Around Aspen: Neighborhood party

Jack Harris retired last spring after being the mailman for Aspen’s West End since 1978. So he and members of the Aspen Center for Physics held a retirement party at the Physics Center and invited the whole neighborhood. Everyone had such a good time that Jack, the Physics Center staff, and Maggie DeWolf decided to hold the party again this spring. It’s always great to visit with friends from the neighborhood.Aspenite Lt. Col. Janis Nark got to meet actor Tom Selleck in Washington, D.C., when she attended the recent Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s reception to announce that Tom has been named national spokesman for the Education Center. The proposed Education Center is to complement The Wall, which is the memorial for the Vietnam veterans. The new center will put faces to the 58,260 fallen heroes whose names are inscribed on The Wall. Janis served as a nurse during the Vietnam War and then again during the Gulf War. She is a longtime Aspen ski instructor and Nark’s Nook at Aspen Highlands was named for her.Longtime Aspenite Vicki Brooks, who divides her time between Stanford University in California and Aspen, has returned here for the summer. Her son, Alder Yarrow, Aspen High School and Stanford University graduate, once again has been invited back by Food & Wine to give four seminars. Alder has an award-winning wine website, vinography.com, and is founder and principal of the international consulting and design firm HydrantSF. On Monday, June 15, between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Alder, his wife, Ruth, and their one-year-old daughter, Sparrow, will be in the St. Regis lobby re-connecting with old Aspen friends.Undercurrent … the song of the lawnmower is heard throughout the land.