We live in a piece of Shangri La transported to the High County of Colorado. I suspect anyone reading this will agree. I came from a place where the mountains were old and now, eroded hills. The high country was imagination. Before that, my genome was from deep fjords and “farmland” that had been scraped and left dead by glaciers. When I graduated from college I came to Colorado. I had no money, no transportation, no job, and no prospects. Just like many today. I made a friend who let me sleep on the floor of his small dorm room at the Denver Seminary. Subsequently, I scrounged some money and rented a VW to go to western Colorado to look for work on the roads that were being built there. On the way I drove over Trout Creek Pass. Having just spent May and June in the Tetons helping a geology graduate student collect rocks for his thesis, I was struck by the view and the peaceful valley below. It took 18 years and what seemed a lifetime before I was able to find a way to have a place to stay there. It took another 33 years before I was able to live in the Arkansas Valley.
To the point of this article, I now find it incomprehensible that people, barely out of school, have decided that upon moving to the Valley they can demand action on the part of the residents to provide the means for living here. The hubris of the young, I suppose. It is unfortunate that this set of people think that they can demand the tax dollars of others to support their dreams, their expectations, before they have had a chance to contribute. It is also unfortunate for those having to pay for, usually ill-spending college years, but now for their chosen abodes. What is received without effort is usually held in little regard. Our governments have proved this over and over. Building places for folks that have had little to contribute, whether it’s their fault or not, has turned parts of cities into ghettos. Where little is expected little is delivered. Communities have rotted away. With little effort comes little care of what is received. It is human nature, just as it is human nature to try to help the downtrodden. This is a unique place, a unique valley. It deserves unique care.
“Ghettos” are not miraculously “there.” They come about by those living in an area without the desire or means to take care of what has been handed to them. Is this the direction of the Arkansas Valley? We have so many NGOs looking to “provide” help, their motivation is to be commended, but they show little thought about consequences, consequences readily available for inspection around the country and around the world. We current residents must wake up to the coming deluge of people understandably wishing to come here, as we once were.
We need to impress upon them that to live in this place has taken most of us a great deal of preparation, blood, sweat and tears. We value the Valley, not just for its beauty and opportunities but for the effort we have expended to get here, and we are very concerned that the newcomers who have only expectations will be terrible Stewarts.
Regards,
Uhtred
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