My last summer walk to Paradise Beach was tonight. Self-imposed.

After bathing my dog three times to get the human feces smell off him, I realized that Paradise was lost.

Of course, this is nothing new to many, but I always try to find the bright side of things and therefore continued to go down every afternoon to chit-chat with the variety of people who recreate at Paradise:

“Hiya,” I say to a gentleman, “Nice night.” But alas, he is way too wasted to respond. Probably just got done throwing up in the grass section I delicately avoid.

A bottle is thrown into the river. I walk up and say, “You gonna get that?” The response is met with yelling gibberish; I feel the responsible thing to do is walk away in fear.

A fun loving (and wasted) group of tubers moon the train. I chuckle but worry for the kiddos whose drunk parents are too busy toking on the beach to notice their kids’ shocked faces.

That night, I call 911 in response to a screaming fight in the park after a couple exited Paradise to “work out” their differences on the city lawn.

It’s not about age or race or even what license plate someone has on his or her car. It’s just about Paradise lost. It’s about people’s poop, garbage, throw up and completely wasted demeanor at a place where my kids use to swim.

I think I’d take Silverton sludge over what’s happening to the river right now. The hypocrisy of Durango’s snubbed attitude toward Silverton during the mine spill is so apparent as I watch Durango visitors spill more into the watershed than I’ve ever seen any Silverton resident spill.

Assuming that as a community we aren’t interested in police profiling based upon age or race or license plate, there must be a solution.

I’d like to see the governor walk down to Paradise today and take a hearty drink ... he’ll need to avoid the poop, garbage and puke piles on the way down.

Sarah Tescher

Durango