Just what is happening to our wonderful little town of Crestone?
(Post/blog made by Keno on Sept 14, 2021)

Remember back several years ago when I used to write my Mumbo Jumbo article for the Crestone Eagle? Well, the following is a special online edition of that old column, which I still write once in a blue moon at one of my other web sites from time to time. I just never linked to it at the Crestone Weather Site before, but this time I will, since this one is totally about Crestone and was written mainly only for our locals to read.

But before I get started here, I don’t normally believe in writing anything too negative, I always try to be as positive as I can be, even when writing, but what follows here is on the negative side of things. So, if you only wish to real about the wonders of life in our little town, what I have to say/write here isn’t for you to read. I have a very large domain with more than 10 different web sites, along with thousands of pages (yes, thousands, and that’s not an over-the-top estimate, just an accurate fact), and I know you can find mainly positive things on most of my domain’s other pages, including other mainly positive Mumbo Jumbo articles, that you will find on this 21-year-old domain.

Okay, so, are you like most of the locals around here who live in the Baca, but actually say to others who live out of town, that you live in Crestone? Now of course, if that’s the case for you, well, our post office box is still in Crestone, and that’s where many of us do our local shopping. Downtown Crestone is also a place where I like to walk around in, and where I greet old friends who I run into, like so many of our locals do each day, or at the least once a week. Of course, to locals I don’t have to say that I “live in Crestone” and can say instead “I live in the Baca”, and they know where’s that’s at. But try to tell a person from Alamosa, or Salida (or anyone else in Colorado, or elsewhere) that you live in the Baca, and they won’t have a clue as to where the Baca is! So, to those folks we say that we live in Crestone and if they live within an hour or so from here, they will at least know where Crestone is.

But anyway, I’ve had a few longtime friends here complain over the last 5 to 10 years, that town has been changing for the worst, and the folks who been moving in here during the last few years are not like the locals who used to live here, or the old-timers who have lived here forever. I would always say to such friends that isn’t true at all, and that I’ve met many new people who became fellow locals here in town, and I get along with everybody here and haven’t seen any of the rudeness that they have seen. I always felt that we had only good people living here. But while I still believe this overall, in the last 3 weeks I’ve had a couple of encounters in town that have gotten me to see and start to wonder just what is wrong with some of the newer locals who now are in town.

Now, one last disclaimer before I go on. I really have no way of knowing if both of the people who I’m about to write about, are new comers to town or not, since I don’t really know who they are and I’ve never seen either of them before. Both of them could have been out of towners who were just in town for the day, etc. But I’ll just go by these 2 very rude people as being new to town for argument’s sake (of course, with that stated, they could also have been long time residents who I was just lucky to have never run into before, but my guess is that isn’t the case).

Both rude encounters were very brief, and in both cases, these 2 rude people were in their vehicles, while in one case I was also in my car, and in the second case, I was walking around town. But with the first encounter, I’m half embarrassed by my own reaction to this jerk’s actions. This occurred 3 weeks ago on a Friday around noon. I had stopped at the post office to get my mail, before heading out of town for an appointment in Alamosa. So, after my visit to the post office, I drove down west Silver and stopped at the stop sign on the corner of Sliver and Cottonwood (you know, where the Cloud is located). As I was about to turn left to head out of town, a female driver already on Cottonwood heading south, drove right through the stop sign on her side of the street – totally without stopping - and without looking out for any traffic or for any pedestrians in the intersection. Had anybody been walking across the street at that same time, she would have run them over! The only good thing was she wasn’t speeding, but then, when she was three-quarters into the intersection, she slams on her brakes, stops, and just sits there. As it was, she wasn’t in the middle of the road, but more so on the right side of it, and I could see that she was talking to the passenger sitting next to her (perhaps arguing with her passenger, as she seemed annoyed and agitated). Anyway, she wasn’t moving at all at this point, just sitting in the road, but there was plenty of room for me to make my left hand turn and drive around her, which I did. Yes, I could have blown my horn to get this unhappy fool to move her car, but that isn’t like me, and I didn’t. After I passed her, I look in my rear-view mirror and she starts moving again, real fast, and gets right on my back bumper and blasts her horn at me without letting up!

Please note, I drive very little these days (I only put 3,000 miles on my car last year) and the last time I was involved in a road rage incident was – well, I can’t even tell you for sure, but it had to be something like 30 years ago. I’ll also point out that I’m a very slow driver. I’m sure that upsets some on the main highways since while the speed limit is 65 mph, and most in this neck of the woods drive 10 mph over that speed limit, well I drive at 55 mph - and rarely any faster. Yes, I’m that old hippie guy that you more than likely passed on Highway 17 more than once in the last several years. I’ve had friends say to me later on after they pass me driving slow on 17, something like: “Keno, we passed you on 17, you were driving so slow, were you okay, or was something wrong with your car?”. “I’m fine” is my reply, and I explain since I’m retired and I’m in no hurry to get anywhere, I drive slow most of the time, while taking my time and enjoying our beautiful views of the mountains as I drive. If the rest of you want to drive fast, well I totally understand and that’s just fine with me, but also dig the fact that I’m not breaking any traffic laws driving 55 mph on a 65-mph road, so please just let me be. I can’t see what the big deal is if I’m driving slowly, or why my otherwise loving grandson Cooper, keeps saying that he’s half embarrassed being in the car with me, since I drive so slowly (what he hates even more now, is in the last 3 years since he got his driver’s license, I let him drive for me when we head out of town together, since I hate driving, and yes, I make him drive 55 mph, too. It’s my car after all, and I just don’t care for speed). Hell, I even drove slow as a teen, back when I lived in and around New York City (where everybody else drives like a bat out of hell). I’ve just always been a slow driver and as an old man today, I’m sure not going to change.

