Month: February 2002

What to do with a buffalo in your freezer

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Column by Hal Walter

Food – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

COOKING, IF YOU REALLY LOVE FOOD, is almost certain to take on a regional flavor. In Central Colorado, this brand of culinary snobbishness is known as cuisine opportunisme, which roughly translated means “eat well when you have the opportunity.” It has occurred to me to do as dead comedian Sam Kinneson suggested and “live where the food is,” but then I realize that there are better restaurants in Salida than there are in Pueblo, a town 15 times the size. Incidentally, nobody in Pueblo can muster a cup of coffee that compares to anything Bongo Billy’s brews up either.

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Finding those papers

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Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Local Media – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Canyon Country Zephyr, P.O. Box 327, Moab UT 84532. 435-259-7773. $15 per year. www.canyoncountryzephyr.com

Chaffee County Times, P.O. Box 2048, Buena Vista CO 81211. 719-395-8621. $29 per year out of county. www.chaffeecountytimes.com

Colorado Central Magazine, P.O. Box 946, Salida CO 81201. 719-539-5345. $20 per year. www.coloradocentralmagazine.com

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If there were only a way to build a garage from old papers

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Essay by Ed Quillen

Local media – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

SURE, I ENJOY READING BOOKS — most of them, anyway. But I actually spend more time reading newspapers and magazines, so when Martha asked for the annual “List of Favorites,” I decided to write about periodicals.

Daily Newspapers

I read three; just how thoroughly depends on what else I have to do that day, but they all get at least a skimming.

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Some Personal Favorites

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Review by Lynda La Rocca

Literature – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

For most of the past year, I was on a fantasy fiction kick. Unfortunately, the books I randomly selected were, for the most part, formulaic and forgettable, neither enchanting nor transporting me to fantastic realms filled with magic and wonder.

Finally, I decided to revisit the master, so I plunged again into J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy which, along with Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, may be the finest collection of fantasy fiction ever written.

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Fay Golson: Light, Shadow and Archetype

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Article by Clint Driscoll

Local artist – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to walk past a Fay Golson work without stopping to look. Whether the piece is a highly textured, colorful painting of humans at work, or a photograph of an abandoned shack in a blizzard, or a photogram featuring the demon form of Kali among everyday objects, the work requires examination and a reaction. That phenomenon has established the reputation of this Chaffee County artist as a painter, maker of mixed-media pieces, and a very creative photographer.

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Culture and Consensus

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Column by George Sibley

Resort economy – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

“What is a culture if it is not a consensus?”

That’s a question I encountered in an essay, “The World in Pieces,” by anthropologist Clifford Geertz. It’s a question that eventually occurs to anyone who is experiencing the phenomenon of “multiculturalism” today — “cultural diversity” is something that one might like to celebrate, if one could only figure out how.

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The war we don’t know how to talk about

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Essay by Martha Quillen

Modern Times – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

ONE OF MY PET PEEVES revolves around how sure people sound in polls. The nightly news will put one of their quixotic multiple choice polls on, and half the time I think, “Boy, I don’t know.” But inevitably less than 10% of people actually answer, “I don’t know.”

Of course, that may be because news stations rudely classify the “I don’t knows” as “no opinion,” which is not the same thing. I have opinions; I just don’t pretend to know everything.

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Big paws at heart of some lynx controversies

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Sidebar by Allen Best

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Canada lynx are similar in appearance to bobcats, which remain common although rarely seen in Colorado. They weigh 18 to 44 pounds, or two to three times the size of a house cat. They measure three or four feet long, not counting their tails.

Lynx differ from bobcats in two key ways. First, clumps of dark hair, called tufts, extend Mr. Spock-like from their ears.

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Lynx once tolerably common in Colorado Rockies

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Sidebar by Allen Best

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Lynx seem never to have been abundant in the Southern Rockies, an area of high country that sprawls beyond Colorado into bordering areas of Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah. This is the southern edge of range for the lynx, who are more common in areas near the Canadian border.

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Colorado’s lynx are feeding, but not breeding

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Article by Allen Best

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

NEARLY THREE YEARS since the first of 96 Canada lynx were transplanted into Colorado, survival of the species here remains in doubt.

It’s not for lack of food. Unlike February 1999, when four of the first five lynx released into the San Juan Mountains died of starvation, wildlife researchers are confident that lynx have found enough to eat. Some have even been caching kills, to eat later.

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More triple divides

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Letter from Ken Stitzel

Geography – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

That was an interesting article about the triple divide at Headwaters Hill, “A Letter from the Editors: Playing the Name Game (and enjoying it)” in the September issue. However, if you are extolling the Closed Basin as part of the triple divide, there would seem to be three triple divides defining the corners of the basin.

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Terrorists can murder, but only Americans can destroy U.S.A.

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Letter from Marianne Dugan

Terrorism – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Editors:

RE: “Wallah!” And here I thought it was for humor. You know, as in, “real Westerners don’t use French.”

RE: The USPS. For the last two years my November issue of Colorado Central hasn’t arrived until mid-December (15th and 13th respectively), so your Maine subscribers probably receive November and December together. I don’t know why the postal service finds November so difficult, but suspect the catalogue overload is involved.

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Election Petitions may already be circulating

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Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Water Politics – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

In recent years, there have been only two water conservancy districts which have held elections, and both are in Central Colorado.

Elections were held in 1999 and 2000 in the Upper Gunnison River WCD (basically, the river basin above Blue Mesa Dam). In 2001, there was an election in the Upper Arkansas WCD (Chaffee, Custer, and western Frémont counties).

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The long, strange trip to the ballot box

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Article by Jeanne Englert

Water Politics – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

THOUGH IT WAS a lot of work, citizens groups in Chaffee and Gunnison counties have succeeded in getting elected representation on the Upper Arkansas and Upper Gunnison water conservancy district boards, which have historically been appointed by judges.

And they plan to do it again. Both Citizens for Water Integrity (Chaffee County) and High Country Citizens Alliance (Gunnison County) have already begun circulating petitions for director districts in which the incumbents’ terms will expire this year.

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Trout Unlimited targets empty riverbeds

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Brief by Central Staff

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Rivers ought to have water in them, but Colorado’s water laws often produce dry streambeds that hurt both the economy and the environment. Thus some changes are necessary, according to a report issued in January by Trout Unlimited.

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User fees make money in Aspen

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Brief by Central Staff

Public Lands – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

User fees to visit National Forests are not popular in some areas (see the January 2002 edition), but they seem to be working in the Aspen area.

The fees are charged to almost all visitors to the Maroon Valley, the place that offers that spectacular view of the Maroon Bells which just might be the most photographed image in Colorado.

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Park County eliminating Voice Mail from Hell

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Brief by Central Staff

Telecommunications – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Those of us who frequently call government offices occasionally exchange tales of Voice Mail From Hell. While there are some state offices in Denver that are fairly talented at producing frustration and annoyance for citizens, the local consensus has given first prize to the Park County government offices in Fairplay.

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Trout now thrive below Summitville site

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Brief by Central Staff

Wildlife – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Trout are again thriving downstream from the Summitville Mine Superfund site, but the real test will come with this spring’s runoff.

Terrace Reservoir sits on the Alamosa River about 20 miles below the mine. It had once been a popular fishing spot, but about a decade ago, the mine began to leak. Its owner declared bankruptcy and the Environmental Protection Agency took over. The state and federal governments have since spent about $235 million.

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Enron executive owns Taylor Ranch

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Brief by Central Staff

Enron scandal – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Although some of us like to think that the mountains are a good place to hide from Wall Street, that is at best a pleasant fantasy: railroad mergers and multinational mining companies, to give two examples, have major effects on our part of the world.

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Briefs from the San Luis Valley

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Brief by Marcia Darnell

San Luis Valley – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Generations of Good

The Coleman family, which has been ranching in Saguache County for over 100 years, was named Conservationists of the Year for Ranching for 2001 by the state association of soil conservation districts. The family owns 11,000 acres near Saguache.

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One way to make sure you’re remembered

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Brief by Central Staff

Arkansas River – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

We know of ancient Egyptians from the inscriptions on masonry along the Nile, and now the Arkansas River Trust is offering a similar form of immortality: engraved brick pavers on a river walk from the Steam Plant through Riverside Park.

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Olympic torch relay will come through

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Brief by Central Staff

Local Events – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Olympic Torch will come through Central Colorado on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Games.

The torch began its trip on Dec. 4 in Atlanta, site of the 1996 Summer Games, and it wanders through 46 of the 50 states, with Colorado the penultimate.

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It’s time for a showdown on the Western Range

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Essay by Dan Dagget

Agriculture – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

SOME FIGHTS can’t be settled with words. That, I believe, is the case with the battle over whether grazing should be removed from public lands in the American West.

Anti-grazers have been trying to get cows off these lands for more than a hundred years, and for just as long ranchers and their allies have been battling them to a standstill. As taxpayers, we have poured billions of dollars into this standoff, funding legislation, regulation, lawsuits and range improvements, and all we’ve got for our money is a century of ill-will and divisiveness.

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