Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Holiday
Promoting tourism is part of every Colorado governor’s job, and Bill Ritter has been working at this lately, urging constituents to vacation at home instead of zipping off to some seashore or amusement park or even Paris.
Unfortunately for this constituent, his old knees could no longer ramble around such faraway places anyway. In fact they could no longer hike the trail from Wild Basin, explore the Great Sand Dunes or prowl around Mesa Verde.
Yet over the years, with my family, I’ve had some great vacations in our state, corner to corner. We even enjoyed bone-wearying tourist trips around the great highway circle – Denver-Grand Junction-Durango-Alamosa-Denver.
And beyond these family travels, as a newspaperman I often had the pleasure of skipping around the state with touring politicians, usually at close range.
They didn’t take me along because they liked me. They took me along to be sure to get into the newspaper.
Except for politics, I probably would never have met good folks in places like Wray, Holyoke, Holly, Simla, Crook, Westcliffe, Walden, Creede, Lake City, and other scattered points . I would not likely have traversed Slumgullion Pass or dropped by Gus’s Place in Pueblo.
Now of course it is true that all this time I was a working reporter -- filing stories, putting in long hours and collecting regular pay checks, but the plain truth is, I was having the time of my life.
And except for politics, I never would have received some extra bits of instruction on Colorado geography from four governors while accompanying them on campaign flights.
On one occasion, Steve McNichols, en route to Grand Junction, had the pilot alter his route slightly to show me where a new resort called “Vail” was being developed down below.
Dick Lamm, headed to Alamosa, pointed out the pattern of a once-planned but unbuilt and long-abandoned town site – a bare outline of ghostly “streets” and “blocks” scratched by a bulldozer into the sandy floor of the San Luis Valley.
John Vanderhoof, flying himself to Montrose, tipped his plane over on one wing so I could look almost straight down into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
Roy Romer, headed toward Pueblo, directed my attention to the unspoiled expanse of Greenland Ranch stretching below. He said that beautiful property simply had to be preserved from Front Range urbanization. And it has been.
As for vacationing in Colorado, We’ve been to the Broadmoor and some other nice places, but I have to say my family’s very favorite spots were more down to earth.
There were just two: Glenwood Springs and a rough, one-room cabin in North Park on Jack Creek, teeming with little brook trout.
Those were the best of times.
ññññññññ
Promoting tourism is part of every Colorado governor’s job, and Bill Ritter has been working at this lately, urging constituents to vacation at home instead of zipping off to some seashore or amusement park or even Paris.
Unfortunately for this constituent, his old knees could no longer ramble around such faraway places anyway. In fact they could no longer hike the trail from Wild Basin, explore the Great Sand Dunes or prowl around Mesa Verde.
Yet over the years, with my family, I’ve had some great vacations in our state, corner to corner. We even enjoyed bone-wearying tourist trips around the great highway circle – Denver-Grand Junction-Durango-Alamosa-Denver.
And beyond these family travels, as a newspaperman I often had the pleasure of skipping around the state with touring politicians, usually at close range.
They didn’t take me along because they liked me. They took me along to be sure to get into the newspaper.
Except for politics, I probably would never have met good folks in places like Wray, Holyoke, Holly, Simla, Crook, Westcliffe, Walden, Creede, Lake City, and other scattered points . I would not likely have traversed Slumgullion Pass or dropped by Gus’s Place in Pueblo.
Now of course it is true that all this time I was a working reporter -- filing stories, putting in long hours and collecting regular pay checks, but the plain truth is, I was having the time of my life.
And except for politics, I never would have received some extra bits of instruction on Colorado geography from four governors while accompanying them on campaign flights.
On one occasion, Steve McNichols, en route to Grand Junction, had the pilot alter his route slightly to show me where a new resort called “Vail” was being developed down below.
Dick Lamm, headed to Alamosa, pointed out the pattern of a once-planned but unbuilt and long-abandoned town site – a bare outline of ghostly “streets” and “blocks” scratched by a bulldozer into the sandy floor of the San Luis Valley.
John Vanderhoof, flying himself to Montrose, tipped his plane over on one wing so I could look almost straight down into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
Roy Romer, headed toward Pueblo, directed my attention to the unspoiled expanse of Greenland Ranch stretching below. He said that beautiful property simply had to be preserved from Front Range urbanization. And it has been.
As for vacationing in Colorado, We’ve been to the Broadmoor and some other nice places, but I have to say my family’s very favorite spots were more down to earth.
There were just two: Glenwood Springs and a rough, one-room cabin in North Park on Jack Creek, teeming with little brook trout.
Those were the best of times.
ññññññññ
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
black
What's all this about black suits?
Have the movers and shakers of this country turned into sartorial lemmings?
I guess it must have been going on for some time, but only the other day did I recognize the scope of what had happened: Big Shots now wear black suits. Period. Basically nothing else.
I never in my life had a black suit {except a brief, unhappy acquaintance with a tuxedo} and I don't want one now. Black suits are fundamentally ugly, funereal, monotonous, dorky.
And if you think I'm exaggerating how uniform they have become - that's a pun, son - let me cite some examples. While watching the three big cable news channels the other day for ninety minutes or so, I took names.
Uniformly black-suited were Barack Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres and a whole roomful of their aides, Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Karl Rove, John Edwards, Congressman Jack Murtha, Pat Buchanan and a host of TV's political blabbermouths including Chris Matthews, Lou Dobbs, Roland Martin, Mike Barnicle, Keith Olbermann and Carl Cameron.
Dobbs, Martin and Olbermann wore the pin-stripe model.
Ted Kennedy and Shepard Smith wore gray and Bill O'Reilly wore all-but-black navy blue. The only downright rebels I saw were GOP Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana, who looked classy in a tan outfit at MSNBC, and cable newsman Nic Robertson who made a report in a tan suit jacket from some dismal spot in Afghanistan.
It's depressing. It's an awful trend I don't understand. Did someone pass a law?
Have the movers and shakers of this country turned into sartorial lemmings?
I guess it must have been going on for some time, but only the other day did I recognize the scope of what had happened: Big Shots now wear black suits. Period. Basically nothing else.
I never in my life had a black suit {except a brief, unhappy acquaintance with a tuxedo} and I don't want one now. Black suits are fundamentally ugly, funereal, monotonous, dorky.
And if you think I'm exaggerating how uniform they have become - that's a pun, son - let me cite some examples. While watching the three big cable news channels the other day for ninety minutes or so, I took names.
Uniformly black-suited were Barack Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres and a whole roomful of their aides, Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Karl Rove, John Edwards, Congressman Jack Murtha, Pat Buchanan and a host of TV's political blabbermouths including Chris Matthews, Lou Dobbs, Roland Martin, Mike Barnicle, Keith Olbermann and Carl Cameron.
Dobbs, Martin and Olbermann wore the pin-stripe model.
Ted Kennedy and Shepard Smith wore gray and Bill O'Reilly wore all-but-black navy blue. The only downright rebels I saw were GOP Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana, who looked classy in a tan outfit at MSNBC, and cable newsman Nic Robertson who made a report in a tan suit jacket from some dismal spot in Afghanistan.
It's depressing. It's an awful trend I don't understand. Did someone pass a law?
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