by David Frey | Aug 30, 2010 | Essays, The West
When Scott McInnis announced his plans to run as a Republican for governor of Colorado in his hometown of Glenwood Springs, he got a hero’s welcome. He looked unstoppable, beaming beside his wife Lori as he called out names of old friends who had turned out to see him in a warehouse on the edge of town decked with campaign signs.
He sported cowboy boots and jeans and he glowed as country singer Michael Martin Murphy turned “Home on the Range” into a political anthem. As he criticized Democrats and made a plea for “jobs, jobs, jobs,” McInnis seemed to be the right man with the right message for Republicans hoping to make the most of discontent with Democrats and the Obama administration.
McInnis was a natural GOP choice for governor. A former Congressman turned lobbyist, he had name recognition and charisma. He had a successful political track record, and a not-too-far-to-the-right reputation that seemed like an easy sell in a middle-of-the-road state at a time when Democrats were losing their luster.
His Democratic opponent at the time seemed certain to be Gov. Bill Ritter, a one-term governor whose popularity was flagging.
Then everything changed. (more…)
by David Frey | Aug 19, 2010 | Essays, The West, Travel
Mount Sopris. Photo courtesy BIll Meriwether. (Thanks across the Great Divide, Bill.)
A mountain looks different after you have climbed it. Once you have known it with your feet and your hands, it is transformed, even when seen from your bedroom window. Those graceful grays, you know now, are big boulders that could twist an ankle, or dislodged, could even crush a person. Those gentle greens are Krummholtz , clinging to existence with knobby fingers in the last place on earth a tree could expect to grow.
It wasn’t until after I had climbed Mount Sopris and known it with my whole body that I fell in love with it. I will confess I had another lover before. I was living in an old miner’s cabin on Lamborn Mesa above Paonia, Colorado, with just a clock radio for electronic companionship. Each evening, I cooked dinner, popped open a beer and watched the sun flush Mount Lamborn above me with alpenglow. It was my version of prime time. I came to see Mount Lamborn like Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire, a muse out my window that I hoped would give me something of the same inspiration he got painting the same peak time after time, in different colors, in different lights.
Places change, though, and love changes, and not always easily. (more…)
by David Frey | Aug 7, 2010 | Essays, News
David Frey photo.
“Yes We Cannabis.”
That’s what it said on the T-shirts on Mickey Handler’s Legalized Apparel, who set up a booth in the basement of the St. Regis in Aspen in mid-April as part of the Cannabis Crown convention. The event would crown the best – uh, herbal medicine – in Colorado. It gave Colorado’s chronically-ill a chance to sample medicine in a variety of forms, from the traditional bud to candy apples.
It also gave members of the state’s booming medical marijuana industry a convention just like any other industry. If there was any doubt that medical marijuana is an industry in the state – and a glance at the list of the hundreds of dispensaries in Colorado should dispel any doubt – this convention would have done away with it altogether.
While state legislators wrestle with new regulations to clamp down on the industry, and some Republican lawmakers want to ask voters to do away with dispensaries altogether, marijuana – medical or not – seems to be getting legit. (more…)
by David Frey | Apr 22, 2010 | Environment, Essays, The West
The deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine remind us that our energy consumption has a cost, and it is paid in part in human lives. It also reminds us that these deaths aren’t inevitable.
The tragic ending to the disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine serves as a reminder of one of the many tolls of our thirst for energy.
The people of Montcoal, West Virginia would no doubt have been happier if all those satellite trucks had gone away, if all the reporters had stopped pressing microphones at them. If there is a silver lining to this disaster, though, it is that we all know about the tragedy there. (more…)
by David Frey | Mar 31, 2010 | Environment, Essays, The West
A few years ago, Stewart Udall hiked the Bright Angel Trail with a grandson from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the South Rim. Not a little feat for an octogenarian.
He turned away an offer for a mule from the Park Service, says the Los Angeles Times, but he didn’t turn down a martini at the Tovar Lodge.
His family, he said, “wouldn’t have liked it if I hadn’t made it, but what a way to go.”
All of us who enjoy an escape into the wilderness owe Udall a debt of gratitude. (more…)
by David Frey | Mar 24, 2010 | Essays
Happy birthday, Justin.
He turns 11 this week, thanks to our country’s great health-care system that saved his life. He can hope to live a long life, too, thanks to health-care reform that arrived as a welcome birthday present.
“It is a big relief,” said his dad Joe, an old friend of mine who has spent countless nights worrying about Justin’s future.
The health reform that passed on Sunday night wasn’t everyone’s ideal. Progressives say it didn’t go far enough. Conservatives mysteriously see in it the unraveling of America as we know it. Most Americans didn’t support it, either. Why? Search me.
Maybe they need to meet Justin. (more…)
