Water conflicts, and more

Letter from Jeanne Englert

Water – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed and Martha,

Loved the full-color warmth of the last [September] cover.

In regard to the Letter from the Editors, you probably cannot reiterate enough how our lives get directed by small, obscure government units. Reminded me of how we in TAR struggled to get the Front Strange enviros to understand how behemoth water projects like A-LP get fostered. You two have done more than anybody in the press to make these districts visible.

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Soap to savor from Wetmore

Article by Jeanne Englert

Rural Life – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

RUTH BOWMAN’S kitchen soap and milk baths are made in Wetmore, and should be savored by us arid Coloradans.

I received one of Ruth’s milk baths as a Christmas gift, and luxuriated in it before I knew that I was bathing in coffee creamer. That milk bath was scented with patoulie oil, so my husband said I smelled like a 60s Boulder hippie after I emerged from a long, relaxing soak. But it definitely relieved the pain of my arthritic joints and carried my mind away from the evils of this world.

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Pah pops up often in dry country

Letter from Jeanne Englert

Ute vocabulary – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Hello there. Timothy Englert, his older sister, our Havana Brown cat and I went on a trip to California. On the way, to and fro, I noted more pah words that might be of interest to readers, pah being in its various spellings the Ute/Paiute word for water.

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The long, strange trip to the ballot box

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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Pity the poor Central office dog for her ignorant owners

Letter from Jeanne Englert

History – September 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ed & Martha:

Oh, pity your dog, Ted. The pig ears you asked about in the August edition are dog chewies, which, due to ignorance, you have not bought for her. Dogs must like ’em because the Country General Store on South Boulder Road has bushel baskets and bins full of them. Similar to the rawhide chews you’d buy in the pet section of your supermarket, but cheaper. (Tim Englert and I assume that pigs’ ears on the doggy-treat shelf in Safeway may make some customers squeamish whereas rawhide is apparently more abstract.)

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A difference of opinion about Pat Schroeder

Letter from Jeanne Englert

Politics – June 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Ed, I agree with most of your opinions, but beg to differ with you about Pat Schroeder. Certainly she had a national feminist constituency, but the main reason she got re-elected and re-elected, etc., was because she was constituent-oriented. You had a problem with Social Security? Veterans benefits? She got her staff right on it.

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How to prove you’re a pioneer

Article by Jeanne Englert

Colorado Status – September 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT WON’T MAKE YOU a better driver, but it’s fun to sport a Colorado pioneer license plate if you qualify for one.

Zoe Hubbard, a descendant of four pioneer families in southern Weld County, established the pioneer plate program two years ago to honor Coloradans whose ancestral roots go back 100 years. The State of Colorado agreed to make these pioneer/settler plates as long as 250 of them are in use. The program has been hugely successful. Over 7,000 such plates have been approved since its inception.

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One use for an expired driver’s license

Letter by Jeanne Englert

Identity – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

One use discovered for a long-expired driver’s license

Dear Ed and Martha:

Your readers may appreciate an update on my identity crisis (November, 1998). After hearing the story of what I went through to get my signature notarized, an old friend’s daughters got on her case. Non-drivers each one, but the girls have state ID cards, whereas their mom was still getting by using a driver’s license that had been expired for ten years. (Her bank knows her; she’s pretty much a cash-and-carry gal — the bank cashes her paycheck; she carries her groceries on the bus.)

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If you don’t drive, you don’t exist

Essay by Jeanne Englert

Identity – November 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

I CEASED TO EXIST OCTOBER 3, 1998.

It was a minor matter, just a correction deed for three patented mining claims above Ashcroft in Pitkin County, but my signature needed to be notarized. In presenting the document to the notary public, I learned that I no longer existed. She refused to witness my signature because my driver’s license had expired in 1991.

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America’s oldest homes are not in Pennsylvania

Letter by Jeanne Englert

History – September 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

America’s oldest homes are not in Pennsylvania

Editors:

In reading Ed Quillen’s excellent essay, “George Washington Never Slept Here” in the August edition of Colorado Central, I was surprised at his oversight in omitting daughter Columbine’s experience at Salida High School.

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The last word about native status

Letter by Jeanne Englert

Mountain Life – July 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Latest Words About Native Status

Editors:

“Last settlers,” they called us when our grassroots group organized in 1979 to oppose the controversial Animas-La Plata water project in southwestern Colorado. That wasn’t true. Half of us were Colorado natives, some with roots going back several generations. My great-grandfather arrived in Auraria in 1858, when it wasn’t Denver yet, and he was the first building contractor and sheriff of Arapahoe County. My maternal great-great-grandfather arrived in Auraria in 1860, and co-founded the Tivoli Brewery.

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A Bit of Explanation

Sidebar by Jeanne Englert

Ute Language – August 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

A BIT OF EXPLANTION

You may have seen some Ute words in print (they pop up in romances, histories, and Westerns), and the Ute words published here look rather exotic by comparison. That may be because the words you saw were from Northern Ute, which doesn’t use the same orthography (spelling and alphabet) as the Southern Ute discussed here.

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Translating Ute place names

Article by Jeanne Englert

Ute Language – August 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editor’s Note: As this article will explain, the Southern Ute language, as currently written, employs many letters that are not in the standard computer character set. Until we can figure out how to display them in HTML (we used an equation editor when setting the article into type for the magazine), we present them here the way they would be if HTML had the characters.

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