The topic for the Gunnison,
Colo., master-plan meeting not long ago was “community culture,”
and the rambles of that discussion have been lurking in my mind
ever since. The talk went fast to complaints about a really junky
property on the west approach to town, a collection of shacks and
sheds with stuff lying around. From laments about the impression
this created for visitors, the discussion broadened to a general
lament about other “eyesores” around town, and the difficulty of
getting such places cleaned up despite a city ordinance enabling
the city to clean up messes and bill the owner.
You might
gather that tidiness and a pretty appearance are high on the list
of qualities we care about in this college town. But this does
nothing to explain that, for the four decades I have been living in
or near Gunnison, that same collection of shacks and junk has been
rotting away. That property was probably the poster display for
those citizens pushing the anti-mess ordinance when it was passed
sometime last century. So, if it is our community culture to
maintain a neat and clean property, why do we have these eyesores?
I have an answer that comes out of a brush with that law.
Back when I was still hanging onto middle-class origins by my
fingernails, I had two vehicles awaiting repair in my yard: a
classic 1941 Jeep pickup that wouldn’t start and an $800 Honda I’d
bought to replace a $300 Toyota, which had thrown a rod on Monarch
Pass. And, when it wasn’t moving, my still-running Toyota looked
abandoned itself.
One spring day, a policeman showed up
at my door and politely told me the city had a special deal: It
would haul my “abandoned vehicles” to the junkyard at no charge,
thereby putting me in compliance with the law.
I told
him, as politely, there was a mistake; the vehicles weren’t
abandoned, they were just awaiting repair. “Oh,” he said, a note of
skepticism lurking, “They’ve been there so long….” Only a year or
so, I pointed out, and said I was sure I’d find time to get around
to them that summer. So he retreated and that was that.
The summer after that summer — both vehicles still there,
unrepaired — I faced my fully employed reality and found
homes for both the vehicles. But in the interim year, I’d never
heard another word from the city.
That makes me think
that there is another, deeper strain to our community culture, and
that’s a “live and let live” philosophy. I might not like what my
neighbor does on his or her property, but it’s his property. And
when it comes to resolving the conflict between those two aspects
of the community culture, “live and let live” trumps a neatnik
town.
My VAR collection (Vehicles Awaiting Repair), for
example, didn’t hold a candle to that of any respectable rancher.
You can tell how established and stable a ranch is by the size of
its VAR lot. And other stuff too; a rancher friend told me once
(shaking a piece off his boot), “If you need a piece of wire, just
take five steps in any direction.”
That’s community
culture, too, or was, anyway. Today, there’s just too much stuff,
and most of us don’t have the kind of storage a rancher does. A lot
of stuff is made to be thrown away when it malfunctions, though the
cost of disposal isn’t built into the price. I’m embarrassed to say
I have three old telephones, two phone-faxes, an old MacIntosh
computer and a few other electronic items in a closet, and no idea
when any of it will ever be useful. But you never know till you
need them.
Today, I acknowledge, this might be just
personal idiosyncrasy, not community culture. So I won’t, as it
were, come out of the closet with it. And I keep a reasonably tidy
yard these days. But I’m not going to lead any charge to make
everyone else keep a tidy yard, too — and if that results in
some newcomers being so offended that they decide to build their
retirement mansion in Bend, Ore., or Tucson, Ariz., instead of
Gunnison in western Colorado, that’s fine with me.
George Sibley is a contributor to Writers on the Range in
Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He is a writer and teacher in Gunnison,
Colorado.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
