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During the summer, Colorado offers party after party. Every weekend, there's a festival going somewhere, and usually two or three.
Both Coloradans who have cultivation and taste can appreciate chamber music in Aspen, Shakespeare in Boulder, grand opera in Central City, cinema in Breckenridge and vintage wines at Snowmass. The rest of us can enjoy donkey races in Cripple Creek, llama races in Fairplay, kayak races in Salida and mountain-bike races in Crested Butte.
Not all of the unsophisticated celebrations are races,
of course. Paonia, the Fruit Capital of the North
Fork,
has Cherry Days. Basalt, home of one of the
better bars on the Western Slope, the Midland Saloon,
celebrates Railroad Days every summer. And there is my
favorite, the Heeney Tick Festival.
The main reason it is my favorite is that I have never attended it. When you go to a festival, you find jostling crowds and traffic jams. This is not what people should be looking for in the mountains. Another reason I like the Heeney Tick Festival is that its founder, Faith Tjarhes, was one of my successors as editor of the Middle Park Times in nearby Kremmling. Any woman who lived through both that and tick fever deserves to be honored.
Despite all the festivals we already have, though, there are a few more that Colorado really should offer:
· The Aspen Hypocrisy Celebration. Cast aside all that repressive Aristotelian linear left-brain thinking, and come and get in touch with your feelings while fondling a crystal and sharing regal past-life experiences through world-class channelers.
You'll enjoy sneering at rational folk, and you can blissfully ignore the fact that it is a knowledge of the laws of physics, rather than chanting levitative mantras, that got your Learjet into Aspen.
· Vail Reality Carnival. For 51 weeks of the year, this pleasant mountain resort community stays pleasant by blocking all evidence that there are people who aren't rich. For instance, it's illegal to have or use a clothesline in Vail. Last summer, a workman who sat on a park bench and ate from his lunchpail was asked to move on, because the sight of an honest laborer was offending the affluent visitors who were spending $500 a day to avoid such revolting spectacles.
But during this one week, Vail will allow room-service maids to walk its streets during daylight. Men in paint-splattered bib overalls will be allowed to sit in public places. A special D&RGW freight will drop off hoboes in Minturn, who can then thumb their way into Vail and stand outside restaurant windows, gawking hungrily at the diners while they experience those $50 gourmet lunches.
After Reality Week, Vail will return to normal as all
the undesirables return home -- except for those
unfortunate black visitors who met the drug courier
profile.
They will be detained as guests of Eagle
County for an indeterminate period.
· Annual Convention of the Friends of Illiteracy. This year, the southeastern Colorado town of Springfield hosts the gathering.
Why Springfield? Our former elementary principal here
could neither spell nor write a coherent sentence. He wrote
a recommendation letter for a laid-off teacher which was so
flawed that she is embarrassed to show it to anybody as she
looks for another job. The published school rules listed
this as a lunchroom regulation: Consideration of the
rights of others will always be considered during
conservation (sic).
Several years ago, he issued a
study list for the county spelling bee that had half a
dozen misspelled words.
Springfield just hired him as its superintendent of schools. What better place for the Friends of Illiteracy to meet?
Closer to the metro area, there's the ongoing Rocky Flats Prevarication Contest -- it's surprising that Rockwell and the Department of Energy have been relying on local talent, instead of bringing in some major-league liar like Roger Ailes, the way some airport opponents did.
The big one, though, is the Metro Denver Economic
Development Carnival. It's a bit reminiscent of Vanity Fair
in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, The Celestial
Railroad.
There people traded their birthrights for
baubles. Denver will turn its Civic Center park into a
roaring 120-decibel racetrack. Denver sits in what was once
a splendid location, and indeed, it still promotes its
proximity to the mountains -- the same mountains whose
canyons Denver wants to flood.
Oh well. That's the best thing about most festivals. You just eat, drink, and be merry, and take no thought of the morrow.
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