Column by Hal Walter
Mountain Life – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
RECENTLY WHILE READING the book Blood and Thunder, a chronicle of Kit Carson’s role in settling the West, I was struck by the tenacity of the early settlers, not to mention Native Americans, in dealing with the elements, particularly winter weather.
Article by Allen Best
Wildlife – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
TWICE IN HIS 42 YEARS Brad Phelps has seen the strange sight of crickets above timberline, hundreds of thousands of them, so thick that several were squashed with every step. The first time he observed this spectacle was in the 1980s when he was archery hunting in the La Garita Wilderness Area between Saguache and Creede.
Article by Marcia Darnell
Local Artist – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
FARMWORKERS ARE GENERALLY hidden from the American consciousness. Those who labor to provide our food are invisible, except when held up as objects of pity. Artist Annette Troncoso sees them differently. Her paintings honor the farmworkers, imbuing them with pride and dignity.
Column by George Sibley
Environment – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
ALONG WITH PROBABLY a lot of the conscientious readership of Colorado Central, I’ve seen “the Al Gore Movie,” An Inconvenient Truth — although it’s been so culturally “mediated” that I didn’t really need to actually see it to know what it’s about and get the message. Gore’s Inconvenient Truth is that we humans are putting humongous quantities of heat-trapping gases into the planet’s atmosphere that are changing the global climate in unpredictable, often violent, and potentially catastrophic ways, and we only have about a decade left to get really serious about mitigating this situation.
Column by John Mattingly
Outdoors – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Close Encounters With Other Species
DURING THE LATE SUMMER of 1973 — the year the Endangered Species Act (ESA) passed and became a contentious topic in our local coffee shop — a prolonged rainy spell shut down haying operations in our area long enough for me to read Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda. The book was a gift from a neighbor, a dairyman named Ross whose son had given it to him, claiming (hoping) it would “blow his mind.”
Article by Marcia Darnell
Tourism – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE ’60S ARE REMEMBERED in the U.S. as a time of turbulence, of war and protest, of free love and hippies. When people think of the ’60s they recall love beads and incense, the Beatles and tie-dye, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
Review by Martha Quillen
Historical Novel – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Vote
by Sybil Downing
Published in 2006 by University of New Mexico Press
ISBN-10: 0-8263-3857-7
Review by Ed Quillen
Transportation – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The White Cascade – The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche
by Gary Krist
Published in 2007 by Henry Holt & Co.
ISBN 0-8050-7705-7
Essay by Ed Quillen
History – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
FOR MUCH OF THE PAST YEAR, I have followed Zebulon Montgomery Pike across the Great Plains and around Colorado — reading his journal, writing a monthly summary for this magazine, attending a few bicentennial events.
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Transportation – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Does the addition of a new tourist railroad in our area take business away from the other lines?
Article by Virginia McConnell Simmons
Transportation – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
AMID ENTHUSIASTIC PUBLICITY from railroad operators, chambers of commerce in Alamosa and La Veta, tourism promoters, and fans, the new Rio Grande Scenic Railroad excursion train hummed across the Sangre de Cristo Range on May 27, 2006, to open its first regular season. And it rolled to a smooth stop on October 15.
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
History – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Pike Bicentennial celebration is winding down in Colorado, and we haven’t found anything scheduled for later this year in New Mexico, where history goes so far back that a mere bicentennial apparently doesn’t attract much attention.
Article by Ed Quillen
History – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
AT THE END OF January, 1807, Capt. Zebulon M. Pike’s small party was spread out for a hundred miles in the dead of winter. Private Patrick Smith and Baronet Vasquez, the interpreter, had been left on Jan. 14 with the horses and some of the gear at the site of present-day Cañon City. The plan was for the others to press southwest and find a route to the Red River, then return for the men, horses, and gear, and follow that route.
