Up Bear Creek / 21jul50011

Up Bear Creek

by Art Goodtimes

Travels with Gregorio Rainbow Oshá

ON THE ROAD … Each summer I look forward to traveling with my youngest son. It’s the high point of the non-school year for both of us … Of course, I rarely do anything singly. Seems like double-tasking is de rigeur for my busy life as pol, poet, poppa and spud farmer. So, rather than just a vacation, I often combine business and pleasure. This year was no different … The Rainbow Gathering at Skookum Meadows in Skamania County, Washington, was one major focus. The annual meeting of the National Association of Counties (NACo) at the Portland Convention Center was the other. Both were in the first part of July. Both were in the Pacific Northwest. Marrying the two together seemed natural, although one involved my wild hippie countercultural society and the other our shared mainstream law&order cultural matrix. Perhaps polar opposites for some. But I subscribe to the dictum, “All power to the paradox,” as my poet friend Jack Mueller would insist.

LATE START … The intent this year was to leave Cloud Acre at the end of June and get to the Rainbow Gathering for its start, July 1^st. But no such luck. It took Gorio and I two full days of packing to get ready for our trip, and to secure Cloud Acre with friends to feed the cats and tend the fifty some potato varieties that I grow each year. Shoehorning gear for both camping in the wilds and formal political meetings into a tiny Honda Civic was no easy task. We made it fit, but didn’t start our journey until the day the gathering was supposed to start … Gorio and I agreed to not rush, and enjoy our travels as much as our destinations … So, the first night was spent in Fruita, at Danny Rosen’s North 19 Straw Bale Observatory, where it just so happened three of our favorite poets in the world were having a campfire evening – Rosen, Wendy Videlock of Grand Junction and the aforementioned Mueller of Log Hill Village in Ridgway. An evening spent quoting lyrics, explicating the nature of memory and drinking fine liquids of various sorts made for a great (if late) start to our journey … And in the spirit of not rushing, Gorio slept into the afternoon before we got back on the road. Ah, the vacationing life…

GREEN RIVER … The Green River Coffee Company has become a favorite stop in a long desolate stretch of Interstate (with starkly beautiful scenery). Great coffee. Wifi (although they charge a small fee to plug in). Good sandwiches. And a relaxed, bookish atmosphere … You hardly feel like you’re in Utah. And the java is organic. 25 East Main St. And if you park down a side block, you can even find a little shade.

LA GRANDE … The second day we made a little better time, driving from a so-so motel in Salt Lake City to a must-stop eatery on any Northwest journey. A few years ago, just by chance, we stopped in La Grande and found ourselves seated for dinner at Foley Station. And what a dinner it was! Some of the tastiest, most creative food I’ve had and for a very reasonable price … Over the years, it has become a destination cafe for me. I like to plan my trips around dinner or breakfast at Foley Station in La Grande… This time we found a small very cheap (under $50 for 2) but clean motel on the outskirts of town – Quail Run Motor Inn. The sound of the rail line across the road added rural flavor. The proprietors – a lovely Indian couple – kept the grounds in excellent shape, and were very friendly … But the high point for us was dinner at Foley Station. The meal was excellent, although the male waiter was a bit slow and we were a bit cranky, so he didn’t get the big tip he could have gotten. But I’d recommend this restaurant to anyone anytime. Even with slow service … Our only regret was that they’d decided to close for the 4^th of July weekend, so we didn’t get Sunday brunch like we’d hoped.

SKOOKUM MEADOWS … Gorio’s middle name is Rainbow. It’s where his mother and I first met. And he’s been going with me every other year since he was born (the gathering is held in national forests around the county and alternates between the east coast and the west coast – with our attending only when it’s in the west) … Since we got to the gathering so late, we had to park miles from the event, and ended up walking for hours and hours, camping outside the gathering, and only making it into the site for the 4^th of July peace circle … But still it was inspiring. And other than the Forest Service Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) from their D.C. “unified command,” it was a very peaceful gathering. I heard later from a local county commissioner in Skamania County that the LEOs failed to coordinate with the local sheriff, alienated all the local people, and made many silly and ridiculous arrests … Once again, it was the Feds out of control. Must be some sort of lesson there.

PEBBLE MINE … Poet friend Cameron Scott, whose fine poem is our Talking Gourd for this week, says that Telluriders may be familiar with this “big plain suck ass of a mine” in Alaska from the award-winning film by our local filmmakers, Red Gold.

THE TALKING GOURD

Pebble Mine

Growing up we used to throw pebbles

over power lines.

Rotation of shoulder, whip of forearm.

Our laughter scattering into the grass.

Laboring through the heat of rules

without rules, some of us took aim

at magpies and windows.

Then staring down at our dirty socks

we would ask forgiveness

for the windows.

-Cameron Scott

Basalt

Up Bear Creek / 14jul50011

Attending a healing gathering for peace

RAINBOW … Every year it’s a different spot, and a different event. This year’s gathering on the flanks of Mount St. Helen’s in Skamania County, Washington, not far from the mountain town of Cougar had its own flavor. Parking was far from the camp – some four to five miles. Gorio and I made it close, but we ended up camping outside the gathering, in a lovely spot in the trees. We walked into the camp on the 4^th and made it for the noon circle, although because of late snows the big meadow was actually a bog, and there were several circles, which meant things were a bit disconnected. But we did dance around the peace pole in the second meadow, and we did meet up with our good friend Jim Rosenthal from Norwood … A lovely (very cold) stream wound through the forests, meadows and camps of the site. Chuck and Linda Parry, formerly of Telluride, were there with their Bread of Life kitchen – feeding thousands of people. Jim volunteered and helped them, as he’s done for several years. We’d hoped to join them this year, but we weren’t able to get our load of stuff into the site, due to the distance and a late start. Still, we got great hugs and lots of loving energy from everyone. And met up with a number of special friends … Rainbow’s healing love energy continues strong, even with 20,000 strangers gathering in the woods year after year. And that’s a beautiful thing, no matter how hard the way in can be.

