7april25016 -- Gernot and Ava Heinrichsdorff, Dr. Gustón Guzmán, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Finding friends where once

our nations had been enemies

Ava and Gernot at home in Colorado Springs

GERNOT HEINRICHSDORFF … I met Gernot through his wife, Ava, back in the early ‘80s, when I was a TCAH (Telluride Council on the Arts & Humanities) director. She was a folk dance teacher and we hit it off immediately. Her father had been a well-known Hungarian violinist in San Francisco, and we had that West Coast connection from the start, plus a shared cosmopolitan perspective rare to find in America. Plus, she was (and is) one of the wisest, most vibrant elders I have ever met – a writer, poet, world traveler, teacher, student, dancer. I hope I keep that precious gift of curiosity all my life, as she has … At first I knew Gernot as a landscape architect – one of those sturdy, get-it-done kind of fellows who could lift impossible loads, move giant rocks, and make creative spaces outdoors for everyone to see, admire and use. He reminded me of my Norwood buddy Jim Rosenthal – that kind of German-American laborer who could do twice the work of anyone else, and do it faster and better … It was only gradually, over the years, that I learned that Gernot had been born in Germany, and had served in the German army in World War II. That was a bit of a shock. My dad had served in the Army Air Corps. And Gernot in the Luftwaffe, although a lack of gas towards the end of the war had prevented him from any combat missions. Here was a man I’d become good friends with, and yet he had been “the enemy” of my father. It was fascinating, and confusing … Gradually I learned his story. He had been drafted into military service, like so many Germans -- loyal to their country, if not the Nazis. In fact, many Germans did not follow Nazi rules. His mother risked her life to harbor two Jewish boys from the ghetto all through the war  -- saving them from certain death – his mom treating them as his brothers … Not being political, Gernot hadn’t realized that mandatory participation in Hitlerjugend as a youth, where he learned gliding, had automatically registered him with the Nazi party. It wasn’t until he was wounded and then captured by the Americans that he learned he was a “Nazi.” That he was eventually able to make a new life in the country of his “enemies” was a true blessing … Over the years the three of us had had many a meal and shared many stories, since I had to visit Colorado Springs, where Ava and Gernot live, annually for political meetings. They’d often let me stay with them in a spare bedroom. Once I joined Gernot for his morning walk in the Garden of the Gods, his daily ritual for many years. It was a marvelous, delightful amble, admiring the spring flowers, the chill air, the glimmer of light on the fantastical rock formations. It was the kind of walk I would have liked to have taken with my dad. One of those bonding moments you remember fondly the rest of your life … This last time I went to the Springs, Gernot was not walking any more. He’s 93. Things aren’t working very well. He needs oxygen. And even a walker is of no use. Ava, of course, is there to take care of him. But we still managed a delightful visit, sharing stories, and memories, and laughs … And Gernot and Ava gave me a book – a collection of tales about Germans who survived the war and mostly immigrated to the United States: Voices From The Other Side by Jean Goodwin Messenger (White Pelican Press, 2014), which includes Gernot’s own story. The biggest surprise was how tragic and terrible the war had been for the German people, as it had been genocidal for European Jews. But then, that is the reality of war. It’s the leaders who champion war and the people who suffer – at least when the war overruns your home and you lose family members, friends, belongings – sometimes everything … The stories in the book break your heart. Enemies or allies, it’s horrific to understand what war does to people caught up in it. Like what is happening in Syria, or Iraq, or the Sudan today. It brings home to me how important it is to avoid war at all costs. To exercise restraint, and favor diplomacy. To protect civilians … I feel so lucky to have met Gernot and Ava and come to understand how nations make enemies of people who could easily be our friends, if only we have the opportunity to get to know one another. As we have done.

