Letters

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Hello,
I enjoyed your GPS article. I have been wondering about the traffic update GPS for the car that might reroute you around an accident or stopped traffic when doing the rush hour metro commute.Any thoughts on this utility?

Sincerely,
Commuter

–Editor’s response: Yes: Leave the city and the rush-hour commute behind, as fast as your GPS can guide you. Then buy an old cabin in the woods and fix it up just enough to make it cozy enough that you’re not all the time thinking about how uncomfortable you are. Then throw the GPS away and go for a walk in the woods.

 

Hey John,

I recently got my new issue and saw the incorrect guess of Kermit’s being the fictional story in your Smoke Signals from #136. I’m thinking the BS story is the one from The Manhattan. In the original story, it was the guy two stools down that got hit, but you say you were both in the same stools in 2000 but describe it as being three stools down. I also think the victim must have been at least a foot behind the intended target and it seems unlikely the punch would have had enough power to knock out a man so far from its intended target.

Dave Erickson

P.S. As a former dishwasher, 1971, I enjoyed reading the Red Onion obit in #132, which brought back many good memories. As an employee, I enjoyed many perks including a short & warm walk from the bar to my room upstairs, lots of barely touched steaks in the dish room and free admission to the wet T-shirt contest.

P.P.S. Uh…on second thought, three barstools would be correct. What can I say? I’m a software developer and being off by one is part of my life. But, I think the Manhattan story is still BS because the big layoffs at the Climax Mine were in the 1980s, and it didn’t fully close until the mid-’90s. No doubt due to clean climbing leading to a reduced demand for molybdenum.

–Editor’s note: Dave: Factual inaccuracy does not necessarily BS make.

 

Dear Editor:

Steve Fossett’s unfortunate demise notwithstanding, I’ve never understood why he needed a dry lakebed when we have the Bonneville Salt Flats on which to try for land-speed records (Obituary, Mountain Gazette #138).

Yours truly,
Bill Fetcher,
Steamboat Springs CO

 

Dear MG Folks,

About your cover for MG #138: Although there is something beautiful about the image of holiday lights strung over a tent in the mountains, the beauty is selfish and invasive. Are twilight and starlight not enough?

REI just published the same scene in their catalogue — tents/camp in the middle of nowhere all lit up with holiday lights. These images make me grumpy. Every trip out these days, there’s another person with yet another way to generate invasive noise or light that affects everything, everyone for miles. Your cover just ads fuel to the unfire.

On a different note, I liked reading the article “What makes a mountain person?” and the responses by Julie Harrell and Malcom McMichael. An MP is anyone who wants, who seeks to be outside, exposed to the elements, as often as possible, in any conditions. There are MPs in the desert and in Brooklyn. It’s an attitude, regardless of location.

For those of you living in the real big mountains, I’m happy for you and sometimes a bit envious. I just hope you are out there, in them, and not in front of a picture window.

MG is one of the things that keeps me yearning for and going after it. Maybe I’ll make it outside this week at 2 a.m. for the Geminids instead of staying snug in my bed.

Cheers,
Karen Palch
Berks County, PA

 

Hello,

I know this is very late in coming after your re-publication of the article by Fletcher Anderson (“The Big Sneak,” MG #123), but I happened to be doing a google search and the article came up. It mentioned that Mountain Gazette had not been able to find/locate the illustrator Gary Barnard who had done the artwork originally. Gary is my father and I know that he worked for the publication and would probably enjoy that his work was published with you again (he always talked fondly of that time in his life and I know I enjoyed many stories, including his introduction to Hunter Thompson, through his experience at Mountain Gazette). I was only 13 at the time but I remember seeing his sketches for this article and to see them again and read the article that they went with as an adult was great. Gary Barnard lives in Lakewood, Colorado. I think he would enjoy knowing that the article had been republished and would in the future if the occasion ever arises again.

Thanks,
Heather Schultze

 

Fayhee,

While I wish I knew the detail that would tell me which of your bar tales was made up (Smoke Signals, Mountain Gazette #136), the best I can do is say that your description of the Goat was so spot-on that I know it has to be true.

After working as a lift op at A-Basin and living in Keystone a few years back, I know first hand about the way the one single woman in that bar, when talking with five grubby guys in their work pants, will almost invariably decide to start talking trash. The only detail missing in your story was the classic Goat bait-and-switch “drink special” that induced your presence at the bar that night. When I was a regular there, for about a month, they had us going on a supposed “25-cent PBR draft Monday night” that never panned out. For three or four Mondays in a row, we showed up, and either the keg would be too foamy or they would be out of glasses, and then they would offer to sell you a can at regular price. We would look around, spot the one single woman in the bar, figure it was better than sitting around employee housing watching wrestling with the junkies, order something else, and proceed to get trash talked until we left.

Finally, one night when we all appeared at the bar for 25-cent draft night, the tender looked at us and said, “Oh, we had to stop doing that after last week. Too many fights.” He motioned at that point for someone to take the banner that was advertising the deal down. We stopped for a moment to ponder how they had too many fights when the deal never actually occurred, and then asked ourselves why they hadn’t taken the banner down before the next Monday night. Then we spotted the one single woman in the bar, ordered regular-priced cans, and preceded to get trash-talked until we left.

Ben Skeen,
Denver, CO

 

MG:

As usual I thoroughly enjoyed the Bar Issue, MG #136. Reading of the special relationships people have to these modern campfires lends a sense of credibility to similar feelings I have about my own life within those neon-studded walls.

I read the stories, this year, in exile from the mountains of Colorado in the secluded islands of Hawaii. Believe me, there is nothing that resembles the mountain hideaways here, in which I wasted countless and completely enjoyable hours. It is for the best I suppose; I have been sober for almost a year now and it is well that I am. I read with a mix of nostalgia for the passing of the wonderful naiveté of youth and the greenest of envy for those who, young or more courageous, continue to convert trivial moments of their days into more or less comprehensible funny, sad and thoughtful stories of the sometimes-inexplicable life of the individual.

Were it not for 6,000 miles of seawater and another couple thousand miles inland to the Moose Jaw, I may well have found my way in through those doors tonight. I send my best wishes to the folks there at the Jaw and mourn at a distance the passing of the Old Dillon Inn and the great Sundance Saloon. (I have also heard rumors of the passing of the Red Onion in Aspen, though I only poked my head in a time or two).

The memories and emotions produced are a bit scary to somebody trying to reevaluate his relationship to alcohol and bars; it is scary because the pull is still there and strong. I am happy to report though that I am not a beaten man; I have not and will not accept that I am powerless over alcohol nor can my life be managed better by joining up with a bunch of modern-day abolitionists. In fact, I believe that, with a little care and patience, I will again walk through the doors of the Moose Jaw some fine day and enjoy its comforts, if only in a more moderate fashion in keeping with the dignity of a man of mature years. That is, if, after a considerable amount of swimming and walking, there is still an establishment left that is worth the visit!

Jon Thomas,
Waikoloa HI

 

Snail mail letters to:
M. John Fayhee, Editor,
707 W. 8th St., Silver City NM 88061

or email them to
mjfayhee@mountaingazette.com