BUDGET … In his proposal to balance the federal budget, Columbia Law School professor Michael J. Graetz’s first recommendation is to enact a value-added tax (a tax on sales of finished goods and services) such as exists in 150 countries worldwide. Exported goods are exempted from the VAT, making them more competitive in the world market against our goods, which have our domestic business and raw materials sales taxes built into their cost … His second proposal is to exempt families earning $100,000 or less from the federal income tax. He would drop the corporate tax rate to 15-20% and get rid of the earned income tax credit (naturally, since people under $100,000 income wouldn’t pay income tax), instead providing lower-income families with relief from the VAT burden through payroll tax credits and other tax mechanisms.

GREEN PARTY … It’s a good measure of a group if it can weather controversy and conflict. The state Green Party has had its share of both, and for the last year or so been mired in internal issues … But a day-long meeting in Longmont last month served to heal some of the rifts and provide majority support for a restructuring of the party … I was pleased to be elected co-chair, along with Poudre Valley Green Bill Bartlett, for the next several years (an earlier election was only temporary). For more info, check the state Green website <www.coloradogreenparty.org>

CARBON TAX … Back in February, I wrote about a carbon tax proposal by my friend Lance Christie of Moab (who’s now passed on, bless him). His proposal was for a carbon tax of $300 per ton of CO₂. Bryan Cashion of Montrose wrote back to question the math on that figure … While supportive of the idea of a carbon tax to lower people’s energy usage, Bryan was critical of the numbers Lance had proposed. Pointing out that my 60 kWh per day for the month of January that I myself used at Cloud Acre (“Confessions of an Energy Pig”) would have cost me an extra $434, if Lance’s proposed carbon tax had been in effect. It turns out that one kilowatt hour of use translates to 1.606 pounds of CO₂, according to one source. Multiply that times 30 days in a month, and understanding that 2000 pounds equals a ton, I suddenly have a very large power bill (with the tax) – something in the neighborhood of $600 for one month … Clearly, even phasing such a tax into place over several years would be pretty onerous for small power users, like myself … So, anyone out there have a better figure on what a realistic carbon tax might be? (and thank you, Bryan)

WEEKLY QUOTA … "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." -Maya Angelou (thanks to Facebook friend Tammy Ruppert of Minnesota)

THUMBS DOWN … Former California Governor and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Teflon”, whose Hollywood charm and 20-mule-train “Mr. Clean” look (while pimping for General Electric) made him an American icon of the Right (in an ironic spin of the universe at its most resilient, it’s Ronald’s John Hancock that seals my Bachelor of Arts degree); when, for those of us on the Left, it was the Raygun administration (so named for his boondoggle Star Wars proposal to militarize space) that began the rise of what many are calling the “imperial presidency”, starting with his illegal drugs-for-guns Contra operation -- funding guerrilla thugs to terrorize the Nicaraguan countryside, killing doctors, nurses and teachers, in a proxy war with Russia … Now comes even our own progressive hope for president, Mr. Barack Obama, continuing to bomb Tripoli without seeking congressional approval, as our Constitution and the War Powers Act demands … Left / Right – it doesn’t seem to matter. When it comes to power, both sides of the aisle are seduced and act unilaterally … Someone in Willapa Bay on our trip to the Northwest suggested that the Tea Party and the Green Party ought to unite and form the Green Tea movement, and see if we can get our federal union back in control of the people, instead of the banks and the military-industrial complex.

THE TALKING GOURD

Father Sebastian

Father Sebastian sits

in the burn-black corridors of his mind

and hauls out his spiny dreams.

He wants to become a mirage

scrambling over the desert

just out of reach,

to whisper like a loom

when it licks

velvet threads,

to be a hawk

whose search for a mate

flogs its iron wings,

or the beast of evening

when it crawls over trembling hills,

casting rosaries around its feet.

-Carol Bell

Ft. Collins

Up Bear Creek / 7jul50011

Nabhan on Immigration & Deep Ecology

GARY PAUL NABHAN … I was at a conference with this Slow Food hero in Fort Collins recently, and I asked Gary if he’d share a few poems with us. Since we don’t usually run long poems, I’ve taken the liberty to fit a couple of his into my column’s prose style … Both vignettes find moral lessons in lyrical expression -- from one of the Southwest’s great visionaries.

WE ALL HAVE IMMIGRANT BLOOD … “Stick em up,” was how Papa always greeted me. “Stick em up” … Papa -- my Lebanese grandfather -- escaped being conscripted. That is, trapped in the Turkish army to fight against his own people. So he came into the United States illegally, to live the rest of his life. Thirty years after settling his family in the Indiana Dunes, his oldest daughter talked him into getting citizenship, his sons and daughters already teachers, sheriffs and such … A speaker of Arabic, if he tried today to do exactly what he did a century ago, he would have been sent back home … My great grandfather, too poor to pay for a good ticket to ship out with the rest of his family from Marseilles to Ellis Island, took the cheaper ship to America, which left him in Vera Cruz. Realizing his mistake, he wired his family to join him in Mexico, where they would hopefully gain enough money to travel together to where other relatives had congregated in Juarez and El Paso. But before they arrived in Miami to take the steamer to meet him, my grandfather died of malaria, put nameless and numberless, in a dirt grave by a few other Syrian immigrants to the New World … The father of my order, the Ecumenical Secular Franciscans, was an Umbrian named Francesco di Bernardone from Assisi. When young he was imprisoned when found riding on the land claimed by another city-state. When he was older, he left Italy to join the Crusades, but ended up imprisoned in Egypt by a Sultan, a believer in Islam, who could have killed him. But they worshipped together, prayed together, and sooner or later Francesco was released. Within a few years, all Christian prisoners were released, and they went to visit the Holy Places without risk. Those same Holy Places today are divided by walls which look so much like the walls which run between Sonora and my home.

