Steamboat Pilot & Today

ROPING IN RECYCLINGI attended the rodeo a few weeks ago and enjoyed it thoroughly until I couldn't recycle my empty Budweiser can. I don't mind paying three dollars or so for a can of Bud as I understand that the rodeo needs to make a profit, however, if they're gouge us they should at least have the courtesy of dealing with the cans properly. Also, while I'm sure the rodeo is not the only outfit in town guilty of this, most attendees are from out of town. Therefore, our landfill is being filled with something that could have been recycled, by people who don't even live here. While I am not advocating ruining our town, if the town is to be trashed, it should at least be done by its own residents. I like the old western traditions of the rodeo, but not recycling is one you "throw out."

Neill Redfern

Steamboat Springs

LIFE IS FRAGILEI was the fourth of five children. My mom "chose" to stay home for us until the last child was in high school. She still insisted she was right where she wanted and needed to be, waiting for us at the back door after school. She listened with great intensity to our stories, and always had a snack ready at the table. My experience is completely opposite of my own daughter. Being a single mom, I have always needed to work outside the home. She was welcomed after a long day at school by coaches and sitters who loved her with smiles and encouragement.

Now I am overwhelmed with the thought of children waiting for their mom or dad to come home from work. It is New York, where the pace is fast, but I am sure since Tuesday time stands still. I hope that family members have gotten the children safe, kept them from the TV, and listened with intensity to their fear and sadness.

I am so torn with grief for the evil that creeps into the heart of people, and yet I am certain of only one thing. Pray. We connect to those children by our cries of anguish for their new anguish for their new future. Our youth are the voice of what is to come. We must join in this fight for dignity with the lives left, by standing in the gap for their peace. Those of us with faith must give lavishly to those who have lost theirs. I hear people losing faith in America, systems and other people.

I encourage you to join me and pray five minutes a day for our youth, the ones immediately affected by the terrorism, and the others basing the future on our response as a nation. Oh, let us pray.

Peggy Mulvihill

Steamboat Springs

MOVING MEDICINEOn behalf of the staff at Kremmling Memorial Hospital District, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to all responsible for supplying a vital medication to a patient in need.

Thank you to troopers Ryan Parker, Gary Meirose and Charles Sanchez of the Colorado State Patrol, District 4B, for bringing the medication over Rabbit Ears Pass on a Friday (Sept. 7) night. Thank you to dispatcher Ruth Wade, communications supervisor, for coordinating the relay. Thank you to Gary Haberlin, director of the pharmacy at Yampa Valley Medical Center, for supplying the medication.

You are all heroes in our sight.

Rebecca Hall, DCS

Kremmling Memorial Hospital

EXPRESS YOURSELFThe attack in New York and Washington have been devastating. If you feel as we do that our children should be able to grow up in this wonderful, giant free nation then I challenge you to contact Washington, D.C. and your state representatives to express your feelings.

A real patriot that I ran into this week in Steamboat asked me if I had told my government my feelings. I told Robin Olds that I was going home to write to President Bush. I did, and received a response within the hour. The hi-tech medium that we all command gets our message home and to the point immediately.

Gay Bumby

Steamboat Springs

911

Black sky

Smoke

Pungent with the smell of death and insanity

Concrete, steel and dust

Ominously bury loss

Phones ring

With hope of an answer

Only to keep ringing

How many orphans were born today

How many sons & daughters

Will not call tomorrow

Must we eat anger

Swallow rage

Can we wait

For knowledge to justify reason

I join you in that fight

You, me, we, are changed

For today

If my hands were on the neck of those responsible

I could take their life and smile

Instead

I will inhale sorrow

And

Exhale compassion

For so many

Who suffer

So much

Kim Alessi

Steamboat Springs