Candlelight. Placemats. A plate of ‘Ambrosia’ apple slices and Tillamook Pepper Jack cheese. Two slender souvenir beer glasses…
Category: Essays
PHOTO ESSAY: ‘Ninja Warrior Challenge’ Raises $10,700 for Pagosa Charter School
“Everyone who completed the course and hit the buzzer at the end was awarded a ‘Ninja Warrior’ headband, and the students were motivational [to each other] because some of the kids didn’t want to finish the course…”
EDITORIAL: The ‘Blood Quantum’ Question, Part Three
Americans have always embraced division and separation, right alongside our fascination with equality and unity…
EDITORIAL: The ‘Blood Quantum’ Question, Part Two
Divisions established by law or by policy cut both ways, but they are always divisions…
EDITORIAL: The ‘Blood Quantum’ Question, Part One
“Native Americans in the U.S. are the only minority group that has to prove their Native-ness on an Indian Card…”
EDITORIAL: Fighting Fires, and Just Plain Fighting, Part One
When I wrote my letter in 1993, Clarissa and the two girls had already arrived in Pagosa Springs and were settling into a tiny, rented cabin on San Juan Street…
ESSAY: A Love Story
It was an arranged marriage. I hardly knew her, and I didn’t particularly like her. She was something of a compromise. Most certainly, it was not ‘love at first sight’…
ESSAY: Merry Christmas
Our cute (fake) Christmas tree is hung with ornaments collected over many years, and a small collection of gifts sits under the tree…
PHOTO ESSAY: A Big Chunk of Concrete
Our plumber showed the video evidence to PSSGID manager Gene Tautges, and got the Town’s approval to dig up the entire line…
ESSAY: Ribbon-Cutting at Pagosa Peak Open School
“During the process, you likely realize that you took too many risks and turned many wrong corners… and you backtrack. You try something different. And you innovate….”
ESSAY: Data… and the American Dream, Part Five
“Bob, you shouldn’t be doing that kind of work,” I told him. “Hire someone to do it for you. A professional…”
ESSAY: Data… and the American Dream, Part Four
“At the end of the day, there’s no romance without finance. We need some money to finance this; we’re going to need money to pay the consultants to do this work…”
ESSAY: Data… and the American Dream, Part Three
In other words, DDM can analyze the tourists coming to Pagosa Springs and tell us, at some level of detail, what TV programs these visitors are watching at home…
ESSAY: Data… and the American Dream, Part Two
Back in 2010, the 20-member Water Supply Community Work Group (WSCWG) published a comprehensive study of our community’s water needs…
ESSAY: Data… and the American Dream, Part One
The birds were singing when I woke this morning, and that’s a fact. I can’t tell you how many birds or what species, but I definitely heard birds singing…
ESSAY: The Gift
What is an old house? Is it a capital investment meant to be sold, perhaps at a profit?
ESSAY: Corn, Corn Oil… and Scientific Reality, Part Two
Mr. Sternberg did his Ph.D. work along side Jennifer Doudna, the University of California researcher who developed the CRISPR/Cas9 system of gene editing…
ESSAY: Corn, Corn Oil… and Scientific Reality, Part One
A scientist was explaining that the DNA coding that uniquely defines each individual human — or each individual dog, or cat, or earthworm — is made up of only four different amino acids strung together in a certain sequence…