Quotes
It's impossible to explain creativity. It's like asking a bird, 'How do you fly?' You just do.
~`Eric Jerome Dickey

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest. ~Josiah Gilbert Holland

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. Salvador Dali

What is a fish without a river? What is a bird without a tree to nest in? What is an Endangered Species Act without any enforcement mechanism to ensure their habitat is protected? It is nothing. Jay Inslee

Birds of the Feather
Some birds are coming back after a winter in warmer places. Some of those will continue going north to build their nests. Some never left; somehow, they can survive the snow and subzero temperatures. They are the ones I like the best.

Chico Basin
Chico Basin is large open area southeast of Colorado Springs. It is semi-arid and has become a natural sanctuary for many species of birds and other wildlife. It is controlled by the State Land Board. The Land Board has raised money for schools by leasing oil and gas drilling on public lands. There is pressure to lease Chico Basin land.

When Land Board Officials  initiated preparing for a change in Chico requirements and qualifications for leasing at Chico Basin, the Audubon Society of Colorado Springs notified every bird watcher in the whole state. Some State Land officials are in favor of big changes because times have changed. "It feels like they're trying to maximize the financial side."

Standley Lake Hatching
The Standley Lake Eagle Cam Facebook group has been waiting five weeks for the big event. Eagles have been nesting there since 1993.  Last year a pair of bald eagles (nicknamed  Mom and Dad) had one egg hatch but that eaglet died. In April of 2020 another female showed up and chased Mom away. At first Dad did not get along well with the new female. Eventually Dad and the new female showed signs of mating and the female laid three eggs. These are the eggs the Standley Lake Eagle Cam group is watching through an eagle cam.

Sandhill Cranes
Each spring the Sandhill Cranes leave Mexico and extreme southern U.S states and migrate to the Yellowstone area. Some Cranes go as far as into Canada. The town of Monte Vista, Colorado has an annual festival on March 12 to invite visitors. The whole month of March sees flocks of Cranes coming and going but the middle of the month (March 12) has the best odds of seeing large numbers of Cranes.

Speaking of large numbers, 25,000 birds are expected in the San Luis Valley. The Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge is the central part of the Valley. One can image the noise thousands of big birds can make. The Cranes stand about four feet tall.

Monte Vista is already planning on March 2022 when the pandemic is over and the festival is going strong.

YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS
A chemist walks into a pharmacy and asks the pharmacist, “Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?”
“You mean aspirin?” asked the pharmacist.
“That’s it! I can never remember that word.”

OR
A frog telephones the Psychic Hotline. His Personal Psychic Advisor tells him, “You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you.”
The frog is thrilled! “This is great! Will I meet her at a party?”
“No,” says his advisor, “in her biology class.”

ONE MORE TRY
You can never trust atoms because they make up everything.

Nobel Prize Winner CU Connections
Jennifer Doudna was born February 19, 1964, in Washington, D.C. Her father received his PhD in English literature from the University of Michigan. When Doudna was seven years old, the family moved to Hawaii so her father could accept a teaching position in American literature at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Doudna earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry at Pomona College in Claremont, California in  1985. She chose Harvard Medical School for her doctoral study and earned a PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in 1989. After her PhD, she held research fellowships in molecular biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

From 1991 to 1994 she was Lucille P. Markey Postdoctoral Scholar in Biomedical Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. While a postdoctoral researcher at the CU, Doudna met Jamie Cate, then a graduate student; they worked together on the project to crystallize and determine the structure of the Tetrahymena Group. They married and they both accepted faculty positions at University of California Berkeley and moved there together. Cate is currently a UC Berkeley professor and works on gene-editing yeast  Their son is now attending UC Berkey.

Doudna learned that she and her colleague, Emmanuelle Charpentier won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in a phone call at 2:53 a.m. October 7, 2020. With Charpentier, a French microbiologist their work with CRISPR earned a Nobel in science. It was the first time the Nobel had been awarded to two women working together in science. Her first remark upon hearing the news, " Guess what? I just won the Nobel Prize," she laughed. "You don't hear that every morning."

from Coloradan Alumni Magazine Spring 2021

Colorado Football History
Dick and Bobby Anderson both grew up in Boulder and played in High School Football for Boulder High.
 
Dick played college football for the Colorado Buffaloes, and was recognized as a consensus All-American.
He set a Buffaloes school record with 14 career interceptions He was drafted by the Dolphins in the third round of 1968 AFL Draft.

In his first year he was named the league defensive rookie of the year. He was a three-time Pro Bowler in 1972, 1973 in which he was NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and in 1974 in which he was one of the leaders of the Dolphins well known No Name Defense.