Letter from John T. Sturtz
Colorado Central – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Regarding Martha Quillen’s “Letter from the Editors” in the January edition:
You mentioned wars you opposed: Viet Nam, Iraq, Gulf War I, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and your ambivalence about Somalia and possible intervention in Darfur and Rwanda.
Letter from Slim Wolfe
Modern Life – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I imagine most readers would subscribe to your suggestion to shop locally; we only wish local merchants would give us more encouragement. A drive to Cañon City can save the consumer 30% on a certain jar of Colorado salsa and more than 50% on a pressure-tank for one’s home water system, compared to Salida retail stores. Who among us would not spend two hours behind the wheel to save more than $130?
Letter from Dave Clark Wildlife – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine Dear Ed and Martha, We just want to tell you how much we enjoy Colorado Central. It was interesting to read in Hal Walter’s recent article on cutting a Christmas tree about the deer eating all the needles off of the tree he …
Letter from Kathy Mccoy
Colorado Central – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Cactus Jack,
Your January cartoon in Colorado Central is really disappointing, with its apparent reference to the Ward Churchill disaster at University of Colorado. Every profession has an occasional opportunistic impostor, and it’s a cheap shot to accuse the university c
Letter from Marty Mitchell
Saguache – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Just read “A Cautionary Tale,” by Marcia Darnell, about the travails of businesses in Saguache in the January edition . Thank you for remembering Saguache is here, but why the heavy focus on the downside of things, without some balancing emphasis on those businesses that are here, and have been here for quite a while?
Cactus Jack’s View
Cartoon by Jack Chivvis
Modern Life – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Brief by Martha Quillen
Regional News – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Online Schools Not in Line?
On December 12, a front-page Denver Post article reported that a state audit had found Colorado’s online schools wanting.
Brief by Central Staff
Climate – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Last month we passed on the predictions of climate scientists, who said this would be an El Niño year. From December into February, the Pacific Northwest would get hammered, and we would be dry. Our snow would come in March and April.
Brief by Central Staff
Modern Life – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
A former Wetmore family was featured in the Dec. 31, 2006, edition of the New York Times, although their old hometown was vaguely described as “a small town in Colorado,” and the mother, Debbie Schwarz, was identified only by her stage name of De’Bella.
Brief by Allen Best
Sports – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong had been announced as a competitor at next summer’s Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race. That was before the winner of this past year’s Tour de France, Floyd Landis, announced that he, too, would race at Leadville.
Brief by Marcia Darnell
San Luis Valley – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
City Hunt
The deer in Alamosa are becoming numerous and fearless, and the city is preparing for war. A controlled hunt is proposed for the Alamosa Ranch and the wilderness area known as Cattails Golf Course. City Manager Nathan Cherpeski said the safety of homeowners in those areas is the top concern, so potential hunters will be screened, skill-tested, and limited in number.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Brief by Central Staff
Politics – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Doug Lamborn, a Republican who now represents Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, won’t be in a position to exercise much influence in an important sector of his district’s economy.
The Fifth is dominated by Colorado Springs and El Paso County, where there are five major military installations, among them Fort Carson and the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Brief by Allen Best
Modern Times – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Christmas always draws the celebrities to Aspen, and with the celebrities come the photo-snapping paparazzi.
Essay by Gail Binkly
Environment – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
I’LL ALWAYS REMEMBER the evening a candidate for local political office, an environmentally minded and intelligent citizen whom I liked and admired, passed me on the highway between Cortez and Mancos. I was traveling somewhere between 60 and 65 mph, my usual cruising speed. He blew by me — passing over a double yellow line — as if I were a slug crawling along the asphalt.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DECIDES NOT TO APPEAL COLORADO WATER RULING
The Interior Department’s decision not to appeal a federal court ruling that overturned a 2003 deal that governed the amount of water flowing through Black Canyon National Park means work can now begin on finding how much water the river needs through the canyon to sustain wildlife and other uses. Denver Rocky Mountain News (AP); Jan. 4 article
