Heaven-o … Kissy lives! Stories here and elsewhere about a south Texas county that decided its employees should answer the phone with a spritely “HEAVEN-O” were tough on those who picked up the phone. It rang a lot. We were among those who called Kleberg County to see how the anti-HELLo greeting was going, and […]
Dear Friends
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
Dear friends
Out for birds We thought we were in for a noisy Saturday night. The motel parking lot was packed. In a small town like Socorro, N.M., that usually means a basketball or wrestling meet, with celebrating or mourning into Sunday morning. But the Holiday Inn Express was like a morgue, until we got to the […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Dear friends
About that toilet paper Cadillac Desert author Marc Reisner sent us a copy of a letter he wrote to former Durango, Colo., mayor Jeff Morrissey, a friend of the Animas-La Plata project and an enemy of all A-LP’s opponents. Morrissey was quoted as saying he wipes his *** with Reisner’s book. Reisner’s response, only the […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
Dear friends
Join us in Socorro Do High Country News readers have as good taste in food as in newspapers? Come join us at the year’s first HCN potluck in Socorro, N.M., on Saturday, Feb. 1, at 6:30 p.m. to find out. Potlucks are held following meetings of the HCN board. This potluck will be at the […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
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Digging in Winter finally fell on Paonia after fooling us for so many weeks with sunny days and skittish snow. The ski areas are happy about their feet-thick bases, and local water supplies, though still in snowpack, seem robust. But it isn’t cold yet, with that dry, biting cold we’ve come to expect in December. […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Dear friends
Let the waters flow As the days grow shorter and darkness comes earlier, we look for signs that winter isn’t really closing in. Octogenarian David Brower helped us out the other day with a cheery phone call at dusk from California. He had surprising news: The club’s board had just voted unanimously to support emptying […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Dear friends
The aftermath With this issue we get our chance to punditify, prognosticate and otherwise ponder what Western voters meant to do when they each took five or 10 minutes to punch out their preferences: Urban voters may pull down levers in booths with curtains; rural voters tend to stand at open lecterns and punch out […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Dear friends
What happened? Unlike you, we don’t have a clue as to how the elections came out. Did Bob Dole come out of nowhere to upset Bill Clinton? Did Walt Minnick pull a similar feat in Idaho? Is it now illegal for cows to pee in Oregon’s streams? Do parents have new rights in Colorado? Did […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Dear Friends
Braving blaze orange It’s hunting season again, and who knows it better than this office? Our neighbor to the south is a meat locker which works overtime this season, thanks to pickup loads of dead deer, elk and, lately, bear. The gang of cats that patrols the alley seems in hog heaven while the animal-lovers […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Dear friends
Thank you, Driggs Three times a year HCN holds board meetings and potlucks with subscribers around the region. Until recently, we tended to gather in places like Sun Valley or Boulder. Those are good places, but we realized we were neglecting less well-known towns. So last winter we met in Colorado Springs, famous as home […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Dear friends
Odds and ends Thanks to Boulder, Colo., reader Evan Cantor who sent us 10 years of back issues of High Country News. They’ve been snapped up by Paonia High School, which school secretary Judy Briscoe tells us has become much involved in interdisciplinary teaching. And thanks to Evergreen, Colo., writer Dyan Zaslowsky, who passed on […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Dear friends
New interns Recently, while chewing sloppy melted chunks of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and watching shadows cast by moonlight cross the walls of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, intern Patrick Dowd got his first taste of the area around Paonia. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, moving inland in 1991 to […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Dear friends
Fires – again First, you read about the 700 new fires breaking out in Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Washington and Wyoming – most started by lightning. Then, if you live in Colorado or Nevada, where fires are already burning, you notice the intense salmon colors of dawns and sunsets. Suddenly, it seems, the West […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Dear Friends
A celebration of essayists We are not calling this issue devoted mostly to essays “special,” but it certainly feels that way. It is the first time we have taken such a large break from straight reporting to feature stories that stem from personal experience in the West. Staff debated the idea and finally plunged. An […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Dear friends
Curiosity about consensus Perhaps feeling angry or resentful takes more work than cooperation, or maybe it’s the habit of perceiving people as black hats or white hats that eventually seems old hat. In any case, we’ve had so many requests for our special issue May 13 on consensus (-Howdy, neighbor!: As a last resort, Westerners […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Dear friends
Back with a bang Staff is back on the job, returning just in time for the 4th of July parade up Paonia’s Grand Avenue, an event which usually requires 30 minutes, tops. This time it took an hour for more than 100 entries to pass, what with past Cherry Days queens representing five decades, Shriners, […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Dear friends
We brake for summer We skip the next issue of High Country News because, we like to joke, everyone needs a chance to catch up on their HCN reading. Some of us here will hike, bike or cheer for kids at summer baseball games, others will head for “meditation camp” in New Mexico, and all […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Dear Friends
They don’t know it all This issue is an exploration by Elizabeth Manning and other writers of the state of outdoor education in the West. It’s a subject some approach with awe, particularly if we’re the one who admits: “That (course, teacher, backpacking expedition, river trip) changed my life.” Perhaps because so many of us […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Dear Friends
Woe is Montana Poor Montana. And we aren’t even counting the Freemen extortionists who won’t come out of their rooms. No, the latest slam against the “last best place” comes from a grumpy editor of the (need we say powerful?) New York Times Magazine. James Atlas’ family vacation near Yellowstone and Glacier national parks was […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Dear Friends
Going with the flow Locally, things are hopping. A cold snap wiped out up to half the fruit crop, and police say a “little old lady” mistook where the reverse gear was and plowed into the Paonia Post Office, demolishing three newspaper stands and a concrete wall. Both events were not novel. Fruitgrowers have always […]