After retirement, Anderson became a successful businessman and a Florida state senator. In 1993, he was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Younger brother, Bobby, played quarterback for the CU Buffaloes 1967 to 1969. He was the Buffaloes' dual-threat as a running quarterback during his sophomore and junior seasons, and led the team in both rushing and passing. His senior year, CU played in the Liberty Bowl, where Bobby rushed for a bowl record 254 yards and three touchdowns in a 47–33 victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide. Following his senior season, Anderson was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American.

The Denver Broncos selected Anderson in the first round (eleventh pick overall) of the 1970 NFL Draft. In  professional football, Bobby converted to be a full time halfback. He played for the Broncos from 1970 to 1973. He played a final NFL season in 1975, splitting the year between the New England Patriots and Washington Redskins. In five NFL seasons, Anderson played in fifty-three games.

"Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” –Lou Holtz.

           Bobby  and Dick Anderson (right side)

Quotes
"The cocks may crow, but it’s the hen that lays the egg."
-- Margaret Thatcher

“Why does a woman work ten years to change a man, then complain he's not the man she married?”
― Barbra Streisand

“I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.”
― Stanley Baldwin

“A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.”
― Charles Dickens

“Women need to feel loved and men need to feel needed.”
― Rita Mae Brown,

Women's History Month
In Horace Tabor's romance with Baby Doe, Augusta Tabor was the odd person out.

Young Tabor went to work for stonecutter, William Pierce, and met Pierce's daughter Augusta. After two years of courting, they were married in 1857. A month later they moved to Kansas to try farming. Augusta gave birth to Nathaniel Maxcy Tabor. In spite of their success in farming, the lure of Pikes Peak gold was too great and the Tabors moved to the Colorado Springs area.

Rumors of gold strikes, and cold weather, caused them to move to Golden, Denver, and Idaho Springs. In Idaho Springs Augusta established a bakery selling pies and bread, She took in laundry  and cared for sick miners, while Tabor prospected for gold. They moved around Colorado until they settled in Ora City in the Leadville area. Augusta operated the store and post office. Horace sold mining equipment and grubstaked prospectors for a share of whatever they found.

Two prospectors  visited the Tabors’ store in April 1878. Horace grubstaked them, and the prospectors discovered a rich silver lode that became the Little Pittsburgh Mine. Soon the mine was producing around $10,000 per day. Later Horace  sold his one-third share of the Little Pittsburgh and used the proceeds to buy the Chrysolite and Matchless Mines, which made the Tabors millions of dollars.

In January 1879 the couple bought a mansion in Denver, but soon they spent more time apart than together.  Horace had moved out of the Denver mansion, where Augusta continued to live, and was spending his time at the Windsor Hotel, where he carried on an affair with a beautiful young divorcée named Elizabeth McCourt  Doe, also known as “Baby Doe.” That is another story.

 Augusta charged Horace with desertion, and  the case dragged on throughout the year. Finally, toward the end of 1882, Horace pressed Augusta for a divorce, which was finalized in January 1883. Even though Augusta had played a huge role in earning the Tabors’ fortune, she received only a small portion of it. She got two properties valued at $250,000 out of an estate worth several million dollars.

After the divorce, Augusta lived a quiet life but she did not withdraw from society. Instead, she became deeply involved in business and philanthropy. Shrewd investments in Colorado and New Mexico properties restored her former wealth.

Augusta developed a cough. Hoping that warmer weather would improve her health over the winter months, Augusta traveled to Pasadena, California. Unfortunately, the cough worsened as a case of bronchitis developed into pneumonia. Augusta died on January 30, 1895, at the age of sixty-two.

 

Now that's a rich one
Just remember this if you ever feel poor: You're closer to being a millionaire than Jeff Bezos ever will be.

I wanted to impress my crush, so I told her about my millionaire dad, now she is my mom.

I'm almost a millionaire! I have all the zeros, just looking for the one.

I want to be a millionaire just like my dad!!
“Wow, your dad’s a millionaire?”
“No, but he always wanted to be.”

Quotes
To learn true humility get married. All the time you were courting you put your best foot forward. You can,t do that after years of living together. You burp, fart, and when you have a cold you get a snotty nose, you don't pick up your dirty clothes...and you are told about it,  ~G. Eldon Smith

Women's History Month
Jean Dubofsky earned an undergraduate degree from Stanford and a law degree from Harvard. She spent two years as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. After two years she left Washington to become an attorney for Colorado Rural Legal Services in 1969.


As director of law reform for Colorado Rural Legal Services, Dubofsky won a case in the Tenth Circuit that enforced the availability of free or low-cost hospital services for low-income people. In 1975, Dubofsky was appointed Deputy Attorney General for Colorado.

In 1979, she became the first woman and the youngest person to become a Colorado Supreme Court Justice. While on the bench she wrote several hundred opinions for the court,  She will be probably be remembered for being the lead attorney in the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Colorado’s Amendment 2, which prevented gays and lesbians from obtaining redress for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

American Civil Liberties Union Carle Whitehead Memorial Award for "exceptional commitment and dedication to civil liberties and the state of Colorado", 1993
Inducted to the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2008. She was nominated by The Colorado Women’s Bar Association and Dr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Mark Vasil


Colorado State Animal

The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.
~ Jim Fowler

All over the world the wildlife that I write about is in grave danger. It is being exterminated by what we call the progress of civilization.  ~Gerald Durrell

Well, my son really loves wildlife. And every time he draws a polar bear I want to tell him there probably won't any by the time... he's my age. That's kinda hard to deal with.  ~Thom Yorke

Daylight savings time, spring blizzard, changing from last week's blog to this week's new blog, all of this change is too unsettling for me to keep up. Besides I lost an hour of sleep. ~G. Eldon Smith

Quotes
"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."
-.Henry David Thoreau

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." -John Muir

"We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." —Native American proverb

“That little owl with a call as steady as my heartbeat was telling anyone who would listen, ‘I am here.’ We were listening. We’re listening still.” - Heather Durham,

"Last week some of my Facebook posts and Twitter Tweets had pictures of starving Polar Bears. I wanted people to see and understand how horrible it is to starve to death. Starving is one of the worst ways to die."  
-G. Eldon Smith

Protected Land
In Douglas County, Colorado, Douglas Land Conservancy increased their list of conservation land by more than 2,500 acres. A partnership of Douglas County, Great Outdoors Colorado, and Chatfield Reservoir Mitigation Company combined to obtain Sandstone Ranch and the Schmidt property.

Douglas Land Conservancy Executive Director, Patti Hostetler said, "Douglas Land Conservancy is honored to continue fulfilling its job as a conservation partner to Douglas County, ensuring Sandstone Ranch and the Schmidt property will always remain as protected open spaces and provide a great public benefit for many generations to come." Setting land aside for a protected area is significant because Douglas County is one of the fastest growing counties in the county.

DLC continues its efforts to obtain other conservation projects and to open land for hiking and other public outdoor recreational activities.

        Sandstone Ranch:The outcropping in the background is called Punch and Judy.

Funny side up
The leopard couldn't play "hide and go seek" because he was always spotted.
The best way to count cows is to use a cowculator.
Frogs are always so happy because they eat what ever bugs them.
(and they wear open-toad shoes)

El Chapultepec
When there were musical concerts in the city, after the concert the musicians went to Denver's jazz headquarters bar, El Chapultepec. Opened in 1933 the Pec, as it was known in cool circles, was open nightly until the COVID Pandemic shut it down in 2020. It is now permanently closed. Some of the names that played there included: Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett, Winton Marcellus, Freddie Rodriguez and Doc Severson.

Historical Mystery
Two Miles High and Six Feet Under, A Tale of Leadville, Colorado, Elevation 19,152.
Rough and tough Leadville, Colorado, a story with a soft side, but most of all a good mystery from 1896.

www.amazon.com/s?k=Two+Miles+High+and+Six+Feet+Under&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

 Quotes
“Wild animals are less wild and more human than many humans of this world”
― Munia Khan

“The End of Every Wildlife is the Same, a PREY and the End of Every Human Life is the Same, a PRAY”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar “

"The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must and we will"
---. Theodore Roosevelt

There is just something spectacular about seeing wildlife in its natural environment that thrills us and helps us better understand the exotic cats in our care.-- Arun Kejriwal

Reintroducing Nature
The Colorado State Legislature is talking about reopening an old wound that won't heal. The reintroducing of wolves in Colorado was placed on the ballot last election. The vote was"YES" let the wolves claim their part of nature.

A legislator from an architectural part of the state responded, "Let the wolves live in the counties that voted to reintroduce wolves. The counties that voted for reintroduction; Denver, Boulder, and such' have city people who don't have any stake in the game." Maybe?? Don't forget that if all the city folk came to live in your peaceful place, you would have traffic, congestion, crime, and school shootings. Living with nature is the price you  pay for your solitude and wolves are a part of nature.

Churchill, Manitoba, Canada is definitely not in Colorado. People in Colorado need to be concerned about what is happening in Churchill because it is a preview of what will happen here if we do not take measures to slow climate change. The ice flow around Hudson Bay, Alaska, and Northern Canada is melting even faster than other parts of the world.

