November 19, 2003
Things I Wonder

Random thoughts seem to stream through the brain while driving Utah.  When a person wants to get away from it all is there a more secluded place than the Interstate between Grand Junction and Las Vegas?  Thoughts from the road:

Why does everybody whisper on the TV show West Wing?  It takes place in the White House not a funeral parlor.  But then why do people whisper when they’re in a funeral home?  Are they worried that by talking in a normal voice they’ll wake somebody? Or should that read some body? 

Has anyone ever come up with a simple three-steps or less approach to show newcomers where the “swan” is located on the Grand Mesa?  It always takes a minimum of fifteen minutes of my explanation before a newcomer says, “Oh there it is!”  Many times I get the feeling that not only does the person I’m talking to not have the slightest idea what in the world the explanation is all about they also deeply regret ever bringing the subject up.  All that being said remember, “it’s not spring in the Grand Valley until the neck is broken on the swan.” 

United Airlines has announced the name of their new low-cost airline.  The competitor to Southwest, Spirit and Jet Blue will be called “Ted”.  Many folks have expressed the opinion “Ted” is a really dumb name for an airline.  I agree.  If United wanted to come up with a one-syllable word denoting a high “hip” factor, a Brad Pitt/ Jennifer Anniston kind of cool they should have named the airline “Dick”.  Don’t you agree? 

Why did early pioneers load up their wagons and journey from St. Louis all across Missouri, all across Kansas only to stop in eastern Colorado in places like Burlington and Limon?  Not to find fault with the eastern part of our Centennial state but the area around those villages is more like Kansas than Colorado.  If the pioneers only traveled ten miles a day, and they didn’t want to live near the mountains, couldn’t they have quit a month earlier and been in essentially the same place environmentally had they stopped in Salina, Kansas?  On the other hand maybe they wanted their grandchildren’s grandchildren to experience the opportunities the pioneers never had by living close to an outlet mall. 

Why doesn’t a Palisade entrepreneur open a fruit stand selling herbs in the off-season.  Wouldn’t sixties music fans flock to a business named  “Peaches and Herb’s”? 

Now that snow has returned to the Grand Mesa maybe an enterprising Sentinel scribe could pen a Sunday feature on how to locate the swan on the Mesa.    If the article ran short, have Dave Fishell relate the history of the swan, when it first appeared, how it was discovered and why it’s not visible after the snow melts.  And Curt Swift could discuss the year tomatoes grew even though they were planted before the swan’s neck was broken.  That’s if there was such a year.   

Last week the rock group Limp Bizkit played the Pepsi Center.  Rock groups have much better names than their country counterparts.  While country groups feature mundane monikers like Diamond Rio, Alabama and LoneStar rock fans get to enjoy the sounds of Leftover Salmon, Bare-naked Ladies, the 4 Nikators and The String Cheese Incident.  Rock bands win the name game hands down.