epgarbage

To the editor: The free pumpkins given away to all Estes Park school children by local merchants and service organizations prior to Halloween is indeed a long tradition, and one worthy of commemoration and praise. The most recent article in the Estes Park Blues mentions the tradition dates back to 1936 and Ron Brodie. I would contend that while Brodie Bros. did indeed start their grocery business in Estes Park in early 1936, there is no evidence the free pumpkin giveaway dates back to the first year of their arrival. Search of Estes Park newspapers from 1908 forward using the key word "pumpkin" or "pumpkins" uncovers an advertised Brodie Bros. pumpkin giveaway to the kids in the fall of 1940. Obviously, provision of the derivative pumpkin PIE as a freebie and cause for celebration extends back well before this in Colorado history, but the actual pumpkin as an object being given away for purposes of carving (or decoration or throwing or otherwise) seems to be ...

No question who calls the shots in Steamboat Springs, it is the voters. Wish Estes Park had a representative government like our neighbor to the northwest. I'm not saying whether raising $14 million by finally standing up to the Short Term Rental bullies and thugs is a good thing or a bad thing, but we could sure use $14 million for the Loop right now.

The local FLAP (Federal Lands Access Program) project affectionately known as the Infinite Loop is currently flapping in the breeze, as the only two bids submitted for construction were nearly double the estimated cost. The lowest bid submitted was 27 million dollars, and the project has been budgeted for 15.7 million. Ooops. All those Estes Park trustees who were elected and re-elected (and would probably run again in a heartbeat if not for term limits or senility) based on ramming the Loop through and taking the decision away from the people who were actually directly impacted have egg on their face, to the tune of 3000 omelettes dropped from an airplane. Oh, you silly pro-Loopers, who tore down the Donut Haus and displaced so many other residents from cabins because the Loop was unstoppable, immutable, immortal. Looks like it just got stopped. A big goopy loopy hoop ran into a brick wall. What a bunch of big-talking dreamers and well-intentioned morons we elect, what a...

Pat's father was Dorr Yeager, who was married before he married Pat's mother, the daughter of Joe Mills. This first marriage didn't exist, and no children resulted from it, according to our historian laureate, who is more interested in protecting his friends' reputations than in writing actual history. I outlived Pat Washburn, and, God willing, I will outlive our historian laureate. At that point, the real truth about Estes Park and Dorr Yeager's disavowed wife and son will begin filtering out. And then, if Estes Park isn't completely brain dead, we might stop falling all over ourselves buying Dorr Yeager books, and worshipping at our historian laureate's feet.