A Rainy Day in Alternative, CO
Depending on the time of the year, people either love or
hate the rain in Alternative. At the beginning of spring, people tend to not
like it so much. It’s a flood or drought situation, and so the residents here
watch the winter to see how much snowfall there is in the mountains before
making their decisions on how they feel about the spring rains. This year,
there’s been a lot of snow in the mountains but not so much here in the plains
areas around Alternative. Since the Big Richardson River flows right through
the heart of town, a lot of snow in the mountains and a lot of rain in the
spring is a very bad combination, creating the possibility of floods in town.
The flooding only occurs in the center of town, but at the
outskirts where many of the farms are, it doesn’t flood, but it just becomes a
great and muddy mess. Harvey Johnson owns one of those farms and when he comes
into town to buy supplies, he spends hours complaining about how his plows are
just going to end up with either large clumps soil on the blades or furrows
that fill in immediately after the plow passes. He’d sit at the table by the
front door of the Farm and Ranch Supply store and talk to Gill, the store
manager. Gill would listen patiently but then point out that his house was one
block west of Center Street and in the flood plain.
When he first bought his house, no one told him about the
floods. Of course, it had been dry for a number of years and perhaps people
forgot about the flooding. Gill was thrilled about the location of the house
and loved the fact that he could see the river and hear the babbling from a few
blocks over. It wasn’t until he had lived in his home for two years until he
found out about the flooding. He found out when a storm moved in the first week
of April after a snowy mountain winter. The snows were melting with above
average temperatures. The river was swelling and the rains made it overflow its
banks. So when Gill took a step out of his front door, it was at the edge of
the river. Fortunately, the waters didn’t get any higher than that, but Gill
was spooked and now never knew when to expect a repeat. When he confronted Bart
Gilmore, the original owner of the house, Bart would only shrug his shoulders
and smile.
Bart really didn’t think about the flooding much. But it was
such a coincidence that after selling his house to Gill, Bart ended up moving
three miles to the west on a great lot by the lake where he could see the
fireworks every July from his back yard while bar-b-queuing for his
friends. His backyard was the
place to go in July as he had plenty of parking and always provided great food.
His wife, Justine, was one of the original settlers of Alternative. She loved
the little town and hoped to see it grow in her lifetime. And it did. She loved
it. She loved seeing and meeting new people. She had seen the floods come and
go. She’d seen her share of drought. She looked at the springtime as a change.
She loved the new flowers and the warmer weather. She would listen to the residents,
new and old, voice their opinion of the weather, and she would only smile and
nod, knowing that the weather is what it is and will do what it will each year.
But regardless of how the residents of Alternative felt
about the rain in the spring, they all agreed that the May flowers were the
best in the country, and that would make them all smile.
That’s what’s going on this week in Alternative, Colorado,
where people do things just a little differently.
