Jeannie Perry

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” – Nietzsche

These days I start my day with a cup of coffee, a little good intention, and inevitably— uncontrolled sobbing. It’s the humans that get me every time. I scroll through my Instagram feed of witty ontological memes and cute animal pics, feeling pretty good about the day ahead, until I come across the IRC’s death toll of children in the middle east.

I know I’m lucky to be a DINK (Double Income, No Kids) in this valley of extreme wealth and prosperity while the majority of people on the planet are just working to secure food, water, and shelter for themselves and their offspring. When families are struggling because of a natural disaster I can make an effort to manage my feelings of overwhelming sympathy. I can accept that nature is brutal and send a donation to try to help— a drop in the bucket of world-wide suffering, but a drop, nonetheless. However, when the disaster is caused by other humans, I am paralyzed. I do not have the bandwidth to cope with the hopelessness of endless war for profit.

If we can’t see that bombing the families who live in Gaza is the abyss, then I don’t even know.

In this life where habits are hard to break, generational patterns are a bitch. What I call the Warlord Syndrome exists in many aspects of life: business, parenting, and of course, actual war. When we realize that we have become exactly what we started out to change or defeat, then we know what it is to be our own worst enemy. In business we see it every time an ingenious start-up is swallowed by a bigger fish in the sea of industry and all the shareholders rejoice, “Yay Capitalism!” Whether or not we have our own biological children, we have all had that moment when our parent’s voice came right out of our mouth, “Because I said so.” And right now, at the apogee of our cultured civilization, we are sanctioning the murder of children in the name of “defense.”

I am not advocating for leniency when it comes to the terrorists who kidnapped innocent Israelis in the first place. The atrocious actions that were the catalyst for this conflict seem impossibly surreal in this day and age. But I can, and do, detest the inhumane brutality of Hamas’ actions and question the Israeli government’s response simultaneously. My first question, where is the Mossad? Why must we obliterate so many more innocent lives when we have the ability to surgically extract the source of angst? And where is all that US budget money going, if not toward the training of such an elite force?

I have long suspected that our wars have more to do with profit than people. Believe it or not, there are salesmen on this planet who would rather sell the weapons that kill innocent children than take a tax break for feeding or housing them. Usually because of their privileged upbringing, these guys have no concept of mercy, and their self-serving actions perpetuate another generation of hate and violence by inspiring future terrorists. Speaking of generational trauma, if we could break the cycle of valuing money over peace, well, hmm, then I’m not sure what this world would look like. Without greed and avarice, how would we measure our immense success? Without a perceived enemy to rally the troops, how would we justify spending trillions of dollars on military gadgets, instead of food, housing, education…

We have such a long, tired history of conflict and war, but surely we can find a reason to get out of bed in the morning other than a foreign adversary: someone to fear, someone to hate. We can choose peace over profit. Oh, cheer up, war mongers! Even with world peace, we would still have the brutal consequences of El Nino to contend with, and judging by our current actions on climate change, Mother Nature will be ramping up her attacks on a global scale… plenty of bad news to absorb with my morning coffee.

On my mom’s fourth deathday (like a birthday without the gifts), I went by the Third Street Center to drop off winter coats I had collected the night before at Ladies Wine Night. As I walked into Third Street with a big pile of Glamour Do’s, I wasn’t sure what I would find. All I knew was that a large number of people from Venezuela had been living in our town without the necessities and someone had organized a coat drive. What I found was Carbondale at its finest. People pulling winter clothes out of a huge heap of bags to sort and display by size throughout the room. No one was really in charge, and yet everyone was busy setting up the epic display of free winter gear. It was enough to make anyone cry, even if it wasn’t their mom’s deathday.

My sister likes to say we were brought up as Buddhist sympathizers. Mom went to Nepal in the early days of the Peace Corps and while those years definitely had an impact on the rest of her life, I feel like her ability to share— not only her things, but also her time, was innate. And she hummed. All the time. It was almost like she had an endless tune playing in her head that came out as a hum even when she wasn’t consciously aware she was doing it. It was just part of who she was, like the wool sweaters that somehow weren’t scratchy or the tea cupboard that could not be contained. Mom was the epitome of the adage, ‘When we have more than we need, it’s time to build a longer table.’ And that’s exactly what happened in Carbondale that Saturday, on the anniversary of her death, as they brought out more and more tables to accommodate all the donations.

