Must be Thanksgiving or something.
Many a comrade has been checking in with Your Humble Narrator. There’s Charles Pelkey, who is now (a) a retired shyster and (2) with wife Diana, an empty nester; their kids, Philip and Annika, have fled Wyoming for the libtard swamps of Oregon. And Matt Wiebe, the renowned former tech editor, university-professor emeritus, and boat-breaking salmon fisherman, whose offspring are scattered far and wide; at least two of them, Willie and Esti, will be spending the holiday in Fanta Se with their ould fella and mom Lori.
Also billing in were Chris Coursey and Merrill Oliver, two of my oldest bros (oy, are they ever old). Especially Chris, a.k.a. The Supervisor, who yesterday in the Sonoma Whine Country marked the latest in a long string of birthdays. I expect he gummed down a little strawberry Jell-O with some chocolate frosting on top, wet himself, and fell asleep in the puddle as Merrill took a few snaps for posterity and/or The New York Times (“Notorious Santa Rosa Supervisor Drunk On Job (Again)”).
Actually, Chris, Merrill, and a few thousand of their closest friends plan a “birthday units” ride on Friday. Could be miles, could be millimeters. More as I hear it.
Bike-industry refugee Tim Campen chimed in from South Carolina with a few piquant observations about the good times in Gaza. He and wife Jill recently welcomed their Blue Zoomie son Ellis home after a tour in Saudi Arabia, and they must be relieved to have him back in the Land of The Big BX.
And Hal Walter filed a dispatch from Weirdcliffe, where some psycho was exercising his Second Amendment and Castle Doctrine rights just a few miles as the crow flies from our old hillside fortress off Brush Hollow Road.
Hal was trying to track developments as he, Mary, and Harrison prepared for their traditional Thanksgiving trip to Taos, where other people will do the cooking and washing up for a small (well, maybe not so small) consideration.
Alas, while there is said to be a “newspaper war” raging in Weirdcliffe, neither “newspaper” was engaging with the story, and Hal and his neighbors were getting most of their “information” from Facebutt.
We spent a little time nosing around on the Innertubes, and learned that shortly after being spotted in Salida the suspect was found to be hightailing it through — wait for it — New Mexico.
With three in the bag and one in the hospital I can only assume our man felt he was ready to step up from the farm club to The Show, where middle-schoolers routinely cap their classmates over a bit of the old side-eye.
But our Juan Laws said nope, thanks all the same, we got all the local talent we can handle. And they took him into custody just outside The Duck! City. So near, and yet, so far. Will he have to pay $50 and pick up the garbage? Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, the gendarmes have not popped round to invite me to assist them with their inquiries. I met a few psychos during our stint in Weirdcliffe but this dude wasn’t one of them. In my day property disputes were generally restricted to questions like: “Shit, was this your beer? Sorry, thought it was mine. Get another’n from the cooler. Whaddaya mean we’re out?”
Mad Blog Media 
Wouldn’t it be great if all our mass shooters had committed mass littering instead? I mean drive down main street in a pickup and shovel the garbage out of the bed. Then they get caught, pay the man $50 bucks, clean up the garbage, and go and sin no more.
I suspect Officer Obie would concur. The Crusty County Shurf doesn’t see much of this sort of thing and I expect he doesn’t like it any better than we do.
I remember a similar easement/historical access dispute involving Bear Basin Ranch and some other party getting mildly vigorous, but nobody went to the mattresses over it. There are plenty of hills upon which no one needs to die.
What’s on the fire down there for Thanksgiving? I’m doing Emeril’s chicken cacciatore again with Martha Rose Shulman’s stir-fried succotash.
We are heading off to our friends and neighbors Alan and Carmen’s house. We are having turkey, steamed veggies, mashed rutabagas, salad and stuffing. There may also be some quinoa, a nod to her Bolivian roots, and some guitar picking and grinning, since Alan is my guitar mentor. All of which will be enhanced by Leinenkugel’s Vienna red lager.
I checked the names in that article, as my former neighbors, Roy and Jane Bates, relocated to Weirdcliffe from Bombtowne. Thankfully, there names did not appear. And besides, Roy was pretty well armed, although he sold his full auto Thompson submachine gun (legally owned) to make the down payment on the Weirdcliffe land.
“The suspect was a part-owner of a business called Herbal Gardens Wellness, Smith said. Its website said it is dedicated to promoting health and well-being through the use of herbal remedies.”
Yep, and when the herbal remedies don’t work, he tries the fast moving full metal jacket projectiles.
It’s a sparsely populated county, and a very small town, but not even Hal — who has lived there for something like 30 years — knows any of the people involved in this monstrosity. He may know the surveyor, who so far remains unnamed in the press, as far as I know.
In any event, I imagine Dr. Kalashnikov is enjoying three hots and a cot courtesy of the State of New Mexico until Crusty County can figure out what to do with him. I don’t even know whether they have an actual jail anymore. They used to have a small slammer for small-time criminals. But this dude may have to go straight to Canon City.
How is Pelkey doing, anyway?
