Heaven is a gyp joint
Beulah is a few miles west of Pueblo in the Wet Mountains. Nothing about that last sentence will give you solace, but at least the place preserves the self-knowledge it granted itself back in October 1876, when residents decided to cover up the former name "Mace's Hole", convincing themselves the winning entry meant "Place of Beauty".
Here is a (former) restaurant in Beulah called Elmer's Gyp Joint.
Near as I can tell from census data, Elmer Skrifvars, the Swedish owner, was never married to Bertie (despite protests from the Beulah Historical Society, all one of them), so who knows what manner of decadence was playing out in Beulah at the time? Note the dog lying prostrate on the front porch. It gets hot in Pueblo, and swells the population of Beulah in the summer like an unwanted pregnancy, to double or nothing. Beulah has hot springs, which likely get very little action, except when it's cold, and no one is around.
Elmer died in 1980, so I can only reward his naming choice posthumously. Now the restaurants in Beulah are unimaginative and generally not open: Beulah Inn serves, naturally, the Beulah Burger, while Stompin' Grounds (better, but how may tired plays are there on coffee - my guess is the local hair salon is called Klip Joint, or Christy's Curlicue with a bunch of K's) serves frilly drinks to cowboys and hard-rock miners and custom bagger riders. Speaking of the Klan, Beulah was supposedly the headquarters of a dispirited group of Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, who were bent on disrupting the mail, only none ever came through.
Last year in America, 14 newborn girls (and no boys) were given the name Beulah. This is fewer than the number of babies (all boys) given the name Jip. I'm not kidding.
In any event, when Estes Park does open its first "pot shop" (seriously, who calls them this, besides Charley Dickey and the other retirees?) in 39 years (after every state has legalized marijuana, and every convenience store hands it out in lieu of change), I submit the above as an appropriate name. Has a certain pugnacious resonance. Seriously, examine the entire length of that pooch, which resembles a near-bursting tri-pod of edamame. Either it's seen the rapture, or had one too many.
Here is a (former) restaurant in Beulah called Elmer's Gyp Joint.
Elmer died in 1980, so I can only reward his naming choice posthumously. Now the restaurants in Beulah are unimaginative and generally not open: Beulah Inn serves, naturally, the Beulah Burger, while Stompin' Grounds (better, but how may tired plays are there on coffee - my guess is the local hair salon is called Klip Joint, or Christy's Curlicue with a bunch of K's) serves frilly drinks to cowboys and hard-rock miners and custom bagger riders. Speaking of the Klan, Beulah was supposedly the headquarters of a dispirited group of Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, who were bent on disrupting the mail, only none ever came through.
Last year in America, 14 newborn girls (and no boys) were given the name Beulah. This is fewer than the number of babies (all boys) given the name Jip. I'm not kidding.
In any event, when Estes Park does open its first "pot shop" (seriously, who calls them this, besides Charley Dickey and the other retirees?) in 39 years (after every state has legalized marijuana, and every convenience store hands it out in lieu of change), I submit the above as an appropriate name. Has a certain pugnacious resonance. Seriously, examine the entire length of that pooch, which resembles a near-bursting tri-pod of edamame. Either it's seen the rapture, or had one too many.
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