Find something new. Those were the orders a friend was given as he was sent off to cover Denver fire Lt. Rich Montoya’s funeral Thursday.
I don’t think the assignment was purposely cynical. I think someone wanted freshness in a story that’s been – sorry for the insensitivity – covered to death.
Sadly, the facts of Montoya’s demise remain what has already been widely reported. He had a heart attack May 14 leading a team battling a home fire. He was 61 and 15 shifts short of retirement.
What we should ask ourselves is this: Why is that story not good enough in its 100th telling? Ditto for the been-there, done-that, over-the-top feel of Denver’s police and fire burials.
Montoya’s funeral was very much like last year’s funeral of murdered police Detective Donnie Young. People had to take alternate routes to work, because streets around the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception were blocked. After the funeral, a giant procession of fire engines, ambulances, police cars and motorcycles crawled through downtown to the cemetery. Local businesses lost money. People couldn’t cross streets.
It was nothing new.
Something sort of novel did happen when I looked at the same old morning sun striking the same old American flag, Colorado flag and Denver flag. The symbols, hauled out for most occasions, hung between the extended ladders of firetrucks on Colfax Avenue. They seemed to glow.
Not exactly Saul on the road to Damascus. Still, I took it as a sign. Things don’t have to be new to have meaning.
At the corner of Logan Street and East Colfax Avenue, hundreds of firefighters in dress blue uniforms and boxy hats mingled, waiting to come to attention and salute when Montoya’s flag-draped casket arrived on the back of an antique firetruck.
In the shade of the basilica, an honor guard of firefighters from different jurisdictions formed. Some carried chrome- headed axes, some pike poles.
As Montoya’s body got close, everyone assembled on the street, just as they always do at police and fire funerals.
“Looking good, people, looking very good,” a commander encouraged. “Don’t lock your knees. We don’t want anyone to go down. Sunglasses off. Hats on.”
Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper wore neither hats nor sunglasses. But they kept low profiles, so as not to distract attention from the deceased.
It was all standard operating procedure for honoring dead cops and firefighters.
Inside the basilica, the archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, received Montoya’s earthly remains, said a Mass for his heavenly soul and celebrated communion with his survivors.
Chaput praised Montoya for embodying two fundamental values of his church – protecting the dignity of individuals and making a commitment to the common good. Those rules have been around for centuries. But Chaput may have hit on something a little bit different when he pointed out how few folks can live by them.
“Most of us say that (we’ll protect and commit) until the moment comes,” the archbishop explained. “When the moment came for Rich, he gave his life.”
While not unique, this was at least an interesting choice. “He didn’t have to go into a fire 15 days before he retired,” Montoya’s son, Eric Carrasco, told a packed sanctuary.
He also didn’t have to stop swearing around his son. Carrasco said Montoya did so after hearing Carrasco curse at Carrasco’s 12th birthday party.
“He refused to cuss in front of me from that day on.”
Whenever Montoya got mad, he said, “son of a beer.”
Finally, something new.
New, but insignificant compared with three decades of anonymous public toil. New, but meaningless compared with dying while trying to save lives. No matter how often you explain them, hard work and sacrifice are the things that earn fallen firefighters and police officers what the Rev. Stephen Siebert said they deserve:
“A hero’s salute and a procession to end all processions.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