DR. GUSTÓN GUZMÁN … The world fungal community mourned the death early this year of world expert on Psilocybe mushrooms, Gustón Guzmán. A co-founder and former president of the Mexican Mycological Society (1965), he was also founder (1990) and president of the Latin American Mycological Association (2000–2002) … I had the great good fortune to meet Dr. Guzmán, while attending the Third International Medicinal Mushroom Conference at Port Townsend in 2005, through the kindness of Shroomfest myco-guru Paul Stamets. I worked the lights in the meeting hall where Dr. Guzmán lectured. Afterwards, a clutch of us followed him off-stage and out back of the hall on the grounds of Fr. Worden, a converted military base. We peppered him with questions, and got wonderful answers. He quickly led us – at the prompting of a local -- about a hundred yards into a forested area, knelt down and picked several nondescript brown mushrooms from the ground, and declared them Psilocybes. Several of us volunteered to bio-assay them. And for the rest of the day I was entheogenically absorbed, having been given them from the hand of the legendary Dr. Guzmán. An honor I will treasure all my days.

THE TALKING GOURD

One Lesson in Generosity

from another room

white scent of lilies—

like that, says the heart, like that

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Western Slope Poet Laureate

18feb25016 -- Colorado Legislature, Hunger Free Colorado, NACo’s County News and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem “Beside the Sunflowers”

Bird-dogging the legislature in Denver

The Colorado Capitol in Denver

NEW BILLS NEW LAWS … I’d given up going to state meetings for Colorado Counties, Inc. (CCI). It’s a useful lobbying group that helps counties prevent really bad bills from making it through the Legislature. And helps even pass a few good ones … But, of late, CCI has been infected with the “partisan paralysis” that Sen. Ted Cruz champions. Last month Republicans knocked almost all Democrats out of CCI leadership positions on its steering committees. Instead of having a chair with the majority party and vice-chair with the minority party, so as to offer a bi-partisan front to legislators on CCI issues, conservatives led by Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer cleaned house … That kind of disastrous internal one-up-woman’s-ship led Boulder County to leave CCI last week. Denver City and County had already pulled out … San Miguel County’s paid its dues for 2016, or we might have considered pulling out as well. But, next year, unless there are changes, it would be hard to recommend staying on board a group that supports fracking, tax breaks for the rich, return of public lands to the states, and opposes universal health care, more money for education, higher minimum wages, etc … But this year, I’ve been directed to attend and offer what liberal input I can to the process … The bills CCI reviews run the gamut from the inane to the seriously wrong, from good ideas to senseless tweaks. There was unanimous support for a SJM16-001, urging Congress to pass Good Samaritan legislation to protect those involved in voluntary reclamation of abandoned hard rock mines from potential liability – a big stumbling block for cleaning up situations like the one over in San Juan County that led to a mine adit blowout and heavy iron release in the Animas River last year … ASIDE: When I was in San Francisco last month, I visited an art installation at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts entitled, “Golden Prospects” by Kevin Cooley. It was all about the Animas River spill, with boxes of on-floor videos of murky water flowing over iron-coated rocks. It wasn’t very impressive. But maybe living so close to the actual river was insulation from the meant-to-shock simulations of tainted agua … CCI steering committees voted to support HB16-1150 to give counties authority to prohibit underage nicotine possession, SB16-080 to require cannabis grow operations in a home to be enclosed, locked and restricted from anyone under 21-years-of-age, HB16-1030 to allow local governments to require insurance and driver’s licenses for OHV riders on local roads (something local counties have been trying to achieve for years), and SB16-060 that shifts fiscal responsibility for providing courtroom space from the counties to the sate … CCI opposed SB16-067 to grant a personal property tax exemption for broadband providers, HB16-1088 giving Fire Protection Districts the authority to impose impact fees on new development, SB16-81 to create a rural economic emergency assistance grant program, HB16-1071 which would have granted county citizens initiative power for county decisions (killed in committee), HB16-1078 granting whistle-blower protections to local government employees, SB16-37 changing the public’s access to digitally-stored data under the Colorado Opens Record Act, and SB16-54 allowing local governments to set minimum wages in its jurisdiction … Those are only a handful of the hundreds of bills considered in the Colorado Legislature each session. Which is why it’s important for local governments to pay attention to what’s happening in Denver. And, with perhaps a new bipartisan county support group, help shape the action.

