Sandor Varallyay: "[W]e saw [Stalin's Secret Service] coming, and my friends in the camp hid me in the attic, and I stayed there until I had a clearer chance to escape through the border... I crossed the border during the night, after midnight. I remember it was the eighth of December, 1956. I was caught by the Austrian border guards when I crossed. They already had a couple of Hungarians in custody. Thankfully these guards were kind to us and didn't turn us in. They took us to their village to their jail. I was soaking wet and covered with mud, and the jail was so warm. One of the border guards gave me his own supper, which I will never forget."
Next summer I'm probably going to turn the backyard into a vegetable garden," writes Post blogger Mitch Mulhall in comment #2, "not because of some irrational devotion to some Eat Local movement, but because I love home grown tomatoes and Eruca sativa, and the kids don't play on the swing set anymore. Besides, my seven-year-olds still fall for the "Pull my finger" gag because I'm quick to scold the dog."
"When my purse was x-rayed and the offending implement was found," writes Post blogger reckless G in comment #3, "I had to make a special trip back to my car or risk losing my precious tool."
Posts filed under 'Glenwood Springs'
My mom was born in a tent (some accounts I’ve heard say it was a cabin) near Estes Park, Colorado on an August night in 1936. My grandfather was a laborer during what must have been the construction of Trail Ridge Road from the Alpine Visitor Center to Grand Lake. It is one of the cruel realities of surviving your elders that you come up with questions you can never have answered.
When I was a much younger man, in that netherworld between high school and life, I went to work in the coal mines. Yes, back in the day, there were coal mines, and some of them were in Pitkin County. But I digress.
Continue Reading May 11th, 2008
The removal of several trees along the banks of the Roaring Fork river has some Glenwood Springs residents up in arms:
Glenwood Springs Post Independent-The chopping of dozens of trees along the edges of the Roaring Fork River in the River Meadows Mobile Home Park last weekend and on Monday has provoked a strong reaction from both resident Deborah Hord and some of her neighbors... "I'm here requesting or trying to make people see that we need to implement laws to protect our trees," Hord told the City Council Thursday night. "I know that we are a tree city and to not have any laws to protect our trees - what does that say? I'm still pretty upset because it's torn up the riparian and the wildlife. It's destroyed pretty much everything there."
Now, the Glenwood Springs City Council is considering laws about tree cutting.
May 4th, 2008
Many summers ago, I joined a party of favorites—me, my life-long friend Carmine, his son Andrew, and the three Dons: Carmine’s father, older brother, and nephew—for some high-country fly fishing on the Cimarron. It was no major adventure. A left turn off the two lane highway just North of Ridgeway and another fifteen or so miles uphill and we were there.
It had been a few years since I’d last guided a fly fishing trip, but my piscatorial reputation was fairly well known, if not as unwarranted as a Modonnna grammy. Still, among people who were near enough my own kin, my angling abilities were honored.
Continue Reading May 4th, 2008
Aspen Music Festival and School Director of Educational Outreach Debby Barnekow writes about her second day in the Valley schools with guitarist Brad Richter.
At Basalt High School there are 3 guitar classes, part of an every other day schedule like band, choir, math, biology, etc. Principal James Waddick believes this is a necessary avenue of expression for some of his students and indeed it is-a beginner, intermediate and advanced classes. Brad met with all 3 classes today to work on getting some of them ready for performance on Friday's Music and M.O.R.E concert. For nearly all of them of the students, this will be their first time to perform and there were many who are a little uncommitted. Brad's answer is to keep practicing the Led Zepplin song, Kashmir that they are to play.
After school we met with Harris Jackson, a 13-year old guitarist at Glenwood Springs Middle School whom I met during the Stars of Tomorrow competition last week. Harris is self-taught which makes his musical accomplishments all the more amazing-he composes, arranges and plays. He played for Brad who gave him pointers on how to get more efficiency from his hand positions and how to work on speed. At Brad's invitation to play on Friday's concert, Harris was overjoyed. He will be a nice addition to the program.