But getting back to my first story about this rude local. As I noted above, after this woman stopped in the road and stopped moving, I did what anybody else would have done, and drove around her, which in turned caused her to blow her horn at me, but, she didn’t let up, after about 10 seconds of this nonsense, I let road rage get to me (I hate to even call it that, since I wasn’t in any rage, but she did make me unhappy, too) and so I then blasted my horn right back at her and I wasn’t going to stop until she stopped first. That’s just the way I am, while I’m a nice guy overall, if somebody does me wrong, I will react and hit back. She finally stopped blowing her damn horn and then so did I. While she was totally in the wrong, I felt later on like I was just as much in the wrong too, to do what I did, and it still bugs me to this day that I did what she did to me (as I joined her in disturbing the peace in our quiet town, and I apologize to anybody who had to hear that). Yet at the same time, a part of me knows I wasn’t totally in the wrong, too. I just don’t feel you should ever let a bully get away with being that way, and for my entire life, I’ve been that way towards such fools.

But that was nothing at all compared to what happened to me yesterday (Monday) while in town (as far as rudeness and bullies go). For the last 19 years that I’ve lived here, I almost never drove into town and instead, I just walked there, and usually when I do, I take the much longer mountain route/hike into town, avoiding the main road on my way into town so I can enjoy our mountains, and then when it’s time to hike back home, I will walk back along the side of the main road (most of time).The locals here have always been so cool that it seems that half the time somebody will see me walking and stop and ask me if I need a lift - and I’ve never been hitchhiking mind you (other than one time, about 15 years ago, when my foot was in a cast). But I rather walk into town, other than thanks to old age-related health issues of late, I actually was told by my cardiologist a few weeks ago that until they do more tests on me in the next month, that I need to stop hiking unless I’m on flat ground. As you all know, there isn’t any flat ground around here. So, while I could still walk into town from my home (which is about a mile and a half from downtown, one way) as that’s all downhill, coming back is uphill and well, I’ll listen to the doctor until I get the okay to start hiking again. So yesterday I had to drive into Crestone to check my mail and do some other business. I’m unlike some locals, who I see drive up to the post office, then they get back into their car and they drive next door to the credit union, and then after that, they drive 2 blocks over to the Merk, or a block south to the Cloud.  Well to each their own, but I just don’t get that. I just love to walk and at least while I’m downtown, I’m gonna walk around this small little town of ours. I’ll park my car at the post office and then walk around to wherever next that I might have to go to on that day.  So yesterday, after getting my mail, I put it back in my parked car, and walked over to the hardware store on east Galena - forgetting that it closes early and it was late afternoon. But no big deal, I’ve done that before. But before I got there, I saw an old friend on the other side of the street and crossed it to go say hello to her. As I was doing that, I could see up ahead this big white pickup truck pulling really fast out of one of the parking spots in front of the Merk, and thought to myself as I crossed the street, what fire is he on the way to? I was on the side of the road and almost done crossing, and mainly out of the road, when this idiot passes me, and he yells out to me very rudely: “Hey jackass, get out of the road!”. I couldn’t believe my ears! Why would this guy, whoever the crap he is, be so damn rude, and for no reason at all? This is Crestone after all and we don’t have such folks living here. But I guess that now today we do. Yet I do still have a right to use the road to cross the street, as the road isn’t there only for his giant pickup! As I walked up to my friend after this, she says to me what I’ve heard a bunch in the last few years around here from long time locals: “What the hell is our town turning into with these rude newcomers? He’s the asshole, not you!”, and for the first time in my 19 years of living here, I agreed totally with her statement that I’ve heard before but never believed. But after how this old hippie was treated in the last 3 weeks by 2 different younger people, I guess that statement is at least half true today after all.

I’m sorry, but back in ’02 when I moved here, and for many years thereafter, nothing like that would have ever have happened in Crestone. All the locals back then seemed to love each other, and up until 3 weeks ago I still felt that way about this/our town. But after what I’ve seen take place twice in 3 weeks to myself, I now ain’t at all too sure what’s going on around here. But while I may still look a bit younger than I am (and to me that’s a cuss, as I rather look my age), I’m still a senior today, and if a senior citizen can’t slowly walk across the street in downtown Crestone any longer these day without being called names by younger, rude low lives, well, what can I say, other than, I guess our town is changing for the worst.

Keno