Author Archive for M. Toole
Postcards: Last Dollar Road Storm
Winter makes another visit to Dallas Divide
New Bank Coming to Ouray
The First Snow Bank of Ouray will celebrate its grand opening in late February. Representing what is believed to be the only fiscal institution in the nation to measure deposits and withdrawals in snow, the new venture marks pointed innovation in the industry.
“With the dollar on a roller coaster ride we feel that our time has come,” said Albert Coine, President of operations here. “We have snow. It’s a natural resource. Let’s make it work for everyone, especially us.”
Depositors are encouraged to bring in their snow in any quantity, from snowballs to avalanche. Yellow snow is not acceptable while C-Dot trucks and snowplows are asked to use the drive-up facility.
Once salted away the snow will be classified as to water content, with wet spring snow possessing more value. Hail and ice have no place in this arrangement. Man-made snow cannot be accepted.
“We expect to pay interest in icicles which can be stored in our frozen safety boxes until the time that the customer needs them. In the meantime we will make loans to often snow-deprived, certainly less fortunate communities such as Montrose and Delta,” said Coine.
Local merchants say winter may end up being the “profit” season instead of the more traditional summer months.
“In the spring only the people with cold storage capacity will retain their earnings. Our customers will be solvent while the rest of the populace watch their savings dissolve and melt just like they do when the dollar takes a dump.” – Gabby Haze
ROCKY MOUNTAIN MAMMARIES
By Ella Benedictine Rockefeller
“On the Road to Hermosa”
In 1874 Otto Mears and Chief Ouray were little more than another dime store stand-up comic act. The pair traveled from Creede to Capital City to Cortez in an attempt to hit the big time. Artifacts unearthed near the traditional Ute camp north of Jackass Flats confirm these theories. Items excavated include tasteless plaid jackets, clown noses, giant, inflatable shoes, exploding cigars and an assortment of other primitive gags aimed at bringing the house down in the later 19th Century.
During this frustrating time both men went about their own business with tireless fervor. Mears operated a system of toll roads and Ouray attempted to administer the business of the Ute Nation despite the interference of mining and ranching interests in the Uncompahgre Valley. When a lucrative gig opened up, say in Gunnison or Telluride, the two would drop everything and rehearse madly for the opening night. Then, after often receiving a less than enthusiastic reception, the comedy team would return to the tedious chores at hand, to plan their next assault on show business.
One missing link to the whole tale centers around the purported existence of a strong box, rumored to be buried near the top of Red Mountain Pass by Mears in June or July of 1899. The box is said to contain profits from Mears’ questionable ventures in and around the San Juan Mining District. Although tramp miners, treasure hunters and metal detector nerds have eagerly combed the land they have turned up nothing after almost 100 years.
In 1969 a state snowplow allegedly hit a metal object while manicuring the highway shoulder near the Guston town site. When the drivers got out of the truck to observe the situation first-hand they found nothing. What a mystery! It was then surmised that the impact from the jolt may have knocked whatever was there down a steep embankment. Either way, nothing was recovered.
Later, in 1981, a contingent of California realtors claimed to have located the Mears strong box in that same vicinity during a summer picnic. Unfortunately, after sending one of their party to town with news of the discovery, the rest of the group was eaten by a nosy black bear before they could retrieve the prize. Neither the ostensible treasure chest nor the playful bruin were ever located.
Today, hikers, escaped convicts and RV pilots alike often stop near the top of the mountain pass to kick a few rocks, empty their ash trays and snoop around with a passive hope that they might be lucky enough to discover Otto’s treasure box. Up till now no one has found a thing. Ute legend sardonically suggests that Otto took it with him.
The comedy act of Otto and Ouray finally folded in 1908 when Mears was accused of stealing material from aspiring young comic, Calvin Coolidge, who, after failing in vaudeville, would be elected 30th President of the United States in 1922.
NEXT MONTH: “The Insatiable Ditch Whales of Roaring Judy”
Woman Adopts 1200 Wild Horses
(Elko, NV) A Pitkin woman has adopted some 1200 wild horses from a wandering herd recently cornered in the Ruby Mountains south of here.
Sylvia Hoofe, animal rights advocate, and heir to a lavish genetic oats fortune, said that the animals are to be transported to Colorado this morning. Despite grumbling from the town she plans to care for the horses in her small backyard on Quartz Street until good homes can be found.
