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Hurry: Enjoy these fleeting, disjointed thoughts

Winter bears down on Pigeon Peak in the Needle Mountains on Wednesday, with fall in the foreground. In town, conditions last week were almost summer-like.

Where does the time go? Here it is, September already. What? It’s October? The 20th?

Get out of here!

The world’s moving so fast these days that even Father Time can’t catch up. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way, so maybe you’ll appreciate these scattered thoughts from a scattered brain. Some ideas to ponder – or flush quickly down the drain:

The calendar says it’s fall, but kind of a neat thing about living in this area is that we get three seasons almost simultaneously. Look up high and you see snow-capped peaks. Look not quite so high and you see the yellows, oranges and reds of autumn. Stay in town and you may get days in the 70s. Down jacket and visible breath in the morning, shorts and sunscreen in the afternoon.

Anyone who didn’t make it to the showing of “Valley Uprising” on Oct. 9 not only missed a good documentary on big-wall climbing in Yosemite Valley, but also a look at a still-healthy Durango subculture.

Sometimes, I worry that outdoors junkies – not unlike myself when I arrived in 1990 – can’t afford it here these days. But judging by the makeup of the majority 25-to-35-year-old crowd, and the positive and vocal reactions to the rebel culture presented in the movie, we have plenty of “dirtbags” still eking out an existence here. Adrenaline junkies are willing to pay the cost of living in a pricey place with a dearth of career-type jobs.

Nearly 400 people packed into Smiley Auditorium’s old wooden seats, and the proceeds – about $1,000, according to Ken Fagerlin with event sponsor Backcountry Experience – will go toward the youth climbing program at the Rock Lounge on Camino del Rio. Only problem with the energetic audience was that laughter often obfuscated dialogue that followed.

Is it wrong to feel a little pride when someone tells my dog she’s cute?

Wow, did Mother Nature do a job of rearranging the road and trails in the Horse Gulch area. Today, the city and La Plata County’s joint project to reconstruct the road commences. Together, with some serious work by Trails 2000, which brought a mini-excavator to the Meadow area to smooth out damage from Sept. 21 rains, our trail system will soon be as good as ... not new, but at least as it was before.

This one’s been driving me crazy for years, and it’s time to get off the pot and talk about it. I just don’t get it: Why is it not OK for men to leave the toilet seat up, but it is OK for women to leave the toilet lid up?

Not sure how much detail to go into here, and it’s not my intention to start a war between the sexes, but either way is lazy and perhaps unsanitary. I could start tinkling on that toilet seat just as easily as you could sit on the toilet rim.

I like and respect many people who work for the Colorado Department of Transportation. But is there anywhere in the state, in the country, in the world, where a multimillion-dollar interchange has been completed and just sat purposeless for years? I think we’re going on five years now. How embarrassing – for all of us.

I’m thinking of launching a Kickstarter campaign. Nothing particular in mind, I just want to be president of something, even some pseudo-company that will never amount to anything. Isn’t that what Kickstarter is all about?

I know both Mike McLachlan and J. Paul Brown. Not long ago, they both seemed like decent human beings to me. They both seemed like people who, even if you didn’t agree with them, were at least good-hearted. Thankfully, all these creative, colorful fliers began coming in the mail to set me straight. Now, it’s apparent that both candidates to represent us in the state Legislature are more evil-minded than we could have conceived.

Yep, judging only by the fliers, I would have to characterize McLachlan as a puppet who steals from kids and Brown as a sinister-looking character who treats women like farm animals.

Election season will be over soon, but hopefully these fliers will keep coming, so I can know the truth.

Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis on this date in 1968. The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase on Oct. 20, 1803. And my favorite: In 1870, the town site of Phoenix was laid out; I’m guessing the sprawl came later.

Sometimes, your tire goes flat when you’re deep in the backcountry on a 4WD road, or halfway down the Hermosa Creek Trail on your mountain bike without a pump. Or sometimes, Lady Luck is in a good mood. She smiled and laughed with me last week. Seconds after I’d just finished a two-hour ride and dismounted, I and my fellow riders heard the telltale “pffffftt!!!” – in 10 seconds, my back tire was completely flat.

It’s true in gambling, in relationships, in sports, in jobs. Many times – and we tend to forget this – luck plays a much bigger role in our lives than we care to admit.

May fortune smile on you.

johnp@durangoherald.com John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column.



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