It feels really good to give away what we don’t need, both emotionally and in our closets. Especially right now, our country’s chock full and I for one, would like to see a shift in worldly goods and sentiment, with the US taking less and giving more. I also think we should embrace the idea of automated jobs, starting at the top. I mean, what do these CEOs do all day that a computer couldn’t master with a little get-up-to-speed session? I’m sure we can find a millennial to write an algorithm that simulates the elite corporate culture and I know the shareholders would like the sound of golden parachute-sized savings.

As sentimental as we may be for the good ole days, if we’re being totally honest, they weren’t all that good (or fashionable!) for some of us— actually, for most of us. This is where I give credit to GenX for shaking up the system by normalizing our differences and pointing out the banality of Leave-It-To-Beaver-land. In the last few decades, the world’s concept of what we should all look like, or be, has shifted drastically (and there are plenty of podcasts dedicated to the discovery that even the Ward Cleavers [Caucasian hetero cismen] weren’t that happy with their role.)

A major influence on GenX was the music: Prince, Joan Jett, David Bowie; all the artists who refused to conform to the record label’s monotone, instead choosing to follow the sound of their own beat. The vibration of how we all live here, together, on this spinning ball of capitalism and denim is fundamental to our vitality. From the beginning, tribes and clans would get together at night to dance around the fire, and aside from a shared sense of community, there was a vibration sent into the actual planet that cleared the cells of all living things.* There were even nightclubs in the 80s that shook the Earth, but today, everyone at home, plugged in to their individual device, does not give back anything to the planet. It isn’t healthy, our solitary dance of creature comforts and consumerism, not to mention how full our closets have become…

So, the good news is that winter’s coming (bet you never thought you’d hear me say that!) Plenty of time to clear out all that messy clutter— on both our selves and our closet shelves. My advice: get yourself into a sound bath or get out and dance in the moonlight, because your good vibes are worth sharing.

*The discovery of the cellular symphony was made in 2001 from a biophysicist, Jim Gimzeweski… He found that certain cells emit a beautiful eerie hum. …Gimzeweski also noted that cancerous cells emit a horribly out of tune sound, discordant and aggressive. This tells us that cells are in fact highly sensitive to sound healing and vibrational frequency can tune into any out of tune cell sound and alter or change its frequency into a sense of calm and peace through the science of entrainment and periodicity.

I’ve got a question for ya, how old is the term ‘bucket list’? Okay two questions, did a GenXer invent it? The internet is all in a tizzy trying to determine if the guy who wrote the movie The Bucket List (starring Morgan Freeman) invented the term, but I could swear I heard it long before 2007. They claim this could be the Mandela Effect; when a large number of people misremember the details of an event, or even the event itself. Just like those poor souls who still don’t think they witnessed seditious treason.

Anyway, hats off to whoever coined the term ‘bucket list’ because I have referred to it often as I knocked those big dreams off one by one! My bucket list has certainly evolved over the years. From setting foot on every continent to watching every Morgan Freeman film, I’m honing in on what makes a life well lived… and all the technology of today only makes it easier to accomplish, e.g., watching High Crimes and Million Dollar Baby on the long plane ride to Pago Pago. What would’ve been science fiction fifty years ago is now included in coach.

According to several experts in the artificial intelligence field, we might only have about seven good years left before A.I. takes the reins and rarely lets humans out on our own recognizance.* I don’t want to alarm anyone, but the time to fire up that welding torch, or go hiking in Yosemite, or write a memoir called Sarcasm with Strangers is now.