TEAMING WITH LIFE … (for Mitch and Cindy, on graduation day at Unity) … I have grown tired of the idea that our species can save the world by itself … I have begun to wonder if when we stand alone, we have the guts to do anything that will work to keep this planet healthy, rich, resilient and wise … I have had to concede that we desperately need to acknowledge we need a support group, one comprised of many other species, if we are to make it through the floods, droughts and weather shifts, the scarcities of fossil fuel and fossil groundwater, economic downturns, ecologic collapses, misfiring synapses, freezes, sneezes and fits of uncertainty that the next few decades will bring to all of us … We need to turn to them and say, “My name is Homo tonto, and by myself, I stand defenseless before the crazy range of temptations, disruptions, cataclysms and global aneurisms which are careening down the turnpike and heading our way. Mates, I need help.” … We need help from the thousands of microbes -- beneficial bacteria and such -- which make up 88% of all the cells on our bodies and tongues and ears, in our guts and noses and mouths, and even between our toes and hair follicles, that may keep us from succumbing to diseases, that may help us digest our food, that may shield us from ultraviolent radiation and other forms of damnation we have hurled at ourselves. We need to acknowledge their presence, ask for help … We need to forget thinking of ourselves as individuals, and try to remember that each of our bodies (and maybe our minds) are nothing less than communities, nothing less … We need to get down on our hands and knees, and ask the earth for forgiveness for having tried to simplify all the lives hidden in each teaspoon of ground, for having treated them like dirt. We need to open our eyes like the wisest microscopes giving thanks to all the archaea, protozoa, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, slime-spewing molds, algae and fungi, gastropods and arthropods, earthworms and nematodes, not to mention salamanders and snakes, gophers and groundhogs, moles and voles that garden with us each and every time we plant a seed or tree, for they are the ones that bring us our daily bread … And what about the ones who grow on living walls, cultivated rooftops, septic tank leach fields, hedgerows, windbreaks, artificial or natural wetlands for sewage treatment and flood abatement, when do we ever give them the nod that we’d be wallowing in waste if not for them? Or the frogs, the toads, the warblers and whistling ducks? How do we think we’d make it through any day without their fascinating rhythms and riffs to boogie us along? … And what of the phoenix birds, the unicorns, the white whales and jackalopes and bigfoots who somehow fly around in our ecological imaginations even when science cannot fathom where they nest? … What would we do without these friends and allies, these mutualists and inquilines, the mentors, advisors, ombudsmen, nurses, emergency room doctors, rescue workers, scavengers, detritivores, mop-uppers, mayhem-calmers, hangover curers and clowns? …

Where would we be without the genius of the team? How would we survive?

Up Bear Creek / 30jun50011

Up Bear Creek

by Art Goodtimes

A great new indie film by a friend

TENDERLOIN … Back in the Seventies (which were really part of the Sixties -- at least the first half), I spent summers traveling. Mostly hitch-hiking (loved those college ride boards). Sometimes with a cheap car (which, combined with cheap gas, made such adventures affordable on a dirtbag budget) … One year I made it to the nation’s capital. Stayed with a buddy from the seminary who was into film, Michael Anderson. The seminary had been a strong bond, and most guys who’d left were generous with each other. I stayed a week or so … Lots of images flood back from that time … Hitting a kitchen cockroach the size of a small rabbit with a frying pan, and feeling the frying pan bounce off the hard shell, as the critter skittered into the shadows … Joking with the streetwalkers in front of Michael’s digs and taking late night solo ambles all over town, tensed for any trouble (none came) … Waiting out a tornado watch, the sky’s clouds turning an angry obsidian, on the lawn of a Maryland barn-turned-sound studio & basketball gym … Beating a serious big city leftie (buddy of Michael’s) at chess, to both our astonishments … Drinking Stolichnaya vodka into the night with a clutch of Russian engineers, toasting everything under the sun -- quite delightful fellows … It was 1976. It was summer and I was adventuring. I’d just come Tenderloin: Live or Start Dying to D.C. from a demo at the Bicentennial Celebration in Philly, that I’d bussed down for from Maine and then missed (not unpleasantly lost in Fairmount Park and the Museum of Art) … A few years later Michael stopped by my second-floor railroad apartment in Noe Valley on a pass through San Francisco, where I lived. I wasn’t home. But he left a 3x6 foot Russian poster of the Red Army hammer & sickle outside my door. Having been called a “commie” more than once for my liberal communitarian views, I loved the poster. In fact, still have it. Out in my own barn now … Michael and I have stayed in distant touch. He’s continued on in film. Heard when he got blown up in a car in the Middle East on assignment. Seriously injured. His buddy killed … A couple weeks ago he announced a new film on the upper-class seminary listserve (we have two – my class has its own). I wrote him, bought a copy. And watched it the other night … What a sweet film and quite well done. An indie, <www.tenderloinmovie.com> featured a lovely, well-written story (damaged vet takes slum hotel manager gig to escape unraveling marriage and falls in love with his kid), great character actors, nice editing (quick cuts, multiple camera angles), and a sad/happy/almost triumphant (if unresolved) finish. Nothing flashy. Just strong performances, a strangely appealing camaraderie among disparate characters, and a modern day morality play of the most appealing kind … Kudos to my buddy Michael. Highly recommended.

