Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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It’s natural to mumble nasty things about the cold weather. We all do it from time to time. But even the cold has its merits. One big plus is that it makes fireplaces a reasonable addition to our lives. In cold weather, we can build a fire in our home with a clear conscience. This is something that doesn’t translate well to summer heat, but when it’s cold, here comes the fire. Strange, isn’t it, our love affair with a fireplace? Makes absolutely no sense. Today, we can make houses so impervious to cold that every time we...
“When you been maturinatin’ ‘long as I have, they’s a few ultimatum facts about life that jest can’t be ignored,” With that, our favorite old-time camp cook, mule packer and occasional predictor of things that haven’t happened yet, Windy Wilson, stirred the sugar in his coffee and looked at the rest of us. Wisely. Well, as wisely as old Windy ever gets. We knew we were in for another dose of campfire education, even if it’s totally wrong. We smiled. Some people need cable TV to find this kind of fun. “Like them measurementals...
There is a payoff, Doc told us, for getting the aches and pains of old age. Doc should know. We have it on good authority that he is actually older than a flat, brown rock. “Sure,” said Doc, in his usual cheerful way. “You get gray hair, or maybe kinda bald like ol’ Steve here, and you develop wisdom, which we all know just means you know not to argue with your wife, right? So then what happens? Your grandchildren think you have all the answers.” Doc leaned over conspiratorially. “I LIVE to embarrass my grandchildr...
You think this pandemic thingie we're going through is deadly? At least unpleasant? Hey, you've come here to this tower of truth to learn the little-known stuff that will make you completely shunned at lunch time, and cussed during choir practice. We modestly refer to it as attempting to commit journalism. When it comes to historical terrors, there are none that reached the pinnacle of pain as quickly and briefly as the dance fever. Yes, friend, the dance fever of 1518 was a month-long plague in Strasbourg, which is today in...
Ah … politics! If you’re a responsible American, as I often pretend to be, you’ll have watched and read and listened to as much hogwash on every side of every question ad nauseum, and we’ll all troop to the polls, read the names and say “Is this the best you guys can do for candidates?” And then we’ll vote, anyway. And that’s why I’d like to suggest March 4 as a new national holiday, it being the entire term of the only non-toxic President of the United States. His name was David Rice Atchison, who later on had Atchison, Kan...
We didn’t have the Chipper Invitational Golf Tournament this year. It wasn’t a good summer for anything that takes place outdoors, for one thing. Just too danged hot. For another, people we knew all over the world by internet or pen pals were having a tough time surviving any disaster du jour. Thirdly, it just wasn’t a good year to celebrate Doc’s legendary pet squirrel. Chipper came to life several years ago when Doc placed an ad in The Valley Weekly Miracle offering a reward for finding his missing pet squirrel: $5.50....
“You hear ‘bout Andy’s barn?” asked Dud. We nodded and had another sip of morning coffee. “You s’pose it was all globally warmed up?” “Beats me, Windy. Could be.” “Buncha that,” Windy said. “On the news and all over the place. Fires and rivers goin’ over the bank and killin’ cows. Some places, they say, got so hot it caused a earthquake and shook people’s houses down.” And all of this, we knew, was going on faster than the paper could print the news. Hey, you turn on the teevee, somebody else just lost everything they had....
Fall is the polishing time. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. For some reason, the spirit that guides us made our experiences in fall the peak of the year’s efforts. For animals, both wild and domestic, it is the rut, the breeding time. The bulls and bucks have never looked better. Their antlers and horns are hardened into weapons and sharpened against trees. Their bodies are lean and aggressive and they tend to lose all good sense. I don’t think for a minute that it is just a calendar coincidence that fall is when mos...
Looking around at all the yard signs and hearing politicians tell us on television what a lying crook their competition is, I have to admit I miss Guv Reeve. Guv had a real first name, but I sure don’t recall it now, because this was back in the 1960s and 1970s in the high desert of California. He had his first name legally changed to Guv so everyone would know what he was all about. Every four years, he ran for governor. I worked for the Victor Valley Daily Press in Victorville, which is just 30 miles from Barstow, where e...
You know, it didn’t really seem like the day was so auspicious. It was cold. There was snow on the ground there on the baseball diamond. But then, it’s winter in Alaska … Anchorage, actually, and it should be cold. First Saturday in March, 1973. More than 40 dog teams were there, getting lined out and harnessed by mushers and their handlers. I was one of those dog mushers. We had a couple of world champions to race against and a lot of folks like me … called “recreational” mushers by the big shots in racing. In my case, my...