Today's Opinions

Fifteen years ago this month, I had stopped by the post office in Idaho Springs — the former one in the 1500 block of Colorado Boulevard — taking a break from writing my master’s thesis to grab the mail for my parents.

I greeted Dean St. John, a longtime family friend who my dad had worked with underground for a time at the Henderson Mine on the drill bench and who I knew as a longtime volunteer firefighter in Idaho Springs. It was the latter topic that came up in our brief conversation that day.

After leaving the Army, Tony got into trouble with the law. His six-year sentence with the Colorado Department of Corrections was eventually converted to a stay at a halfway house in Alamosa. There, he learned about a program called Veterans Green Jobs.
“At the time, I didn’t know the first thing about weatherization. But they gave me a second chance.”
Soon, Tony found himself sealing, insulating and fastening skirting to trailer homes in the San Luis Valley — Colorado’s poorest region.

How quickly perspectives can change: Tinder-dry, tightly packed pine trees loaded with tar, once a source of Clear Creek beauty and serenity, are being looked at askance, seen as a threat, fuel for an inferno that can sweep away our community.
Can wildfires consuming the parched Front Range forests happen here? Those who’ve lived up here for more than a few years know the reality, and denying that awful prospect is akin to one doing his/her best ostrich imitation.