G. Eldon Smith, Author
Like us on facebook
  • Home
  • About the Author
  • Books
  • Excerpts
  • Contact Us
  • Weekly Blog

My Colorado Thoughts

5/15/2022

 
Gold
Gold opens all locks. No lock will hold against the power of gold. -- George Herbert

The beauty about gold, though, is that in all states from uncertainty to conviction, it never for once gives up its luster. ― Ufuoma Apoki

The castle gates will always open for gold-laden donkeys. -- Russian Proverb

The desire for gold is the most universal and deeply rooted commercial instinct of the human race.
— Gerald M. Loeb

Pikes Peak or Bust
The Colorado Gold Rush was the greatest gold rush in American History. Twice the number of people were attracted to Colorado than those who started it all with the California Gold Rush of 1848. There had been rumors of gold in the Pike's Peak region. When it was definitely established there was gold in the mountains in the area that became known as Colorado the rush began. Around 100,000 immigrants started for the gold they expected to find scattered around the mountainside. Although less than half of that made it into the mountains, many stayed to populate the region that became Denver.

Picture

You Had Better Humor Him
I don't care who dies in a movie, as long as the dog lives.

The world's best antidepressant has 4 legs, a wagging tail and comes with unconditional love.

Love is how excited your dog gets when you come home.

All dogs are therapy dogs, most are just freelancing.

I've reached the age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me.

I really don't mind getting old, but my body is having a major fit.


NHL Playoffs
Colorado Avalanche vs. St. Louis Blues Second Round, at Denver 7:30 May 17 and 19 TNT and CBS. Every other day until one team has four wins. Games in St. Louis will appear in future Blogs. Good Luck to both teams, no injuries..
Picture
The Avalanche have played three regular season games against the Blues and won 2 of the 3. The Blues have nine players who score 20 or more goals this season. Ryan O'Reilly played for the Aves eons ago.and it did not help Nashville to have ex-avalanche Matthew Duchene on the team when they came to town. Sports writers rate Binnington of St. Louis and Kuemper for the Aves as even.

My Colorado Thoughts

5/8/2022

 
Quotes
The deep sea is the largest museum on earth, it contains more history than all the museums on land combined, and yet we're only now penetrating it.
Robert Ballard

Knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity. Our very survival may hinge upon it.
John F. Kennedy

When we return wild animals to nature, we merely return them to what is already theirs. For man cannot give wild animals freedom, they can only take it away.
Jacques Yves Cousteau

Deep Sea Mining
We actually know about the surface of Mars than we do about the bottom of the ocean. The little that is known is that there are exceedingly large ecosystems teeming with all sorts of animals and plants.

Mining corporations are lining up to get permission to set up deep sea mining operations on the ocean floor. They will use heavy machinery to extract minerals which will destroy sea life, plants and animals g and ancient  coral beds. Scientists are investigating the  possibility of mining contributing to climate change problems.

We still have time to stop international to stop deep sea mining before it starts. Many companies are refusing to use minerals and other material that were obtain from the ocean floor. The list includes: Volvo, BMW, Samsung, and Philips among numerals others. The growing group of companies voicing concerns to warn of the risks associated with deep sea mining also includes science and policy experts from forty-four counties.

Picture
Picture
Kremlin / Colorado Connection
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, of Pueblo, Colorado, was purchased by Evraz a company headquartered in London whose largest stockholder is Romanov Abravoich a Russian billionaire who is one of the oligarchs closest to Putin.

Abravoich, in 2008 paid $36 million for a 12,900 square-foot Snowmass, Colorado home. (13 bathrooms)
Additionally he bought a nearby property. It is estimated that the two properties combined would sell for 
$42 million.  Another Russian friend and fellow Evraz stockholder owns a Snowmass home worth $51 million.

One day of skiing at Snowmass costs $179 for the ski lift ticket. It is obvious who can afford to ski there.
 
Dearly Beloved
At my funeral, take the bouquet off my coffin and throw it into the crowd to see who is next.
I thought growing old would take longer.
Scientists say the universe is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. They forgot to mention morons




Picture

My Colorado Thoughts

5/7/2022

 
              Happy Mother's Day
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

May 06th, 2022

5/6/2022

 

My Colorado Thoughts

5/1/2022

 
Picture












Eagles
After nearly disappearing from most of the United States decades ago, the bald eagle is now flourishing across the nation.  Since the bald eagle was fully listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the number of nesting bald eagle pairs and productivity (number of young fledged per nest) have been monitored throughout the lower 48 states.

On August 9, 2007, the bald eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. Bald eagles in the lower 48 states have climbed
from an all-time low of 417 nesting pairs in 1963 to an estimated 7,000 breeding pairs today.

During early
settlement, the eagle and other birds of prey were generally considered “varmints” because they competed with people for use of fish and game species. In addition, the proliferation of pesticides like DDT following World War II created a poisonous environment for raptors. DDT was passed along the food chain from fish and other organisms to bald eagles. The concentrated chemicals in their bodies caused their eggshells to become so thin that incubation crushed the shells. The eventual recovery of the bald eagle has become a conservation success story.