RAT-A-TAT STATS … Hunger Free Colorado released a report last month for 2015 that ranked Colorado 46^th in the nation for getting food stamps to the needy. Pitkin County had the worst record, enrolling only 10% of those eligible, while El Paso County had the best record, enrolling 71%. San Miguel County enrolled 27% of those eligible, according to the report … The National Association of Counties (NACo) puts out a newsletter, CountyNews, and in the Jan. 11^th edition, it published a graph of the Top 10 Counties with the Highest Growth Rate of 65 Years and Older Population (2004-2014). Colorado had 7 of the 10 spots, with San Miguel County ranked third in the nation with a 203% growth rate. That’s telling me that the Telluride Region is becoming a retirement haven and that doing more for seniors is something the County is going to have to wrestle with in coming years … In the same issue, NACo’s County Explorer program offered a map that showed San Miguel County to be the only county in the state in 2015 to have full economic recovery with all four recovery indicators used from Moody’s Analytics data – one of only 215 counties in the nation to do that, out of over 3000 counties total … Finally, the heaviest one-day snowfall ever recorded in the nation wasn’t in Alaska, Montana, Maine or New Hampshire, but right here in Colorado. On Dec. 4, 1913, 63 inches of snow fell on Georgetown in Clear Creek County

THE TALKING GOURD

beside the sunflowers

naked, except

this strand of what ifs

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Western Slope Poet Laureate

Politics, Theater, Water & Good News

Trying to move US to the radical middle

INNER TRUMP … No use denying it. As Americans, we all carry a bit of Donald around with us. Crypto-racist language. Mean sound bites. Impossibly simple fiats … Truth is, we are all embedded in the United States of America, the First World’s leading nation -- which has assumed neo-colonial guard duty for the Free World’s Market Empire. At least that’s been the vision, since the ‘50s, of the DullesBrothers/Eisenhower/Nixon/Reagan/Bush/Wall Street Journal wing of what many of us have taken to calling our nation’s “deep politics.” This is the same group of powerful men representing the 1% who, post-WWII, created the CIA, a Cold War strategy of mutual assured destruction with Russia, had Mossedegh, Arbenz and (it would appear) both Kennedys killed, and has been overturning as much of FDR’s legacy as possible and preventing any quasi-socialist proposals for money to be spent on society’s middle and lower classes … Look, we all need to move to the middle to get things done … Let certain pols make fools of themselves. It’s a free country, as my daddy used to say. But neither side of the political divide is going to close the gap by throwing rocks from the other cliff-face.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC … This was meant to run last week, but got crowded out by other items. But I have to comment. It’s amazing to me how a live community theater show is so powerful. Even with non-professionals, there’s something about live theater that grabs one in ways that even the most polished films rarely do … I don’t know exactly how Sara Doehrman manages to pull off such great community theater musicals. But corny, nostalgic, old-fashioned – little of that matters when you see neighbors and kids acting out a play, singing and carrying on, in a thoroughly convincing manner. Her adapted Rodgers and Hammerstein delight had us all charmed and entertained a couple Fridays back. There were so many standouts I can’t name them all. But I loved all the characters and the singing and the acting. It really amazed me how powerful theater is, even community theater with amateurs … There’s a reason I don’t miss ACE of Norwood shows in the Livery. They’re wonderful!

HAMLET … As you can tell, I love live theater. Theater on film almost always seems to lack the immediacy and wraparound embrace of live stage performances. But I had to make an exception for the Royal National Theatre’s production of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet at the Barbicon theater in London, and watched last weekend at the Palm, thanks to the good work of Jennie Franks and SPARKy Productions www.playwrightsfestival.org … It was nothing short of astounding. I can’t wait for the next production.

THE GREAT DIVIDE … April Montgomery of the Telluride Foundation and Laura Kudo of the Telluride Institute’s Watershed Education Program showed this wonderful primer on water in Colorado at the Wilkinson Library last week. Every Coloradoan ought to see this film. There’s probably no easier way to get up to speed on the issues associated with water in this state than watching The Great Divide. Not only is it well executed, but it’s enjoyable, balanced and thought-provoking. Peter Coyote does the narration … Plus, our own April M gets a couple marvelous quotes in the mix of water experts, and the documentary ends with a finale shot of Bridalveil Falls … Highly recommended.

GOOD NEWS … Kudos to San Miguel County for protecting the Forest Service’s Wasatch Trail up Bear Creek from closure by the Chapman gang. State Appeals Court shot down the Chapman legal challenge on all counts, upheld Judge Deganhart’s lower court ruling and released a written opinion, making it precedent-setting law -- unless overturned by the State Supreme Court … Kudos too to the Trust for Public Land, GOCO, Colorado State Forest Service, the federal Forest Legacy Project and Ouray County for putting the 2,248-acre Sawtooth Mountain Ranch into a conservation easement. That means water rights for the 11 springs and 20 ponds on the ranch will stay with the land, including two tributaries of the Uncompahgre River which run through the ranch property, protecting drinking water and irrigation water.

NOW WE KNOW … “We could question when we were young about the dead and whether they live on in heaven, or in the ground, or in molecules of air, or whether they return, or wherever it is they go. We can no longer question. We can no longer say we do not know … We look now into mirror and see them. Our mothers’, our grandmothers’ faces. Our fathers’, our grandfathers’ traces. Their gnarled old hands, their blotched and spotty skin. We see them in the postures of our bodies, their shape or stoop. Their sprightliness and grace … We see them in the predilections of our souls. The ancestors -- hear them in our stories. Stories of home, of lost love, of youth. Stories of victory or of loss. Echoing in us like ram’s horns, or tambourines with a beat in the movement of our fingers. Or words flowing through our hearts and the rhythm of our feet … On the great round now, winter. Darkest night. Abyss of night. Gateway to the dream beyond the dream. The very animals in us howl. And the moon, shining on fields, shining on sea. Shining, shining on ancient Earth.” –Amalia Sabatini, Clinton, NY

THE TALKING GOURD

when the glass slipper
does not fit, learning
the joy of bare feet

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Western Slope Poet Laureate

More Quivira Nov16015

Local actions needed to help save  

declining bees & Monarch butterflies

MORE QUIVIRA … Scott Black is on a mission. He wants to save the Monarch butterfly. As a professional ecologist and head of the Xerces Society, he’s really worried about this imperiled species, as well as the rapid decline in bees. The numbers are very disturbing. Where once there were millions of migrating Monarchs, even just a few years ago, their current numbers are crashing. And he thinks farmers and ranchers and counties like ours can help … While native flowers of all types are important nectar sources for all bees and butterflies, and getting more plantings of native plants is an important factor in trying to preserve these insect species so beneficial to humans, it’s milkweed that’s the critical plant for Monarchs (Asclepias spp.). But farmers and ranchers don’t like milkweed, since several species can be toxic to cows and sheep. And it’s especially dangerous in hay. But out in the field, Scott says that it is unpalatable and poisonings are rare, and usually only when animals are concentrated where there is little other feed … Which is why he’s a big fan of turning state and county roadsides into areas for growing native plants and milkweed. A graduate of Colorado State University and a 2011 honored alumnus, he’s interested in coming to Telluride and Norwood to talk about how San Miguel County might join in the national initiative to save the Monarch. Stay tuned.

GUMBAH … That was our slang Dago name for each other. As crazy counter-cultural hippie beatnik bohemian writers – he the aspiring novelist and me the maverick street poet -- in the wild milieu that was San Francisco in the Sixties and Seventies, Steve Clark was my buddy. We walked the brazen night streets of North Beach, climbed Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower and drank wine on the sly, dropped acid hiking in Mt. Tamalpais, got snowed on camping in the backwoods of Big Sur. The list of adventures goes on and on … And even in later life, as he married a wonderful woman, had a lovely family, and settled into a respectable high school English teacher’s job in Skagit County, Washington, while living in Anacortes on Fidalgo in the San Juan Islands, we kept in touch. Extravagant letters. Long phone calls. Occasional visits. Even a five-day backpack a couple years ago along California’s Lost Coast from Petrolia to Shelter Cove – one of those fabulous hikes we’d both had on our bucket lists. And afterwards, alone under the majesty of thousand-year-old redwoods in Richardson Grove (California budget cuts having closed the state park to all tourists except us), we stood on a picnic table and declaimed wild poetry to the swaying of the giants in the mountain breeze … Our adventures were legion. And Steve was the greatest of mimics. His comic sense was finely tuned. His observations lucid and penetrating. He’d read excerpts of great writers in full theatrical flourish regardless of where we were – rapid transit, pine forests, blue highways, urban coffeehouses. And he was always jotting notes in his journals – dozens and dozens of them over the years … Two weeks ago his stepson called to tell me his cancer had taken a turn for the worse. The docs had only given him a month or two. I’m flying up there this weekend. It may be too late to hug that fine fellow and shout together at the top of our lungs. He’s fading fast. But I’m hoping I have a chance to touch his hand one last time. To feel the fire of that fierce spirit that showed me what it means to be a full-on man, a devoted friend and a lover of this amazing life.

BLACK CANYON … If you haven’t heard of the Black Canyon Regional Land Trust, now’s the time to learn what a great job they’ve been doing conserving private lands on the Western Slope through conservation easements. With almost 300 easements in their portfolio covering over 51,000 acres of lands with outstanding ag and natural values in Montrose, San Miguel, Ouray, Delta, Gunnison and Mesa counties, they’re a local institution … But it takes more than than mere purchasing to maintain those lands. BCRLT has to provide the stewardship and monitoring of all those properties on an annual basis. So, my old friend and botanist Peggy Lyon is calling for all conservation easement enthusiasts to consider a donation on Colorado Gives Day, Dec. 8^th, where your donations will be matched by an incentive fund provided by the Community First Foundation and FirstBank … As Peggy says, “Your contribution will help family farmers and ranchers continue working their lands – often lands that have been passed down for several generations; will protect native plants and animals; and will keep iconic scenic corridors unobstructed. For every $30 that you donate, the Land Trust can protect an acre of land – forever” …  Give online at <www.bcrilt.org> and if you do, make it for Peggy’s fundraising team – the Clay-loving Buckwheat Bandits.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES … One of those ugly CDOT electronic billboards on Dallas Divide must have had a malfunction the other day. It read: “Wildlife Migration. Drive With Cars” … I love the new hand-lettered sign at the beauty parlor coming into Norwood. It reads: “Bangs are the Moustache of the Forehead.”

POTPOURRI … Cheap Gas. Santa Domingo Pueblo took the cake on my trip to Burque two weeks ago with roll-back prices reminiscent of a couple decades ago. $179.9 per gallon … Whistle Pig, Rifle’s Coffee Stop & Café at 121 E. 3^rd St. was a lovely surprise on my way up to Meeker couple months back. I know most younger folks (like my kids) don’t like to go searching willy-nilly for good eats. Rather than serendipity’s hit & miss, they favor the tried & true verification of social media’s Yelp (and other smartphone apps) to locate an eatery with good reviews.

THE TALKING GOURD

One Unpredictability

playing chase

with a thunderstorm—

tucking my son into bed

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Poet Laureate of the Western Slope