Letters
By You, the ReaderFlatlander Looking West
I think you are doing a great job with the Mountain Gazette. Keep up the good work. I was a subscriber to MG in the ’70s — I still have the letter I received telling me that MG was closing up shop at the time (if I remember correctly, the balance of my subscription was transferred to a then brand-new mag called Outside).
I have been pleased by the resurrection of MG, and believe that the ownership changes, which, to judge by letters to the editor, have caused much angst amongst the readers, have been benign if not helpful to the magazine.
It is my misfortune to be a flatlander (it’s where I was born, grew up and have a job). My heart is always in the mountains (and my body as often as possible), however, and I look forward to each issue of MG.
Dan Slack
Love, Institutionally
Re. “Love, Actuarially,” Feb. issue: Crowley County’s male/female ratio is a little skewed by the prison inmate population there.
Does the phrase “Big House on the Prairie” ring any bells? Perhaps the writer was not in Colorado a few years ago when the first medium-security prison was built there.
Otherwise, keep up the good work.
Chas S. Clifton
Wetmore, CO
Ghost Writer Note
Yes, Fayhee. Yes for all the years we worked together slipping deep subversion into the pages of MG. Yes for your recent column on the Once and Neveragain Summerhaven. (Smoke Signals. MG #141.)
In three weeks, I move to a little town in the Mojave Desert. I have become a ghost in a ghostland. You nailed it. As for that little town on Mt. Lemmon, I’ll be praying for an exceptional ferocious monsoon season to cauterize the viral and deadly infection.
Mary Sojourner,
No longer of Flagstaff, AZ
Short on Stamina
I lived at Summerhaven back in the late-’70s and was glad and disappointed to see how the fire has changed the culture of that town … kind of like obnoxious weeds (the cultureless) growing in the aftermath of a fire.
But what I’m really writing about is your beloved rag. It used to take me a long time to get thru the magazine reading Sibley, B Frank, yourself and a host of other talented writers. Now I just finished your Blue Sky issue over a quick lunch. I miss your old self. What a treasure it was to pick up.
Oh well, time marches on, the world turns, I will continue to lose my hair, my son will grow up and my Mom will sometime die, and your zine has just fallen off the radar of great things to read in life. It will be sorely missed.
In peace,
Mr. Bill
Stuck on the Totem Pole
That defense of the Ben Johnson article (by him and by you) (Letter section, MG #140) is about the lamest comeback I’ve seen in my life. I’ve edited three anthologies and am pretty confident that I can tell nonfiction from fiction. I think you got an editorial/authorial ethics problem there.
Michael Engelhard
Railroads & Reagan, #1
I read with interest “Back to the Future: Is a Rocky Mountain railroad revival in the cards?” by Jon Kovash (MG #141). I recently rode the Ski Train from Denver to Winter Park and avoided the parking lot that I-70 has become each weekend. While I generally agree with the author’s analysis and conclusions, he takes a political cheap shot that is factually unfounded. He criticizes the deregulation of railroads brought about by the Railroad Revitalization and Reform Act of 1976 and the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 as “Reagan-era reforms.” Of course, Ronald Reagan did not become President until January of 1981. President Carter signed the 1980 Act. Though President Ford signed the 1976 Act, it was passed by an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. It is an inconvenient truth that not all our problems can be blamed on Republicans.
Jim Askew
Albuquerque, NM
Railroads & Reagan, #2
I must respond to Jon Kovash’s article regarding trains in America. First, he talks about the “near-universal popular support for trains” but never shows any data to back up his claim. Then he laments the loss of passenger train service between many large cities. He apparently forgets the law of supply and demand. If there was the near-universal support for trains that he states, then most assuredly there would be a railroad providing service.
Having lived in Germany and visited China, I know that trains work there because both population and industrial centers are densely packed. Large number of people can access trains, both near their homes and place of work. In the United States, we have urban sprawl and people living in bedroom communities. Work places are not concentrated.
Therefore access to trains on both ends of the journey is limited and trains become an impractical solution for most people.
Lastly, he disdainfully rues Reagan-era anti-train legislation passed in 1976 and 1980. Perhaps Jon should take a refresher course in history. Reagan did not become President until 1981.
