Dear Action Line: In the spring of 1993, the city of Durango was awarded a dubious honor, “The worst dressed city in America.” During the past 30 years, Durango residents have worked hard to shed this shameful honor. However, during the past several years, the proliferation of “yoga pants” has grown, and recently I saw two heavy-set senior men sporting flowered yoga pants in Home Depot. It was not a pretty sight. Perhaps Action Line could offer correct protocol for the public wearing of yoga pants. – Self-Appointed Fashion Policeman
Dear SAFP: How to tackle this one? Action Line, doing his part to uphold the tradition begun by USA Today, is not the person to ask about, or care about, good fashion. Socks with sandals? Fine. T-shirt tucked on a warm day? Heck yeah, if it keeps your pants from falling below crack line. Wearing a bra as a top? No idea, but it made a good “Seinfeld” episode back in the day.
Yoga pants in public?
All Action Line knows is that this question cannot be taken too seriously, as that will only cause big trouble.
Hoping for help, Action Line turned to a person who grew up in Durango, is an accomplished athlete and can make the claim of being a longtime yoga expert. Yep, many of you know him. It’s the irrepressible Steve Ilg, creator of Steve Ilg’s High Performance Yoga.
More background: Ilg is some sort of expert in the Vedas, which have something to do with the Hindu religion, which is popular in India, which is the home to a lot of yoga and yogis, but surprisingly never the home of Yogi Bear or Yogi Berra.
So first, is it OK to wear yoga pants outside class?
“According to Vedic Scriptures, yoga pants should NEVER be removed,” Ilg said. “Like Japa Mala, the more repetitions of use, the deeper the Lineage Transmissions.
“Fun fact:” he continued. “Like in college when we lived in our sweats, when your yoga pants get so totally grungy, the yogin should not waste precious water or resources to wash them. Instead, much White Karma shall be graced to the aspirant if they simply use the college tactic of wearing them inside out for a few more weeks.”
And should only certain people be allowed to wear them?
“If you know, you know. Yet? Most do not know. Though they (sadly) reckon themselves as Knowing Beings. Yet, only Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu truly KNOW. (Except for maybe also Alex Honnold … but he never wears yoga pants, so ...)”
Is Durango still the worst-dressed place?
“When dressed in sacred snows, drenching monsoons and autumnal color which nearly blinds the eye by sheer splendor? Absolutely not. However, when Durango dresses herself in drought, wildfire and with newcomers being stupid, arrogant and mean to each other instead of the yogic quality of equanimity? Yes. Having said that though? Such ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ responses are completely saturated in duality which is pretty much anti-yogic unless you are a hard core Patajanlian whose belief structure is …”
There’s more, but Action Line will here formally apologize to Mr. Ilg for cutting him off. There is a word count to obey, as well as the risk of further blowing readers’ minds.
In conclusion, go ahead: Wear your Ugg boots outdoors. Don your beer-stained hoodie. Go out into public proudly wearing your yoga pants. Action Line doesn’t care, and is purposely doing nothing to shed Durangoans’ hard-earned image. How often can you say: “We’re No. 1!”
Dear Action Line: There is an ongoing error in the San Juan Basin Snow graph, found daily in The Durango Herald’s WeatherWatch section. The colored lines for 2017-18 and 2018-19 are clearly wrong, or possibly just reversed. The 2017-18 winter was one of our lowest years (causing the 416 Fire and others), yet is shown in green far above the average line. The biggest recent year by a big margin was actually 2018-19. Thanks for sleuthing this. – Puzzled in Hesperus
Dear Puzzled: Oh, c’mon. The graphic is fine. Take a look. See? So, either you looked at it wrong, or Action Line went into Action, contacted the people around the globe who can make these changes, and nearly single-handedly brought about a graphic metamorphosis, once again righting the wrongs of society.
Action Line does that.
Anyway, Puzzled, you speak the truth. The 2018-19 winter was big, the 2017-18 winter not so much. And yes, the latter led to all sorts of problems with dryness.
This winter we don’t have drought problems. Our problems are sore backs and snowblowers shredding shear pins from having to move so darn much snow. But we love it. We love all the snow. (Righhtttt????)
Action Line is puzzled that the red line on the graphic, which shows the current 2022-23 winter, isn’t higher above the norm. A quick check of a couple of Snotel snowpack sites shows that, for instance, the Sharkstooth site in the La Plata Mountains is at 149% of normal (22.7 inches of snow-water equivalent on March 1, vs. 15.2 inches median). And Columbine Pass in the Weminuche Wilderness is at 31.1 inches vs. 15.2 median, or a whopping 205% of normal.
But some deeper digging reveals that most Snotel sites for the San Juan Basin are at 120% to 140% of normal, so if the red line is off, it’s not off by too much.
Anyway, you must have looked at the graphic wrong. It looks perfect. Do you think Action Line would spring into Action like that and actually do something constructive?
Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. Ommmmm …
