The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
—Kurt Vonnegut
This year the start of the raging summer season, traditionally the beginning of July, feels marked by a bit of a community reflectiveness. More than a few stalwarts of the community have recently passed to the other side. Good people who have done good things are no longer physically here. Whether via cancer, heart attack, a crash or suicide, some of our friends and neighbors have passed. A new column by Erin Wesley that addresses some mental health issues, touches on the reasons it matters so much in a small town. She eloquently describes the situation on page 23.
Crested Butte and the Gunnison Valley are growing and changing rapidly. While it no longer has the intimacy of everyone knowing pretty much everyone else, it is still intimate enough for everyone to be at least touched by almost everyone else. You still begin to recognize faces that didn’t leave for off-season, and it registers who comes back year after year for the summer experience. You might not hang out all the time, but chances are you pass each other with a nod, a side smile or finger wave off the steering wheel that marks one as a ‘local,’ whatever that really means.
So, when a part of that tapestry is no longer around, it matters. It can bring the smallest tinge of emptiness. While family and friends will obviously feel the losses dramatically and forever, the rest of the community moves on but with just a bit more hollowness. The bus driver you are used to seeing will be replaced by a new face, but the new person perhaps hasn’t learned it is a special treat to let your kid press the button to open the doors. Drinks are still slung but the usual bartender is missing, and the new guy has different corny jokes than the last one. The dude coming off the ice at town league to greet his kid and then you isn’t there to do it anymore. The guy who retired and volunteered to help people struggling with cancer is not there to step in any longer because he fell to the disease himself. It hurts in ways big and small.
The regular conversations, smiles and history no longer exist. Just passing a certain familiar face in the grocery or at Alpenglow no longer happens. It is part of small-town living. You have a connection to everyone, and everyone has a connection to you…like it or not.
A friend described the village aspect of this place as being bittersweet. The intimacy, the celebrations, the positives are sweet. The inevitable tragedies, arguments, leavings are bitter. It’s all part of it. And right now, CB is in it.
Honestly, the small-town thing can be a pain in the butt. People here fight pretty rough. There is little shyness about confrontation and if you step up publicly in any way, you have to be prepared to be challenged regularly. But at the end of the day, the hope is still to share a beer together. It unfortunately happens less often than it used to.
People here tend to know, or at least they think they know, each other’s business — who is sleeping with whom tonight or who slept with whom five years ago and why. They think they know which kid is being bullied and which kid is the bully. People know who is a left-wing new-ager, and who is a far-right Trumpster —and we have plenty of both here. People guess who has a trust fund and who really must work three jobs to stay here. People here notice your house, your car, your athletic ability and gear, your volunteerism, how much you tip, how much entitlement you exude and where you go out to grab a bite. Yeah, living in a small town is not for the thin-skinned.
But it does also come with rewards. Individuals pull together and support those in need…even if they aren’t great friends or even like each other that much. There is a commonality with surviving minus 30 degrees in January and shoveling five feet of snow before catching the packed bus to the ski hill. We can all complain about summer traffic and how long it takes to get Kebler open. People understand the common bliss of 401, nine inches of powder or the view of Paradise Divide.
The major unspoken rule is to not be a jerk. You can be weird – and in fact that’s totally acceptable and encouraged —just don’t be a jerk. People know if you stiff the waiter or cut in line. Word spreads if you are a complainer without potential solutions. You can do jerky things (we are all human after all) but an explanation (and apology) is normally expected. If you are a jerk, the consequences come quickly in a small town. That person you dissed behind their back in the morning can be behind you in the bank line that afternoon — and they’ve probably already heard about your comment and aren’t afraid to ask about it. Ahhhh, small town living.
If the start of the summer season seems a bit more melancholy for some people, a big reason is they might be missing a part of the communal tapestry. Some people that were here a year ago are missing and even if we didn’t know them well, they were a part of what made this place, this place. And none of them were jerks. They were deep members of this peculiar tribe.
Others of course will come here, and the gaps will get filled in. After the community mourning that manifests itself in many ways, and the tributes end for those who have crossed over, life will go on. Crested Butte and the Valley will continue to evolve. That’s the beauty of life in a small town: both the big and small life turns make you feel something…and then we keep moving forward—together.
It is bitter and it is sweet… and it is a blessing.
—Mark Reaman