Colorado Eagle Cam
Eagles usually lay eggs in mid-February, the eggs hatch in late March to early April, and the young fledge in June. What does the Fort St. Vrain bald eagle site look like? The eagles' nest (FSV-N0) is 9 x 8 feet wide, eight feet high, and 57 feet off the ground. It has a perimeter of about 26 feet, a total area of about 56 feet, and probably weighs between 2200 and 2700 pounds! The nest is located in a cottonwood on the banks of the St. Vrain River near Platteville, CO
Click the stream to watch the Fort St. Vrain eagles live!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSa-dis7G2I

Sports
Denver Broncos draft Nik Bonitto Outside Linebacker, University of Oklahoma
Colorado Avalanche prepare to start the playoffs Tuesday May 3 versus Nashville Predators
Denver Rockies have series against Cincinnati and Washington this week
Colorado Rapids play two games San Jose May 7 and Minnesota May 11. Lots of soccer

Football is a game of inches and Soccer is a game of feet.

My Colorado Thoughts

4/24/2022

 
Quotes
"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men."― Emmanuel Kant.
"If we can't be cordial to these creatures' fleece, I think that we deserve to freeze."
― Marianne Moore, 'Complete Poems'.

"Intelligence is the ability of a species to live in harmony with its environment." ― Paul Watson.
"It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions." --Mark Twain.

Compassion Fatigue
Those people involved in the animal welfare or conservation fields might feel something like disenfranchised grief, which is grieving a loss that society doesn't recognize as real. For example, grieving for animals killed in factory farms or dogs rescued from puppy mills needing special care to manage their trauma.

"I don't know how people would be able to perform their job if they couldn't compartmentalize their emotions and their work...It's a tough muscle to flex" -Whitney Teamus, The Humane Society of United States.

Here are some tips for building psychological resiliency
.
Feel: Acknowledge that your feelings are real and valid
Talk: Release and process those feelings and determine your capacity to act on them.
Unite: Connect with like-minded people through advocacy groups, or volunteer networks, etc.
Act: Find ways to act on what you care about m
ost.
Breathe: Experts recommend exercise, meditation, and taking a break to help quiet your mind. 

All Animals spring 2022 the Humane Society of the United States


Spring is Sprung
Picture
Picture
 



       and the springtime hills
     are covered with daffodils


Picture
   



  The sky that drips


Picture
 



           Brings us
                       Crocuses
                               Hyacinths
                                            and
                                                Two lips


My Colorado Thoughts

4/17/2022

 
Quotes
“If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn’t done anything?”
– Ellen DeGeneres

The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” – Jeremy Bentham

“Murderers … very often start out by killing and torturing animals as kids.” – Robert K. Ressler

“No one in the world needs a mink coat but a mink.” – Murray Banks

Bear With Me
Bear bile is taken from live bears' gallbladder. The demand for bear bile is driven by the belief that it has medicinal qualities. Bear bile use is common in traditional Chinese medicine, as well as ordinary household products and cosmetics like shampoo and toothpaste.
Picture
Picture

-Bile farms are against the law in Viet Nam but they exist there, Bile farms are legal in China where many are owned by large cosmetic companies. Most farmed bears are kept permanently in cages, sometimes so small that they are unable to turn around or stand on all fours.Some bears are caged as cubs and never released, with many kept caged for up to 30 years.

Bear's bile is extracted using various invasive techniques, all of which cause severe suffering, pain and infection. The method claimed to be the most 'humane' by bile farmers, is 'free-drip' method, where bears undergo surgery to create a permanent open passage from their gallbladder through their abdomen


Don't treat animals as animals, treat them as living beings because that is what they are. -Author Unknown


Easter Means Spring

Picture

My Colorado Thoughts

4/10/2022

 
Picture
Quote
You'd think it would be easy to persuade people to protect prairie dogs. Not only are they a keystone species, with nine other species directly dependent on them for survival, but they're also irresistibly cute, with big eyes and big personalities. ~Lindsey Sterling Krank, ALL ANIMALS, The Humane Society

Colorado Prairie Dogs
Colorado is home to three prairie dog species: the black-tailed, white-tailed, and Gunnison’s prairie dog. Although there are similarities among the species, each is unique in its habitat requirements, and social and conservation needs. Concern about prairie dog populations stem from apparent declines in distribution caused by multiple factors, but most notably plague which is a non-native disease spread by fleas.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) health and research teams have made amazing strides in developing a plague vaccine for prairie dogs and CPW uses a dust insecticide to reduce flea densities on prairie dog colonies to protect against plague outbreaks in important conservation areas.

The Human Society wild life protection director Lindsey Sterling Krank and her team spent three months relocating, trapping, and digging artificial burrows. By the end of the project, the team had saved 557 prairie dogs. Roughly a dozen Prairie Dogs escaped because they could not be caught at Sterling Krank's site in Boulder, Colorado. Across the planet over two-thirds of wildlife have been lost in the last 50 years.

