Cowed by Vaccine

Lynn got the call, although it was probably a text: she goes today at precisely 3:54 for her initial covid vaccination. Gunnison County will administer more than 500 first doses today, bringing our county total to just under 6,700 injected arms, which at an estimate would be roughly 37 percent of the population. Except that […]

Covid Tantrum

This is my first pandemic, outside those I’ve found in history books, and after thinking it over for the better part of a year, I have decided: I am just not enjoying it. I mean, I didn’t really need nearly a full year to mull this over, to conclude I’m not having much fun, but […]

The State of Texas

Looking at the state of the State of Texas these days, it’s easy to ask “How could this get worse?” but we shouldn’t, because every day it does. An 11-year-old boy may have frozen to death yesterday — in his own home. Pictures of the water damage are overwhelming before we even start to consider […]

Workers Untied

On my way to the blog this morning, I passed this headline: “Millions of jobs probably aren’t coming back, even after the pandemic.” I haven’t made it to the story yet, but I don’t really need to, because I’m living it. Not that I am unemployed, or on the verge of it, but yesterday was […]

Food for the Ages

Once, many years ago, I’m pretty sure in an effort to shock a babysitter, I put blue food coloring in my peanut butter sandwich. It did look horrible, all right, and if I’m recalling this correctly the babysitter did find it suitably off-putting. But there’s a chance I might have found it that way, too, […]

The Steps We Take

This is a story I’ve already told and may, in my dotage, tell yet again, but the trial taking place in the U.S. Senate has me harkening back to my high school days on the speech and debate team. My debate partner Erik and I were in our first round of three at one of […]

So, Covid.

Yesterday Gilly got a text she wasn’t expecting at all: Come to the Fieldhouse Wednesday at 5:30 to get your first shot. The county, the state, the Center for Disease Control — somebody — has decided it’s now okay for those 65 and older to start getting immunized against what we hope is all strains […]

Popped Culture

Let’s go back to the Super Bowl, the Sunday game that my new numbers guy, Neil Greenberg, ranked among the worst ever to watch in terms of excitement. For the record, so did my sister Terri — she just doesn’t have the national audience Mr. Greenberg does. And she didn’t diss the Broncos. In monetary […]

Bettor Ways to Lose

Today’s the big day, the holiest of all American holidays: Super Bowl Sunday. And yet, I’m having trouble caring, even though I have skin in the game. Really, as Lynn and I watch commercial after commercial for this or that betting opportunity, many of which seem to involve the over-the-top fountain in front of the […]

The State of Western

I arrived in Gunnison in May of 1969, packed alongside my sisters and some of our belongings in a Ford Falcon station wagon. We left Denver where my dad had recently picked up a master’s degree and drove over Monarch Pass in a snowstorm that I have no recollection of but which terrifies my mother […]