This past Saturday, a neighbor of ours, Maisy, had her Fifth Annual St. Patrick's Day dinner, complete with corned beef, colcannon, various soda breads, and a dessert called Better Than Robert Redford. I will go on record and say that Better Than Robert Redford was more delicious and addictive than the actor Redford ever was (or hopes to be). Nothing more thana subtle layering of chocolate pudding and cool whip in a graham cracker crust topped with crushed walnuts, on the surface, the Redford seemed like any old dessert one might find at a church bazaar. But no. This particular batch of sugar, flour, cream and select chemicals was one of those treats that make you sit on your hands and think of skimpy summer clothes just to keep you from going back for seconds. Or fourths. I think the Cool-Whip was laced.

Our neighbor is technically a Whittier resident...she lives on MLK, right at the end of our street. Dividing lines aside, most of us consider ourselves a part of Whittier Cole (with my rare exception: I cannot stand it when people call Cole "north City Park" or "north Whittier" for real estate marketing purposes-it's simply incorrect), happy to combine the two neighborhoods into a single-community whole, often sharing information about the goings on around us because at the end of the day, some imaginary border between our two 'hoods doesn't mean squat. As Old Crow Medicine Show croons, "We're all in this thing together/walking the line/between faith and fear."

Maisy was one of the first to move into the stately brick rowhouses that line MLK between Vine and Race Streets. For years, according to my historian-in-resident neighbor, Moses, a slumlord had owned the rowhome properties, and they sat mostly empty for years, save for a single elderly woman who occupied the inside unit at the corner of Vine and MLK. She never left her house, of course, for fear of any number of things, and the only person who really saw her was the Meals on Wheels driver. Once she passed on, the units continued to fall into disrepair, with a couple of them serving as cracksmack palaces for the more opportune and resourceful addicts among us.

Around 2002, a developer (or group of developers) came in and began fixing up the four separate properties (each building was divided in two, and in most, the only bathroom was upstairs). Built in 1890, the places possess character and charm; all of them share high ceilings, wood floors, exposed brick, huge windows. None of the floors are even, and nothing is plumb, and the stories each subsequent owner has about nightmare electrical fires-in-waiting or the discovery of extensive water damage behind walls have taken on an air of Urban Myth.Yet each rowhome was tinged with uniqueness that captured people's imaginations, and each one screamed "LOVE ME!" until someone finally did. Within a year, all eight were occupied, and all but two were owner-occupied, not rentals, suggesting a degree of permanence on the part of the buyers.

Shooting galleries were out and new furniture was in. Trees were planted on the berm; pot after pot of perennials, spring bulbs and herbs replaced unsightly mounds of dirt and weeds. Most weekend mornings would start with one or more of the rowhome occupants baking off a batch of breakfast deliciousness then heading out to the front to putz and garden. Eventually several more would trickle out of our houses, mugs in hand, and shuffle over to MLK, where we'd proceed to laze about on one of the front porches. Occasionally we'd help weed or plant or, on one particularly auspicious and productive day, we made stepping stones with concrete and broken pieces of dishware. Mostly we just talked and laughed and waved at the people disembarking the bus at the stop directly across the street, right in front of Castle and Stan's house.

Stan moved into Cole, just inside its border, before the "boom" hit. He bought a bungalow on a corner no one else would dare touch, and pretty much got it for a song. Soon Stan's boyfriend moved in, and together they worked tirelessly on that b. 1920-house, redoing every room, fixing up the basement, painting, painting, painting. Like all old house projects, it seemed (to them) to take forever, but I was always amazed at the work they did in such a (relatively) short time. And that corner sang.

Neither Stan nor Castle had any desire to move, but there was an exception: If their realtor were ever to see a true California Contemporary come on the market, they wanted to know about it. Given how such things work, they got the call one day out of the blue-did they want to come see it, did they realize that it needed a ton of work, were they really looking to buy another house, etcetera. Yes, they would check it out. And when they saw that little piece of California contemporary-ish-ness, that was it. It smelled of cigarettes and decades-old dust and who knows what else, or if the heavy curtains had been opened in decades, but the bones were there, and architecturally it was exactly what they wanted. It was certainly their dream house in more ways than their place in Cole ever was, as their aesthetic leaned more toward vintage and retro than anything resembling Tudor-influenced bungalows.

Everything happened so fast, and before we knew it, the Boys (as we'd taken to calling them) announced that they were moving. We all begged them to reconsider, but the new house's siren song was too great. They wanted to take us all with them, even though they were only moving about 2 miles away and it was basically a straight shot east.

Having Stan and Castle move away was sad, for all concerned. They knew what we all knew (and still believe): that all of us had stumbled onto something special in this little pocket just out of downtown. We were pioneers of sorts, taking our chances in an area of Denver most wouldn't even drive through. Without expecting it, without even daring to suggest that such a thing was possible, we found family that we didn't even know we had.

We were lucky if we could get anything besides a Blackjack Pizza delivered (in case you weren't aware, MLK is the dividing line for many restaurants that deliver, though this has changed a bit in the past couple of years - it seems that any and all points north from MLK are considered No Person's Land) yet we could borrow tools or a cup of sugar from any one of a dozen neighbors, and there was never a shortage of frozen fruit bar ( paletas) pushcart vendors on a hot day. A decent grocery store with a varied inventory of (healthier, i.e. low-fat) selections was harder to find than an espresso in these parts, but avocadoes and warm corn tortillas (made a mile away) and Tapatio sauce were cheaper at Downing Street Super than anywhere else in the city, and some weekends one of us would head to the panaderia on the corner of Bruce Randolph and Franklin and pick up a dozen or two pastries for brekkie: pan de huevos, polvorons, galletas...and my favorite, marranitos, little ginger-esque cookies in the shape of a pig.

Stan and Castle had plants pulled up from their side yard, the one by the bus stop, including some darling dwarf pines. At one point, gang presence on far north Vine was on the rise, and the violence accompanyingsuch activity led our friends in the far west rowhome to pack up their stuff and their kid and hightail it to Stapleton. A party that got out of hand on the block behind us resulted in a fatal shooting. Royal Drug continued to attract Denver's best of the worst loiterers and troublemakers. Not too long ago, during a spate of robberies in Whittier, several residents were held at gun point while their homes were torn apart and their electronics and family heirloomsstolen.

Even with all this chaos and unpredictability and a serious dearth of services (unless you wanted liquor),the blessed randomness of our little Whittier Cole family carried on. Nothing took away from the genuine love and concern we had for each other, or stopped us from gathering on those weekend mornings and drinking barrels of coffee or pitchers of bloodys. Though a few more of the original residents of the rowhomes have scattered-one couple moved to Spain, another to Syracuse, another just across town to a neighborhood that is often compared to Cole, Jefferson Park-new folks have moved in, and Maisy remains, the anchor for those of us who, at one time or another, practically pitched a tent on her front stoop.

Get-togethers like last Saturday's remind us for the hundredth time how chosen family comes in all forms, and appears often when you least expect it. The soul of a place is the soil in which we choose to take root, and it too remains, steadfast, awaiting the patient gardener who believes that something mighty can emerge from something very small. But we cannot grow to our full potential in isolation. Nor can we forget how far we've come, or why some of us left, and how good it feels to come home.