girly-men come to Steamboat.

There was a letter to the editor from a guy from Ft Collins who just visited Steamboat over the Christmas break. he complained about the ice on the sidewalks. Here is my response which I sent in to the local paper.

WARNING! It snows here in Steamboat. My goodness, this year it has snowed a lot. I hear that the three feet I have in my yard is just average; some have five feet.

And then sometimes it gets warm (periods of global warming...I think) and some of that snow melts and turns to water which runs all over the place. It runs off roofs and on to streets and even on to sidewalks.

And then it gets cold here in the winter. Really cold sometimes. And if it gets cold right after a big melt, all that water freezes. It freezes on the roofs; it freezes on your car and in your car locks; it even freezes all that water on the streets and sidewalks.

Frozen water is slippery, in fact, very slippery when it is about 32 degrees out. You must take care when you walk on it so as to not fall on your butt, or slide your car into the one in front of you. If you have a car, perhaps you should have snow tires, and if you are walking, by all means, get yourself some Yaks.

Better yet, try skiing or ice skating where the slipperier it is, the better. In fact, that is why most people come to Steamboat in the first place.

GIVE ME A BREAK!

The guy from the front range that wrote to the editor the other day, complaining of ice on the sidewalk, needs to get a life. When you come to the mountains in the winter, you are going to run into some ice and snow; even on the sidewalks. And even when the merchants in this town try their hardest to keep ahead of it. It is just a loosing proposition. Like keeping your sand castle standing in a rising tide. Or does this guy think our taxes should be raised so that we can have a ice-remover man who spends his day chipping all the ice away?

What is with our culture now where so many are looking for something to complain about and someone to blame. Perhaps that guy should vacation in Florida and dodge hurricanes or go to California and take his chances with earthquakes and mudslides. Or even Texas where he will have to watch out for all those tornados. It even gets hot down there too. Perhaps the towns in Texas should provide fans on street corners so as to keep people from heat stroke.

I can't help but remember, not too long ago, when one would see 80 year old Dorothy Wither (owner of a local store called Dorothy's) walking down Lincoln with her ski pole, climbing over the 3 foot piles of snow that were, not only on the side of the road, but right smack dab down the center of Lincoln. When they had time, the merchants would shovel little paths through those piles only to have them filled in by the state plows that night.

Of course, Dorothy was a tough, no nonsense woman; a real pioneer woman. Seems to me that, what we have now are too many girly-men...and women.