A Dusty Sort of Place

About a decade ago the siding was crumbling off our house, necessitating replacement. My friend Vikki, now more-or-less retired but then a full-time bookkeeper, had several construction clients, and she recommended a guy named Dusty. She called him a “good man, and an honorable one.” I found Dusty just down the street from my childhood […]

Caveat Venditor

Once, several years ago, a college student (before they all became members of a university) came into my shop. She asked if it was owned locally, and if I was the owner. She then asked if I would come speak to her intro to business class. Her teacher had offered students extra credit if they […]

Cabinet Meetings

The other day, while walking the streets of Gunnison (there are streetwalkers, and then there are street walkers), I came across my friend Bonnie, who has worked for a local computer store forever. She was in front of her place of business, enjoying the sunshine for a brief moment. What she said resonated, perhaps depressingly: […]

By a Nose

I have had precisely two bloody noses in my life. The first came way back when we lived in Denver, so at age 6 or younger. I barely recall it; I think neighbors were adding onto their house or building a garage — anyway, there were 2 x 4s raised slightly off the ground, and […]

Not the IT Boy Any Longer

Laugh if you must, but I’m what passes for an “IT” department at work. Not “it,” as in the game of Tag or actress Clara Bow, but I.T. as in Information Technology. And that’s me. Yes, the person who can’t figure out the most basic features of his cellphone functions as the IT department at […]

Gress: Pro- or Re-?

Since I’m sure you’ve been in suspense since yesterday, I did not open my retail store for bicycle visitors, and I did not get caught up on the 100 work projects I am behind on. I let myself get talked out it rather easily by my breakfast companions — what are friends for, hm? — […]

Sunday Commerce

Today may be the official start to summer in Gunnison, and I’m undecided what to do about it. It’s June 9, normally a fairly unremarkable day. And usually we in the commerce sector of Gunnison regard Memorial Day, when the first “sidewalk sale” of the year takes place, as the “official” start to our summer […]

Marvel-less

Can you remember back to a day when the internet didn’t rule your life? Yeah, me neither. Well, maybe, in some sort of dim, distant past. Actually, I am old enough to remember TV shows where the entire telephone was mounted onto a wall, always at man-height. Lassie’s boy’s mom always seemed to have to […]

A Happenin’ Place

If there’s an explosion in a house, that’s generally a bad thing. Unless we’re operating in figurative terms, and the house in question is the one we have under construction. And there the bang means things are happening. This week alone, stucco supplies have materialized in the yard, solar panels are all in place, the […]

Dan Day

As we all should know, today is the 75th anniversary of the storming of the beaches of Normandy by the Allied forces. Operation Overlord, months if not years in the planning, became D-Day, the day that most military scholars mark as the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. There are what seem to […]