April 9th, 2008
I’ve had this easy chair since about 1995.
I have no particular fondness for this chair. It’s comfortable. It’s warm. It’s proven durable. But it’s a freaking chair.
It’s leather, with low back, and an ottoman. It used to be brown, but now it’s more of a beige. It’s got two holes in it, one in the seat and one in the left arm—skier’s left, that is. My wife has wanted to replace this chair for months now. In itself, that is fine with me. What’s troubling is that my wife shared her desire to replace this piece of furniture with my mother.
You know the saying, “two heads are better than one”? This is Balderdash. Hooey. Piffle.
Continue Reading April 5th, 2008
I have been studying separatism as a kind of background exercise in what I regard a troubling association between Senator Barack Obama and Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
Separatism is based on an idea that ethnic minorities cannot advance in a society dominated by an ethnic majority.
Separatism is an idea that is not without precedent in the writings of the U.S. founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson, who penned what I regard the central premise of the United States when he wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” also wrote this:
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people [blacks] are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.
~Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821
Continue Reading March 30th, 2008
We had entered the “practice” portion of the “Women’s Health Conference: From Theory To Practice”—and that meant a group of us was walking in the woods to the Rio Grande Trail and thence into Clark’s Market in Aspen with Dr. Bob Vogel, the University of Maryland professor of medicine who doubles as chief of medicine for the Pritikin Longevity Center and Pritikin Research Foundation.
The idea of the conference, sponsored by the forward-thinking Aspen Center for Integral Health (acih.org) was to dig down deep into what goes down in the real world. Thus: the walk, a moveable lecture about what remains for us to feast upon in the healthiest of worlds.
Continue Reading March 24th, 2008
For more than a decade, Bob and Tish Lockard have inspired the children of the Roaring Fork Valley by teaching the discipline of alpine ski racing through the Buddy Werner program at Sunlight Mountain Resort. That’s right. Slalom, Giant Slalom, and Super Giant Slalom, served up on a palette of genuine enthusiasm designed to appeal to children ages 5 to 95. While most Buddy Werner participants are children ages 5 to 12, Bob and Tish have made Sunlight’s Buddy Werner program an art—a way for willing parents to actively participate in teaching their children to ski. While the focus of the Buddy Werner program may be ski racing, I find myself one of the fortunate few who have learned that where Bob and Tish are concerned, the only real metric is helping a child find self-worth and confidence through skiing.
...
Continue Reading March 16th, 2008
CSU Choir Blog Day 1
It is amazing how one group of college students can enter one’s heart so quickly and easily. That is what they did for everyone with whom they performed yesterday. We started at Aspen Elementary School for an all-school assembly. After lunch, the choir worked with the Aspen High School choir who recently performed at Carnegie Hall in February. I felt very emotional as the two choirs blended, side by side to work on a new piece. The same was true working with the Glenwood Springs Varsity choir. Sitting between the two choirs, I was overwhelmed by a wall of beautiful voices singing together.
Since these are college students I though it would be interesting to hear some of their thoughts....
Continue Reading March 11th, 2008
Aspen Music Festival and School Director of Educational Outreach Deborah Barnekow is on the road with the Colorado State University Concert Choir this week. The following is a today's entry from Glenwood Springs:
There is something so exhilarating in bringing a large group into the schools. The Colorado State University Concert Choir arrived last night in Glenwood for 2 exhausting days working with the high and middle school choirs in the valley and to perform for our two PLUS (adopted) schools. I have such respect for the choir directors and their dedicated students.
The first hurdle is finding them a place to stay and some food along the way during the day. In asking families to host choir members in their homes, I have met many new and generous people to whom I am grateful. My thanks also to Aspen and Basalt High Schools for hosting the group for lunch the two days.
As I climbed on board their bus upon arrival last night to welcome them, I was a bit overwhelmed by their faces of dedication to the task I am asking of them. I look forward to getting to know each of them. They will perform a free concert on Tuesday night, March 11, at the First United Methodist Church in Glenwood Springs at 6:30 pm. I hope to see you all there.
March 10th, 2008
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