Colorado Central Articles From — November 2005

Column by Hal Walter

Public Lands – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT STARTED OUT as a peaceful fall morning. I had the place to myself — a wife- and baby-free zone — and a fresh cup of steaming coffee in hand. I glanced out the window to see a very large porcupine lumber in front of the barn. I’ve seen smaller bear cubs, no lie.

As the porcupine approached a paddock to the side of the barn, one of my burros, Laredo, charged at the spiny beast. The porcupine bolted. Read the rest of this article

Column by George Sibley

Mountain Life – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

TRYING TO FIGURE OUT the geography of history — the way ideas and ideologies get worked out down on the ground — is as fascinating as it is complex. Living in Central Colorado most of these past 40 years, I only gradually became aware that these mountains and valleys I love are actually the upper edge of a huge “borderland” between two Americas, North America and Latin America. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0967941911[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

Local Lore – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Beyond the Glory Hole – A Memoir of a Climax Miner
by Jim Ludwig
Published in 2005 by Pleasant Avenue Nursery
ISBN 0-9679419-1-1 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0976072971[/amazon-product]Review by Virginia McConnell Simmons

Poetry – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

as orion falls
by Aaron A. AbeytaPublished in 2005 by Ghost Road Press
ISBN 0976072971 Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0393058077[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

Widlife – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Beast in the Garden – A Modern Parable of Man and Nature
by David Baron
Published in 2004 by W.W. Norton
ISBN 0-393-05807-7 Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Chas S. Clifton

Evacuation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

After Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, a lot of people are thinking about disasters, and putting something like “Go bag” or “go kit” into any search engine should yield interesting results. Read the rest of this article

Article by Chas S. Clifton

Evacuation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

IN 2002, WHEN THE Hayman Fire rampaged southwest of Denver and the Iron Mountain Fire burned a swath along the Custer-Frémont county line, I took the first step: I gathered up my wife’s and my insurance policies, birth certificates and other vital papers and stored them in my office at CSU-Pueblo, figuring that those concrete buildings were safer from a forest fire than our little house in the woods. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Edward Hawkins

Medicine – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

ODE TO ALL THE FINE DOCTORS

A Veteran’s Thoughts on Quiet Evenings

By Edward Hawkins

World War II — U. S. Merchant Marine Read the rest of this article

Letter from Slim Wolfe

Politics – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editor:

There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick, that you can no longer even tacitly take part – and you put your bodies on the gears, on the wheels and levers….

More or less verbatim, these were the words which sparked the first major student sit-in at an American University, back in 1964. The speaker was a 21-year-old philosophy major whose name is hardly remembered these days. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Ray James

Modern Life – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Martha and Ed:

Thank you for using my essay in the October issue. I wanted to assure you that it’s extremely unlikely that its publication will prove to be an embarrassment to y’all because of current or future behavior on my part. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Roger Williams

Access – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

On my way to Chaco Canyon and other points, I investigated the old road that descends from some old cabins below treeline on the slopes of South Parry Peak or nearby, at the end of Mt. Elbert’s long southeast ridge, to Route 82 just west of Twin Lakes. I’ve descended this twice on traverses of Mt. Elbert (North Parry Peak is near James Peak above Winter Park/Mary Jane, and Loch Lomond). All I found was NO TRESPASSING signs. Ugh! I’m glad I followed this down not up both times. (I returned to Half Moon via the Colorado Trail after a night on the trail or in the Nordic Inn). I don’t remember these horrid signs, which I’d like to make a bonfire of as usual. I thought it was San Isabel N.F. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Simon Halburian

Public Lands – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed,

The tourists aren’t looking past our mountains here in Central Colorado and this may be the case statewide. In the last few years I have seen a noticeable decline in hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, etc. And while I don’t have statistics, I suspect the numbers are not just flat but dropping. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Christy C. Bulkeley

Politics – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Martha:

This is mostly so you’ll know you’re not writing to a vacuum. Your commentary debunking the frames/ metaphors/stereotypes involved in George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant and his earlier Moral Politics, the fuller, academic treatment of the topic, prompts this note. His work sent me in a different direction — back to the work from other academic fields documenting the connecting ways many of us relate to the world more naturally than we do to the dominant linear, hierarchal, patriarchal — the both-and approaches rather than the either-or. Read the rest of this article

Letter from George Sibley

Resemblance – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ed & Martha:

Reading around in the October Colorado Central instead of working on my column, I came across the “Department of Strange Coincidences” item that I’d missed the first time through (my eyes apparently going straight to the comics). I did see (and enjoy) Babe finally, and had to acknowledge the likeness, which you and about fifty other people had pointed out. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Jim Forrest

Politics – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Editor,

I frequently learn something each month by reading Colorado Central magazine. For example, in September’s issue, I learned that Viagra is dangerous and addictive (“Appalled by the law,” p.36). I did not know that. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Virginia McConnell Simmons

Wildlife – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

As one of the people who believe that the architects of Colorado’s lynx recovery effort are “scientists run amok,” as Allen Best describes our feelings about the program in his article in your October 2005 issue, it appears to me that they are throwing lynx against a wall in hopes that something will stick. Unless my math is wrong, not much has stuck. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Sharon Chickering Moller

Colorado Capitol – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ed:

I hate to quibble, but I wanted to correct a statement in your review of The Colorado State Capitol in the October issue. Your second sentence says: “The dome was the only thing that distinguished our capitol, since our dome, unlike any other, is covered with gold (42 ounces to be precise).” Read the rest of this article

Letter from Lisa Micklin

Communications – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

An open letter to Ctelco Internet and FairPoint Communications:

I remember fondly when the Ctelco office was a doublewide trailer behind the Hooper school. It was always a pleasure to pay my phone bill in person so that I could visit with all of you. As the San Luis Valley grew, I was so proud of you when your new office was built in Mosca. And, imagine my thrill when you made Hot Mouse Wireless DSL available to us! Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca

Evergreen Cemetery – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The 2005 “Graveyard Tour” of Evergreen Cemetery, conducted by Neil V. Reynolds, may actually turn out to be a series of tours, depending upon the number of attendees.

This popular event, in which Reynolds–resplendent in black top hat and long, black cloak–recounts tales of early Leadville residents, is limited to 50 people and usually sells out quickly. Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

History – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

THEY DON’T PAY TAXES or write impassioned letters to the editor. And they definitely don’t vote–at least not in Central Colorado. Nevertheless, they’re considered an important constituency in Leadville and Lake County. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen

Economy – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

SOMETIMES, we in the hinterlands are America’s true sophisticates, far more experienced in the ways of the world than presumably savvy suburbanites.

And one thing America’s rural communities are intimately familiar with is economic decline. Here in Central Colorado we look back at our history of boom and bust with pride, and even take satisfaction in the fact that the busts have prevailed. Most of us have no great love for development, growth, progress and industry. We prefer old-fashioned, rustic places that are small and unspoiled. Read the rest of this article

Cartoon by Jack Chivvis

Modern Life – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Politics – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

It’s a year until the next general election, wherein Colorado will elect state officers, including a governor. It will be somebody new, because incumbent Bill Owens will hit his eight-year term limit.

Only one Democrat, former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter, is officially in the running. But Leadville’s state representative is interested. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Ed Quillen

Regional News – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Winter arrives, briefly

October 8 was a fine fall day, sunny and warm. That changed overnight, as a cold front moved south from Wyoming. The Front Range and Eastern Plains got the worst of it on Oct. 9 and 10, but Central Colorado wasn’t spared. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Plans for a major development on Wolf Creek Pass are now on hold, thanks to a ruling by District Judge O. John Kuenhold in a case brought against Mineral County and the developer by Colorado Wild and the Wolf Creek Ski Area. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Mountain Life – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

With 14,000-foot peaks fore and aft, not to mention a climate that offers snow in at least nine months of the year, you probably wouldn’t think of Leadville as a candidate for noise complaints. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

For years the mom-and-pop ski areas were closing. Now, stories are telling of small ski areas being opened. The latest such story comes from Custer County, where Terry Cook is erecting a single chairlift at the Aspen Country Mountain Park, a couple of miles from Bishop’s Castle. The chairlift and a Snocat groomer were purchased from Idaho’s Bogus Basin Ski Area. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Climate – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Weather in most mountain towns remained warm, seemingly unseasonably so, through September. And experienced local eyes seemed to think the aspen began changing colors later than usual, too.

That jibes with a new report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. It says that an examination of weather records reveals the last five years were the hottest of the past 110 years across much of the West. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local Lore – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

It often happens that you find something interesting when you’re looking up something else. This time around, the research diversion took us to Sally Blane, an actress who appeared in many low-budget movies of the 1930s, ranging from Once a Sinner in 1930 to This is the Life in 1935 before she married director Norman Foster and pretty much retired from the screen. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Wildlife – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

In our October edition, columnist Hal Walter wrote about his efforts to dispatch a resident pack rat which had been worse than annoying. Neither his dog nor his cat seemed interested in the nesting rodent. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Marcia Darnell

San Luis Valley – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

SLV Shows Heart

Valley residents pitched in to help hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast in a variety of ways. A group of Alamosans held a yard sale and bake sale; kids in several schools collected money for victims; several people in Monte Vista held a sew/knit-a-thon to make blankets; Rakhra Mushroom Farm employees drove food and water to Houston; and a bookstore manager helped coördinate rescue efforts and foster homes for animals affected by the disaster. A few victims have relocated to the Valley, finding help and homes far out of the reach of monster tides. Read the rest of this article

Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck

Mountain Life – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Geology – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The world is breaking apart here. The question is “How fast?” and a team of geologists and students from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of New Mexico has launched a three-year project to find out.

Central Colorado and the San Luis Valley are home to what geologists call the Rio Grande Rift. It begins in New Mexico and extends north to Leadville and beyond — the San Luis Valley and the Upper Arkansas Valleys are a result of the rift. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Jim Stiles

Recreation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN CHIEF RANGER Jerry Epperson hired me to be a seasonal ranger at Arches National Park in Utah so many years ago, I wasn’t sure what my duties were supposed to be. So it seemed like a good idea to ask.

Epperson smiled wryly and said, “A ranger should range.” Read the rest of this article

UNION PARK RESERVOIR: JUDGE CUTS OFF FIRM’S RIGHTS

Union Park Reservoir, the controversial plan to tap the Gunnison River headwaters for Front Range communities, suffered a serious setback last week when a state judge revoked a key water right. Denver Post, 08/08 <http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2922672> Read the rest of this article