In my 69th year ...

Well, I survived turning 68, though I wondered on Thursday whether I had suddenly passed my "do not use after" date! My memory for names is going faster than I'd like. Anyway, well-wishes from friends and relatives and neighbors have been gratefully received. I just renewed my driver's license for another five years and I have every intention of renewing it again!

Yesterday was the first of several busy days in the holiday season. On the down side, my physical therapist suggests my lower back pain is a degenerative process ... I like "arthritis" better; it doesn't sound so much like going to heck in a handbasket! I've got an appointment to get a more thorough evaluation. Meantime, exercises and a heating pad and keep on keeping on.

In the afternoon we went to an opening reception in Cortez for Mancos sculptors Veryl Goodnight and Patsy Davis and Mancos photographer Steve Sykes. We're really developing a community of artists in the Mancos Valley! 

Then we went around the corner to the reception for the Merry Miniatures show at the Cortez Cultural Center, where we have several small, framed photos entered, as well as some holiday cards. 

Back to Mancos in time to catch the start of the Rudolph Run ... the eager urchins hurtling into the darkness in the bottom picture. This is an annual evening event at the start of the Olde Fashioned Christmas celebration, followed by lighting the town Christmas tree and the arrival of Santa Claus on a fire truck. The VFW provides goodies for Santa to give the kids. At the north end of Pioneer Plaza, the little town park (and parking lot) where the town tree is located (next to the opera house) is the old jail, moved from its earlier location in Boyle Park. There was a group of high school students playing Christmas music on the porch ... Sandy says they look like a Norman Rockwell painting - real people, each doing something different. tv

A day in the park,

We went into Mesa Verde early yesterday to a "meet and greet" for the new deputy supt. and his wife, who are transferring in from Sandy Hook, NJ. After the social event, we did the Cliff Palace loop, with intent to go out on the Soda Point trail and see what Balcony House looked like from there. I'm sure I walked the trail when I was a seasonal ranger in 1966, but didn't remember it and haven't done it since.

On the way there, we stopped at some of the overlooks into Cliff Canyon that we haven't been to lately and were pleasantly surprised at the possibilities there. The panorama of Fewkes and Cliff Canyons coming together would look better in summer sun and green, but yesterday was an overcast winter day. 

The hike out to the Soda Canyon Overlook is just over a mile round trip, a good distance for us. And the view of Balcony House is a good one. In the picture posted, one can see the route visitors travel on the ranger-guided tours, entering by climbing the 30-foot ladder at the lower right, climbing the short ladder in the righthand courtyard to get into the second courtyard and then exiting by crawling through a tunnel constructed between that huge slab of rock and the cliff it's resting against. It's almost a relief after all that to climb the steps and ladders on the side of the cliff to get back to the parking lot!

On the way out, still overcast, we had a rare view of the La Sals, with sun spotlighting them, almost 100 miles northwest of Mesa Verde, east of Moab, Utah.

And then the day closed with a bang ... possibly the reddest sunset I've ever seen from here! What a spectacle, spread over the whole western sky!

In between, I learned that my lower back pain is probably caused by arthritis, so learn to live with it. Staying active and exercising while not abusing the back seems to be the answer. I can do that; life could be worse, lots worse. tv

Black Friday

'Twas a good Thanksgiving! Sandy put together a good and beautiful spread, which we enjoyed with four guests while it snowed and fogged outside all day long ... never could see Mesa Verde. Scooby Doo oversaw the preparations, but was outside during the visitation. 

This morning was cloudy , too, but it cleared while we were bell-ringing at Wal-Mart for the Salvation Army. We had a good shift (noon to two) but a cold wind came up and we got pretty chilled. Exercises, swims and showers at the Rec. Center helped that. Before going in, we saw this guy bouncing off the ground, attached to a kite. Never saw such before, but guessing it's a parakite. Anyway, sometimes it looked like he could have been taking a longer and higher ride than intended.

On the way home, the sky had cleared enough to see what the last couple of days left on the mountains. Beautiful in the late afternoon light! tv

Past, Present, Future

One hundred years ago next year, work started on the Mancos High School. A small group of us got together yesterday afternoon to figure out how to celebrate the centennial of the oldest continuously operating high school in Colorado; I took this evening picture of the school at the end of our meeting.

The year 1909 is engraved on the stone over the doorway, so that's an anchor for the celebration, but then it gets fuzzy. We decided to run the celebration from Mancos Days (which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2009) till graduation in May 2010 (that should be, we figure, the centennial class).

We're a little behind the curve already, but it sounds like it could be an interesting project, both for the school and for the community it serves.