SAL PACE … State Representative Sal Pace (D-Pueblo) is coming to town for a Pancake Breakfast that the San Miguel Democratic Party, under the leadership of Brian Ahern, is sponsoring on Sunday, July 3, at the Elks Lodge in Telluride from 8 in the morning to just past noon. Vets and kids under 8 are free … Not only does Sal have a sibling in Norwood, but he was John Salazar’s able rep for several years. Once he got elected to the legislature, he’s quickly risen to House Minority Leader. And now I think he’s eyeing a race with Scott Tipton in the Third Congressional. Go meet Sal and get to know this rising Dem leader.

CREDIT CARD JUJU … It’s interesting how the credit card companies try to sell you insurance against loss and your mistakes, but they aren’t so good about compensating you for their mistakes … Like the credit card company that withdrew $2741 dollars from my account on a $27.41 bill, that I had paid in full (luckily, I have check duplicates) … I got a rude awakening when I went to the ATM to withdraw $100 and found I had “insufficient funds.” It took a few hours of detective work to realize what had happened. My bank had hit me up with several overdraft fees, but quickly cancelled them, when they heard my story … The credit card manager at the phone bank was nice. But looking at my check, he explained that a computer had misread my check, although it was quite clear in both boxes that the check was written for $27.41. He tried to make me feel like it was my fault. Then explained it would be three days before I could withdraw money from my account. And at no point offered my compensation – and when I finally broached the subject, he gave me $10 for a points program the credit card offers as a “bonus” to its customers … A couple hours detective work. Three days inconvenienced by not being able to write checks on my checking account because of their mistake. And a guilt trip besides. Welcome to the wonderful world of plastic, where even their mistake is your mistake (the real mistake is having a credit card at all…)

RARE METALS … Jim Burnell of the Colorado Geological Survey gave an excellent presentation to a very small group last week. His talk wasn’t advertised in any calendar I could find, not even in Ouray County, where it was held. A shame, because it was excellent. There appears to be a number of critical and strategic minerals (C&S) in our region, some of which deposits are recoverable … But why would we want to go back to such an extractive industry, even if it is our heritage in this community? Because many of these C&S minerals (tellurium, vanadium, indium, germanium, gallium, selenium and more) are critical for expanding our alternative energy options, and at present China has a trade monopoly on many of these – strategically not a good situation … I think we need to bring Jim back to speak in Telluride, since his information is going to have increasing relevance for our future in this county.

THE TALKING GOURD

Artu Detour

Isn't this life a whirl?

A tornado?

A rude awakening & end?

Up Bear Creek / 23jun50011

Rafting with the Best on the San Miguel

TELLURIDE OUTSIDE … I’m such a slow learner … It took me three years to learn how to swim as a child. It took me until two years ago to start really learning how to ski downhill (now I love it). And it’s taken me until two weeks ago to finally raft down the San Miguel … What was I thinking? Two action-packed hours of thrills and excitement. A non-stop natural roller-coaster -- swinging, swaying and sashaying down the rapids … Guess I somehow thought the steep, fast-paced, narrow serpentine of the San Miguel’s riverbed would somehow be a bad thing. Wrong! … My son, who rafted down the San Juan, said that sluggish flow was mostly “boring” (now, of course, he’s a middle-schooler, and everything but sheer terror is boring for him). But imagine long slow stretches of barely moving mud-brown water. The San Miguel is just the opposite. There’s hardly a bend to catch a breath. Water spills and splashes. River raft skipper Kris Knackendoffel smoothly guided us around submerged rocks and away from log traps. And he barked orders to paddle (when he wasn’t telling great stories). Maneuvering us into position to take the standing waves head-on, rocking and rolling … Why am I not doing this every day the water’s at peak? The river was high – about 1,300 cfs. If you haven’t taken a turn at paddling a raft from Species to Beaver Creek, do it now, while the water’s still raging. I can’t wait to go again!

LACHAPELLES … Friends of Dolores LaChapelle assembled in Silverton this last weekend to say goodbye to the LaChapelle home in Silverton, which David LaChapelle’s widow Ananda Foley is selling, so she can move on with her life. David passed just over a year ago, and his parents Ed and Dolores a year or so before him. All three LaChapelles were leaders in their respective fields and had assembled a huge cache of books, treasures and personal belongings … The books, especially those of Dolores, were kept together -- the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies will house her collection at its historic Toklat building near the end of the Castle Creek Road, under the direction of Jody and Tom Cardamone – a decision that pleased everyone. Tom drove the two tons worth of books to Toklat, while Jody assembled a Friends of Dolores group she’s planning to turn into a council to help with the job of carrying on Dolores’ legacy as an international leader of the Deep Ecology movement. I was honored to be part of that group … Sunday, after a Saturday garage sale that saw many of Dolores’ items auctioned or sold to benefit the local Silverton Ski Team, there was a moving memorial ceremony honoring all three LaChapelles at LaChapelle Park on a bench above the town (a site originally planned for their family home, but deeded and dedicated to the Town of Silverton) … Even though the house that Dolores lived in (and which I spent many a time visiting her) will change hands, the spirits of all three amazing people – Dolores, Ed, David – still remain with us in Silverton and in the San Juan Mountains.