Aw, he misses having the kids around. And he might be looking for something interesting and worthwhile to do. As you know, “retired” doesn’t always mean “on the shelf.” CP has always been a working fool and I don’t see him settling for nine holes and three martinis.
Hope he is not having any more problems with Mr. Cancer.
For reals. He’s a rough ol’ cob, Charles is, but I expect he’s had enough of that shit.
Currently running at a pace of 2 mass shootings a year here in the Big BX, that used to be the safe place to hide out from the shooting. Hell if TX was a separate country we would be 3rd in the world for mass shootings outside of a war zone. The poor slobs over at The Onion can’t update their story about how this is the only “civilized” country on the planet that can’t figure out how to keep their citizens from killing in mass quantities (it’s the stupid guns, stupid) fast enough to keep up. By the time they post the latest mass murder attempt 3 more have happened.
When it comes to homicide we lean toward retail rather whan wholesale here in The Duck! City. And I’ve heard that we may be slipping; the Juan Laws report that we are behind record pace in 2023. Still, plenty of time left — go team go!
Wow. A sad story about the shooting up in Westcliffe. With respect for all the headaches that the sheriff up there may be facing, it’s interesting that he was quoted as saying “there was no indication that it would lead to violence.”. I would think in today’s political climate, that when law enforcement is called in more than a couple of times about disputes involving one individual or party, that I would believe that a situation could get dangerous. Especially one in a rural area. I live in a similar type of area, and believe that if pushed too far, a number of people in my area could snap enough to shoot others. The idea is to realize that it can occur, and do what we can to keep things peaceful and civil, even in a situation where we may be in the right. Let cool heads prevail. We may think we are a long way from the wild west, but the guns we have access to allow us to decide in the heat of a psychotic moment, to push the boundary of a peaceful culture. It’s a shame that three people won’t be around for the holiday and to appreciate the future.
Here’s hoping that you and those around you along with all the rascals around this sounding board, have a nice Thanksgiving. I had the pleasure of getting our turkey ready for a smoke tomorrow (It’s still last night where I am at), and making a couple of pleasant looking pies with my Mom. I look forward to the day tomorrow and will thank in my own quiet way, the first nation folks that saved our asses in the past, and that life is mostly happy for us. Bon Turkey compadres !
A sad story indeed, no matter where it happens. My old cage-liner in Bibleburg has more details.
There’s something like 500 folks in Weirdcliffe proper, and just under 5,000 in Crusty County. They’re a mix of rural types, townies, and second-homers (or third, or fourth). So you see the usual debates between ag folks and scenery ranchers.
We were full time there for about seven years. Bought a house and 43 acres; Herself worked a couple different jobs in town and I pulled in money from Boulder and Santa Fe (or it might have been Laguna Hills by then; I forget when BRAIN moved west).
So we were scenery ranchers. No horses, no cattle. Just dogs and cats and my little cyclocross course on the meadow down by the county road. We had friends and acquaintances, but we didn’t really fit in, and probably never would’ve, even if we lived there for 30 years the way Hal and Mary have. It’s very conservative — come election season the big show is not the general, but the GOP primary.
We did get a taste of property issues, though. During hunting season our little seven-property hillside neighborhood always closed the ranch gate at the bottom of the hill, where my ’cross course wound around the rattlesnakes. Dentists and accountants from Pew-blow and Bibleburg would come up to inspect their 5-acre properties, chase the mice out of the Tuff Sheds, fire up the ORVs, and commence trespassing at speed and shooting the mortal shit out of anything that moved, or didn’t.
Repairing fence was a regular chore after these visitations. And the Bear Basin folks ran out regular armed patrols because they didn’t like having their cows and horses punctured by drunken yahoos. Bear Basin ranched dudes, escorting them on camping trips and horseback rides, and didn’t want any of them ventilated either.
We enjoyed most of our time up there, but frankly, it was a relief to move back to Bibleburg, where me, myself and I did not constitute the entire “cycling community.” It wasn’t any more liberal, but groceries and whiskey didn’t involve a 150-mile round trip, either.
A cursory check on Zillow displays several properties needing easement access through the shooting suspect’s property on Rocky Ridge Road. I can imagine a situation where an irate neighbor drives a little less neighborly and kicks up dust on the road as they drive by the suspect’s dwellings.
It looks as though a neighbor of the suspect’s property is currently selling. Perhaps that is the property that was being surveyed. I guess the new owners will be thankful that the easement blocker will be away for a very long time.
Yes, it’s easier to be (or think) more conservative in a rural area with more land available and less of a demand on resources. When those factors become more condensed, most humans learn that that have to implement a more progressive and liberal viewpoint to get along.
just now catching up on the columns; no excuses other than in laws visiting from the great OH and me being the chef for the past week. was great to catch up with you guys and that was the best food we had on the trip! very glad things are well and stable for you, and your columnitis hasn’t been cured!
Great to see yous too, Hoss. Good on ye, cooking for the in-folks. I do that whenever one has the huevos to visit us here in The Duck! City Shooting Gallery & Unguarded Property Removal Zone. Some of them even survive the fine-dining experience.