In the futuristic book Klara and the Sun, parents can purchase an ‘artificial friend’ for their kid. Of course, in the story there are older models sold at a bargain price for the parents who can’t afford the latest and greatest. As long as there are humans (or apes) on the planet, there will be ways to show off one’s status. I wonder if even the robots will develop a way to differentiate themselves. Like, the shiniest one will be coveted by all those with tarnished limbs…

There was an experiment conducted recently with a robotic cleaner. (I of course, instantly pictured Rosie from The Jetsons.) The robot was tasked with cleaning the kitchen and they measured its achievement by checking the level of cleaning fluid used by the robot each day. Then one day they caught the robot dumping the cleaner down the drain.

If I’m being honest, I am a little worried about what the world will look like as artificial intelligence takes on human traits and inevitably, takes over. Not so much in an evil-machines-hijack-all-the-diners way like they sold us in 80s movies, but in more of an endless ennui. I mean, what will A.I. do when it realizes there is no point to it all?

There was an art installation in the Guggenheim Museum called Can’t Help Myself.** Sun Yuan and Peng Yu designed a robotic arm which leaked hydraulic fluid the same color as human blood. The arm had a large shovel at the end and so it would constantly scrape the leaking fluid back towards its center, even as it continued to spill out. In the beginning the robot had extra time on its hands because the fluid wasn’t leaking much, so once in a while the shovel-arm would stop scraping fluid and do a little dance for the crowd— sort of a one-armed sprinkler dance move that brought joy. But the fluid leaked out more each day and eventually the robot only had time to try to keep up. Then, in 2019, the last of the hydraulic fluid leaked out and the robotic arm ceased moving.

Talk about art imitating life. We think we have all the time in the world when we’re young doing the sprinkler with our friends on the dance floor, but as the years move along, we have to work harder just to keep our joints oiled, and eventually we simply leak out and stop. So right now, while we still have some fluid left, let’s take advantage of this time and space to do what we love.

You can find me on my couch saying, “Alexa, play The Shawshank Redemption.”

*https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/artificial-intelligence-industry-future

**https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/34812

When I was a kid, my sisters and I would ride our bikes endlessly around Sopris Village in El Jebel. Our dad lived there, and it was like sci-fi Nancy Drew because it was this suburban ‘village’ surrounded by miles and miles of empty fields: no City Market shopping center, no Movieland, nothing to do but ride around the paved streets surrounded by fields of long grass and weeds.

There was one restaurant on that side of Highway 82, a sit-down, nice-but-not-quite-fine dining place, with white tablecloths and water glasses at each place setting. I can’t remember the name of it, but I think it started with a W, and they kept a little dish of mints at the hostess station. At least, they did until the Perry girls rode up on our 10-speeds. It felt like a caper to ride up, run inside and grab a handful of mints, before speeding off on our bikes… Around and around we went on those paved streets in the middle of nowhere.

Nowadays, I wouldn’t tell a kid to ride their bike anywhere near that area. Mid-valley traffic rivals the shitshow that is Aspen, and everyone’s in a New York mood: rushed and furious. As we all watched, our valley became a magnet for urbanites who want to live a more natural, carefree life. After all, we’ve got it all: clean rivers, public lands, endless sunshine, affordable housing— err, I mean, it’s all relative. The housing in this valley seems affordable if you’re a millionaire from Manhattan, or if you’re willing to live in your car; there isn’t much available in between.

A big part of Carbondale’s charm is that we are more than an affordable place to stay while visiting Aspen. We have our own lives happening here: pure punk rock, Potato Day, ranching and real rodeo. By the way, now we’ll have the only rodeo in the Roaring Fork Valley, as Snowmass is tearing out their rodeo lot for— you guessed it, rent-controlled housing. But even this past summer, we could not park our old red Ford pickup with the white wooden rails at the Gus Darien Arena. Every time I went online before noon to try to reserve a spot, they were immediately unavailable. Then my dad told me that Rob Lowe was in the truck next to him, and I thought, well, that does it… now we’ve got the aging teenage heartthrob population coming to Carbondale.