“Sylvia has already begun construction on feeding troughs, barn doors and fence,” said longtime business associate Utts “Fried” Rice, of Ohio City. “She was down here in town buying materials all weekend. I’ve never seen her so exited, except perhaps when her cat had kittens back in 1978. Yesterday she told me she’s going to hire about 150 trainers.”
At that high-minded student-teacher ratio Hoofe can easily qualify for tax credits and a federal grant which should cover feed for at least a week. After that the fate of the horses is unknown.
“They’re better off here in Pitkin with me than standing around in some railroad box car bound for the dog food plants in Sparks,” said Hoofe over last Wednesday’s edition of the New York Times. “What else could I do? After pleas from everyone from the Butane Society to the governor’s office I couldn’t just turn my back.”
Hoofe isn’t afraid of taking on the responsibility either. Between fighting off critics and checking her emails she’s reportedly working at a seven and twenty-four pace. Her regular 16 cups of coffee per day has jumped to 25 and she’s lost 9 pounds since last night. Friends say they expect that she’ll settle down as soon as the primary phase is completed.
“She’s a real spark-plug,” adds Rice. “Her energy is endless. Already she has named over 400 of the animals.”
“Sure, the adoptions will change my life but that’s a good thing. I need a challenge and besides, I got tired of going to the bar every day at noon. If things turn to…ah, bad, I’ll just leave town. Hell, I’ve got silly little quasi-Victorians in dinky, undiscovered towns all over the New West.”
The move is particularly queer considering that when Hoofe was 6-years-old she was deathly afraid of horses, in fact all herd animals. It was back during those formative years that a composition brood mare vindictively stepped on her kicking foot and her business end was savagely gored by a Peloponnesian- Brahman Bull in the space of three hours.
Later that week while recovering from her injuries, she watched in suspended horror as her brother Billy Buck Hoofe was side-swiped by a cutting horse he was riding near Cody, Wyoming, landing over in Montana before the mail, the next afternoon.
“It ain’t easy being me,” chided Hoofe, climbing into her $125,000 Hessian-built, Montevideoan Henway. “But it’s probably easier than being someone else.”
It is estimated that more than 100,000 wild horses roam the Great Basin, compromising desert shrubs in parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and California. Round-ups are held periodically when the animals pose a nuisance or when local cowpunchers get bored chasing their own mounts. Sometimes the horses, especially those deemed incorrigible, are destroyed.
The adoption is the largest of its kind ever recorded unless one counts the Naturita prairie dog migration of 1983 when some 1.6 million of the rodents moved to Canada in protest over the U.S. invasion of Grenada. – Uncle Pahgre
Marx Brothers Film Fest Set
(Taylor Hallway) The WSCU Film Club will host The Lighter Side of Karl Marx in conjunction with Communist Days at Western on April 23. The series of rare film portrays the founder of Communism as a happy-go-lucky German living in London during the end of the Industrial Revolution.
“Rather than working his tail off in a sweat shop to support his family Marx opted for a life of poverty while penning Das Kapital in chains on the tobacco-stained kitchen table,” said Dr. Lorraine Engels, first chair of the Embellished History Department here.
“People think of Marx as some hard-nosed revolutionary when in fact he was a party animal to the max. His fondness for the ladies was fodder for gossip as far away as Liverpool. Talk about petit bourgeois! To other philosophers he was the rigid, bearded prophet of doom but to the ladies he was just Lil’ Karlo.
In addition to films regarding the rise and fall of Marx, a series of short pieces will fill out the dance card. These quickies focus on the family life of Joey Marx, Karl’s younger brother and owner of Proletariat Boutiques, a chain of upscale work clothes shops in England.
“The Joey Marx section of the festival is not endorsed by flick enthusiasts here since it is comprised of vague landscapes and terrible home movies collected by Vladimir Lenin during the Bolshevik uprising in St Petersburg in 1916.
Recent findings as to the daily life of Karl Marx may yet serve as an further embarrassment to the left side of the family. Just yesterday afternoon researchers linked the Father of Communism to a kosher luncheonette that was allegedly operated by Karl and his half-brother Eddie “Haptz” Berg, in Leipzig during the first days of the new century. Marx later claims in a manifesto that he rejected a life of capitalism while Eddie insists that, due to a hole shortage, they could not secure a reliable daily bagel delivery and were forced to close the doors.
– Tommy Middlefinger
