View to the West

Peter Shelton

In ancient times when my column appeared in the Friday edition of The Telluride Watch, I enjoyed picturing you, Dear Reader, on a Saturday or a Sunday morning, your stockinged feet propped before a soon-to-be-banned solid fuel burning device, steaming mug in hand and nothing on your calendar – plenty of time to peruse Page Four and cluck to yourself, "Yes, yes," at the pearls of wisdom embedded in "View to the West." That is, after you had read "This Modern World." Of course.

But now here we are on Tuesday. The day after Stormy Monday. Four long days to the weekend. What happened? I'll tell you what happened. I ran away.

I've probably got an overdeveloped wilderness quotient or something. But when things get even a teensy bit crowded my first instinct is to flee. It happened after we'd been in Telluride for four years. Ellen and I grabbed our two little girls and our $195/month rent money and fled over the Dallas to Ridgway. This was a Telluride with maybe a dozen realtors, no airport, no Plunge lift and no Mountain Village. And this was a Ridgway that had only recently learned it was to be spared drowning beneath the waters of its eponymous Bureau of Reclamation lake.

So, things were quiet for a while there. Then it got so you had to look both ways before crossing the street in Ridgway, and we moved down here to Colona. Wouldn't you know – and if you read my last Friday column last week, you do know – there are people talking about "revitalizing" Colona.

Oh, well. You get my point. And you've no doubt noticed what's been happening on Friday's Page Four. Holy Grand Central! Things had been going along just fine for years. We had Art Goodtimes there every week. Art, bro! If ever there was anyone who deserved to be "Up Bear Creek," with or without a paddle, it's Art. Our Burning Man. Our Rainbow poet. Our paleohippie Herb Caen. Love ya, bro.

And then there was Grace Herndon, a woman who has lived up to her Christian name. Grace. Ah, Gracie. The only writer I know who could make power-company deregulation fascinating. The only writer on staff certainly who remembers Norwood as a real cow town. Remembers being a young woman from Chicago fresh out of college having to learn to ride and cook and yelp like a cowboy because that's what the man she loved needed her to learn. Gracie, who has stayed so young so long? I always look forward to "Dateline: Wright's Mesa."

But then Jack Pera came on board and there was a fourth regular columnist on Page Four. I respect Jack more than just about anybody. He gets so close to napping elk he can smell their morning breath. His grasp of local history is second to none. Whether or not, as Mark Twain opined, it actually happened. Jack was one of the few natives who did not write derogatory things in the window dust of my car in 1976. ("Don't Californicate Colorado" is one that comes to mind.)

Jack and Davine owned the hardware store then and were actually super nice to us. I'd come down from our high-country tipi with a problem. Like how do I punch stovepipe through the canvas wall and flash it against the rain and insulate it so I don't burn the tipi down? And Jack would patiently sketch out a solution on a piece of scratch paper and send me on my way. I bought nails from him and auger bits, and a fly rod. Hey, Jack, that Husqvarna chain saw you sold me 30 years ago still runs like a top. Thanks! But, hey, isn't the op-ed page getting a little crowded?

That wasn't the end of it. A couple of weeks ago, who should show up on Page Four but the Bone Games guy, Planetary bon vivant, Mr. Mujhadeen himself, Rob Schultheis, with a column on a friend's death in Kabul. Yo, Rob. Keep fighting the good fight. In'sh'Allah.

And about then the ole wilderness quotient kicked in like a snap trap. So, here I am on Tuesdays, somewhere in the vicinity of "Troubletown." I guess I'll have to revise my vision of you, Dear Reader, settling in with the paper. I see you now in your midweek cubicle, stealing a few minutes to read as you pretend to work on your Blackberry. You need that solace that comes only from the printed word and the crinkly page in hand. And I hope our relationship continues unabated.

Say hi to Tom Tomorrow from me.