JUDYTH HILL … One of the legendary wild women of Santa Fe (& beyond!), Judyth currently makes her home in Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende. Her poetry throws me into fits of tantric awe. I feel like a ping-pong eyeball in the Louvre of the Lyric Divine … She’s also one of the most gifted poetry teachers I know. And I hate poetry workshops (usually). But Judyth is one of the exceptions that prove the rule. She’s brilliant and she pulls incredible work out of one’s own experience by giving you amazing tools and access to the full world of the lyric valuables with a seductive process of opening one’s mind and heart … She’s coming to Telluride’s Ah Haa School at the end of July, and if you’re at all interested in writing poetry or in invigorating your prose with juicy, dazzling inspiration, I would sign up for her class fast, before it fills up. And expect to laugh a lot … Judyth first came to Telluride back in 1989 as one of the Wild Women of Santa Fe and performed in the Sheridan Opera House for the first Talking Gourds poetry festival, and became a performance regular at subsequent Talking Gourds – including hosting her own in New Mexico and now in Mexico … But if you miss the Ah Haa gig, all’s not lost … She’s also offering a Tuscany Wild Writing Adventure (“A Taste of the Divine”) this fall (Sept. 24-Oct. 1) through Culinary Adventures <www.mexicocooks.com/italy-writers.htm> … Stay at il Bareto a 17-century restored farmhouse outside of Siena. Spend a week focusing on writing, and the seasonal Tuscan cuisine, exploring ancient villages and the local markets Siena, Gaiole in Chianti, Greve, San Gimignano, Montepulciano, Penza. Expand the boundaries of your writing while enjoying wine tastings, cooking classes, fabulous meals, historic castles, mushroom hunting, and more … Either here in town or in Italy, don’t miss the Judyth Hill experience. Highly recommended.

THE TALKING GOURD

Full Moon in a Dry Summer

The full moon rises

with a reddish tint

from the smoke

of the forests burning.

In the drought, the waters

she would lift

grow scarce

as the salmon in the streams.

Her color, it would seem,

is that of the disquiet

in our blood.

Luna plena en verano de sequía

La luna plena se eleva

con un tinte rojizo

del humo

de los bosques encendidos.

En la sequía las aguas

que levantaría

se escasean

como el salmón en los ríos.

Su color, al aparecer,

es ese del perturbo

en la sangre.

© Rafael Jesús González

Berkeley

Up Bear Creek / 16jun50011

Don Coram, yes! CCI, no!

DON CORAM … Our state rep here in the 58^th District came to Telluride, but not too many folks turned out. The few Republicans in the county were there, but Dem-heavy Telluriders had other things to do. But too bad. I’ve been darn impressed by Don and his wife Dianna. They like to say the “R” behind their name stands for “Rural” and I’m a believer. Last week Gov. John Hickenlooper signed two bills in Montrose that were sponsored and successfully carried through the legislature by Coram … For this year’s Senate Bill-267, which promotes biomass from forest lands, he teamed up with two Dems (Rep. Millie Hamner and Sen. Gail Schwartz). The program will go towards utilizing beetle-kill, and cleaning our forests of dead trees. The bipartisan proposal, now signed into law, is evidence of willingness to work with others to bring important legislation forward – already a good sign … But it was his support for SB-177 that won my support. Montrose has suffered in the past from a very high teen pregnancy rate. The sunset date on a Colorado Teen Pregnancy and Dropout Program was lifted and the program, which has been successful in lowering high teen birth rates in our neighboring county. However, the original Republican sponsor of the bill dropped it like a campfire hotcake after the website for GJResult Tea Party thundered, “SB11-177 under the guise of Teen Pregnancy Prevention is a backdoor funding mechanism for abortion providers in Colorado.” This crafty and deceptive measure, etc., etc.” … Republican leadership freaked. But it wasn’t true. So, Don went and asked to put his name on the bill as sponsor, in spite of warnings, and carried the bill through the House over the objections of Republicans like Sen. Kevin Lundberg of Larimer County – and then teamed up with my friend and former Gilpin County nurse and commissioner Sen. Jeanne Nichcolson, to get the bill to the governor, who now has signed it … Those are two good reasons why Rep. Don Coram is my favorite state rep in the 58^th since Rep. Kay Alexander.

VAIL … Colorado Counties, Inc., held their summer meeting in Vail’s pricey Cascade Inn, and those of us embattled Dems & Greens got a taste of what “bi-partisanship” means in the hands of a triumphant & combatitive Repub county commissioner majority at CCI … We have 10 state steering committees to help us craft language for bills we sponsor, support or oppose. The state can do a lot to help, and hinder, local government. So it’s important to have a unified voice on legislation that will cost local taxpayers more money or less services. But most goodwill in the group was gone when the Repubs teamed up to knock all Dems and Greens (just one, actually, me:>) out of leadership last fall. Only 1 Dem remained as vice-chair out of 16 positions. Traditionally, a Repub is chair if there’s a Repub majority and a Dem/Green gets vice-chair – too sort of balance the energies. Oh, but not this batch of partisan Repubs … So, at our Vail meeting, when it came time for District elections (another separation of the membership into 5 geographic regions for extra regional meetings), we Dems/Greens in the Western District put up Lynn Padgett of Ouray as our choice, and the Repubs put up Audrey Danner from Moffat County as their choice. Danner won handily, which was to be expected. But then instead of letting Lynn take the vice-chair position, the Repubs put up Olen Lund of Delta, a second Republican – effectively, once again keeping progressives out of leadership in CCI … Never in the 14 years I’ve been working within CCI has the group been so partisan, and so dismissive of minority opinions. It’s making some of us wonder if, in these hard times, we ought to be putting our taxpayer dollars into an organization that shuts us out of leadership and supports positions that our citizens don’t agree with.

