Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Earth Matters: Hat trick


“So you’re causing a ruckus again,” observed one reader. “You’re stirring the pot with all those ‘take life too seriously’ people.”

“Well, that’s kind of my job,” I answered. “I paid my dues.” I spent years as a humble reporter assembling objective reportage every week. “Now I get to go off once in a while.”

Actually, this summer I’ve tried to be informative and entertaining, but ultimately I’ve been marking time until I could write my truth from my heart. That’s what it’s about for me. Luckily, not everyone agrees with my truth; think how boring that would be.

Any writer is lucky to work in interesting times, or conversely, perhaps good writers help make their times interesting. If someone wasn’t out there stirring the pot, even making some people angry, interesting would be a relative thing. Edward Abbey stressed the importance of stirring the pot: “…if you don’t keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on top.”

I’ve always considered Abbey a good writer, and no question: he made a lot a people mad. He definitely informed and educated a generation of Americans, and he didn’t give a hoot in hell whether people liked him for his radical rants or not. I once asked Abbey how he could be such a misanthrope and hope to do good in the world. He answered that people who thought he was a misanthrope didn’t know him.

Abbey also held that people who lived in desert places were more to his liking than those who lived among mountains. He considered us xenophobes and socially inbred. I say to hell with Abbey, and I think he would have approved that attitude. He is correct in one respect, though; our relative isolation confines us in a stew pot that has nowhere to vent except back upon itself. So be it; there are compensations.

One of those compensations in our small mountain town is our newspaper. The newspaper gives us a voice, a place to put out there what is on our mind. Yes, I enjoy a bully pulpit because I earned it from years of being a reporter. But anyone who signs their name can write a letter and see it published in the newspaper. Never take this public voice for granted; not every newspaper in every town provides it.

So it bothers me only a little when folks disagree with what I write and respond with a major case of ire. It affirms me and lets my boss know I’m doing my job. One colleague always complains I’m a higher-paid pundit than he is. Perhaps we should institute a sliding pay scale where the writer with the most hate mail gets a raise.

I would be a wealthy writer—if there is such a thing—this week, because my email inbox is full of critical missives, my boss had to increase the page count to print outraged readers, and the tyranny of my cell phone is having its way with my ear. The only person I haven’t heard from is George W. Bush himself, which isn’t surprising since he never responded to previous letters I wrote. I even signed them.

If response mail is any indication, in the last couple of weeks I achieved a hat-trick. I angered what the left wing would call the right wing because I pummeled George W. Bush after his visit to our fair valley. I didn’t think I was being that harsh; we can never forgive and we must never forget. “Bush doesn’t matter,” opined one critic. “He’s a war criminal.” Whoa: I didn’t say that.

The second element of my hat-trick: I angered what the right wing would call the left wing. I trespassed on ground over which I seldom venture, and offended those who seek a different path for development of the ski area and proposed ski area expansion.

Having been so soundly thrashed by both sides of that particular debate, I hope here to very carefully watch what I say so as not to prolong or exacerbate the discussion. Writers must carefully measure their words, although sometimes such care gets in the way of truth and generates its own consequences. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t: such are the rewards of the bully pulpit.

Finally, I offended the fringy middle with my assertion that we must somehow achieve health care reform. Few issues in our national debate stir so many opinions and feelings. Yet I believe if something isn’t broke, leave it alone. But if it’s broke, and I believe health care is indeed broken, then fix it.

Okay, now about that raise…or not.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Earth Matters: Retro fit


I must have been about ten years old, staggering up Mount Antero, spewing breakfast across its face with altitude sickness. It was a day I can never forget for its challenge and for the opportunity to experience mountains as formidable chunks of rock. I learned it is best to treat them with due respect…and perhaps not eat a big, heavy breakfast.

I also learned that as much as I wanted to enjoy mountains, I would always find walking uphill at increasing altitudes a difficult undertaking. I would always sweat and swear, stagger and plod up the hill. No Reinhold Messner here.

My childhood presentiment manifested in adulthood and persists today. Bottom line: for someone who loves hiking in the mountains, I am one lazy slacker. So be it; at least I do it. Generally, though, I only commit exercise with the luxury of a purpose in mind.

Inevitably the question arises: why bother hiking up the damn hill anyway? Mallory’s answer—because it’s there—serves in simplicity but ignores nuances like the view, or the view and the flowers, or the snow and sliding down it, or whatever. Farther down the list is hiking for the sake of exercise. I can’t imagine Mallory on Everest simply for the exercise, and I bet he wasn’t into it so much for the view either.

But hell, Mallory is dead and times have changed. Now mountain exercise, at least in our user-friendly mountains, rewards hard-body, lean-and-mean athletes…and those who have learned to eat lighter breakfasts and walk slower.

It is difficult to ignore a certain physical vitality that derives from living at high altitude and (gulp) even exercising in that environment. Walking to the Post Office counts, but lying on the couch with the remote control doesn’t. Endurance runners blast past me at 12,000 ft., having started running a couple of mountain ranges over and planning to be home maybe for a little tennis before dinner. Too much!

Living smack in the middle of what has been called the “recreation archipelago,” most everyone is physically fit. It makes sense that mostly fit people would favor a demanding environment, one where if you want to leave town, in every direction but one you have to walk uphill. Damn right; that’s why they call it the head of the draw.

In our youth- and fitness-rich place it is difficult to imagine places where men my age still smoke a pack a day, knock back a sixer before sitting down to a heart-attack-on-a-plate, followed by the average five hours a night of television. While I myself have struggled with couch potato issues and consequent table muscle, I now recognize virtues of staying fit and mostly trim. I am retro fit.

I am not alone. A report by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows Colorado as the only state in the Union with an obesity rate lower than 20%. Colorado’s rate is 18.9% compared to the heaviest state, Mississippi weighing in at 32.5% obesity in the adult population. Explaining the obvious, experts suggest Colorado is more active, Mississippi more sedentary. I’m sure it has something to do with the heat…and maybe the fritters.

I remember a trip to Wisconsin some years ago where beer, fried fish—fried everything—and bratwurst contributed to ten pounds of excess…uh, material around my middle. I didn’t climb many mountains that summer, and my exercise consisted mostly of 12 oz. lifts. Had I not got out of Wisconsin, I would soon have gained the more portly demeanor of my hosts.

The TFAH obesity report, “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America 2009,” suggests the current economic crisis could exacerbate the obesity epidemic. Furthermore, the study found Baby Boomers have a higher obesity rate than previous generations. As Baby Boomers age, related costs will sizzle federal health care programs as the fat hits the fire. Well…the report didn’t put it exactly like that.

For my part, in my born-again retro-fitness program, I will continue burning fat in high, thin and usually cold air. I am firmly convinced that merely being outside during winter burns calories just to keep warm. I will also watch what I eat—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—and make every attempt when I’m not exercising, to keep my table muscle trim.

Or maybe this is all just some kind of lame excuse. Just maybe.