Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column that’s waddling around on this Black Friday wondering whether to check ourselves into some kinda health sanitarium or make our way over to the mall-ish like place down Dilverthorne way and max out our credit cards on cheap stuff to give people for Christmas and Chanukah.

At the sanitarium, we reckon they’d put us on a strict diet of rain water and tender shoots of exotic plants from Bolivian rain forests. We’d be massaged, but not by people, oh no. At the gluttony-recovery sanitarium down Taos way, massages are administered by tiny, specially trained gerbils that walk around on your back hitting hidden pressure points even Shaolin priests don’t know exist. They wear teeny little cotton gloves on their feet so as not to scratch, and they warble strange lullabies in Ancient Gerbille – a language that died out around the time of the Incas’ demise.

It’s quite an experience.

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OK, with Thanksgiving still fresh in mind, we have a couple of Angel Alerts! here to keep the good feelings going.

The first is from Amy Mastin, who writes thusly:

“About 8:30 this morning, two women in a Subaru station wagon got a flat tire on Highway 9 along the curves between the hospital light and the lake. Their car was stuck out in to the traffic lane and it was that side that had the flat. They were looking pretty much at a loss as to how to handle it. I saw when I drove back through after going to the high school an unidentified CDOT plow driver had pulled his plow strategically behind the car to create a safe barrier, and, in 8-degree weather, he changed their tire. Hopefully they deserved such good karma and hopefully he receives a couple truck fulls of good karma in return.”

Nice! Go CDOT driver!

Here’s another from Melissa Rainey, who was in a bad car wreck recently on I-70. She sent us photos that were kinda too dark to run in the paper, but it was a horrific wreck and we’re glad she and her kids made it out OK. An Angel was there to help, as Melissa writes:

“Dear Andre from Breckenridge. Thanks you so much for being the good Samaritan and pulling the kids and I out of the burning Saab on the 12th. I had no idea what to do, but you were right there immediately. God bless you and your family.”

Wow, we think pulling folks from a burning car qualifies for an extra-mega Angel Alert! Major props to you, Andre!

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It’s not easy to find Summit County folks who wear fur (they’re mostly in Vail and Aspen, and we’re not kidding!). But just to remind people what a lousy idea it is to kill critters just for their fur, we have Amanda Foley, who is marking Fur Free Friday today. She writes:

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving. I realize there is probably no one in the office today …

(Summit Up Staffers: Ha ha! We come out every day, and we’re always here, baby!)

“… but I thought I’d try and write you to let you know about today’s Fur Free Friday protest going on in Breckenridge. Whatever attention you can draw to this important, world-wide event, would be very much appreciated. If you’d like some additional information on the day itself, and to get a feel for how many participants in how many places aer involved, visit http://www.peta.org and type “Fur Free Friday” in the search column. Or http://www.idausa.org has a story on its home page about the events. For information on the fur industry (the reasoning behindthis world-wide protest) please visit: http://www.furisdead.com.”

You tell ’em, Amanda!

We out.