The Other Side of the River

On Saturday afternoon, June 16, 2018, the FIBARK Whitewater Festival was going full force. 5,000 people gathered along the Arkansas Riverfront in downtown Salida, CO. The riverfront is a hand-crafted whitewater park. The riverbed has been “upgraded” into a world class slalom course for boaters. The riverbank has been overhauled to make room for spectators. There are rock bleachers and small pools for the kids to play in. There are parks, playgrounds, walking trails, and bike paths. And, in the middle of it all there is a grassy park with an amphitheater. This beautiful place is where the music happens and where the crowds gathered on Saturday. Directly across the river, out of view behind thick stands of trees, is an abandoned factory. The CALCO plant was a calcium carbonate processing plant that used to operate seven days a week around the clock. At its peak, in the late 70’s, it produced more than 240 tons of carbonate daily. Now, it sits there, a mass of metal, concrete, and plastic decaying right next to the river in downtown Salida. With music booming in the background, my friend Gretchen and I ventured over to the plant. The stark contrast deepened our experience. We sat in a dusty, littered landscape with decaying buildings around us while 5,000 people jammed out in a beautiful park just on the other side of the river. The contrast deepened our awareness of just how wounded, forgotten, and abandoned this place is. I was proud to be making beauty on the less attractive side of the river! Gretchen and I took time to acknowledge how wounded and forgotten this place is. We said words to each other about how it felt at that moment. We acknowledged each other in the context of the place and the RadJoy “ceremony.” We gathered stones and made a RadJoy bird (more like a Pterodactyl). It was simple, elegant, and very rewarding. It is wonderful to know that we were doing it with people all over the world at the same time.