One last glimpse….

The colors of autumn gold are gone in the high country, making way for cold, crisp blue winter skies and green pines all dressed up in a heavy blanket of white snow.

Ridgway Moving Sidewalk Repaired

(Pleasant Valley) Ridgway’s state-of-the-art horizontal tongue-and-groove escalator is again back up and running according to transportation engineers on the spot. The contraption had caught fire and sustained water damage as well as severe floor burns during an overtime basketball game between Ridgway and Ouray in 1964.

“We’ve been waiting for parts,” said Ted Yoder, inventor of the sidewalk who relocated to the Uncompahgre Valley from Vermont some 42 years ago. “They have to come all the way from Grand Junction.”

A boon to joggers, the moving sidewalk is expected to entice over 400,000 tourists to the town in 2018 alone. Built solely of ponderosa pine, the sidewalk runs in a circle from the Mentone Hotel to Cow Creek Hall and back. Funds for the repair came from a car wash held at the top Imogene Pass every September 9.

At the time of construction it was perceived that the sidewalk would put off the inevitability of traffic signals in the environs of the town.

– Jolly Pena

BRONCOS GET HELP ON OFFENSIVE LINE

(Denver) The Denver Broncos today signed veteran right tackle Walter Buffalo to a series of one-year contracts with stunted yet lucrative incentives. Saying that the team had been hard pressed to find a healthy human to do the job, a spokesman for the player personnel office assured fans that Walter was capable of performing at NFL levels.

“He didn’t play a down of high school ball because he didn’t go to high school,” said Anwar Tripuka. “His college career, as a “Colorado” Buffalo, was cut short because of grades and conflicting dietary plateaus at Boulder.”

Ed, as his teammates call him, is somewhat concerned about playing on astroturf which he feels is a dangerous waste of talent. Unlike most NFL defenses he is currently having a problem with the Broncos’ intricate offensive scheme.

“At first nobody wanted to room with him on the road because of…uh…the hair and all,” said Tripuka, “but his stunning personality has won out over any negative considerations at play.”

Walter is the first resident of the Southeast Asia to suit up in the professional ranks. His ability, marred to a certain extent because of social mores, seems to be highlighting itself at the end of each practice where he is clearly searching for spiritual meaning in playbooks and challenging running backs at the line of scrimmage.

Rocky Flats

EUROTRASH NEWS

Our man Toole has recently returned from Europe after a month long holiday. He files this report:

French Oysters Bred With Pull Tabs

(Kinsale, Republic of Ireland) A way out across the Celtic Sea Frenchmen are making it easier to eat shellfish. According to a piece in The Cork Examiner they’re doing it by breeding a new, more resilient oyster which is larger and comes with a handy pull tab.

For centuries humans have struggled opening oysters, a highly edible bivalve mollusk, before devouring the delicacy. Rubber gloves, blades and bandages have all been part of the salty entourage. Now, thanks to notable French chefs, these days appear to be ending.

“Although my sensibilities are rubbed the wrong way I suppose there’s nothing to do now but grab some baguettes and horseradish sauce,” said Gilles Clamette, author of A Duck Is Not A Pigeon and hundreds of other gourmet cooking anthologies.

Although the impact of these developments is expected to be significant, the story has appeared only in Irish newspapers, which are considered the final source on murky maritime matters in Northern Europe.

“It’s not like an Irishman to twist the truth, or embellish an important breakthrough with deceptive or wheedling statements,” said Clamette. “Besides, just how far can rational mankind stretch an oyster.”

ITALY ON CRASH DIET

(Naples) The Italian government continues to encourage its people to diet so as to overcome the perception that many Italians are obsessed with food. Since 1990, leaders in Rome have been praising healthy eating habits and applauding the practice of eating light.

A government endorsed light luncheon would be comprised of a Caesar salad, a bowl of minestrone, steamed clams, sardines, antipasto, formaggio (cheeses) bread in olive oil, frito misto (a mixed grill of seafood or liver, artichokes and cauliflower), scallopine al marsala and pollo al cacciatora over a bed of spaghetti or vermicelli. Of course a bottle of wine or two is traditional, as is a helping of neopolitan ice cream and fruit followed by a cup of espresso.

“If people would simply embrace the concept of eating light they would soon reap a veritable cornucopia of benefits,” said a government decree. “We not asking anyone to starve himself here.”

IRISH PUBS TO STAY OPEN LATER

(County Sligo) Irish pubs will remain open later than the legal time next year thanks to a government finding that no one pays attention to the law anyway. The pubs, center of social life in this culture are, by law, to be opened at 10 am and closed at 11:30 pm. The new regulation allows for an extra hour of operation.

“What a relief, said a barman at Hargadon Brothers on O’Connell Street. “Now we won’t have to wind the clock.”

An independent study recently concluded that it is quite rare to find a pub that ever closed at the prescribed time anyway. In some cases the doors were locked at around midnight with the patrons stuck to their stools, suspended in time, but even that was unlikely.

What are the gardai going to do, shut us down?” asked a publican at McLaughlin’s over on Market Street “Mind you, how would they buy a pint when they’re off duty?”

