, said Joanie.

“Is the central office still breathing down your neck?” Asked Molly.

“Big time”, said Shannon. “If they show up and there's no service, we might lose the church.”

“Wow”, said all three.

“I can bring Jane”, Molly added.

“And you guys have to be serious”, Shannon said, looking at Joanie and Kylie. “No drinking or smoking pot. Especially in the church. If the central office sees anything like that they'll s**t.”

“So what happens at church?” Kylie asked.

“Nothing much, mostly we just sing songs and talk.”

“OK, that doesn't sound too bad.”

“And you guys don't have to dress up”, Shannon added. “Just wear what you always wear.”

“Barefooted?” Asked Kylie, who disliked wearing shoes indoors.

“Sure.”

That night, when Jane returned to the cabin, Molly confronted her.

“We have to show up at church.”

“I did”, Jane replied. “I ate there last Friday. And helped sweep the steps out front.”

“No, we have to go to church services on Sunday.”

“Like Hell”, Jane Replied. “I don't don't do church. I don't fit in with those types.”

“If Shannon doesn't get a congregation she might lose the church. She needs bodies. And she promises the service will be short.”

“Early in the morning?”

“No, at five at night. Just think of it as washing dishes to pay for the food we get.”

“OK, I guess that sounds reasonable.”

So that Sunday, at 5:00 PM, the congregation of ten assembled. Kylie and Joanie, fearful that the service might be boring, had burned a fat one out in the back parking lot and were now kind of out of it. Bill, one of the old hippies in the lunch club, started things off with a sage smudge for everyone. Shannon then picked up her guitar and began a hymn, but she was a crappy guitar player and soon gave it up and just sang. Everyone else joined in. They then had a twenty minute discussion about what spirituality meant to them.

About five minutes into the discussion, Joanie and Kylie left and went out into the kitchen to warm up the soup and biscuits.

The service ended at 5:30 and everyone went to the lunch room and sat down for dinner.

Word of the church service got out and five or six people from the lunch crew started showing up in addition to the core ten people. George, the guy with the Mohawk, liked to attend with his wife. The central office did drop in to nose around and found everything to be proper, if somewhat sparsely attended.

Molly brought her fiddle and another guy, who really could play the guitar, started coming. Then a banjo, a couple more guitars and a mandolin showed up. And the church service evolved into a bluegrass pick. And a very popular and well attended one. But one always ready to assume a pious pose if the central office walked in.

Reviews

[Vivian Fisk]

I loved the life I was living while reading this story. There's a thing my husband and I say when we sit down to a nice meal we've cooked of part free food, part on-sale grocery store food: "Enough is as good as a feast." This story gave me the same feeling of satisfaction.

Fabulous as always...

[Miss Fedelm]

Thanks for reading.

[barleygirl]

Juliespenhere read requested me on your story & I’m glad she did. This is a great story! The mechanics of your writing are strong & your storytelling is riveting, even tho there’s no suspense in this story at all. It’s just the way you portray people so well thru description & dialogue. It feels like we know your characters & that’s why readers become invested in a story, wanting to know what happens to characters that are portrayed well & likeable & interestingly. I love true stories becuz there are so many interesting people in the world doing interesting things – this is a perfect example. I love the way you paint a FEELING of how the various people are, the way they live & believe & conduct themselves. This would be a great story just to show what a life of humanity looks like (something our world could use a lot more of these days). I’ve done some bicycling in the Colorado Rockies, so I met a few people who remind me of those in your story. I like that you can convey social differences without a hint of judgmental overtones. It’s like all people are equal & respected in your story. I know that writing in this way is a result of having an admirable worldview & your story reflects your own way of seeing people (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Miss Fedelm]

Thank you. I've always liked Ann Beattie and she has been an influence on me. She can write a story where nothing happens and make it interesting. The last one I read was about a guy working in his yard. I'm still trying to figure out what made that an interesting and enjoyable story.

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

This was so descriptive. I enjoyed this immensely.
I could not stop reading to thats saying something
loved it keep writing

[Miss Fedelm]

Thank you.