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Papers, please…

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In the small hours of the morning deputies contacted two men in the 20000 block of Highway 74 and arrested one of them on an outstanding warrant. Turning their attention to the other, they asked the fellow if the black backpack he carried contained anything untoward, and he assured them it didn’t. Unconvinced, the deputies opened a zippered pocket on the bag to reveal a pipe cleverly designed to mimic the appearance of a cigarette and well-encrusted with suspiciously fragrant residues. Again the officers asked the man if his bag held anything they should know about, and again he said no. Reaching into the backpack a second time, the deputies produced a package of Zig-Zag rolling papers and wondered aloud whether the man used them to roll tobacco. “I use them to smoke marijuana,” he said, “like everyone else.” Despite the man’s admirable candor, the deputies confiscated the illicit trove.

UpSmokeDetail

 

Old News

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MrZipNeither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds – Herodotus

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, longtime Evergreen resident Mary Noyes found a curious letter in her mailbox.

It was of the factory-ornamented variety – heavy, lilac-tinted paper thickly sprinkled with soft pastel flowers, folded to become its own envelope and carefully sealed in back with a bright red sticker. It was the kind of letter a young girl might send to another young girl, which didn’t surprise Mary, who, with her husband, David, raised three of them in their Hiwan Village home. The letter was also crisp, clean, and, apparently, undeliverable.

“Return to sender,” commanded the computer-generated label on the front. “No such number.”

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Having a letter returned by the post office isn’t, by itself, especially curious. A bum address, inadequate postage, even lousy handwriting can bring a dead-end dispatch back for another try. In this case, however, her oldest daughter, Julie Matern – 1979 EHS grad, University of Northern Colorado Alumnus, wife, mother, and Berthoud, Colo., kindergarten teacher – had written the New Jersey mailing address of childhood friend Lisa Burgher legibly enough. The return address, on the other hand…

“I couldn’t understand why Julie used her maiden name,” she explains. “And I wondered why she used the Evergreen address instead of her own.”

Pondering those puzzles, Mary took a closer look at the postage.

noyes 002“It was a 13-cent stamp with a Colorado Centennial postmark.”

Hmmm…curiouser and curiouser…

Noting that the sticker holding the letter closed appeared to be losing interest in the job, Mary released it from that commitment and started searching for clues in her daughter’s neat script. She didn’t have far to look.

“Loveland had a flash flood last night that killed 40 campers,” Julie wrote her friend, describing what sounded to Mary a lot like the Big Thompson flood of 1976. Turns out, that’s exactly what it was.

TO-Archives-sorting-room-c“Today is Colorado’s Centennial celebration,” Julie continued. “Whoopee! It seems like just another day to me.”

Realization swiftly dawning, Mary flipped back to the letter’s face. Sure enough, Julie’s mislaid missive had been cancelled on Aug. 4, 1976.

 

“She sent that letter 35 years ago,” smiles Mary, shaking her head in wonder. “Where has it been all this time?”

drunkMail1USPS spokesman Al DeSarro couldn’t say, but he’s willing to hazard a guess. “When these things happen, it’s often because somebody died and the letter was found unopened among their effects,” DeSarro says. “In this case, it may have fallen behind some equipment that was recently moved.”

In other words, while bobbing along atop a river of correspondence, Julie’s chatty dispatch likely jumped its banks and spent the next five and a half presidential administrations tucked between some colossal sorting machine and the wall. Given that USPS’s Colorado region processes up to 10 million pieces of mail daily, perhaps the real mystery is why that doesn’t happen more often.

cliff“In my experience with 15 years in the Colorado region, I’ve only seen three cases like this,” DeSarro says. “As a matter of fact, three months ago we sent back a letter that was mailed in the 60s. It was mailed from Dallas to a service member at Lowry Air Force Base, and Lowry closed in 1994. But, the fact is, situations like this are very, very rare.”

Wherever Julie’s wayward communiqué has been during the last 35 years, by Easter Sunday it had only one more arm’s-length to go.

newman-348“When mom told me about it on the phone, I didn’t know what she was talking about,” laughs Julie, who brought her clan to celebrate the holiday at the old homestead and got a serving of memories to go with her ham and yams. Not surprisingly, Julie doesn’t recall mailing the curiosity in the first place. “I haven’t had any contact with Lisa for probably 25 years,” she says, tracing a finger over the postmark. “I remember the stationary, though. I was just about to start my sophomore year. It’s fun to see what was on my mind back then.”

“We had a lot of different families come stay with us this summer,” 15-year-old Julie wrote. “My favorites were the Edmonds. Of course, they have two sons, ages 16 and 18.”

But of all the interesting, amusing and surprising revelations contained in the youthful correspondence, the most curious – to Julie’s eye, at least – was not what she said so much as how she said it.

