Brief by Central Staff
Various – July 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Money laundering
SALIDA — The next time a student says that a dog ate his homework, elementary teacher Judy Boshinski should be sympathetic. Last April she cashed her paycheck, put the money in an envelope, and left it on a dresser in her Salida home.
Then she and the rest of the family ran some errands, not worried about all that cash lying around the house because it was guarded by their dog, Shadow, a male mix of border collie and mutt.
When they got back, “there were bills and shredded paper all over the room,” Joe Boshinski recalled, “and the dog had one of those cash-eating grins.”
They counted the money strewn about the room and discovered that $505 was missing, with Shadow the only suspect.
“I wanted to slit the mutt’s throat and cut him open to get the money,” Joe said, “but Judy talked me into calling the vet.”
About 90 minutes after Shadow’s expensive dinner, they were at Mountain Shadows Animal Hospital between Salida and Poncha Springs, where Dr. Kit Ryff gave the dog an injection which forced the pet to vomit.
“He coughed up $445 of it,” Joe said, “and we’ll write the other $60 off to experience. Or maybe we can sell that mutt with the guarantee that he’s worth at least $60.”
The veterinarian disinfected the money, which went back into circulation, and joked that this was real “money laundering.”
Dr. Kit Ryff, the money launderer, said it isn’t common for dogs to eat money, but they often eat buttons, gravel, newspapers, fish hooks, and rat poison.
“If your dog has eaten something he shouldn’t have,” Ryff said, “don’t wait for symptoms. Get him to a veterinarian as soon as possible. If we can inject the emetic in time, generally we can save the dog — and in Shadow’s case, most of the money.”
Good News and Bad News on Trash
SAGUACHE — The Saguache County Landfill (featured in an article about new dumping regulations in our March issue), was honored by Colorado Recycles as the “Best Government Recycling Program” for 1994. But in Salida, higher dumping rates from the new EPA rules have buried Caring and Sharing in trash.
Caring and Sharing, a charitable organization, repairs and restores used items. Lately, however, their collection site behind the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Salida has been used as a free dumping area where garbage accumulates rapidly and spills into the alley.
It has become a favored place to dump battered chairs, gutted couches, and used tires — far beyond the restoration capabilities of anyone. In a May 18 Mountain Mail article, Helen Nachtrieb, the director of Caring and Sharing, said, “I have spent over $1,000 to haul away other people’s trash.”
Yet even though the Mountain Mail, the police, and the Salida city council have all addressed the problem, the refuse just keeps piling up — and tipping over.
Don’t Count Your Tourists Before They…?
(What is it tourists do here?)
LEADVILLE — In a May 29 Denver Post article, Cloud City merchants expressed their fears that this summer’s tourist season will be poor due to the loss of a state sales tax for tourism promotion — just as downriver Salidans are afraid there will be so many tourists this summer that residents won’t be able to get across Highway 50 until September.
But perhaps the San Juan Horseshoe, a satirical monthly out of Montrose, has the most astute prediction. The Horseshoe reports that, “The projected number of unidentified flying objects expected to visit Colorado this summer season will be down about 40 percent, according to sources within the tourism industry.”
