Slowly by Slowly

My friend KT, whom I haven’t seen nor talked to in years (she moved to Oregon and both of us writers, but not diligent correspondents), spent some of her formative time in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia. And at some much later point she introduced me to a saying she had encountered halfway around the […]

Precipitation

“Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink” –Samuel Taylor Coleridge Although the sun is currently shining here in Gunnison, it seems to be a water sort of day. Our weather is generally imported from California, where it has been wet wet wet. The Russian River is sadly mispelled these days: it is Rushin’, cresting […]

Weapons of Minimal Destruction

When I was a kid (don’t you love when I start this way?), we had a Western Auto store, located I’m pretty sure where Gene Taylor’s Sporting Goods is today. Really, they were a lot alike in terms of merchandise offered: an eclectic mix of outdoor recreation supplies, home goods and general merchandise . . […]

Red Sky

Just moments ago (hours by the time I get around to posting this), the sunrise turned the entire sky, including the horizon to the west, all pink and purple. In the manner of the sun, it was beautiful — and ephemeral. Generally speaking, sunrise is not my thing. In college, I took a photo of […]

Buy the Numbers

I don’t know about you, but I fling numbers about with careless abandon. Just yesterday I offered Lynn 100 million dollars to bring me a checkbook, since I was trapped in my chair under Na Ki’o. But sometimes something comes along to make you think about what numbers really mean. I’ve referenced The Phantom Tollbooth […]

Well, Well

Dottie Williams and I go way back — way back to childhood, although we weren’t ever close friends. We seem to run into each other more and more as we get older (and better, I’m sure). At some point a few years back she came in to get some t-shirts for her new business, Gentle […]

All Wet

Main Street in Gunnison is really state Highway 135, and Tomichi Avenue is in reality U.S. Highway 50. This matters, because maintenance and management of these roads is the responsibility of the state, rather than the city. One city manager ago, the state Department of Local Affairs (DOLA), mandated that a certain kind of curb […]

Bottled Up

When I was in my early 20s, a guy named Adam Kelley IV (maybe Kelly), who was 19, ran a red light in Denver and slammed into a car driven by Bill Yanaki. Bill Yanaki died, and the woman he was with (a blind date, I was told), was maimed. Adam Kelley IV was drunk, […]

The Landed Gentry

One year ago today, Lynn and I became landowners. If you want to get all technical about it, we signed papers the day before, because Lynn could only make an afternoon closing and due to banking, we needed to sign on the 20th to get credit for the 21st. But it officially became ours a […]

The State of Real Estate

As mentioned at (or near) the outset of this blog, the place to which Lynn and I are planning to move — Riverwalk — is a failed development. Or it was: the original developers bankrupted in the recession, and the property fairly well languished, with minimal transactions and very little building taking place. Then, in […]