New Year in Alternative, Colorado
Where the People Think of Other Things to Do
It’s New Year in Alternative.
Actually, New Year’s Eve in Alternative. I asked my kids how they wanted to
ring in the New Year and their response was, “What can we do?”
With that question, I decided to do
some investigating and had the kids walk with me through the town this evening.
We would have just Goggled to see what was going on, but Alternative is pretty
much off the grid. There is no town website, at least nothing that’s kept
current. Rick Marcus was the local IT guy who decided to give it a go by
putting a website up for the town. He did his best, he really did, but when he
would get something up about the town, the town would change what it wanted to
do, and the webpage would immediately be out of date. Rick tried to talk to the
Mayor about it, but the Mayor would just scratch his head and smile awkwardly
and shrug his shoulders, which would frustrate Rick to no end, and he would
throw up his hands and walk away.
The mayor, of course, would smile
slightly after Rick would walk away and turn to his assistant, Beth, and tell
her how he really didn’t want the town on the internet and how much he was
certain that others in town felt the same way.
Beth, of course, would head off to
the Women’s Winter Gardening Club where she would ask the group if they wanted
a website up and receive a mix of yes and no from her group, in between all of
them trying to figure out the best ways to grow herbs indoors and which ones
were the very best for healthy living. Then the group would talk about what
plants to bring to the New Year’s Eve celebration at the local high school,
where there would be a dance, refreshments courtesy of the city and a live
local band. Brad Corbet and the Ski Masks were going to be playing. When they
first started they actually wore ski masks but then realized quickly how
difficult it was to sing and be understood in ski masks. So I mentioned to my
kids that there was going to be a gathering at the school to which they nodded
and smiled and asked what else was going on.
We happened to run into Mary Jo
Sylvan, whose husband, Grover, named after Grover Cleveland and not the Sesame
Street character, belonged to the local Elks Club. Most of the time, Mary Jo
didn’t talk about what was going on at the club, but tonight she had to talk
about the gathering that they were putting on for ringing in the New Year. She
said that it was going to be a family event with a big screen TV tuned to
whatever station had the very best coverage of ringing in the New Year and
probably the ball drop from New York. Jake, down at the local cable company was
actually planning on having a special on channel 17 that would run all day and
show how countries around the world celebrate the New Year arriving, and the
Elks wanted to show that. After hearing that, my kids actually decided that
they wanted to celebrate ringing in the New Year in the last place that I
thought, at our house. So, we pulled up the local cable special, had sparkling
cider, made tons of finger foods and laughed, smiled and realized how lucky we
were as a family. Alternative was the best thing we’ve done, and I can’t wait
to see what adventures are coming this new year.
