Story and photos by Mike Rosso
No, it’s not a camouflaged gang of South American rebels celebrating their latest victory against the imperialist dogs. That joke is as well worn as a hundred-year-old dance floor. What is known about contra dancing is that is upbeat, easy and fun for folks of all ages.
Readers are highly encouraged to submit photos for consideration for the FINAL EXPOSURE page.
by Hal Walter
The old rancher told me
This time of year
it’ll blow and blow and blow
until it snows.
Courtesy of Joseph Coniglio of Robideau Farm to You
3249 1600 Road
Delta, Colorado 81416
(970) 399-7175
This is a simple recipe and an inspiration to all hunters and the wives and children of hunters.
It has given much warm satisfaction bringing home the hunt and serving it warm by late afternoon before retiring next to the fireplace with a glass of cognac or burbon. My father did just that where we lived on the Canadian border. Dad brought the rabbit(s) home, us boys skinned and cleaned them, and mom did the cooking…
by Jane Provorse
Ever wished you had just stayed home?
A couple of years ago my family decided to visit relatives in Wisconsin for the Christmas holidays. I booked plane reservations for myself, my husband Bob, and our two teenage daughters to fly from Denver to Milwaukee. The night before we were to leave our home in Salida, a blizzard was forecast to hit Denver the following morning.
by Jennifer Dempsey
Thirteen years ago, the Academy of American Poets established April as National Poetry Month. During this month,?poets and poetry lovers?everywhere celebrate the art form that, writer David Ignatow claims,?“almost makes up for the estrangement?among the human race.”
Central Colorado is home to hundreds of remarkable poets and in?honor of?National Poetry Month?a few?reveal what makes them tick.?
by George Sibley
All the global “meltdowns,” economic and otherwise, have been temporarily, subtly trumped here by the onset of the annual local meltdown that signals “Springtime in the Rockies” – that interval of mud, gray skies, and soggy erratic weather during which, that old song notwithstanding, “I’ll be coming back to you” only if you happen to live in Cuernavaca, or at least Canon City, someplace without dirty snow. Nonetheless, even that onset of mud and sogginess generates an involuntary uptick in the human spirit, no matter what the news from the larger world.
By Marcia Darnell
Coni Grant is living proof that you CAN have it all. ?An accomplished artist, mother, wife, and professional designer, she moves through the stages in her life in vivid color, with intensity and love of life.
A Farmer Far Afield
by John Mattingly
This the second in a series of annual, contrarian views expressed in Farmer Far Afield. The first, A HOUSE IS JUST A HOUSE, provoked an unexpected volume of perturbed responses from folks convinced their home was an “investment.”
By Mike Sherack
Beaver’s Pond Press: September 2008
ISBN: 1592982506
At the start of deer season in Idaho, someone begins hunting the hunters. The FBI takes over the case after the killer runs a classified ad in the Idaho Statesman, warning that the slayings will continue until officials end the hunting season. The FBI’s top agent in such matters, Max Miller, is dispatched to Boise.
by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver
Illustrated by Richard A. Houser.
Harper Collins, 2007
ISBN: 0060852569
I found so much to appreciate in this book – a sprawling meditation on food, food politics, family, origns, and what we sometimes self-consciously refer to as The American Way of Life – that it is a bit of a challenge for me to know where to begin. So, let’s begin with: why this book? Why now? It came out in 2007, for heaven’s sake – two years ago being a sliver of eternity in America. 2007 – remember when?
The Strange Case of Capt. E. Wayne Eaton
Part One
By Charles F. Price
The first and surest consequence of any calamity is the laying of blame. Whatever the disaster, natural or human, someone must pay for letting it happen. The worse the event, the more urgent the need to find and punish a party who can plausibly be held responsible. And if an actual culprit can’t be exposed, and if those in power fear they may be seen as accountable, a scapegoat will always do.
By John Orr
Nestlé Waters’ Chaffee County project update
Most Colorado Central readers already know about Nestlé Waters North America’s plans to export water out of the Arkansas River Basin — from springs they’ve purchased near Nathrop — to their bottling plant in Denver. Nestlé plans to restore the area around the springs (Bighorn Spring and Hagen Spring), drill a couple of supply wells in the shallow aquifer, build two pump houses and pipe the water five miles to a new loading station along U.S. 285 near Johnson Village.
