It’s a full week after New Year’s Day, so naturally, many of us, including Mrs. Action Line, get the urge to “clean things up around this place.”
Sock drawers are organized and dust bunnies get dispatched from under the bed. Vehicles receive cursory if not futile sprucing, at which time wadded wrappers are removed from the center console.
“Oh, there’s where that granola bar went,” Action Line muttered while pumping quarters into the vacuum at the Mountain Mechanical car wash.
Meanwhile, in closets throughout Durango, irrefutable proofs of holiday gluttony and resultant plumping are quietly sequestered, as the too-snug pants get relegated to the bottom drawers containing summer stuff.
In kitchens countywide, inattentive gastronomes open their refrigerators and exorcize with zeal the many containers of science experiments.
The purge is tempered by mild regret.
In an attempt to save a dime’s worth of Thanksgiving leftovers, thrifty cooks must now ditch putrefied Tupperware containers that cost a buck to replace.
Action Line is not immune to such in-with-the-new impulses. So today, we clean out the Mea Culpa Mailbag to offer some fresh perspectives on things.
Last week’s column on renaming The Bridge to Nowhere garnered two interesting observations.
“Duh,” writes Janutsa and Rickety. “The Bridge to Nowhere already has a name: The Bridge to Nowhere!
“Note the precedent set by Elmore’s Corner, which remains while Elmore’s Store is long gone, and for that matter Smelter Mountain, which hasn’t had a smokestack since the 1980s,” they point out.
“There was a time when The Bridge to Nowhere was truly a bridge to nowhere. Durango loves its history, so leave it alone. Unless you are a newbie, it will always be The Bridge to Nowhere.”
Our good friend Jim Hanks has an alternate plan for the jumble of spans going hither and yon.
“No need to run a contest to rename the bridges to nowhere, just call the complex what it is: either spaghetti junction or spaghetti bridges,” Jim suggests.
But there’s a problem with that. Durango, being Durango, is utterly incapable of accepting plain “spaghetti.” So the new name would have to be: The Organic Gluten-Free Quinoa Linguine with Farmers Market Heirloom Tomatoes and Artisan Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese Bridge.
In a recent column, we wondered aloud who came up with the phrase, “Durango has a walking problem, not a parking problem.”
Enlightenment comes from loyal reader Steve Ilg, whose email starts with a humbling honorific salutation.
“Most Noble Scribe,” our friend begins. “The quote about Durango’s ‘parking problem,’ with which you opened your column, should have been attributed to my partner, Sandra Lee.”
Steve is a world-class athlete, personal trainer and prolific author. “I used her quote in a couple of articles and it caught on,” he explains.
“Sandra is a full-blood Navajo from Beclabito, New Mexico. She has lived in Durango for 30 years, the first of her family to get herself through college,” he writes. “She has never had a car and logs mind-boggling miles each year walking to her two jobs from pre-dawn to her nighttime flashlight-assisted slalom through homeless folk and leering nincompoops,” Steve explains.
“She is a fixture on the River Trail. She also used her walking fitness to become the first Native American female to compete in the United States Snowshoe National Championships.”
So there you have it. Next time you grouse about Durango’s parking nonproblem, just channel your inner Sandra – park on The Bridge to Nowhere and walk into town.
Email questions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. You can ask for anonymity if you have already broken your resolution to get nothing done this year.