OUTPOST MOTEL … If you’re passing through Dolores and you need a pillow for the night, let me recommend this old-fashioned fishing camp gem. Not glitzy or modern. But scrupulously clean, and quaint in the way of old country inns. Spent a lovely night their during the Dolores Riverfest days, and they were kind enough to even send along some crucial things in my world – like the one-of-a-kind thread I needed to finish a basket for a very important former county employee and a fold-up flashlight that I can use in my red Honda Civic (officially “totaled” a year ago) who interior dash lights never worked when I got the car from my daughter several years ago … Funny how we get so attached or place such value on the oddest of things.

CORNET CREEK … Most of the recent issue of the Colorado Public Works Journal (available at the Wilkinson) featured a long article on the flooding of Cornet Creek over the years and the efforts of the Town of Telluride working Tetra Tech, a civil engineering firm specializing in fluvial geomorphology. It’s a fascinating look at the stream and its wild intent to leap its banks and move a lot of sediment out of the mountains and onto the alluvial plain on which Telluride sits … I remember riding with a bunch of civil engineers as a reporter years ago on a tour of potential disaster sites. And I especially recall one engineer saying that, given what we know about flooding potential, no one would be allowed to build a city on the Cornet Creek alluvial floodplain these days. It’s a disaster waiting to happen (but maybe not as bad with the re-do).

THE TALKING GOURD

Blink

          -for Red Bird

I blink my eyes

& Red Bird’s there

Blink again

The fireball’s imprint

behind the lids

tells me lies

about a land

I want to love

Takes me back

to a river of sorrows

A slickrock

desert trench

Let’s blink together

& remember the flame of

Leonard’s hair

His passion to share

How he loaned it

with deep interest

Made a safe place

for student deposits

Taught

Shakespeare

& folded cranes

Even in death

each blink

brings more of his gift

alive

Up Bear Creek / 9jun50011

When the law can make things less safe

ROAD SAVVY … Any bright neophyte driver knows the first rule of the road – Be Safe. But following that rule on Norwood Hill could get you into trouble … The big danger there is rockfall. So, many of us regular commuters keep as far away as possible from the toe of Norwood’s eroding sandstone cliff-face – preferably straddling the centerline (if no one’s coming uphill) at ten miles above the posted speed limit, one eye on the slope and one on the road, Or, cutting across lanes on hard curves looping into the hill … For years, my kids would the “Rock-in-the-Road” game, where I’d have to swerve all over the pavement to avoid old rockfall (only rarey rocks in the act of falling – although a five-pounder did catch my Amanitamobile once)… If you drive down that stretch of road in the full sunlight of the pre-noon hour, particularly after spring rains or winter snows, you can almost hear the geologic freeze/thaw, if you roll your window down. Snap of rock. Tumble of stones. Piles of them like grizzly-gutted humpies scattered on a B.C. streambank … I have a friend who was driving home from Telluride the other day and caught a boulder on her hood. It shattered the pickup’s windshield and smashed up the passenger side of the cab (where her daughter had been riding shortly before). It’s stories like those that have some of us breaking the law to be safe … Currently, most of us know that it’s in violation of the vehicle code to cross lanes on curves, straddle the centerline or drive faster than the posted speed. State police do have personal discretionary latitude not to ticket someone for driving to avoid dangerous conditions, but the law itself doesn’t exactly give them much leeway. And their job is to enforce the law, not allow its avoidance … But I have to tell you. Keeping to one’s lane all the way down Norwood Hill midday under blue skies after rain or snow is dangerous, legal and probably stupid.

SOLUTION? … It’s not good policy to criticize things without giving some recommendation for a fix. So, try this on for size -- let’s run a bill that reduces law enforcement duplication, saves the state valuable tax dollars and increases local control. Plus, is a funded (not unfunded) state mandate … Sound too good to be true? Maybe not. What if we left state highway patrolling of traffic to local law enforcement – particularly county sheriff departments? We’d reduce our state patrol numbers (saving a bunch of money) and limit them to a smaller force to patrol freeways, federal highways and counties unwilling to take on a state highway traffic role … But to pay for the task, the money from the sheriff-enforced traffic stops would go half to the state and half to the county of origin … Local deputies can appreciate local hazards, so the bill would allow counties to recommend speed limit changes to the state more in line with local usage and safety, rather than by-the-book speed limits regardless of special conditions …  I’ve talked with Sheriff Bill Masters in the past, and he (I think) has expressed the wish that his officers could have primary law enforcement authority within county boundaries, and not have duplication on state highways with state patrol officers. As a locally elected Green official, I like the idea of devolving government authority down to the local and regional level (where people actually live) … Of course, not all counties (or sheriffs) might like this idea. So, we should make the law permissive, allowing counties that want to do this the choice, and those that don’t the continued service of a shrunken state police force… Now we just need to find a populist legislator (working for the people) willing to carry a bill like this.

TROUT TOURNAMENT … My friend and neighbor Jerry Pike and the Norwood Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9398 is hosting a first annual Trout Fishing Tournament up at Ridgway Reservoir this weekend, Saturday, June 11^th, beginning at 9 a.m. Colorado’s DOW has contributed a tagged fish. Should someone land the tagged trophy fish, the prize is $10,000. In addition, adults can vie for $1000, $500 and $250 awards for the largest non-tagged fish landed. And the kids prizes are $100, $50. and $25. Ticket prices run $35 for adults and $10 for kids (ten and under) – available at Sam’s Service and the Norwood Hardware on Wright’s Mesa, at the Mountain Village Police Dept. and at the Ridgway Reservoir -- the day of the event … It’s all a benefit for three great VFW projects. One, providing wheelchair accessible hunting sites for disabled veterans, building trails on donated land. Two, supporting Norwood Christian Ranch, who offer veteran chaplains and their families free two-week retreats. And three, aiding the Norwood College/Vocational Scholarship Fund. Three worthy projects. Big prizes. Supporting our sons and daughters in the nation’s armed forces … For more info and (important) tournament rules, call Jerry at 327-0234 or 970.417.9237