Euros Upsetting Goats

(Healy Pass, County Cork)) Wherever one goes in Ireland he is bound to run into Angora goats. They’re everywhere, standing out with their long hair and curious punk-like brands. Before the Euro began replacing the Irish pound as the acceptable means of currency these animals were quite docile, happy to send their days grazing in the green rolling hills or the sparsely vegetated cliffs of their homeland.

Now all that has changed.

“They just can’t get the hang of it,” said Dan O’Sullivan, a sheepman from nearby Castletownbere. “It was tough enough on the poor creatures when all those French arrived with their francs, then the Germans with their marks and the Brits with their sterling. Later the Americans showed up with their dollars. My sheep, God bless ’em, didn’t have a clue as to exchange rates and the like,” he explained. “Then they bring on this Euro currency, supposed to unite the European community and all…What it’s done is put my flock into outer space, fiscally speaking.”

O’Sullivan went on to say that he now spends hours upon hours helping his charges adjust to the new currency.

“I just want to make sure they don’t get ripped off, especially with winter coming on and all the tourists about.”

Russian Leaders Constipated

(Moscow) Decades after Glasnost many former Communist leaders remain constipated, according to reports circulating Red Square. Despite efforts on the part of many world health organizations the situation has become chronic and could affect world peace in the future.

Blamed in part on diet, or the lack of such, the monumental problem rears its head from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus. Russian experts fear that a constipated Politburo member, or Potato Head as detractors lovingly call them, is more apt to be cranky and lethargic.

     Historically, when Russian leaders fall into this state, they are more difficult to budge when it comes to changes to a free market economy and in negotiations with the West.

     Doctors prescribe more fruit and vegetables and less sausage and vodka.

Bingo Treatment Center Opens Today

(Montrose) The region’s first bingo treatment center has scheduled an open house for this afternoon. Located in the recently abandoned Wal-Mart building on South Townsend Avenue, the diversionary sports/recovery complex has been praised as both a recycling marvel and a boon to urban renewal efforts.

Encouraging both potential patients and interested parties to attend, the medical staff will present a wide selection of prescribed treatment programs both out-patient and full care. Civic leaders, expected to be in attendance, hope the opening will encourage further growth in compliance with the intricate masterplan for the Grandjunctification of the Uncompahgre Valley.

The facility, officially named St. Roscoe’s Bingo Rehabilitation Hub, after the patron saint of bingo and RVs, has been bankrolled with cash confiscated from illegal lottery operations/surplus DUI funds, and thanks to a grant from the Native American Consortium of Gambling Casinos and Golf Courses in Colorado and New Mexico. In addition, addicts on scholarship will sell bingo cards door-to-door here in order to raise additional operating capital for field trips and the like.

Its 40-bed recovery area features a veteran staff made up of medical personnel, sociologists and recovering bingo addicts. Shock treatment will take place solely at night and always under the strict supervision of authorized bingo callers, while a full time alchemist is slated to be on duty 24 hours per day. Physical therapy, hypnotism and magic crystals are to be prescribed only in the most chronic cases.

The treatment center, in compliance with city ordinances, is non-smoking but a system of sealed off lounges offering bad coffee, grocery check-out periodicals, card tables and ash trays will grace both the B-29 and R-16 floors, where smoking is permitted.

“We want to thank the entire community for supporting this progressive approach to ending bingo perversion,” said Dr. Simon Lackluster, head cardiologist at the clinic. After all, bingo abuse should not be classified as a mental illness. Think of all the money we could save if we stopped punishing addicts as criminals.”

Lackluster says the goal of the center is to provide the community with healthy bingo players upon release.

– Kashmir Horseshoe

Stacking Wood For Winter May Require Building Permit

(Gunnison) If you plan to construct a wood pile for the coming winter first you might have to acquire a building permit from the city here. Stipulations as to the size of the structure and longevity of its very existence will determine the cost of such a license.

Residents are also reminded that they must own at least two lots and have utilities in place before the first piece of oak or aspen is chopped and stacked.

Although thought to be extreme by many, the new restrictions should raise nearly $5000 in revenues which will be earmarked for a Christmas party for local sanitation engineers in December. Known as the Garbageman’s Ball, the event fell out of favor with the local city council when it became apparent that 70% of the city’s population relies on garbage men rather than elected officials to get necessary information on city matters. Rumors of beer drinking at the ball further clouded the gullible public appraisal.

The council intends to follow through with this plan if it’s the last and only thing they do before the holidays, according to a source there.

“At least we’re the ones they show on TV, and not those garbage ruffians,” said one councilmember.

The weekly council meetings are shown on clothes circuit TV every Monday night, bookended by classic episodes of I Love Lucy.

Meanwhile in adjacent Crested Butte, leaders there praised themselves for restraint in this matter. In Telluride, politicos, bruised from accusations that they are far too bureaucratic for their own good, also lauded official moderation on the general subject of wood stacks.

Readers will note that both ski burgs have strict wood burning ordinances and the zones are virtually wood stack free as of press time. Anyone building wood stacks there would almost have to be doing it for the exercise.

– Rocky Flats