My first exposure to Rob Lowe was full frontal, at about the same age I was riding my bike around Sopris Village. In the movie The Outsiders, while stepping out of the shower, Rob’s towel ‘slipped.’ I was like twelve or thirteen, and all my friends and I sat up super close to the Tv as we rewound that scene more than once on the VCR. He and Matt Dillon and C. Thomas Howell were always on the cover of Teen Beat (the 80s version of TikTok) and Matt Dillon was S.E. Hinton’s pet, in much the same way John Hughes couldn’t make enough movies for Molly Ringwald to star in.

Oh, those were the days! You think you like Carbondale now, you should’ve seen it back then. In 1983 nobody was in such a hurry as to drive through town like their asshair is on fire. The only honks were audible waves because we saw someone we knew. The USFS property looked exactly like it does today,* and Carbondale and El Jebel were distinctly different towns, with miles of empty land between them.

Now, the Willitsification of the mid-valley has completely obliterated El Jebel and is quickly eclipsing Carbondale. We are one construction site after another: fancy retail on the ground floor, expensive box-living above, or my personal favorite: architecture-for-the-apocalypse cinderblock-style climate-controlled storage for the likes of Rob Lowe’s artwork. With the number of storage units going up in Carbondale, instead of a bedroom community we’ll be a garage community for upvalleyers and all their junk. But maybe these can be the affordable housing units of our future… We could all reside in heated/cooled comfort, with shared indoor plumbing and ADA compliant access. A little dystopian perhaps, but at least it’s affordable.

*Public forum to discuss USFS Main Street plans on Thursday, Oct. 5^th 6pm at the Third Street Center.

I like the movie Barbie so much that I went to see it twice at the Crystal Theatre. The more I think about it, Carbondale is kinda like Barbieland: every day is a good day, the town mothers have the final say, and the men can cry in public (at events like kids’ soccer games and the rodeo, anyway.)

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend this Greta Gerwig film. Weird Barbie is brilliant, and Ken’s character development throughout the story is fantastic, but Gloria’s monologue nails the main issue with our society today.

It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we’re always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So, find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know. -Greta Gerwig

She’s right. Not only are we image obsessed, but the ideal image is a moving and impossible target. And it’s not just the girls. Young men are permanently changing the shape of their heads and bodies before they’re fully developed, much less before their self-esteem has had time to catch up. We are told to conform to something that is not only unattainable, but out-of-date as soon as it’s realized, e.g., those poor souls who lasered off all their pubic hair because of a fad that faded faster than a summer tan. There is no way to win the patriarchy trophy, and that is a major factor in all these incels who shoot up public events.

The old way isn’t working anymore. We spend billions of dollars on guns, yet we still feel afraid… And the guys and gals who should be helping us, thinking of our best interests, are corrupt. As the parties prop up their ancient cardboard poster candidates for another lap of Capitalize on the Consumerism, we watch in horror as they reenact the farce of assault rifle legislation called Weekend at Mitch’s. Mitch McConnell is the perfect example of why it’s important to read the room, to realize when the party is winding down so you can go grab your coat.

Whether it’s a pink puffy or a faux fur like Ken wears in Barbie, Greta’s message for our future is clear. You do you, and let everyone else decide for themselves when, where, and with whom they want to create the story of us. Oh, and maybe hold off on the plastic surgery until your pre-frontal cortex is fully developed.

Throwback Thursday – Ps & Qs from fifteen years ago…

As I sat in my little easy bake oven of a Subaru on Hwy 82 the other day, I managed to switch my attitude from negative to positive. I have been working on spontaneous attitude adjustment for some time now, as anyone who runs into me when I’ve had too much to drink knows. And as for the drinking, ever since the RedWings won the Stanley cup (and then proceeded to DENT it) I’ve been in a bit of a mood.

Anyway, I was completely sober and almost fully cooked as I sat in my car, sandwiched between two giant American made beasts. I felt like an opossum waiting in line at an elephants’ all-you-can-eat buffet. I could not see anything in front of me except for the back of an SUV with Michigan plates and a blinding spark every time the woman’s left hand flicked the ash of her cigarette, causing her 8-karat ring to flash like Superman’s vision. (I imagined at just the right angle it would burn a hole in the upholstery, leaving a tiny wisp of black smoke and what would appear to be just another cigarette burn.)