Mr. Kovash yearns for trains, but his own article shows them to be ineffective and at best a tourist novelty in many cases. Cars and airplanes dominate American travel because they are the most effective and convenient modes of transportation for the way most Americans live.
Norman Hahn
Evergreen, CO
Jon Kovash responds: Actually Norm, the bittersweet year of 1980 is seared deeply into my brain: Ronald Reagan was elected and my daughter Josie was born. It is self evident that the neocon deregulation frenzy had begun a few years earlier. Considering also Reagan’s singular hatred of Amtrak, I thought “Reagan era” was a reasonable call.
When I penned the words “near-universal support,” I had in mind a December survey by Parade Magazine, in which 94 percent voted “yes” to expansion of passenger rail service. This support has been building for years. In 2002, a Gallup poll measured 77 percent support for Amtrak funding, and a Washington Post poll found a similar majority. In a 2006 Harris poll, 79 percent listed rail as the passenger mode they would most like to see increased (they also had “cars” and “airplanes” as a choice). Trains get even bigger support in regional surveys, in which respondents say they want more commuter rail AND more intercity rail.
Your faith in the laws of supply and demand is touching, but even Republicans and Fortune 500 CEOs are now admitting that Monopoly has been a lawless game.
Regarding “urban sprawl,” the reason that in China a “large number of people can access trains” is not that everything in China is closer together — it’s that China spends about ten times as much as the U.S. on rail infrastructure, and they operate what is considered the most efficient railroad system in the world.
Stop Slandering Jackasses
Laura Paskus in her mournful essay, “River don’t break my heart” (MG #141), has made a terrible, slanderous, comment that merits an immediate retraction & apology. She equates politicians with jackasses (“electing jackasses to public office”). Most everyone belittles & looks down upon the humble “equus assinus”. But anyone who lives with horses & burros knows that burros are the far more intelligent of the two species, and, from all these years of living with politicians & burros, I would conclude that jackasses are far more intelligent than politicians too! More honest too. I adopted a BLM burro back in 1989. Tamed & trained her into a hiking partner & pack burro. I would describe her as companionable, efficient, cautious. Could you describe any politician with those ASS-ets? Not with war & a faltering economy! So let’s quit being so slanderous about the humble burro! Laura, how about an apology to the species!
Tom Taylor,
Mesa, AZ
Laura Paskus responds: He’s so right. Me, I’m a big fan of mules, having known a few during my time in Paonia. But Tom is absolutely right. My most humble apologies to jackasses (the real ones) everywhere.
Coming in from the Outhouse
I sat down with the March Mountain as a way of putting off studying for a physics test. Things do change, I have noticed. I flipped through the thing and decided to hit the head. While there, I pondered the Mountain, and it occurred to me that the mag is no longer rustic.
The Gazette is the type of thing you’d find in a cabin — next to the wood stove — on the Platte up in South Park. It’s more of a Kremmling rag. It fits in a place like Meeker. There’s a fishing lodge up on the Miracle Mile that I used to visit where a stack of Gazettes would blend in like an integral part of the decor, of the outhouse.
I could tell I was getting older when I started to notice that the world changed. When Silverthorne overtook the Gold Medal Fly Shop and kept on heading down the Blue River is a good example of the types of changes that I now see. Instinctively, I don’t like the urbanization of the Roaring Fork Valley, but what the fuck am I going to do about it? Protest? Whine?
The Gazette is the rustic Rockies without the indoor plumbing or the natural gas line.
I returned from the bathroom and read your bit about Summerhaven, and you managed to sum up my feelings about the Mountain, whether you meant to or not. The Mountain is being true to the mountains of the 21st Century. Mountains are where people build second homes, and the Mountain is a second home kind of rag.
I hope it’s making some money, at any rate. It was some good shit you wrote. Thanks.
Michael Holzmeister,
Denver
Martinis for Whine
Dear Morgan Williams: We were thrilled to hear about your interest in moving your family to Crestone in the Letters section of last month’s Mountain Gazette. While we had some concerns about the image of our town as described in the article written by Mr. Anderson in the March issue of MG — his mention of unemployed contractors, isolation, incessant spring winds and horrendous mosquitos, among other things — rest assured that you can find a well-made martini in our fine town,
Sincerely,
Pierre Andresson
Crestone Surreal Estate Association
