It was the 1970s when I chose Colorado for my home state. I moved to Boulder County and found it full of college students, small businesses, hippies and cowboys. There was a harmony between the hippies and cowboys; I even know some that got hitched.

In the mid-90s I sensed something was changing. I said to my wife that I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was no longer as easygoing. For instance, there was a dairy farmer whose family farm had been in Boulder for decades. Besides producing milk, it also had a manure aroma that would carry with the winds. New homeowners in the area began to complain about the odor. In one public meeting the farmer spoke in his simple, country eloquence, “The #!@$ smell was already here before you moved in.”

Similar is the case with those who moved near the Summit County Shooting Range. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no tolerance for those breaking the posted hours for shooting. However, the commissioned study showed that there is no more ambient noise than the other sounds such as cars and birds.

This is not a new story, as with the pioneers versus settlers in Summit County more than a century ago. In Boulder, the arrival of the nouveau riche city people clashed with the hippie-cowboy culture. The peace-sign-painted Volkswagen buses and old pickups slowly disappeared, as did the farmers and ranchers. Twenty-five years later I am seeing this played out again in Summit County.

The dairy farm had one of the best views in Boulder County, and the farmer sold out to a developer. I heard he found a great new place to live, but I’m not telling where.