Letter from Deric Pamp
Salida – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Friends:
We are leaving Salida. Barb has been working part- and then full-time in Colorado Springs for a year — our judicial district dangled a job for her twice but each time decided to spend the money elsewhere, never mind that tape recording is inferior. We need the medical insurance her job permits, but we are really tired of living apart so much.
My practice is finally providing a modest living, but it does not support both of us and it is not growing fast enough to let her quit that job in the foreseeable future. We have therefore bought a house in the Springs and I have closed my Salida office. I plan to set up a practice in the Springs again. That’s becoming quite a habit — maybe I’ll get better at it. Not sending leftwing-pinko-commie-type emails as “reply all” answers to Fred Henderson’s broadcast messages might help.
We had been considering alternatives that would let us live here, part time, for a while. I had hoped to continue to practice here for part of each week, and to keep a home here — I had my eye on a place on First Street, as an office/home. But where the clients are, and therefore the income for me, is on the Front Range, so even if we lived together up there primarily, splitting my work week would have been less attractive financially and I’d still be driving the gorge every week, which is beautiful but tiring.
Our house is for sale but I will be coming back regularly to complete a few current cases. The housing market is cool and since we are deeply ambivalent about selling our house anyway, we expect to return for a weekend, now and again, at least for a while,
So we are off to the land of more traffic, cheaper gasoline, movie theaters that don’t intermittently fail to open, fewer friendly hellos on the street, more tourists looking for Focus on the Family, a smaller and dirtier waterway, and Doug Bruce. We look forward to seeing you now and again, down at Bongo’s, and you can always reach us at this email address. Thank you for your past kindnesses.
Deric and Barbara Pamp frpamp@earthlink.net