LIBRARY SALE … Mark your calendars. Get great books for a great price in the Wilkinson Public Library parking garage June 10-11 (Fri-Sat) 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., June 12 (Sun) noon-5 p.m., Jun 18 (Sat) 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Jun 19 (Sun) noon – 5 p.m … For more info, call Nancy Landau of the Friends of the Library at 369-4355 (and if you’re not a FOL member, you should be – support lifelong learning)

DOLORES RIVERFEST … Invited down to the 8^th annual local event to emcee, it was a pleasure to share good music, good food, and warm (if smokey) weather with lots of wonderful fellow Coloradoans. This wasn’t so much a tourist draw, as a local chance to celebrate the Dolores River, to learn about lots of great groups doing good work in the watershed, and to have a good time. The Greater Dolores Action folks put it on. Lots of great activities for kids. Raffles and giveaways for adults. Raft rides. A water parade. And some rocking music … Paonia based singer/songwriter ace Russ Chapman kicked things off with a lively round of original songs. Elizabeth Rose got the ear juices flowing with her great vocals and piano. Exciting Afrobeat Miniion brought out the crowd’s inner dancers. As did Albuquerque-based The Tijerina Band. Even Dolores’s own Lindell’s did a turn … But it was the headliner finale that overshadowed everything before it – the Flobots. Brer Rabbit & Jonny 5 were in dazzling shape (they played Red Rocks the next day). Their band was tight, in synch and hot. Bass. Violin. Drums. They’d come two years before and the kids of the Dolores remembered. They sang along, crowded the stage, waving hands, conveying bodies overhead in front, as the Flobots danced and gyrated, hip-hopped and told their slam poet stories to a wild, Dionysian beat of voice & drum, string and strung … Hell, it was the best show I’d ever seen from backstage. I bought all three of their CDs.

THE TALKING GOURD

Blue Fleece Pullover

Too hot pouring concrete

I yank it off,

toss over a rock,

forget it.

Next morning picking it up

a mouse runs out!

Chewed its way in

under the right armpit

with another hole six inches away.

Probably had to pee

during the night.

-Doc Dachtler

From Skid Marks and Snow Geese

(Larkspur Press, Kentucky, 2011)

Up Bear Creek / 3jun50011

Basking in the MtnFilm Afterglow

MASON’S THEATRE … Mountainfilm is such a wonderful spring rush of movies, lectures and performances. There’s always too much happening to experience it all. In the end, everyone has their own version of the festival that they take away with them, trading stories of what they saw, what moved them most … For me, as one of the emcees at the Mason’s Hall (transformed into a theater), it was one dazzling slice of the whole enchilada. So, don’t take my take as definitive … This year my biggest takeaway was the hope inspired by hearing Alec Loorz speak at the Youth In Action segment of Friday’s Moving Mountains Symposium, “Awareness into Action.” Too young to vote but eloquently aware of the ominous impacts on his generation’s future from our country’s current failure to address the global climate change issue in any meaningful way, Loorz (about to turn 17)) has been actively speaking about the necessity of taking immediate action since he was 12 years old. “Everything we do affects everything that is,” he explains, “from polar bears to fungus to future generations.” Americans need to hear this brilliant young man, and pay attention to his call for action. It’s not the politicians (old men and women like me) who are leading on this issue, it’s our youth. Alec is not just a leader for the future, he’s a leader right now … Of course, so is Tim DeChristopher, who also spoke passionately about his generation, “a generation out of time.” And what is our nation doing to this brave leader? Sentencing him to prison. What an incredible failure of leadership that injustice represents. The banks get bailed out for failing, and one of our most eloquent environmental activists gets jailed for saving wild lands from our ravenous industrial hunger for carbon-killing energy. Check out Tim’s group, Peaceful Uprising, and give them some of your life-saving human energy … Trip Jenning’s Spoil was my favorite activist film – detailing the work of the International League of Conservation Photographers in their effort to help the Gitga’at First Nation people of British Columbia stop a proposed tar sands pipeline from Alberta that’s being proposed to cut an oil tanker route through the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest north of Vancouver Island. Seeing enviros teaming up with native people to protect this incredible intact ecosystem was almost as powerful as seeing close-up footage of one of the famed Spirit Bears of Canada – not albinos, but rare black bears that are born white … One Plastic Beach wasn’t so much a call to action as a paean to the beauty possible even in the castoff detritus of our wasteful society. It didn’t try to preach. It just showed how a visionary couple from California had transformed plastic jetsam into masterful works of art. It just so happened that the beach they patrolled to find the plastic curiosities for their sculptures and prints is a special place in my geographical pantheon – Kehoe Beach, on the Inverness Peninsula, north of San Francisco – the inspiration for one of the seminal poems in my own book, As If the World Really Mattered … While I got to see a number of great adrenaline films – The Fall Line, The Desert River, In the Shadow of the Mountain, On Assignment: Jimmy Chin, my favorite had to be Pete Mortimer and Nick Rosen’s Swiss Machine. Watching alpinist Ueli Steck summit the north face of the Eiger in under three hours was unbelievable.  Let me say that again – unbelievable. If you’re a climber, you’ve got to see this film … Perhaps the most endearing flick and performance had to be Oscar Bucher’s Waiting for a Train and the songs that Toshio Hirano sang for us at the Mason’s – bluegrass classics, a couple Jimmy Rodgers tunes and the one original piece Toshio’s has written. We learn of Hirano’s ah-ha moment hearing a song of Rodgers for the first time as a youth in Tokyo and his life odyssey following his bliss to the Blue Ridge Mountains and eventually the San Francisco Mission district (two blocks from the hospital I was born in). Every year Mountainfilm seems full of such synchronicities and surprises … Hard not to mention two short charmers – Matt Morris’ Mr. Happy Man and Gail Dolgan and Robin Fryday’s The Barber of Birmingham. Johnny Barnes of Bermuda is the subject of the first, a loving eccentric bringing a little bit of joy to island commuters; and the second captures the span of the civil rights struggle in this country from the Sixties to today through the memories and life of one’s of its foot-soldiers, Mr. Armstrong, a barber. Both Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Dolgan passed away before this film was completed, and it’s a monument to both of them as well as a testament to a nation’s shame turned redemptive dream come true … Finally, the most personally moving film I saw was Patricio Guzmán Nostalgia for the Light – a haunting exploration of the astronomers’ search for light from stars in the far distant past with the on-going search for bones of the Disappeared from the Pinochet era by family and friends in Chile’s Atacama Desert … Of course, Mountainfilm was so much more. But even my little Mason’s slice of the festival was a dazzler. Now, let our summer begin.

