By Matt Lit.
“Life ain’t always fun, but it’s damn sure interestin’.”
I was 25 years old when I heard these gruff, life-perspective-changing words uttered by a biker friend—name of Wade. Guardian Angels, I realized, come in all shapes and sizes and he was one big, burly son of a, but I digress.
This month has been nothing short of this bit of wisdom.
Let’s start with the photo of local ranger Sean Tonner and his boys riding into town to wet their whistles at the local saloon. I have a lot to learn.
Luckily this community is quick to pounce with that help. Within moments of posting that photo on Facebook the messages, calls, texts and emails started. If I didn’t know who he was before I sure did within the nanoseconds of social media. And even knowing, I still chose to run the photo on the front page in the November issue.
That move was also met by a barrage of emails, texts and taps on the shoulder. At that point I knew full well who he was—and more importantly—what he represents to our community.
Well, hey Matt, you must be some kind of foolish to have run that photo when you knew he is RWR and wants to sell our water. Maybe I’m not.
I saw it as an opportunity to bring that water to surface, if’n y’all’ll allow me that pun. And if’n you won’t, well, too late! See that? I did it again.
Anyway, thanks to the ability to share the Colorado Sun’s top-notch reporting, I’m able to do just that.
Life ain’t always fun, but it’s damn sure interestin’. John Miller, the mayor of Red River (way back in ’85, it was), told me “The only reason people pick up the paper (The Taos News) is to see if you got it right.”
Those words hit me heavily. They rolled through my head as I made my way back over Bobcat Pass, past the Moreno Ranch and back to Eagle Nest. As a cub regional editor, those words were formative as I learned to navigate journalism in the small communities I covered.
It’s true, of course. By the time the paper comes out the news has made its way up one side of Main Street and down the other. And that was years before social media cast its spell.
So it is with other topics we’re covering this month. Y’all already know the complications of the Amazon (and AirBnb) sales taxing structures from the Sarah Grimes report. We’re clearly not the first to discuss this and it’s been ripe for rumor on social media and various email lists.
We’ve uncovered some additional information about the collection and use of that tax. In presenting it—in bringing that water to the surface—we/I do so with the heartfelt goal of helping this community navigate and fix difficult problems and gain a new cohesiveness that has long been needed here.
To that end I’ll wrap up my Momentary Lapse with knowing there is a way forward.
There are a number of forward-thinking members in this community who see the bumps clearly and are actively working to move this community—Crestone, Baca, the Grants and Casita Park—forward…together.
The choices and the changes belong to all of us.
We’re at the beginning of the road.