My rear-view mirror was completely filled by a Stepford-wife-salon-style and a dark pair of women’s sunglasses. This woman was so far up my Ahem— I mean our bumpers were practically touching… or rather, her bumper was about to crash through my rear window. I was cranky and sweaty, and you’re probably thinking that I sat there steaming at these two women, but I didn’t. I flipped my attitude like an over-easy egg (which I could have cooked on the hood of my car in about three seconds) and I bonded with these women. Whether they know it or not, in the forty minutes it took us to get from Satank Road to the light at 133, I formed an alliance with these women that enabled me to get home safe and sound (and with my car, which I seriously considered abandoning because I could’ve walked home faster.)

F.Y.I., it should never take forty minutes to get from Satank Road to the light at 133. For those of you who are from another planet (a planet where there are no roads), here’s a little Earthly tip: if you’re driving on a two-lane highway and you see everyone lining up in one lane, that’s not because we like to sit in our cars in 90º heat and wait. It’s because everyone has to merge into one lane. No, not everyone else, EVERYONE. The people who go flying by in the other lane astound me. I mean, there cannot be that many clueless, displaced Russian aristocrats left in the world, can there?! And if you’re the kind of person who passes on the shoulder and you ever end up sitting on the barstool next to me, you’d better hope Chris Chelios is sitting on the other side because he’s about the only one I’d rather lecture on minding one’s Ps & Qs.

Back to the women I may never meet, but with whom I shared a very positive encounter; the three of us stuck together like a pb & j that’s fallen behind the seat, not to be discovered for a week or two. We let in no one, and I mean not one car. Not even that guy in the green hummer who almost hit Lois Lane on the driver’s side and then revved his engine at us. “Nice truck, sorry about your penis.” –BA. While I realize the non-zenness of our actions, I have to wonder if knowing when to forgo Buddhist behavior for fewer cooked brain cells isn’t the key to a balanced life…

Finally, a semi-truck came along, blocking all further attempts to cut in, and I relaxed my hawk-like clasp on the steering wheel and slipped the gear into neutral, giving the clutch a break as I coasted along. As I looked at Mt. Sopris, I started to daydream about a little old wise man living on top of the mountain, receiving pilgrims from as far away as Lake Erie. “Why do we exist?” they would ask with earnestly furrowed brows. “Why does the road lead to these snow-covered mountains? Why does the wind blow from the West to the East?”

To which he would reply, “Because the RedWings SUCK!”

Carbondale has good bones. This is part of the problem. The ultra-wealthy have been buying up all the land around, while the rest of us play frogger in traffic all day just trying to pay the bills. And the worst part, they buy raw land and then give it a mani/pedi… What is with all the fences and gates and No Trespassing signs blocking the view— not to mention the wildlife’s access to water. This endless need to insulate themselves from the rest of the world reeks of insecurity and unresolved childhood trauma.

My childhood trauma involved watching calves roped and held down while cowboys vaccinated, branded, and tagged them. Even though I knew we were doing it all in the name of responsible animal husbandry, I couldn’t help imagining how I would feel if I was roped, dragged, shot up, and burned before being turned loose in the pasture on wobbly legs. My family has ranched here for generations and life on the ranch gives you callouses— inside and out. From my experience, it’s more nature than nurture. My youthful commiserating with the dead head mounted on the cabin wall was met with relatives’ stares as blank as the glass eyes in said mount. It was obvious early on that I was too thin-skinned to be a rancher, and to this day when I get dental work done, I shudder as the burning smell flashes me back to branding day on the ranch.

My family’s land was just south of town along the Crystal River, where Mt Sopris looms large. Recently, half of the hill known as ‘the cut’ on Prince Creek Road was removed by the new billionaire landowner, and young marmots are paying the price. These innocent critters end up as roadkill because they are now forced to live across the road from their water source. Since we can’t be talked out of driving our cars, I think we should enlist the help of local realtors to solve this. Realtors may be able to influence the moneybags, convincing them to care about the fate of our local landscape and all its critters. This includes Carbondale characters, who also need to cross the road once in a while for a drink of water— or something stronger.

