< PREVIOUS ] [ 1994 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
September is our reward for putting up with Colorado the rest of the year. The weather is generally clement and we have Colorado to ourselves: the summer tourists have departed and the hunters haven't invaded.
Alas, that isn't good enough for some needy folks, who
see September as a shoulder season
which requires
promotion to keep those tourist dollars flowing.
The sad results of this monetary mania were apparent in Westcliffe last week, where Martha and I were standing on Main Street, talking to Hal Walter, a friend and frequent contributor to our small magazine.
Every minute or two, we were forced to step aside for a car. What is Colorado coming to when you can't stand in the street and talk to somebody in Westcliffe in September? What's next? Reservations at Susie's Cafe? A dog catcher to round up the feral canines strolling along the sidewalk?
Depressing thoughts, which weren't allayed when we returned to Salida and found our daughters preparing to depart for Denver to attend the Rolling Stones concert.
For some reason, this made me feel quite old, so I turned to the mail for succor.
Atop the stack was a bulk-rate item from one Susan A.
Quillen, of Bath, Ohio, informing me that for only $5, I
could reserve my copy of The World Book of Quillens,
a virtually handmade to order
heirloom edition.
The enclosed card had a four-color traditional-values
poster family -- Dad and Mom and Junior and Sis -- all
gathered at the table, examining their heritage book for
important, never-before-published facts about the
Quillen population.
All were rather lean-faced and
couldn't be related to the round-headed Quillens I
know.
I didn't like the family crest they supplied, a plain shield with three scrawny roosters. However, I did learn that only two out of every 100,000 people are Quillens.
This Quillen scarcity may explain why I've spent much of
my life gently correcting people who make me into
Quinlan,
Guillen,
Quinella,
and, in
the Post composing room last summer, Quindlen,
as in
Anna Quindlen.
But she's getting out of the column business to devote full time to yuppie-angst novels. This means there might be an opening for national syndication for another forty-something parent whose last name starts with Q. I could get rich and get out of computer programming, fill-in weekly newspaper editing, magazine publishing, landlording and other activities which take time away from punditry.
Nothing else in the mail looked interesting. This never happened back when I was a registered Republican. Often I learned that for a mere $100,000 contribution, I could join the Presidential Policy Advisory Committee and have my picture taken with Dan Quayle.
Frequent were the pleas for cash to help out poor
persecuted Ollie North. At least once a month, I discovered
a new threat to the stability of the Republic -- Marxists
in Guatemala, environmentalists in the woods, scientists in
classrooms -- that could be squelched if, Mr. Quillen,
you send in your $500 contribution today.
Great material for a columnist, and I threw it all away
as a result of the 1992 Republican convention. It wasn't
Pat Buchanan that sent me over, it was Rich Bond, the
national chairman then, who said something like see
these Republicans. They're Americans. Now, those other
people in the other party ...
I can summon some patriotism and feel proud to be an American when I reflect that Thomas Jefferson, H.L. Mencken, Malcolm X, Karl Hess, Mother Jones, Red Cloud and Clarence Darrow were all Americans. No other country produces so many trouble-makers, boat-rockers, agitators and disturbers of the peace.
But by GOP definitions, such people aren't Americans. That bothered me, and when Dave Ward, the county Democratic chairman, asked me to switch parties as part of a local publicity scheme, why not?
Alas, my mail as a registered Democrat is much less interesting. But a friend, Mark Emmer, must have landed on an upscale Democratic list, because he got an invitation for a champagne brunch with Roy Romer, governor of Colorado, and Ron Brown, U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
And it was only $250 a head -- a week's pay for a lot of people the Democratic party is supposed to care about, but perhaps mere chump change when you're in the right league.
We looked over the list of inviters. Most of the names were vaguely familiar, though we couldn't place them. The John Scully was probably the USWest John Scully, not the former Apple John Scully, we decided, and the Morgan Smith had to be the Morgan Smith who's been in state government since shortly after the Utes were expelled.
Penfield Tate,
Mark observed. He was mayor of
Boulder when I lived there. But didn't he die a few years
ago?
I remember reading that. Maybe this is a different
Penfield Tate.
Could be. But if it's the real one, and he's going to
be there, well, that might be worth $250 to see, wouldn't
it?
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1994 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >