A modest proposal
Is it me, or after all the posturing and kvetching on the part of Greg and Frank, did the sandblasted sign on the new parking deck finally get corrected?
I trust the next time Frank presents to the town board, he will include the following:
Frank is nothing if not extremely confident in his abilities to control all things information
related, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a better idea, given the latest "Riverdale" fiasco (which I doubt if Frank had much to do with, except to roll his eyes when it was pointed out) if the text for EVERY proposed street sign or plaque or monument was run by a committee of disinterested, long-term residents prior to committing it to metal or etching it in stone.
The best and cheapest way to form such a group (please, no more ad hoc task forces) would be to post the proposed copy on the town's Facebook page and ask for suggestions/edits. Not only would this pull in interested Estes Park residents, input from summer residents and visitors who just happen to love Estes Park (the perfect audience surrogates, who were not consulted ahead of time regarding the sandblaster disaster) would also be elicited as a matter of course.
While we're at it, Harriett Burgess and others are rolling over in their graves given the increasing "creep" of Estes Park being replaced by Estes Valley, so why not harness this kinetic energy by just making the switch complete, and permanent?
As noted in Orwell's "1984", illegitimate governments change history by changing the meaning of words. "Park" is the perfect choice geographically and linguistically for what Estes Park is ("Bowl" would be another, if for some reason we needed options). "Valley" as currently defined in standard dictionaries is a horrible, meaningless aberration, but words are ultimately defined by the majority of people who use them, so I have no trouble suggesting a proposed official change from "Estes Park" to "Estes Valley", since it is already on so many signs anyway, and would reduce confusion of people who arrive in Estes Park and think they are in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Once this is adopted, institutions in power will tire of the restrictions of the word valley as far as forcing more landowners to pay for their hobbyhorses, and will start using the word "Estes Empire" to extend the radius of their fundraising capabilities. At some point, everyone in Colorado will be paying for the library's seventh floor expansion to include T-shirt imprinting and rooftop gardening (because what is a library as defined if not something that incorporates everything a library is not?), and we will be raising our children in "Estes Solar System", but if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. That's George Orwell again, or, as members of the Estes Valley intelligentsia are fond of calling him, Sally Field.
 |
| This was the original sign, which now has an "AND" inserted between lines 2 and 3 |
I trust the next time Frank presents to the town board, he will include the following:
Frank is nothing if not extremely confident in his abilities to control all things information
related, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a better idea, given the latest "Riverdale" fiasco (which I doubt if Frank had much to do with, except to roll his eyes when it was pointed out) if the text for EVERY proposed street sign or plaque or monument was run by a committee of disinterested, long-term residents prior to committing it to metal or etching it in stone.
The best and cheapest way to form such a group (please, no more ad hoc task forces) would be to post the proposed copy on the town's Facebook page and ask for suggestions/edits. Not only would this pull in interested Estes Park residents, input from summer residents and visitors who just happen to love Estes Park (the perfect audience surrogates, who were not consulted ahead of time regarding the sandblaster disaster) would also be elicited as a matter of course.
While we're at it, Harriett Burgess and others are rolling over in their graves given the increasing "creep" of Estes Park being replaced by Estes Valley, so why not harness this kinetic energy by just making the switch complete, and permanent?
As noted in Orwell's "1984", illegitimate governments change history by changing the meaning of words. "Park" is the perfect choice geographically and linguistically for what Estes Park is ("Bowl" would be another, if for some reason we needed options). "Valley" as currently defined in standard dictionaries is a horrible, meaningless aberration, but words are ultimately defined by the majority of people who use them, so I have no trouble suggesting a proposed official change from "Estes Park" to "Estes Valley", since it is already on so many signs anyway, and would reduce confusion of people who arrive in Estes Park and think they are in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Once this is adopted, institutions in power will tire of the restrictions of the word valley as far as forcing more landowners to pay for their hobbyhorses, and will start using the word "Estes Empire" to extend the radius of their fundraising capabilities. At some point, everyone in Colorado will be paying for the library's seventh floor expansion to include T-shirt imprinting and rooftop gardening (because what is a library as defined if not something that incorporates everything a library is not?), and we will be raising our children in "Estes Solar System", but if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. That's George Orwell again, or, as members of the Estes Valley intelligentsia are fond of calling him, Sally Field.
Comments
Post a Comment