< PREVIOUS ] [ 1987 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
On Christmas morning, when the world honors peace and joy, it's time to celebrate the Good Things of life. And by Good Things, I do not mean the self-induced political resurrections of Ken Kramer and Gary Hart. Certainly those Ghosts of Elections Past represent divine blessings for political columnists who desperately need topics, but life is more than politics.
For instance, there are certain (uncontrolled) substances which qualify as Good Things worth celebrating. Strapping tape, for one. How was the world held together before we had strapping tape? Some oldtimers might swear by baling wire, but you can't wrap parcels for shipment with baling wire. Much of modern progress merely replaces a minor annoyance with a major one, but there has to be a place in heaven for the inventor of strapping tape.
And the creator of WD-40. If something refuses to work, even after you've patched it together with strapping tape, spray WD-40 on it; Is the mechanism of your Handyman jack too rusty to move, and you desperately need said jack because your old pickup is wedged between a rock and a hard place? Out with the WD-40; the jack soon moves, as will your truck.
Does your computer's daisy wheel printer stammer and stutter? Is its supposedly black fabric ribbon in fact producing a lighter shade of pale? WD-40 to the rescue. Whether your problem is high tech or low, the restorative powers of WD-40 verge on the miraculous.
Modern life also blesses us with hot showers. They feel
so good that any day now, the state legislature will try to
restrict them and Nancy Reagan will come all to just say
no
hot showers.
But as far as I'm concerned, any motel room is worth the price, however exorbitant, because it means you can stand there for 45 extravagant minutes and still not run out of hot water. That's about the only thing you can do in motel rooms that you can't do more comfortably at home.
Speaking of home, it is time to put in a good word for
Salida. I didn't exactly consult a list of The 100,000
Most Desirable Places to live in the U.S.
when we moved
here nearly a decade ago. It was that I needed a job -- the
owner of the Breckenridge newspaper had already discharged
me once or twice, and appeared likely to get serious about
it the next time the subject came up -- and there was a
newspaper job open in Salida.
But I've stayed here for five years without a job. Why? Well, Salida is in the mountains, and for kids who grew up on the prairies, the Colorado dream is to live close by those big peaks.
For a mountain town, Salida is a relatively cheap place to live with a tolerable climate. Further, even though much of its commerce has either departed entirely or moved out to the highway, Salida still has a real downtown.
That means I can conduct most of my daily errands on foot and thereby avoid traffic or parking hassles. You'd be surprised how much energy you have available for your real work when you don't squander most of a day's allotment of creativity in traffic maneuvers and the finding of a parking space.
This isn't good old Mayberry, wherein everyone is warm and kindly. Not unless you think cranks, zealots, boosters and grabbers are warm and friendly. But there are some people who've been good friends and neighbors.
They often show up here as quoted but unnamed friends, and unlike Joe Biden's political critics, they don't seem to mind how much I often plagiarize. So here is some public gratitude to Kirby and Margo Perschbacher, Mark Emmer and Nancy Vickery, Greg and Lisa Truitt, Rob and Denise Wikoff, Ron and Carol Slaughter, Dave and Suzanne Ward -- and I'm leaving out many other people, from bartenders to librarians, who make Salida, despite its general poverty and geriatric politics, a pleasant place to live.
Other good folks? I have relatives scattered all over Colorado who buy the Post every Friday just on my account. I seriously doubt that my brother in Grand Junction or my great-aunts in Fort Morgan agree with much I say -- but none of them has disowned me yet, either.
During the next week, we'll be reading many lists of the
10 Most Important events of 1987.
And when I think of what's really important to anyone's
life -- friends, neighbors, family, the everyday encounters
-- none of that ever shows up in newspapers, and certainly
not on any 10 Most important
list. Except on mine,
today.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1987 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >