Lonely Planet and three other popular backpacker guidebooks have failed to include Colona in their highlights of Colorado for the summer. The snub was not taken lightly by residents here who say that with the noted exception of lodging their town is just as good as Aspen or Vail.

It was not clear if the absence was intentional or simply an oversight but Colona fails to come up even in the index. The town has not been mentioned in any of the guides since about 1995.

“Then we must not exist, which is fine with me,” said one local entrepreneur. “They’ll either find us or they won’t.”

Many of the guide book shadow market do not even try to speak the local dialect and often can’t successfully cross the street without consulting their handy library of trekking bibles.

HELP! WE NEED HOUSING

Taxi Drivers Convention Taxes Services

Promoters of this year’s NewYork City Taxi Drivers Convention, slated for Colona in late September, say they still need volunteer housing for the over 100,000 expected delegates. Already some are set to bivouac at the school and a few will pull in trailers and tents but the situation is far from tranquil.

“We are about 95,000 accommodations short of our goal,” said one principle. “We’ve worked really hard to make the convention a success and to think that it all may fall through due to pillows is a difficult pill to swallow.”

Attempts to bed down the cabbies in the nearby Uncompahgre Natural Forest were thwarted by the USFS who insist that the large group will overwhelm existing services.

“What are these people to do? Bring in 50,000 port johns for the weekend?” said a local ranger. “The entire event has been poorly planned from the beginning. Next time they should consider holding the convention in a larger community like Ridgway or Norwood.”      – Uncle Pahgre

for related piece see Colona Roadhouse Seeks Identity

Colona Store Closing Day Care Wing

The Oberg Academy, a daycare center for unruly children will close its doors Friday. The beloved facility, which state officials say is too close to a liquor dispensary, has been a cornerstone of the community for decades. It is feared that the action will throw thousands out of work and destroy the region’s fragile economy. The abrupt termination of services hits particularly hard during the summer when marginal parents joyfully dropped off their charges and went back to bed.

“We will still maintain fishing excursions and the ski hill out back,” said head master and retired Marine, Harry Oberg. “I wonder if this will qualify us for federal subsidies under the cloak of alternate energy use, you know going and green and all,” he asked. “It’s already a lot more peaceful around here. We ought to get some kind of kickback for that alone. It was either the kids or the booze and I am confident we made the right choice,” he concluded.

Colona Airport Remodel Looks to the Future

(Log Hill Mesa) A new facelift will certainly hurl the Colona International Airport into the 21st Century in so far as accessibility and aerodynamics go, but detractors claim the modernization will give the facility an unfair edge.

Whether these critics are upset over the temporary cancellation of flights this summer or by the independent nature of Colonese businessmen is not clear. The airport is expected to reopen for business some time in September upon completion of the Space Odyssey Lieutenant Ohura Wing, designed to accommodate intergalactic traffic by Christmas.

Of the estimated 4.5 million spent already to upgrade runways and strengthen projections for space travel, 90% has come from private donations. This unlikely funding has put government and civic forces on their heels since they will have little to say about the basic orientation and daily function of the state-of-the-art airport.

The federal gov’ment, still stinging from the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado, expressed concern that the facility will not pass stringent U.S. regulations and thus never reach full capacity as a standout in this solar system.

Developers of the airport had little comment saying only that they did not respond to bullies whether in the schoolyard or the courts. One of these suggested that if the gov’ment wanted a military base adjacent to Colona they had better “be nice”.

Besides the feds many local bureaucrats are miffed that they have been excluded from the planning and banned from the project site. The Montrose Developmentally De Facto Defalcation League has not only dropped the enterprise from its ostentatious summer brochure but has rejected Colona as a Partner in Progress for 2013.

“We remain in denial,” said the executive director of MDDFDL from her air-conditioned show barn on East Main. “It’s mean, just mean to ostracize us. We already have committees set up and  lots of meetings scheduled.”

Hang gliders and balloonists will not be affected by the temporary closures nor will red-eye security flights to Macondo, Tralfamadore or Freedonia.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     – Tommy Middlefinger

COLONA SLIM SEZ: “I’m taking my Social Security check down to Montrose where I intend to drink it up.”