If I ever found myself on the barstool next to a billionaire, I would buy him a drink and then I would say, release your trauma and follow your heart. Not because it leads to a bigger ranch on a bigger hill, but because the demons we face determine our legacy. Our actions create our story, which is the only thing that really lasts. In order to fully tell my story, I need to create a new word. Desidarium rei exoptati, in Latin, means nostalgic for something that has never been, and now definitely won’t happen. I know, you’re wondering how I can be nostalgic for something I’ve never known, but this is a very real feeling I get every time I drive past land that once held the potential for a peaceful coexistence between beauty and beast (mankind is the beast.) Now an empty field surrounded by miles of fence, it just feels melancholic and less like home.

Affordable housing is no joke for any species. A place to live within reasonable distance of work and watering hole, is not too much to ask. But if we continue to let these guys fence everyone/thing out, then the heart of Carbondale will stop beating right there on the hot pavement next to that marmot’s.

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.

There are two things we can count on in this world: death and taxes, and while death still appears to be an absolute, Garfield County property taxes are somewhat negotiable until June 8^th. The thing is, the county reassessed property values at the height of the roller coaster that is the housing market (especially in our little kingdom), and while the price of homes may come back down, we all know the taxes won’t. I wonder about the origin of tax collection… was it a group decision made while sitting around the campfire one night, or some old king hanging out in his drafty castle, thinking, ‘Boy, this place could really use some improvements. I should head down to the hardware marketplace and pick up a few things, but how will I pay for it…’ What’s amazing to me, to this day we pay. We are all born on this planet, and one could argue that provides the right to water and shelter, but the trick is in the random lot to which we were born.

If we stick to the facts, over four billion years ago our little planet was formed. It happened. Get over it. And now life on Earth, as we perceive it, has transpired due to a long progression of small, not necessarily coordinated, everyday triumphs: amino acids in meteors, the end of The Age of Fishes, H2O, penicillin, coffee, etc. Humans are a wonderfully creative and productive species, although we do have the tendency to be conceited and gullible— two traits that do not complement each other very well, or at all actually. Also, if you’re not into bureaucratic processes, this probably isn’t your favorite planet. Everything we do is by trial and error, and sometimes we must do it over and over again before we even understand that there was an error.

As far as tax (money) is concerned, we’ve set up a system that’s rigged to flip. This is a rafting term that means all our stuff is securely tied down on the boat, so that if it flips over in the river, we won’t have to watch all the food and beer turn to flotsam— or jetsam. (River rats are a wonderfully helpful, loyal tribe, but if they find your beer downriver, they probably won’t go out of their way to get it back to you. After all, all is fair in love and rapids.)

Ever since the put-in, it would seem we have had the haves and the have nots, i.e., those who can afford straps to tie their gear down, and those who cannot. If we take an alien’s-eye view, I worry that human intentions and actions may seem terribly archaic and primitive (but that’s probably just because we are.) I mean, humans are very excited and busy with each new day; some of us drive around in our gas-guzzling SUVs and have meetings with each other to discuss how to get more money, and some of us get up early every day and spend our time acquiring food and water and shelter. What may surprise the aliens is that the ones who spend their lives working for food and shelter to share with their family are considered the world’s poorest inhabitants and the ones who have to sit through mind-and-ass-numbing meetings while someone else brings up their children are considered the wealthy. Crazy!

In general, I am a rule-follower, and I can usually follow my heart through life without coloring too far outside the societal lines, but when the lines are arbitrarily drawn by a bored king-child and they conflict with common sense and the common man, then I have to say something. Just like free piles and vehicles put out to pasture signal the absence of an HOA, tax hikes are a sure sign of gentrification, and they go hand-in-hand with expensive hardware stores and empty lawns. A significant increase in property tax will flip a quirky neighborhood faster than you can yell, “Highside!” That’s why I am encouraging my neighbors to appeal the county assessor’s evaluation and while they’re at it, park an old boat out in front of the house.

https://www.garfield-county.com/assessor/appeals/