Dona Nobis Pacem

Update: My friend Mary texted yesterday, after finally managing to get some sleep, to say that a neighbor had let them know their whole neighborhood is still standing after the fires that tore through Louisville and Superior two days ago. She and her family will go today to assess their situation, but her initial report […]

Conflagration

Shortly after Lynn got to town, back in the ’00s, we signed up for ballroom dance classes at the Gunnison Arts Center with Anita, psychologist by day, Arthur Murray-certified dance instructor by night. Our inaugural class was rather large, 10 or 12-ish couples learning to move their feet in tandem. One of the most nerve-wracking […]

A Rose for Christmas

Pretty much everything planned for our Christmas unraveled this year. Let’s start with the weather, which was supposed — ahead of the fact — to be a major impediment to everyone’s travel plans across half of Colorado and many points west. In places it must have been, and we had our moments here in Gunnison, […]

Desserted

One of our restaurants held its last supper a couple days ago, closing its doors after 31 years of feeding Gunnison. This closing, by the House of China, was motivated not by finances but by the owners’ desire to retire after decades of long hours and seven-day weeks of work. The owners did attempt to […]

Fear Itself

The last time I wrote about covid, I received a nearly-anonymous comment from someone hiding behind his or her WordPress handle, mocking me: “So much fear!” And taunting, reveling in his or her “freedumb,” although the commenter forgot to spell it that way. I opted not to post the comment; while I believe in free […]

Merry Making to the Max

December is eight days old, and kind of sort of started looking like December a day or two ago, and may or may not really look — and feel — like it starting today, but already it’s made me look and feel about 100 years older. In the Before Times, and I can’t really tell […]

Snow What?

Once upon a time, I don’t remember how long ago, but certainly before social media and “pow cams,” the Denver Broncos hosted some other team for a Monday Night Football game in December. I remember nothing about the game itself; I probably didn’t watch it. But it was back in the day when you could […]

What Matters

Note: Everyone in this story is vaccinated. I am back from a major flex of my very flabby social muscles. After at least two years of very quiet Thanksgivings I this year attended two dinners on two days with a total of 17 people and broke bread with friends and family at two other meals. […]

Goat

Once in my sister Terri’s storied athletic career, she made what she deemed a giant error. I don’t recall what it was, and being away in college I wasn’t on hand to witness it. I think she perhaps missed a free throw or two in the final stretch of what became the last basketball game […]

Waiting for . . . Chris Christie?

Here’s something I don’t know that I ever expected to see myself write: Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, sounded like the voice of reason in a recent book-stumping appearance on The Daily Show. Now, before we all get too carried away, let’s set the bar as it now stands: perhaps you missed the […]