Saddle Sore: The target on our backs

My cousin Wayne Vagneur and I were cornered by him at the Eagles Club, back when it was over on Galena Street. He’d made a killing in the tech business, mostly over something he had invented to enable a much more responsive and reliable mainframe computer. The money rolled in like flies in May, and he wandered to Aspen, long before many nouveau riche rode their cavalcade of fresh money into town. Unassuming, almost middle-aged and quiet, he didn’t want to talk about himself other than to say he wasn’t much of a cowboy but would love to come out to the ranch for a horseback ride.

He had, in his conversation about his change in life, only done his job, had only done what got him up every day to do. He didn’t think he could invent another component of such great value. You generally get one shot at something like that if you’re lucky. He had worked hard on his concept and had been fortunate with his vision. He understood that his luck didn’t give him any moral advantage; it just signaled that he hadn’t really done anything but been lucky.

His attitude was in direct contrast to some of those arriving lately, those with more money than they need, affected by the new pandemic of greed sweeping desirous places in the country, willing to pay exorbitant prices for a little slice of privacy in the cottonwoods along a creek or a huge house a little higher on the hill than others. Those folks, although perhaps in the minority, don’t realize that luck, in whatever they did to make the money, makes them nothing more than lucky. It doesn’t give them the moral authority to be rude to those working in restaurants, those caring for the gardens, or any other people in town.  

If you get out much, you’ve probably noticed a plethora of privacy gates going up at driveway entrances along the public roads. If you’ve been behind those gates, as I have many of them, you wonder what in the world would entice anyone to travel down the gated road to start with. Especially those in rather deserted areas, where hardly any visitors get lost.

It’s fear, of course you say — fear that someone will come down the lane with ulterior motives, someone who will spin gravel under their tires or squeal on the asphalt as they turn around. Maybe drive too fast, scare the kids, or, with no choice, notice with crinkled face the overdone, compulsive residence that resides behind such gates: Nothing to see here, folks; we paid a lot for this little chunk of privacy.

The other way to look at it, perhaps, is that those whose property is behind the gates realize what our friend said, above, about amassing a large amount of money is mostly luck. Or good fortune, if you will. Easy come, easy go. Putting up a gate prevents, in a metaphorical sense, whom — or whatever carries the power — to come in and take away much, or all, that has been amassed. Fear is an imagination that likely keeps some of those folks awake at night. As we know, sometimes someone or something does crash the gate, and the fear becomes reality.

Speaking of gates, those of us who have been around a while have always said, when talking to folks unhappy with Aspen growth, “At least we didn’t close the gate to keep you out.” People don’t like to hear that. But now, with all the gate installations leading to private residences and with just a bit of suggestive nuance, it would appear that those erecting the gates are saying, “We’re here now — please close the gate behind us.”

Several years ago, longtime Aspen Times columnist Paul Andersen pointed out (and I wildly and freely paraphrase here) that in a world of increasing population and crowding in cities and subdivisions, many of the people living there, more so than today, will be heading West, where the land is still relatively pristine and uncrowded. But, unfortunately, with a target on its back.  

And perhaps, seeing what is happening in our little bubble of the world, we need the idea reinforced that ownership of property is a privilege granted by society. It is not forever, and it is revokable. Ask the Utes.

Tony sends hearfelt good wishes to his cousin, Vickie Goodhard-Iseri, hanging on in Hawaii!