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Su Lum: Hisses and Kisses

KISSES to Georgia Hansen and the board of HeritageAspen for deciding to change their name back to The Aspen Historical Society. The charm of the vintage Stallard house was severely compromised when the HeritageAspen faction attempted to take the operation uptown, but Georgia and the present board are doing their best to pick up the pieces and bring its image back to reality. They deserve our wholehearted support.***HISSES to the Aspen Valley Hospital board for suggesting a dress code for our doctors. One would think the board has enough balls in the air right now, what with the sackings, severance packages, messy finances and plans to build a brand-new hospital, without throwing that idea into the hopper. Nip it in the bud.Doctors of Aspen, tell those guys to take that dress code and shove it. Members of the board, if some hoity-toity patient complains, tell them to get over it. Our doctors are active members of our community. They ski, they run, and if they show up in ski clothes or running shorts, who cares?I know that if I got hit by a truck I wouldnt want my doctor wasting a second to pull on proper pants while I was hemorrhaging in the ER. Maybe some of our tourists arent used to seeing doctors in anything but white coats, but they can be educated, we dont have to bend over for them.We have a great staff of doctors and they should not be unnecessarily pestered about trivialities.****KISSES to the Smuggler Mountain renegades who blast their cannon at dawn on the 4th of July and offer an alternative fireworks show on the 4th and during Winterskl, the idea being that you watch the ACRA display on Aspen Mountain, then turn around and get a second set of fireworks set off from Smuggler mine site.I have been fireworks-deprived for 14 years, having to huddle in a back bedroom comforting my terrified dachshund Trudy. Trudy being, alas, no longer with us, I accepted Jay Parkers invitation to watch the proceedings and my co-worker Hilary Burgess and I drove up Smuggler to watch the dual light show.We went early to get a good spot at the mine site overlooking the town and watched the Winterskl torchlight descent. It used to be that half the town participated in the torchlight, hundreds of people with glowing red torches wending down two sides of the mountain and meeting at a V near the bottom, looking like flowing lava. Insurance constraints limited the participants to employees of the ski company, so it is less but still impressive.We sat in the car for that and the ensuing Aspen Mountain fireworks, which were spectacular, and seconds after their finale Smuggler totally exploded! We were out of the car by then and IN the fireworks, which were shot up directly over our heads and rained down in a storm of brilliant streamers and sparks, accompanied by window-rattling timpani while everyone up there screamed with excitement.This was no second-string show, it was first class and we had the best spot in the house. I never knew it before, but THATS how to watch fireworks![Su Lum is a longtime local who was thrilled. Her column appears every Wednesday in The Aspen Times]