Column by Hal Walter
Rural Life – June 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE FIRST MORNING BACK from my spring vacation, I was aroused from bed by gunfire at around 7 a.m.
I say aroused because I was not asleep, but rather enjoying a bedside cup of coffee and listening to the morning birds. When I think about it, I vaguely remember having heard a motor just prior to the shooting.
I looked out the window, a mist of steam rising off my coffee cup. I resisted the urge to yell something rude as the bursts of gunfire continued. Then I watched as one of my neighbors, having disrupted the peace of the morning, climbed back on his tractor, started it, and putt-putted back up the hill toward his under-construction skylined monstrosity of a house, right next to his hilltop metal shop.
The person doing the shooting, a possible candidate for a role in a new television reality show called “Bad Neighbor,” has been something less than low impact since he appeared on the scene several years ago. First it was the almost non-stop gunfire. I wondered how he could possibly afford the ammo bill, not to mention the near six figures for a 35-acre firing range in one of Custer County’s most exclusive neighborhoods.
Then came the metal shack, a landmark of dubious distinction, poised high on the hill for all to see. Especially us. We could see it from nearly everywhere on our property. The not-so-subtle blend of landscape and architecture is truly something only a peckerwood could appreciate.
Then one morning a couple of years ago, as my wife and I sat in the sunshine in front of our house, there was shooting, followed by the whir of a ricochet flying right overhead. I arose from my seat and began to march up the hill, my wife calling out behind me: “Be nice!”
It’s been a couple of years since that ricochet episode, however, so there’s probably no timely harm in segueing back to the subject of my spring vacation, if only to qualify it as a “business trip.” Sometimes one must travel to explore new ideas.
The plan was to go to South Padré Island, Texas, to spend time with my in-laws. I was gritting my teeth and biting my tongue over the expense of time and money — two hard days driving with a 1-year-old baby coupled with the post-campaign surcharge on gasoline that had brought the price to well over $2 a gallon. (By the way, a source of much puzzlement — my accountant has informed me that my fuel bill does not qualify as a charitable donation to the Republican party.)
The day before we were to leave, my wife got out a map of Texas and announced that instead we’d be going to Taos for the week, a splendid decision so long as it wasn’t mine. We loaded up the Subaru like the Beverly Hillbillies, the baby jogger tied to the roof rack with baling twine, and lumbered off.
WE HADN’T CLEARED Westcliffe before the howling wind convinced us that the jogger situation was dire. We turned around, held a Chinese fire drill in our driveway, and departed again in our gas-hog truck, a notion justified only by the fact that we were not going to cross Texas on the diagonal at 15 mpg, but would be traveling a mere three hours down the road. We had arranged to rent a friend’s Taos condo for a few nights at a discount rate, which was a good thing since we realized that if we’d been required to pay cash for the gas to cross Texas we may not have made it back home.
I spent one morning of my vacation taking care of all the stuff I haven’t had time to do in recent weeks, like an oil change, a visit to the car wash, and a haircut. In Taos I found this all quick and easy to accomplish, with an entertainment factor that could not be found elsewhere.
For instance on my way to the oil change there was a guy steering a bicycle down the main drag with his right hand and waving a Budweiser (King of Beers!) at passing motorists with his left. The backside of his T-shirt depicted the universal silhouette figures in a sex act that would not please the moral values crowd; above this artwork were the words “Designated Driver.” Then, on the way back, I saw a guy dressed in full White Mountain Apache garb approaching a crosswalk. As I drew nearer I realized he was indeed a white guy.
While in Taos we also participated in a sport known locally as “eating.” Like skiing, it’s a sport only because if you actually lived there you possibly couldn’t afford to do it. Instead, you’d spend all your time laboring for substandard wages in order to rent, say, a studio apartment for $450 a month, or perhaps you might qualify for a loan to buy a smallish modular home on a postage-stamp lot for $160,000. If you had a roommate, perhaps you could scrape together the payment on a 30-year mortgage and eat out once a week at the Lotta Burger. You get the picture.
For those who can actually afford to eat and are interested, I can wholeheartedly recommend that for Southwestern fare Orlando’s is a rock-solid choice. And reliably, the Dragonfly Café for breakfast or lunch is really good. One night on our way to get Thai carry-out, we had a happenstance meeting with Mick and Monica Backsen of Westcliffe, whose daughter Maura is just a few days apart in age from our son Harrison. Instead of Thai food, we retired to the Apple Tree, where the duck fajitas were quite good but not so good as the price tag would indicate. The pricey culinary experience was partially offset the next evening. We were told by locals Jay and Donna (last name unknown but check them out at www.climbingschoolusa.com), whom we met with their 2-year-old daughter Milan at Ojo Caliente hot springs, that the fish tacos at the Guadalajara Café were the tastiest deal in town. And they were right.
Aside from the food, there were some scenic runs on the West Rim Trail along the Rio Grand Gorge, accessed from the rest area on the west side of the gorge bridge. In town we could easily jog from our condo west to the Martinez Hacienda to work off some of the excess calories we were consuming. There was a short road trip south to the village of Dixon, which, despite its organic farms and microwineries, struck me as a sort of Wetmore on steroids.
All of this was nice, but mostly just being away from the grind of telephones, e-mail, feeding hay, editing newspaper copy — plus the bonus of not making a bizarre U-turn across Texas — was what made the trip worthwhile.
And toward the end of the trip the shine wears off Taos Mountain and one can see a resort town for what it really is — a strangely disparate society of the haves and have-nots, perhaps a microcosm of where this country is headed. One waitress told us she commuted from near the Colorado border. We learned from locals that a drunken driver had recently struck and killed a man who was walking one morning out in a field! I began to long for those things normally taken for granted — our own well water, my own cooking, walking out the front door and having a choice of safe places to go for a run. That sort of thing. It was time to go home.
SO WHAT DID I DO regarding the ricochet bullet a couple years ago, and what does it have to do with the vacation? Well, let’s just say we had a “chat,” and the neighbor agreed to a better backstop situation for his target practice. I thought perhaps it had occurred to him that this is actually our home, where we live full time, not just some place that people with the wherewithal can come to forget about their manners.
But apparently that’s not the case, as the morning gunfire made perfectly clear. Perhaps it was the relaxed attitude of the vacation, but as I thought about shouting expletives out the window or even a brisk morning hike up to the house for another “chat,” I brushed it off and poured another cup of coffee.
I may have a jerk for a neighbor, but at least I can afford the mortgage. And my own cooking isn’t really all that bad.
Hal Walter writes from 35 acres in the Wet Mountains.
