This essay was published in the local newspaper last Thursday, I figured folks out there would get a kick out of reading it.                                              Word Count: 828

Bop till You

 Almost Drop

When I look back on Summer 2021 in Silverton, some things will definitely stick out in my mind. There’s quite a few of them, so I’ll help you to avoid severe bouts of drowsiness by just listing some of the highlights:

2. First and foremost, working pretty much full-time for the town Park-n-Rec.department, and taking care of those flowers being my favorite part of the job. Becoming a major influence concerning the planting of all those trees in and around town to beautifying the place even more is pretty cool too.
3. Speaking of which, after all those years of TLC, the lilac bushes (52 of ‘em) down at the south end of town are finally starting to prosper and thrive. You can even see them from a distance these days, and how neat is that?
4. Continuing to practice & improve my abject beginner skills with this tennis thing. (an ongoing project with no end in the foreseeable future by the way).
5. Being able to take advantage of another amazing hiking season here in the San Juan’s, and the monsoons doing their part to keep things lush and green with tons of wildflowers (and now mushrooms and raspberries…). Rains kicked in big time-YEA!!
6. A successful return after a two-year hiatus of the Hard Rock 100-Ultra Distance Running race, and me helping out with the Telluride Aid Station once again.
7. And finally, participation in one of the great events of Summer-2021, Dancingat the town’s Summer Concert Series. You may be asking yourself, “What’s so great about dancing at a town concert? (maybe you aren’t…), so let me explain.

This whole Town sponsored event has turned itself into one of the great highlights of Silverton summers. Always happening the third Friday of the month, the first concert of 2021 happened on June 18^th.

That concert’s main headliner was a reggae group out of Fort Collins, and the music was quite profuse (“Dem Folks be dancin’ furiously!!). In fact, those of us in the Parks-n-Rec. Department spent the entire day leading up to the concert prepping Columbine Park to make it look good for the event.

Was all this prep work the fact that this was one of Silverton’s first outdoor crowd events happening since the CoVid-19 Pandemic kicked in last year? Jury is still out on that one, but I’m thinking that had a lot to do with it.

As long as we’re bringing up the subject of doing things to the extreme, once I got into this dancing mode at that first concert, I just couldn’t STOP. Maybe part of that was the fact that I started thinking in the back of my mind that if I did sit down to relax for a few minutes, my eyes would start sagging, followed by eventually falling asleep. Maybe that had to do with me getting up at 5:30 am that morning to water flowers. Was this the main reason? You decide on that one…

Whatever it was, dancing to the tunes was so much fun, and by the time we finally finished clean-up around 11:30 pm, the smile on my face was my most prominent feature as I walked to my car for the one mile drive back home (thank god…).

The next summer concert event happened on July 16^th. Because it took place on the same weekend as the Hard Rock-100, I was forced to drive over to Telluride that same Friday night to help out with the Aid Station the next day. That still didn’t stop me from doing a bit of dancing prior to blowing out of town (got to get your priorities in order…). When 9:30 finally rolled around, I made sure I had that one-liter bottle of soda-pop as I drove down the road. With its requisite caffeine fix to keep me from nodding off of course. I guess this is one of those situations where I should be drinking coffee, but hating the taste of the stuff over-rides that one.

Unfortunately, the CoVid-19 pandemic (and this Delta Variant) has reared its ugly head one again, and we’re having to cancel the concert for the month of August. I’m crossing my fingers and hopping it’ll make a triumphant return in September. One final grandiose blow-out before the change of seasons with things starting to get cold and winter on its way.

Back in my People’s Republic of Boulder Dazes (University of Colorado student-Sept. ’77-December ’81), one of my favorite records in 1979 was an album by Ry Cooder. The title alone was worth the price I paid for it; “Bop till You Drop”. I guarantee you that when these Silverton Summer Sounds Concerts do return (and they will…), I’ll be out there cutting a rug. Such a great experience. As an old buddy of mine once put it (albeit, somewhat sarcastically…), “More fun than most people have in an entire year.”