High Points: A look back

Occasionally in this column, I repeat myself. I found that I was about to do that very thing this week by penning a column about the columnists who write for The Aspen Times.

I was going to start with a line that was something like, “I love me some Aspen Times.” But that felt familiar. So, I went back in the archives of my Mac and looked at a few ghosts from the past. Sure enough, I discovered that I had written a similar “High Points” with that opening in 2013. When I read it, I thought my current rave on the state of The Times could wait, and I would rerun the piece from the past as homage to those who wrote the columns back in the day. See if you remember some of these great people.

2013 High Point

This is a SAP alert. As in sappy.

I love me some Aspen Times. I know how self-serving that is to write, especially in The Aspen Times, but it is as genuine as it is self-serving.

Let me start with the part that says “since 1881.” That’s an indication that the paper of record has both pedigree and staying power. It was here before any of us and likely here after all of us are gone. It is the ultimate local.

Each day, it is the rag we pick up to check the snowfall totals, see who is trying to be taller than the building codes, learn about what our mayor is doing to save the world, and find out who is playing at Belly Up. But it is more than that. The Aspen Times is also a collection of funky and sometimes funny writers.

Andy Stone comes to mind. He can’t really believe in that liberal pabulum (pab·u·lum n. material whose intellectual content is thin, trite, bland, or generally unsatisfying [literary] also called pablum) that he pens each Wednesday, can he? Surely he is just joshing when he tweaks targets like gun advocates, museum builders, and water polluters. But it is fun to read. (And we could use it now more than ever!)

Then there is that wacky Su Lum. Not sure what she is breathing through those tubes of hers, but I want some. She has her V-dub on the pulse beat at all times, and each column brings me home just a little bit.

Tony Vagneur’s Saturday columns may be my favorites. It’s not just that Tony’s a great storyteller, but his prose makes me think that Aspen and the valley still have a semblance of the soul that lived here for 100 years before the billionaires moved out the millionaires. He takes me on a horseback ride each week in his writings.

Scott Condon wrote an “On the Hill” piece a couple of weeks back that was the best ski piece I have read all year, in any of the dozens of magazines that are filled with the hundreds of pithy odes to our hills. His story told of a day spent on Aspen Mountain with his daughter before she headed back to school. It was filled with thin snow, bruises, and apple strudel, and it not only made me want to go out skiing, but I actually went to see Muffin the next day.

Then there is that Oksenhorn chap. This guy has written more words about this town than Homer wrote in both the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” And no, I don’t mean Homer Simpson. If someone has played it, written it, filmed it, presented it, acted in it, or performed it, the chances are good that they have been interviewed about “it” by Stewart.

But of all the things I love the most about The Times, none compare to Mary. There is just something about Mary. Mary Hayes, that is.

Her presence in this town — camera flung around her neck, bangs framing her face, and notebook tucked at the ready — makes her the embodiment of a local reporter toiling away at the everyday task of putting out a paper.

I told you it would be sappy. But it sure is sincere.

Of all those columnists, Tony is the one who remains to this day, and we are lucky to be “Saddle Sore” each Saturday. The year 2013 doesn’t seem that long ago, but much has changed. At least we still have great columns (more on that in the future) and the historic Aspen Times.