TALKING GOURD

Growing Up

Over the basketball rim

the wild rose

dunks

a couple of pink blossoms

through

a shred of net left.

Looks like

the kids

have grown up too.

-Doc Dachtler

From Skid Marks and Snow Geese

(Larkspur Press, Kentucky, 2011)

Up Bear Creek / 19may50011

Forest Service nixes grassroots call for extension of deadline for comments

PLANNING RULE … It’s deeply disappointing to just begin to understand the Forest Service’s new planning rule from all the various perspectives of multiple user groups and be forced to comment without the time to really sift through the changes to see how things on the ground will be affected. It’s impressive that Sheep Mountain Alliance was one of only three Colorado groups to comment on the new planning rule when it was in draft form for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement … County governments came to the table late. And while we have been working to understand things, we needed more time to figure out exactly what the new rule will do to local communities and the environment. We, along with many folks, asked for an extension of time to consider the new planning rule and how best to comment on it … But Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said no extension. Which sounds like “no collaboration” to me. Unfortunate, as many of us were supportive of trying to get a new rule in place. But when the center doesn’t listen to the grassroots in calling for more time to analyze and comment intelligently, it’s a good sign that everything they say about collaboration plays second fiddle to politics. And that makes us all losers.

ASHAMED? … I’ve had my doubts about the wisdom of building a noisy, polluting airport in the Telluride area 30 years ago. And I still do. I think I was quoted back in the early ‘80s on KOTO that Telluride was becoming a county sacrifice area to industrial tourism. The airport is certainly a part of that … But in a down economy, with our tourist-dependent community airport teetering on the verge of losing all future FAA funding and maybe even its commercial status, it’s hard not to look sympathetically at the Airport Authority’s attempts to find a new way to lure more airline flights into TEX. Especially as the issue of the FAA’s pre-emption of county (state) authority in all matters of flight operations (if not land use impacts) seems pretty well established in federal court cases … But this is a social hot potato. Citizens have been led to believe for years that no night flights would happen. For some it is a clear case of doublespeak. Saying one thing and ending up doing another. For others they see foreclosures, declining revenues, loss of jobs and they think making Telluride a little bit more accessible to visitors and second home commuters is a no-brainer. So, I understand strong feelings on both sides … But there was absolutely no excuse for No Night Flights Attorney Erin Johnson, who practices law in Montezuma County and lives in Dolores County, to say she was “ashamed” of the San Miguel County Board of Commissioners for not upholding her understanding of our county land use rules. That comment was unprofessional, inappropriate and insulting. Ms. Johnson can make her case in court, as she’s threatened to do in public several times now, and we’ll see what happens. But an ad hominem attack from an officer of the court in a public meeting was uncalled for … Personally, although I’m not happy to see night flights, and if the county had the authority to say no, I would seriously consider not allowing them, it seems increasingly clear that it’s out of our board’s control, legally. And as such, I think the Airport Authority is acting in good faith and with the economic health of our community in mind in moving in the direction of approving night flights in the winter ... We beat each other up pretty bad over our local issues in To-Hell-U-Ride, but by giving a thorough airing of all the issues, impacts and concerns, I’m proud of our county for looking at a controversial change from all perspectives, giving folks multiple meetings to express their views, and then for the board with legal authority to make the decision to give us their best guess. I see no shame in that at all.

PPP … There’s one kind of personal pet peeve (PPP) that drives me crazy. Especially in the winter when CDOT coats our local highways with tree-killing magnesium chloride, sand and cinders to provide traction on ice-slick roads. It’s when someone else is in a hurry and I’m traveling slow (yes, it’s been known to happen). Single-file, we reach a stretch of yellow broken line. Seeing a turn signal in my rearview, I hug the shoulder’s solid white line, and the other driver passes … Here’s when my PPP comes into play. Some drivers pull at least two or three car-lengths ahead before signaling and slipping back into my lane ahead of me. That’s courteous and considerate. Sometimes a tight reach of broken line forces a driver to dart back into my lane barely a car-length ahead. That’s annoying, but understandable. Safety first … But the drivers that push my PPP button jerk back in front of me for no good reason, spewing window-cracking rocks into my windshield, with lots of room for them not to do that … Maybe it’s a habit from darting in and out of city traffic. But in the mountains, with the roads full of small rocks and pea gravel, it’s downright dangerous. I’ve had so many cracked windshields over the years, I’ve lost count. Wish there was some way to educate mountain drivers about that.

THE TALKING GOURD

Dig It

The deeper I dig

the more I realize

I will not be buried

in a shallow grave.

-David Oyster

Telluride