Snowdown entered its 38th year on Wednesday, and for many participants, the joy of the annual festival is seeing the old and familiar features return.
Some fixtures, like the Beer Plunge at Carver Brewing Co. and the Fashion Do’s and Don’ts, are likely to be part of Snowdown for years to come.
Others have gone the way of the dinosaur.
Over nearly four decades, some contests and events were phased out naturally, others deemed wildly inappropriate, some invited lawsuits and some never made the list.
Some may remember the Good Times Marching Band that began parading down Main Avenue in the early ’80s with lit flambeaus – rolls of toilet paper wrapped in chicken wire and doused in kerosene – and stopped after almost 20 years and warnings from law enforcement that it was a fire hazard.
And through the late ’90s, Snowdowners could go frozen-turkey bowling at the fairgrounds, but the birds thawing as the day wore on put the fear of salmonella into the hearts of participants.
“Some events have been, I wouldn’t say ‘banned,’ but they’re not coming back,” said 23-year Snowdown board member Peg Ochsenreiter. “The events, they come and go, but anyone can coordinate one as long as it’s legal, relatively moral and affordable.”
In Snowdown 2002, the winner of the Carver Brewing Co. worm-eating contest – mouth still full – was splashed across the front page of The Durango Herald.
“The animal-rights people went crazy,” Ochsenreiter said.
And a disgruntled Bill Levy wrote to the editor: “How gross of the Snowdown ‘powers that be’ to allow such an event! Fun is fun, but what are we coming to in our efforts to put some life into our winter doldrums? So much for breakfast and the front page.”
One of the most sorely missed former fixtures is the Pie Hit Squad, which began taking names in the spy-themed Snowdown of 1994 and continued for 10 years. Black-suited, fedora-wearing teamers would scour the streets of Durango until they found their man, who knew his fate at the sound of the Peter Gunn theme song blasting from the boom box carried by the squad.
Those with a vengeance could take a hit out on someone for $5, and that person could purchase $5 insurance as a safeguard against it. Ochsenreiter estimated Snowdown raised about $1,500 for the festival each year through pie squad hits.
“We were careful and gentle, unless we really knew who it was and they deserved it,” she said.
Victims signed waivers and were offered warm, wet towels and dry-cleaning certificates, but that didn’t stop a few threats of litigation.
“Well, you know, people have threatened lawsuits to Snowdown every year,” Ochsenreiter said, recalling when a flying ski that lost its owner nearly hit a spectator at the Gelande Ski Jump at Chapman Hill (the case was dismissed). “It’s in the spirit of fun, and if you don’t get that, we’re sorry.”
But the fun is lost on some.
Chuck Norton, a Good Times marcher from the mid-’80s through the early aughts, said the band stopped carrying torches around the time he stopped marching.
“They weren’t outlawed, but police gave us too much trouble for it,” he said. “We were getting too much grief, having too much fun. But we never hurt anybody.”
Public safety officials say they try to avoid spoiling a good time.
“There were events on Main Avenue where we’d say, ‘We’d appreciate you don’t do that,’” said Upper Pine River Fire District Fire Marshal Tom Kaufman, who was fire marshal in Durango in the early ’80s. “‘Don’t set the Snowdown banner on fire. It’s going to come down on you, and it’s going to be problematic.’”
Of course, some Snowdown proposals never make the cut, and for good reason.
A fake orgasm contest in the style of When Harry Met Sally, for instance, wasn’t approved for an intended family-friendly event.
“Sometimes just wildly inappropriate things get suggested that aren’t even suitable to mention in a family newspaper,” board secretary Dawn James-Staten said. “We just chuckle and set them aside. After 38 years, we’ve figured out how to handle a lot of things.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
