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Summit up

SUMMIT UP
Special to the DailyHappy Birthday to Todd Barson, who turns 37. We love and adore you. Rayleen, Greg and India.
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Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column making plans to pick up the county and move it further west of Denver.It’s a local tradition around here to fear the trappings of Metropolis, and it’s getting worse. Last weekend, cars were broken into in Breckenridge because they were unlocked. As if that’s a reason!We don’t like that kind of crime. It makes us feel like installing car alarms and wandering around in a paranoia fog. Who are you? What do you want?And, while we can handle a bronze elk being slammed into by a car, or a foolish drunk calling a police officer “honey,” we draw the line at car theft. Do we even need a Scum Alert!! Scum Alert!! for that?

So, we’re trying to figure out how to give ourselves a little bit more distance from the fear and annoyances of Big City. For starters, we need a few volunteers and about 1,000 helicopters.Here’s the plan: We cover our county’s borders with a thick, Spiderman-esque rope. We anchor the rope deep into the earth until we have a firm grip. Then, we line up our 1,000 helicopters around the county. The helicopters pick up the rope – then the county – and we’re off! Hopefully, we don’t accidentally drop Silverthorne on top of Vail. Those Vail snobs might blow a gasket if they saw the sky raining factory stores.So we clear the pass and head west. Past Vail, past Avon, past Edwards and into the realm of Shangri-La. We find a nice flat spot near Rifle, where we precede to drop our lovely resorts, towns, reservoir and mountains into a new place, a new home, where car thieves never venture and it snows and snows and snows.But, for you skeptics out there, we’ve addressed the major problems. Denver, which relies so heavily on us for water and recreation, might object. We have a diversion in place.

As Denverites look west to the Rockies, they almost peer right into our county. To make sure they don’t notice we’re leaving, we’ll hang a giant mural up in the sky which mirrors our skyline.Then, when the move is finalized, we yank the mural, give a firm, hearty laugh, and mock the Front Range with a few choice words: “Try and find us now, fools …”Eventually, they will, we’re sure. But at least the move could buy us a few more years of country living, complete with the echoes of wildlife and peace, not insanity and traffic. Those, we know, are bullets hard to dodge. ***In the land of knee-jerk reactions, we salute Florida again. Libraries in Orange County near Orlando have barred unaccompanied adults from lingering in the children’s areas of its 14 branches, saying that it’s a “pre-emptive” move to protect the children.



Lord knows, they need not see us adults reading Dr. Seuss alone. And while the motives are pure and the community relations coordinator said no specific incident led to the new rules, we still don’t see it as solving the problem.We see it as keeping some adults fearful of being perceived as a pedophile just for hanging out in a certain section of a library. A library! Fear, again, trumps. Instead, we wonder what it would have hurt to have the children areas moved to well-lit, easily supervised areas of the libraries. Or, simply hire somebody to monitor these areas whose main job is to encourage our children to read.Can’t we have one place we’re not afraid to go?***We’re out, looking at a Rand McNally atlas for clues on where to move the county. If you know of one, or have 1,000 helicopters in your garage, give us a call at (970) 668-3998, ext. 237, or e-mail summitup@summitdaily.com to tell us you’re perfectly happy with our current location.


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