Past, present, future will be the theme for the Mancos Days parade in July. The past (of the school) will take some sorting. The future will probably revisit some issues of the past, like consolidation. The present ... who knows what's going on? Maybe our situation will be clearer by July, for better or worse.

Just yesterday, I had people asking if they could clean up the brush piles on the property for firewood, do we have any yard work they could do, etc. Food banks are empty or running low; we're trying to figure out at Meeting how we can jump-start a special filling of the food boxes we usually do twice a year. 

We are looking forward to a small Thanksgiving dinner with a few friends and we will have much to be thankful for. Still, there will be a fearfulness hanging over our heads for Christmas, the New Year and beyond. tv

Breakfast at the Bakery

Breakfast at the Bakery in Mancos this morning was an unusually good experience.  The dog patiently waiting on the bench outside, for whomever it belonged, was a common small town sight.  We ordered the breakfast special, an exceptionally yummy mixture of eggs,mushrooms, bacon and cheese, served with seven grain homemade bread.   Then we were delighted to see Michael Martin Murphey, legendary country music composer and last night's entertainer at the Mancos Opera House, come through the door.  Bashful Tom immediately struck up a conversation, telling Mr. Murphey how much we enjoyed his performance and moving on to discuss Wisconsin, as it is Tom's home state  and where MM Murphey now has a horse ranch and lives.   The used bookshelf then caught his eye and he scooped up an armful of Time/Life Cowboy books and seemed delighted with his find!  After taking the the books to his vehicle  he returned with CDs and to chat with a young man who has been a championship rider and marksman.  He spent a lot of time chatting with the teenage cowboy and his father and then my last picture is of Michael Martin Murphey, songwriter extraordinaire , and legendary performer ambling out the door of the Bakery in Mancos!  We found him so down to earth, unpretentious and just small town friendly.   Who would have thought it! SF

Cowboy troubador

We had a great evening at the Mancos Opera House! We had seen Michael Martin Murphey at Fort Lewis College last winter and really enjoyed his music and dialogue. So, when we heard he was going to be playing the Opera House, just down the hill, it was a must!

We got there a few minutes after the doors opened (6 p.m.) and the street was already filling up with cars and the first few rows of seats were also pretty well taken. The VFW had 300 tickets and it looked like they sold out. Good for them ... they should have made a good bit toward the restoration work they're doing.

MMM was alone on stage, coming in from La Veta yesterday and going on to Yuma today. He stayed at the Bauer House last night. We understand he called to ask if there was an opera house in Mancos; he likes to play in these old venues, I guess.

Anyway, it was a good show and well-received (especially his critical asides about Federal land managers and the need for ranchers to be more assertive in their own behalf) by his audience, which seemed to be mostly Montezuma County. As he said, the first half was country, the second half was western, with a lot of songs about cowboys. I was impressed with the kinds of feelings his songs represented ... love of the land and its people. At one point, at the end of a medley, he stood and sang the old Shaker tune, "Simple Gifts" a cappella. Very moving!

The top picture was taken when he led the audience in a "Grrr," imitating the Devil's reaction when some rustlers tied a knot in his tail. tv

On civility ...

A small rant. It's scary to see the views coming out after the election. In a story about an increase in gun sales in Cortez, one person is quoted as hoping Obama is impeached quickly. He's not even inaugurated, and she wants him impeached! Forget the transgressions of the incumbent, who I'm guessing she would not have wanted impeached for anything, why do we have elections? It's so, in a vague, general way, the will of the people can be expressed. And the rest of us are supposed to accept the results and work within that context, whether the process gives us a Bush or an Obama.

Another guy quoted raises the old fear that the Feds are coming to take our guns and says people are buying guns so they can resist that when it happens. Another urban myth, like Obama is a Muslim and a socialist, but one that people are willing to believe at the deepest level.

A letter to the editor recently called Obama a terrorist and exhorted all true Americans to help put the nation back on the path to being a Christian state.

If I were teaching civics in a local high school, I would use the local newspapers as texts for what citizens say they believe and want to see, as compared with the way our system is supposed to work.

What really bothers me is the use of enemy language ... us against them ... that appears to be increasingly prevalent. There is no question that the Bush administration ran on that premise, stated in one form or another over and over again by the president himself. Now, there seems to be a resurgence of that narrow way of thinking at all levels for all kinds of issues ... "My way or the highway," and you are my mortal enemy if you don't agree with me!

Maybe Obama will be a lightning rod that manages to overcome that way of thinking once and for all, but I doubt it. It's too deep-rooted. Sad. Dangerous. Unamerican. tv