Call me Scrooge, call me the Raven ("Nevermore"), call me the other things I've been called in those hang-up phone calls since we gave our anti-development fundraiser party...because, frankly, my dears, I don't give a flying fornication at rolling spudnut.

See, Karen and I moved here Way Back When, before the Ski Area, before the multi-million dollar real estate scams, before the glitz, the glamour and all the other goofiness erupted like a sore on the back of a mistreated horse.

We moved here, surreal as it may seem, because we loved the place. I gave up a career as a sculptor in the Big Apple, Karen dumped her Social Worker gig in the Bronx, and we loaded up our antediluvian VW van and headed west and ended up here. I worked as a farrier over in the West End and repairing heavy equipment on a piecework basis up at the mine, and Karen taught Kindergarten at the school. We bought our beloved cabin, surrounded by 40 acres of forest, settled in, and here we are...along with our daughter, Luanne, Ace Reporter.

What I'm trying to tell you rabid boosters, you git-outa-my-dust get-rich-quicksters, you carpetbaggers and boomers, is real simple; Open Your Eyes. You're in Heaven, folks. You're at Play in The Fields of the Mountain Gods. You can't see the forest for the trees; Hell, you can't even see the TREES. Get wise; catch yourself some alpine bliss.

1997, the Biggest Year Yet? Biggest in what sense? How? Why? It don't mean nothin', when you think about it. Cruise the powder. Watch the wildflowers come up in the spring, the fireweed and avalanche lillies and the humble, omnipresent dandelions. Dig the hawks cruising the ridgelines. Smell the autumn leaves, that sweet damp incense that is truly beyond words. Now, that's a Big Year...And it happens every year, time after time, without us having to lift a finger. All we have to do is, Leave It Alone.