How can we try to save animals without breaking our own hearts?  ~Lindsey Sterling Krank 














Excerpt
From Two Miles High and Six Feet Under
"In spite of all the bad things I've said about Leadville, some nice people live here," Sarah said."They came together to build the Ice Palace. Just for the joy of saying , "Look at what we built. It will all be gone in the spring, but for now look at what we did."

"The world has never seen anything  like it," Sarah laughed. "The people are proud of what they accomplished. and they should be. We shouldn't let a few bad apples ruin what the town built.

Double click on Link

www.amazon.com/Two-Miles-High-Feet-Under/dp/1478789565/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TB313MK5GX1U&keywords=Two+Miles+High+and+Six+Feet+Under&qid=1649537764&sprefix=two+miles+high+and+six+feet+under%2Caps%2C331&sr=8-1

My Colorado Thoughts

4/3/2022

 
What's In a Name?
There are mountains, valleys, creeks, lakes, and other physical landmarks, 800 of them, that have one thing in common, they all have the word "squaw" in their names. -taken from Sierra Magazine

It is commonly thought that squaw is an American Indian word for woman. In fact, some language scientists say squaw is an Algonquin word for woman. It is said that squaw is an inarguable slur directed at Indigenous women. Over the centuries it has become a means of using language to demean.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland vowed to change that. Haaland announced her intention to create a formal process to review and replace derogatory place-names. She also officially classified squaw as offensive and created a federal task force to find names. "Racist terms have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands."

In my 80+ years I have never heard squaw used in a derogatory sense. I personally don't even think about a woman of any kind when I hear it. To me it is just a name

I am left handed but I am not offended when a pitcher is called a Southpaw while a right handed pitcher is right handed as in right meaning correct. In the far-east I was call a Yankee, which I suppose was meant as demeaning, but I took it as a fact of life.

Mount Evans is a different story. The mountain was named after John Evans who was the Governor of Colorado in 1864 and was rumored to have ordered the Sand Creek Massacre. At the very least his policies toward the Native American contributed to the massacre. 750 volunteers attacked a village of peaceful Indians who had followed Evans'  orders explicitly.  The cavalry murdered 28 unarmed men and 105 women, children, and old men who were too old to fight.

Colorado is now thinking of whose name should be on the mountain that looms over Denver. It should not be John Evans. In that case the name does make a difference.

Old Class Image
A friend of mine was going through some old pictures. He is not sure who everyone is, but he is 99% sure that it is me in the back row, on the right end.




Picture

My Colorado Thoughts

3/27/2022

 
Quotes
My other car is a Zamboni.
Four out of five dentists surveyed recommended playing hockey.
Ice hockey players can walk on water.
Hockey players wear numbers because you can’t always identify the body with dental records.


University of Denver Hockey

Picture
A fast body-contact game played by men with clubs in their hands and knives laced to their feet.
  ~Paul Gallico

In the early days, Denver had a metro system of cable cars run by overhead electrical wires. Other Colorado colleges referred to University of Denver as Tramway Tech. The University of Denver had a football and a hockey team up until the last 50s. Then dropped the football team for financial reasons and concentrated on the hockey team.

The DU hockey team to off with the hiring Murray Armstrong in 1957. Armstrong came to DU and guaranteed an NCAA title within three years, and did it in his second year. The team, using Armstrong's coaching pipeline to ex-Junior players in Canada, took a year to get going, but  won the NCAA title in
1958.

The Pioneers are tied with North Dakota for second in all-time NCAA National Hockey Championships with eight (1958, 1960, 1961, 1968, 1969, 2004, 2005, 2017) trailing only Michigan with nine. The Pioneers are tied with North Dakota for second in all-time NCAA National Hockey Championships with eight (1958, 1960, 1961, 1968, 1969, 2004, 2005, 2017) trailing only Michigan with nine.

The most famous hockey alumni is Peter McNabb. He enjoyed the best years of his NHL career in Boston, scoring at least 35 goals and 75 points six seasons in a row and playing in the 1977 NHL All-Star Game. He twice scored a playoff overtime winning goal. McNabb appeared in 954 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season games between 1973 and 1987.

McNabb is the color commentator for the Colorado Avalanche since the inaugural 1995–96 season..In the 2022 season he missed some out of town games while taking cancer treatments. He had been cured at least for now.

University of Denver Women
In case one gets the impression University of Denver is all about ice hockey. it's most famous alumnae include Professor Madeleine Allbright (recently deceased,) Condoleezza Rice, and Mary Claire Cheney


<<Previous
Forward>>

    G. Eldon Smith author/blogger
    I write historical mysteries set in Colorado in 1890s.

    All

Web Hosting by iPage
Photos from Tyler Merbler, Roby Ferrari, waldopics, Chronic Wanderlust, joncutrer