August 13, 2003
Number One

Twenty years now
Where'd they go?
Twenty years
I don't know
I sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they've gone
And sometimes late at night
When I'm bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin' a ghostly white
And I recall 

So goes Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” and for the Milieu, in the words of Yogi, “It’s déjà vu all over again”, this time twenty years later.  From 1980 till ‘83 the Milieu graced these pages on a weekly basis. During those pre and post “Black Sunday” offerings, a twenty-year look ahead could only have been compared to staring wide-eyed at infinity.  Today, squinting into the rear view mirror, 1983 seems like yesterday. It was the same year the Bronco’s drafted John Elway.  John’s can’t be all that old.  Surely he was kidding on TV when the all time Bronco great said his future might include a run at playing golf on the Senior Tour.

     If your memory recalls Maynard’s Milieu from decades past you are both a long time Sentinel reader and an individual whose time spent on planet earth places you closer to Social Security than the age of consent.  

      Oh our lives have certainly changed since 1984. “You’ve got mail”, Starbucks and news conferences called to announce it was “consensual” did not exist twenty years ago.  Here in Happy Valley, the early eighties saw us struggling to get by without the benefits of roundabouts, back flow tests or economic prosperity.  The bumper sticker on the car ahead of you traveling North Avenue in 1983 didn’t inform the reader as to what “happens” as do the bumper stickers of today but instead re-assured one and all “Tough Times Don’t Last…Tough People Do“.  That same bumper sticker also made note of the fact it was provided by the Bank of Clifton.   The Bank of Clifton didn’t make it through the 80’s but their demise had more to do with the jaundiced eye of bank examiners than a lack of grit in the gizzard. The past twenty years have also seen us say “Good bye” to Woolco, Pay ‘n Pak and Shakey’s while extending a welcoming  “Hello” to Home Depot, Hobby Lobby and Wally World.   

Western Slopers have not been subjected to a total metamorphosis in our world since the Milieu last appeared. Some things refused change.  First and Grand remains a traffic engineer’s worst nightmare, summer still serves as a constant reminder we live in the desert (August of ’83 was the warmest in history, now they’re saying the same thing about July of ‘03) and Rick Jussell to this very day continues to be the only individual residing west of the Continental Divide who truly cares about the fortunes of the Denver Nuggets.

Where can you expect the Milieu of the 2000’s to fit in the weekly offerings of local scribes in Western Colorado’s daily periodical of public record?  Good question.  Twenty years ago my life was filled with a wife, three daughters and an un-certain future whose potential for success was hampered by the ever present wolf at the door.  Those constants in my life provided steady fodder for weekly columning.  Today the daughters have moved on to lives of their own, the wolf is at bay and potential, as it applies to yours truly, has evolved from future tense to past.  But the world around us in 2003 still provides ample opportunity to consider life’s truly important happenings. 

     In the Sentinel line-up the boss man wraps his hands around issues affecting our state and nation every Sunday, Gary Harmon jousts with the local body politic on a weekly basis while Henrietta Hay extols the virtues of libraries, ladies hoops and Hillary every Friday.

      This leaves the Milieu to devote its Wednesday space to the truly substantial events that shape and affect our lives.  Multiple subjects come immediately to mind as worthy of a weekly printed discussion.  First and foremost is the sad-ass state of country music today.  Thank goodness for Alan Jackson and Toby Keith.  Were it not for that duo “real country” would be forever locked in the eighties and nineties.

     Warm fuzzies and a feeling of spiritual “one-ness” also should be showered on the city of Boulder as their citizens dedicate August 10^th to breaking the Guinness record for a group hug (the current mark for a group grope now stands at 2,903 a fact you hug fanatics already know cold).

     Attention also needs to be focused here at home.  What keeps Grand Junction, where “Just say No” is more than a slogan, it’s a way of life, from being a great city?   It is true local voters and their representatives have said “ixnay” to a recreation center, a civic auditorium and minor league baseball while casting a jaundiced eye toward a new library.    The rejection of amenities favored by the Casper’s, Kearney’s and St. George’s of the world could be mitigated if the economic development branch of our town would simply focus their attention on bringing a Waffle House to our side of the hill.  It is nothing more than out and out discrimination that requires those of us residing on the lee side of the Rockies to climb mountain passes and dodge sink holes when we wish to savor a breakfast that is not just cooked but Waffle House “scattered, smothered, covered, topped and diced.” 

      Speaking of matters culinary one must also be deeply disturbed by the ever-constant “mongrelization” of rhubarb pie.  As if strawberry/rhubarb isn’t enough of a sin against humanity. A Redmond, Oregon greasy spoon, where I stopped for lunch, went so far as to force diners to endure what only could be termed the egregious combination of apple/rhubarb.  Have today’s cooks no shame?

     There are so many important matters to we need to talk about and only one Wednesday a week is available to do the job.   Let’s get after it.  This is going to be fun.

     Thanks George, it really feels good to be back.