“I have to say,” she says, with modest satisfaction, “I had pretty nice penmanship.”

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County Responsibilities Clarified

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A woman contacted JCSO dispatch to report that a county snowplow driver had harassed her. Deputies initially contacted the woman’s husband, who claimed that the plow operator had “quit doing his job” and was “spying on” his wife. Unfortunately, he was nowhere in the vicinity during the woman’s ordeal and the officer asked to speak to the actual complainant. She explained that she’d been taking a walk with her dog on the previous afternoon when a snowplow operator stopped his vehicle and rebuked her for allowing the animal to wander around unleashed. He also repeatedly requested her address, which she refused to divulge. “I don’t think he should be asking women where they live,” she told the deputy. “He’s hired to snowplow. I pay taxes, you plow. That’s his job.” After giving her a sympathetic hearing, the officer confirmed that county ordinance requires that her dog be leashed when gadding about the neighborhood. She countered by asserting that, in like circumstances, a teenage girl might foolishly provide her address to her own peril. The officer said he would talk to the plow driver’s supervisor.

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SPC Berna Comes Home

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Lori Vina-Guelich and her daughter, Olivia, arrived at 2:30, sharp.

“I think this is where we’re supposed to be,” said Lori, scanning Buchanan Recreation Center’s little-used Bergen Parkway access road in both directions. There was nobody in sight, unless she wanted to count the small clutch of ducks parked on Buchanan’s lower pond. “Maybe we’re early.”

Actually, she and 13-year-old Olivia were right on time. They’d come to Buchanan on the afternoon of Saturday, Dec. 6, to welcome a young man they’d never met back from a place they’d likely never see.

“We enjoy peace and beauty in Evergreen, and there’s not too much to worry about,” Lori observed. “Our soldiers are going through things I can’t even imagine. When I saw this posted online, we wanted to turn out.”

It was a small post, easily lost among the electronic chatter flashing across the Evergreen Colorado Neighbors & Friends Facebook page on a given day. A simple inquiry into the hows, whens and whys of decorating the “Welcome to Evergreen” sign near El Rancho in honor of Army Specialist Michael Berna, recently returned from Afghanistan’s plains.

“I sort of looked into what the military does over there, and what it’s like for them,” Olivia said, thoughtfully. “If I ever came home from someplace like that, I think a bunch of random people waiting for me would make me feel good.”

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On Feb. 1 of this year, SPC Michael Berna had been 21 years old for less than 24 hours when his unit deployed to the East. Attached to Apache Troop 1-75 of the 101st Airborne Division, Michael served as an Army Cavalry Scout out of sprawling Bagram Airfield, the United States’ largest military installation in Afghanistan and the physical linchpin of Western policy in that fractured nation. He often worked 18 hours a day, 12 of them surrounded by the armored bulkheads of a comfortless MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) vehicle. His job was to protect the base from the seldom-seen, but always lethal threats that lay just below every horizon, and to escort emissaries beyond those horizons and into the dark heart of Indian Country.

For nine long months Michael served his nation under arms, and for nine long months his mom, Judy, his dad, Jeff, his big-sister, Meredith, and his two little-brothers, Isaac and Sam, blessed his studiously blasé online correspondence and anxiously ticked off the days of his tour. On Nov. 1 of this year, Michael arrived stateside and started decompressing at a base in Kentucky. He was scheduled for leave in early December, and his mom went online to explore the possibility of a small, but heartfelt welcome.

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“What a nice thing to do, especially during the Holidays,” said Debbie Kelb, who showed up at 2:40 with her Bichon Shih Tzu, Sidney, at her side and neighborly empathy in her heart. “I’m happy for the opportunity to welcome one soldier home from service. All it costs is a little time.”

The crowd expanded exponentially at 2:45. The main formation had been mustering inside the recreation center and suddenly poured out in a merry march down to Bergen Parkway. By 2:50 both sides of the road were a riot of flags and balloons. Chris Adamowski rushed down from the recreation center pool, dripping wet and clad only in a bathing suit, flip-flops and a red-white-and-blue towel.

“I didn’t want to miss it,” Chris shivered. “Michael’s the man.”

See, Judy’s little post didn’t get lost in the online shuffle. It got noticed, and remarked, and passed along and around, and pretty soon her modest plan for a welcome-home banner out by the highway had grown into grass-roots happening. Call it the power of the Internet, call it a spontaneous burst of patriotism, call it the better angels of our natures, but Michael’s semi-intimate “Howdy” was fast becoming a rousing “Huzzah!”

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Not sure which car they should cheer, the assembled well-wishers hooted and hollered at most that passed by. Not sure what all the hullabaloo was about, most drivers jumped right into the spirit of the occasion anyway, honking and waving and clearly enjoying the spectacle. Standing on the shoulder with his tow-headed young son, Colby Corrin had come to celebrate the return of a brother in arms.