Polar Bears use the ice fields as hunting grounds to stalk and prey on seals that come ashore. Habitat and food sources are disappearing for the polar bears. Western Hudson is particularly troubled because the bear population in the 19'90s has fallen from roughly 1,200 polar bears to about 8,000 bears.Studies estimate the polar bear population will shrink by 30%, and  there’s a chance, but a lower probability, the bear pulation could decline by 50%  by 2050.
    
We need to care because humans may come next.

He Who Laughs Last
(probably didn't really get the joke)

What did the trees wear to the pool party?
Swimming trunks

How do you properly identify a dogwood tree?
By its bark

What do you call the seagulls that live by the Bay?
Bagels

Did you hear about the racing snail who got rid of his shell?  He thought it would make him faster, but it just made him sluggish
.
As the beaver say to the tree, "It’s been nice gnawing you."

Two Miles High and Six Feet Under
a historical/mystery on Amazon and Kindlle you'll enjoy it. Please click on the link below.
www.amazon.com/Two-Miles-High-Feet-Under/dp/1478789565/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511390381&sr=1-1&Keywords=two+miles+high+and+six+feet+under
by G. Eldon Smith

Quote
The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood. ~ Douglas Adams 

The Flood of 1864
Arapahoe Chief, Little Raven tried to warn the newcomers to Denver of the signs of rising water in the otherwise nearly-dry Cherry Creek. Denverites ignored the warnings. They laughed at the Indians for setting up their teepees so far away from the water supply.

The town of Denver was built on the banks  of Cherry Creek where it joins the South Platte River. The first deposits of Colorado gold were found there. On the opposite bank stood Auraria the twin city of Denver.

May 19, 1864 the twin towns were sleeping. After midnight the creek suddenly became an angry roaring torrent that exercised its long-reserved powers of devastation without warning. It swept down upon and through the town through the collection of dwellings, saloons and business establishments that stood directly in it its course. Daylight on the morning of the 20th revealed the extent of the destruction.
Although both sides of Cherry Creek were devastated by the raging waters, the Auraria side of the creek was crippled due to a lethal disadvantage—a much lower elevation. The next morning, Auraria was still covered in several feet of water and some residents had to be rescued by boat.


At least eight people were known to have been killed in the flood, though the exact number was never known for certain. Reports of two separate incidences of women and children being swept to their deaths in the flood in Plum Creek and another group "some distance above the town." One lucky woman was pulled in the torrent, but somehow managed to pull herself out and was discovered a full eighteen miles downstream from Denver. 


William N. Byers, ignoring the Arapaho advice, constructed the building for the Rocky Mountain News the Colorado Territory’s first newspaper – on stilts in the bed of Cherry Creek. Legend has it he chose that location to express his commitment to both of the rival towns of Auraria and Denver City. Never-the-less the building, printing press and all, was swept away. In this case, "no news was bad news."

Compiled from Denver historian Jerome Smiley in his 1901 book History of Denver. also from  historian
Tom Noel in the Denver Post.

First Afro-American Mayor of Denver
Wellington Webb is a graduate of Denver's Manual High School. At 6'5" Webb was an all-conference basketball player at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colorado, in 1960. He obtained his B.A. in sociology from Colorado State College (now University of Northern Colorado} in 1964 and his M.A. in sociology from the same school in 1971.

Webb served as mayor of Denver for 12 years, from 1991 to 2003. One highlight of his years in office was the South Platte River Corridor Project, involving commercial and residential redevelopment, as well as reclamation of park land, along the South Platte River (see Platte River in the story above) in central Denver. He was also mayor at the time of the completion of Denver International Airport, started by his predecessor, Federico Peña.


Laugh With Us (but not at us)
I've always had an irrational fear of speed bumps 
              but I'm slowly getting over it.
 
What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it? Short.
 
I've finally told my suitcases there will be no holiday this year. 
         Now I'm dealing with the emotional baggage.
 
If you're not supposed to eat at night, why is there a light bulb 
          in the refrigerator?
 
My dad died when we couldn't remember his blood type. 
      As he died, he kept insisting "be positive," but it's hard without him.
 

James Beckwourth
Colorado's first Black Mountain Man. James was born into slavery in Virginia. He was freed by his white father (and master), James was  apprenticed to a blacksmith because his father wanted him to  learn a trade.

Beckwourth was let go from his apprenticeship after having a fight with his boss. As a young man, Beckwourth joined Gen. William Ashley's Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He worked as a wrangler during Ashley's expedition to explore the Rocky Mountains. In the following years, Beckwourth became known as a prominent trapper and mountain man.