Update on the Lexam drilling project
by David Bright
CRESTONE -The fight to stop Lexam Exploration, Inc. from drilling three 14,000 wells in the Baca Wildlife Refuge has been going on for over two and a half years. The most recent development is an agreement reached between Lexam, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the San Luis Valley Ecosystem that will give the organizations working on the issue more time to find a permanent solution. The agreement will be in place until August 1, 2009. It will “cease all construction activities on the Lexam Road” (a road owned by Lexam that crosses the refuge) and stop any other work on access roads and well pads from beginning.
Buena Vista developer files for Chapter 7
BUENA VISTA – A major property developer in Buena Vista has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Dean Hiatt, who ran his business as Vista Builders filed for bankruptcy on January 28.
It is estimated he built nearly 350 homes and multiple commercial properties since the early 1990s in Buena Vista, Leadville and Salida. The company was responsible for building extensive subdivisions in Chaffee County.
by Sterling R. Quinton
On the outskirts of a quiet Colorado town lies a new goat dairy which, despite the steep industrial odds set against it, is making an impressive stand upon some old-time principles.
At the center of that dairy is its founder, Dawn Jump, who embodies the quintessential blend of rugged mountain individualist and collegially articulate woman, calling to mind Isabella Bird and her 1873 collection of letters, A Lady’s life in the Rocky Mountains. The comparison is all the more compelling because Jump’s Colorado lineage harks back to 1892. Her family homesteaded a forty-acre ranch in Calhan, Colorado.
Personal finance has never been my forte. Nor Ed’s. In fact, when we moved some savings around to pay taxes and make IRA contributions this January, a bank officer suggested a different kind of account and Ed said, “Ask Martha. She’s the one who keeps track of that stuff.”
That was news to me.
By Carl Hiaasen
(Originally published in the March 8, 2009 edition of the Miami Herald)
You probably thought there was a serious water shortage in Florida.
It’s why we’re spending billions to repair and repurify the Everglades, right? It’s why we’re not supposed to run our lawn sprinklers more than once or twice a week.
It looks like the tourists have returned to Salida. Or at least they were out and about in good numbers on a Friday night during their spring break vacations down south.
Good news for the restaurant owners, lodgers, gas dealers and other visitor-dependent businesses. Even the daffodils and crocus are rearing their tentative heads.
To the Editor:
When I landed in Central Colorado at age 30, I hadn’t learned much of anything useful. Oh, I had excelled in high school, but I didn’t want to spend my life in a classroom or an office, employed by a corporation or an institution. I needed to learn to work with my hands, beyond kneading bread and repairing a lamp cord. I started at the bottom, with a pick and a shovel and a membership in the Leadville local of the Laborer’s union.
Dear Editor,
I was pleased to read Kenneth Jessen’s article, Executive Order 9066: Misdirected Exercise of War Powers, in your March 2009 issue.
The mass incarceration of over 110,000 people (two-thirds of them U.S. citizens) during WWII, remains one of America’s greatest violations of civil liberties. And although I am happy to learn this lesson is taught at Grenada (Colorado) High School (and required in all California high schools), elsewhere the sad chapter of American history has been mostly forgotten.
To the Editor:
This morning as usual I picked up the two newspapers on my doorstep. I opened one of them with a sense of dread—knowing that it was the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News. I don’t know what year I began reading the News, but it was in the early 40s. I know this because I gauge past time, not so much by calendar years, but by the name of the street I was living on when something happened. I remember the house and I remember reading the News when I was a youngster there, some sixty years ago. I don’t miss the house, but I’ll certainly miss the News.
The Denver and Rio Grande Depot in Florence, CO was built in 1926 but was abandoned 50 years ago. In the 1970s it was acquired by the city of Florence from the Rio Grande Railroad Company. In 1979 the city began leasing the facility to the Florence Senior Citizen Council on Aging who have since used it as a senior community center.