“I just finished 30 years in the Marines,” he explained. Colby spent the first 23 of those years with the British Royal Marines and the last seven as a commander in the U.S. Marines. He spent most of them in sketchy vacation destinations like Haiti, Sierra Leone and, yes, Afghanistan. Like most of the folks around him, Colby didn’t know Michael at all, but he knew very well what it means to finish a dangerous tour in one piece. “It’s nice when they come home,” he said, simply.

It was just after 3 o’clock when the Berna family – all of them, together – drove slowly past in a big brown Suburban. Michael smiled from the back seat, shading his eyes against the westering winter sun and plainly astonished at the view. A joyful spate of noise broke out, and a furious flurry of activity, and then the moment disappeared up the road and it was quiet again.

The moment reconvened a few minutes later in the Buchanan multi-purpose rooms, which had been united to host a reception, of sorts. It wasn’t a particularly fancy affair, but it was an entirely welcoming one. There were snacks, and drinks, and somebody put up a crock pot full of meatballs. There was information about Michael’s service, and face-painting for the kids. Evergreen sisters Caitlin and Sidney Powell – “Facing West” to their growing legion of fans – provided a perfect soundtrack in two-part harmony. The Bernas didn’t make any big speeches, and nobody asked for one.

“Thank you all for coming,” is most of what Judy said. “Have a good time.”

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By 3:30 the party was well underway, and it was good. Emissaries from local Boy Scout Troop 1776 and Cub Scout Pack 119 turned up to show solidarity with a fellow man in uniform. The way 11-year-old Steuart Richardson saw it, he and Michael are on kindred missions.

“We’re taught to take care of our neighbors, and that’s kind of what the Army does,” Steuart pointed out, persuasively. “Before we came here we were ringing bells for the Salvation Army.”

A table was provided, along with paper and pens, for any who wished to welcome Michael in a more permanent way. Rocking a totally awesome bat-mask he got from the face-painter, little Oliver Harmon bounced up to the table and started marshaling his letters. Trouble was, little Oliver had never composed a welcome-back-soldier note before and he wasn’t clear on the proper form. Showing commendable initiative, he grabbed the nearest already-written message and began painstakingly transposing it onto his own clean sheet.

“I thank you for your service!” he wrote. “Oliver”.

His mom, Rachel, stood by as he labored, offering only encouragement and letting her son work out the finer points of plagiarism all by his lonesome.

“I thought it would be a really positive thing to see,” said Rachel. “There’s a lot of negativity in the news. This looked like something happy. And it is!” she declared, a smile breaking across her face like her very own sunlight. “This is very happy thing!”

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Running the gauntlet of earnest well-wishers lining the sidewalk outside the recreation center, it can be said that Michael looked cool, amazingly fit, and a trifle apprehensive. Odd as it might sound, that calm and self-possessed young soldier who’d just spent the better part of a year playing cat-and-mouse with dangerous and determined enemies may have been slightly intimidated by the barrage of kindness directed at him from every side. Still, and to his very great credit, Michael repaid every kindness in kind.

He didn’t volunteer much, but he received every approach head-on, with a warm smile and a handshake, returned every thanks with genuine gratitude, and answered every question frankly, sincerely and with good grace. And, in a short while, Michael seemed to relax and accept all the unfamiliar attention in the generous spirit with which it was offered. He recalled the physical and emotional rigors of duty in Afghanistan.

“I thought about Evergreen every day,” Michael said. “I just wanted to come back here, grab my camping gear and go get lost in the mountains somewhere.”

He remembered coming home.

“We drove in at night, and you could only see the shadows of the mountains. It was so great to look out the window in the morning and see Evergreen.”

With more than a year to go on his hitch, he spelled out the program for the remainder of his leave.

“I have just under 30 days left. It’s the longest break I’ve had since I’ve been in. I’m just going to try to relax.”

And Michael reflected on his unexpected welcome, and on the gentle company that extended it.

“It’s strange,” he said, with vaguely perplexed shrug, “but it’s great to see how many people will turn out on a Saturday to make a stranger feel good.”

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They Hang Rustlers, You Know

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Good news! The Old West is alive and well in Jefferson County. One morning last week, a young cowgirl moseyed down to a local livestock boarding facility to see after her stock, but found only an empty stall and a feedbag full of mystery. Perhaps just hours before, dad-blamed varmints unknown had snatched her week-old calf without leaving so much as a boot print. A quick scout of the muddy ground outside the stall revealed no tiny hoof-marks, meaning the rustlers likely carried the 90-pound barbecue variety-pack away in their thieving arms. Interested posses should be on the lookout for a sloe-eyed black and white dogie with the number 84 tagged to his right ear, his birthday – 03/13/2014 – tagged to his left, and his Rocky Mountain oysters intact. The brand inspector has been notified.

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