‘She Picks ‘em and I Plant ‘em’
Story and photo by Cara DeGette Editor
Bob Kuykendahl is 79. On Sept. 21, he will turn 80. He’s not yet sure how he’s planning to mark the occasion – other than to stop delivering the Greater Park Hill News.
It’s not that Kuykendahl doesn’t enjoy his monthly constitutional, walking around his northeast Park Hill neighborhood, greeting neighbors and leaving newspapers on the front porches of their homes. It’s just, well, he is going to be 80 years old.
“It’s just gotten so I can’t walk a long way without getting worried about falling,” he says. “I don’t want to pass out or anything .”
Kuykendahl has delivered the newspaper for, as near as he can figure it, almost a decade. Someone else who had been delivering it asked him if he’d like to take over the route. “I said, ‘no problem’,” Kuykendahl recalls.
Over time, he’s honed his route, which stretches from 33rd and Kearney Street to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, west to Jasmine Street and then back over to 33rd Avenue. He’s figured out which people don’t always want a copy of the paper (usually renters, he says), and which people always want an extra copy of the paper (for a daughter who grew up in the neighborhood but has moved away, or a nephew who lives in the basement apartment).
Sometimes, he says, he’ll be walking along the sidewalk, with a stack of newspapers, and a lady will stop him, wanting a copy of the latest issue right there and then.
Kuykendahl is originally from Temple, Texas, and moved to Denver in his 30s. For many years, he worked at Bragdon Appliances on Colfax, delivering and hooking up refrigerators, washers and dryers. When the store went out of business, he became a bus driver for RTD, and joined the union.
“I loved driving for RTD,” he says. In addition to the regular routes, he got to drive special buses to Broncos games, and baseball games, and knew the spots to go to watch football games for free from the 50-yard line.
The craziest episode he encountered was during a run one day when he was driving Route 38. A passenger got on with a bad transfer, but Kuykendahl let him on anyway. The guy sat in the back, and when he got off the bus he walked back up to the front, and off and punched Kuykendahl in the head. Kuykendahl couldn’t believe it. “He had a bad transfer, and I let him ride, and he hit me! He hit me!”
The guy took off on foot, and the police never caught him. But from then on, Kuykendahl made sure to drive with his seat belt ready to unbuckle at a moment’s notice, so he’d never be caught locked in again. Next time, he’d be ready to jump up and hold his own.
For 40 years, Kuykendahl has lived in his Park Hill home. He’d had bad luck with women, he says, until his niece introduced him to his present wife. The two have been married for decades, and between them have eight or nine children, he says. Their garden is bursting with flowers and vegetable gardens. “She picks ‘em and I plant ‘em,” he says. “I’m not just sitting around over here.”
Note: Is your blockworker as dedicated as Bob Kuykendahl? Nominate yours for a blockworker of the month profile by sending details to editor@greaterparkhill.org. Are you interested in becoming a blockworker and delivering newspapers to your neighborhood each month? Contact newspaper manager Melissa Davis at newspaper@greaterparkhill.org.