He stayed with the Crow tribe for several years as planned by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to advance its trade with the Indians. Beckwourth married the daughter of a chief. Marriages between Native Americans and fur trappers and traders were common. Both parties tended to benefit from these alliance.

In 1840, he moved to the Bent & St. Vrain Company. The Bent brothers built Fort Bent on the Arkansas River. Later that same year, Beckwourth became an independent trader. Together with other partners, he built a trading post in Colorado. It was the center of development of the community of Pueblo, Colorado.

In 1859, Beckwourth returned to Missouri briefly, but settled later that year in Denver, Colorado Territory. He was a storekeeper working again for Louis Vasquez and was appointed as a local US agent for Indian affairs. In 1864, Beckwourth was hired as a scout, by Colonel John M. Chivington. The Colorado Territory campaign resulted in the Sand Creek Massacre, in which the hostile militia killed an estimated 70-163 friendly Cheyenne men, women and children, who had camped in an area suggested by the previous commander of Fort Lyon as a safe place and they were flying an American flag to show their peaceful intentions. Outraged by his association with the massacre, the Cheyenne banned Beckwourth from trading with them.

James Bedkwourth died in a Crow village while on a scouting assignment and is buried in a Crow graveyard in Laramie, Wyoming.

Good Reading
Two Miles High and Six Feet Under
Murder in the Rockies

www.amazon.com/s?k=Two+Miles+High+and+Six+Feet+Under&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

www.amazon.com/Murder-Rockies-Andrew-Coyle-Eldon/dp/1938467701

Andrew Coyle historical mysteries set in Denver 1883 and Leadville 1896
On Amazon, Kindle and in fine bookstores

Funny Side Up
A diplomat is someone who remembers a woman's birthday and forgets her age.

I told my four year old that sometimes it is normal to poop in your pants, but its nothing to get embarrassed about, but he still teases me.

In Honor of Black History Month
During World War II there was a a group of primarily African-American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and support airmen who fought as "The Tuskegee Airmen." All black military pilots who trained in the United States trained at various Army Air Corps fields near and around Tuskegee, Alabama. 

In June 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group began flying heavy bomber escort missions and, in July 1944, with the addition of the 99th Fighter Squadron, it had four fighter squadrons.They  most commonly flew the North American P-51 Mustang. When the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group painted the tails of their P-51s red, the nickname "Red Tails" was born. The red markings that distinguished the Tuskegee Airmen included red bands on the noses of P-51s as well as a red rudder.

Tuskegee Military Accomplishments
* 578 combat missions,179 bomber escort missions, with a good record of protection, losing bombers on only seven missions
* 950 rail cars, trucks and other motor vehicles destroyed
* 40 boats and barges destroyed

In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1941–1946. 355 were deployed overseas, and 84 lost their lives. The toll included 68 pilots killed in action or accidents, 12 killed in training and non-combat missions and 32 captured as prisoners of war.

The Army Air Corps evolved into a separate integrated branch of service and became the U.S. Air Force.

The Colorado Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen's principle mission is to honor the history of the first black service men of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Centennial Airport, Centennial, Colorado, donated a large grant to the Chapter of Tuskegee Airman to aid their primary project of getting youngsters interested in careers in aviation.

You Don't Say
The best way to get back on your feet is to miss two car payments.

Henry O. Wagoner
In Maryland, Henry O. Wagoner worked with the underground railroad. Suspicions arose in Maryland so he fled to Ontario for a couple of years until he moved to Illinois to renew his abolitionist activities. Eventually he moved to Chicago where he met and became friends with a run-away slave named Barney Ford.

After the Civil War, Wagoner moved to Denver and reunited with his old friend Barney Ford. He continued to be a leader in Denver, working to secure blacks the right to vote and equality in education and under the law.

His son Lewis taught reading, writing, and other subjects to adult blacks in Wagoner's home until the Denver school board approved a segregated school building in 1867 and integrated public schools in 1873. Wagoner also operated a saloon and restaurant and in 1870 was estimated to be the wealthiest black in the Denver according to the census.

As editor of The Denver Star, Wagoner argued for civil rights, speaking out against Supreme Court decisions in the Civil Rights Cases in 1883 and in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896

He died in his home in 1901 at the age of 95.

Famous Last Words
Recommended Reading: Murder in the Rockies and the sequel Two Miles High and Six Feet Under
www.amazon.com/s?k=Two+Miles+High+and+Six+Feet+Under&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

www.amazon.com/Murder-Rockies-Andrew-Coyle-Eldon/dp/1938467701