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Life in the real world

To the editor,

The coming week, Animas High School juniors will be presenting their LINK Internship experiences to the public. The AHS LINK program, a required part of junior year, provides insight into the reality of a potential career and can leave a lasting impression on a high schooler. It’s one important way AHS combines adult world relevance alongside a college prep curriculum.

While the students covered many areas in their experiences, our son is interested in music production. His three-week internship was made possible with the help of his LINK coordinator, who worked hard to help find an opportunity he could really be excited about. He worked in Denver with a music production business, Decibal Garden, run and owned by former Durangoan, Silas Mera.

He spent his time learning the basics and more of music recording and production including working directly with bands; the use, set up and take down of complex equipment; and of course, how to make coffee and sweep a studio floor! The pinnacle of his experience was producing his own song, a young adult’s ode to Durango. He wrote and performed the song, and the producer walked him through the entire production process! You can hear it for yourself at: soundcloud.com/outzider_official/got-it-right!

So come to the Animas City Theatre on Thursday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. to see these remarkable young adults celebrate what they learned about themselves and the world. So proud of our kids!

– Jessie Kileen, Durango

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Bring LPEA out of dark ages

To the Editor,

We need to elect LPEA Board members who will act responsibly to promote a clean energy future. We now know that climate change is happening and that it will have wide-ranging, mostly negative effects. To reduce its impact on future generations, we must act quickly. Our family is doing what we can to reduce our use of fossil fuels, especially coal-generated electricity, but the majority of the current LPEA Board is making that more difficult. By steadily raising base rates, they have begun to penalize those of us who have smaller houses and make efforts to keep our electrical use low.

We need a board that will seek pathways to local generation of electricity. We in SW Colorado are blessed with a bounty of solar power, so increases in locally generated renewables need not increase the cost of electricity. People of average income can now install solar because it makes economic and environmental sense. Locally generated solar power strengthens the local economy. Unfortunately, LPEA policies rooted in supporting large utilities keep us dependent on fossil fuels. Jack Turner, Mark Garcia, Lori Schell and Doug Lyons are candidates who will lead us to a clean-energy future.

– Deb Paulson, Durango

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(Editor’s note: In honor of National Poetry Month, the Telegraph brings you a letter on the importance of poetry in our everyday lives from regular contributor Burt Baldwin as well as a poem on one of America’s favorite pastimes. Enjoy.)

The necessity of poetry

Poetry is the language of the heart. Without poetry, our lives would lose the beauty and grandeur of honest expression. Poetry is a necessity as simple as an embrace. The problem with poetry and figurative language as a whole, is that it is not emphasized or even recognized as a critical part of our culture. In most cases, poetry is glossed over in academics. If one would travel to such nations as Russia or Poland, he or she may be surprised to find that poetry is not only an integral part of the culture but is highly regarded as an expression of everyday life. It is not uncommon to see poets on street corners. 

Poetry has always had a place in the politics of the day. Poets have risked their lives, not only to express their beliefs, but to rally the citizenry to seek the truth. Such poets as Whitman, Lowell and Lorca, have put their reputation and lives on the line with a poem. Such great anti-war poets as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen have left us a first-hand account of the terrors of war. Throughout history, scholars and poets were the first to be arrested by fascist regimes, for they were always the first to speak out against injustice. 

I am reminded of Victor Jara, the Chilean poet who was executed by Pinochet – his hands cut off as to set an example, or of Boris Pasternak’s collection of love poems which were censored during Stalin’s tyrannical rule. 

I am always amazed by the diverse talent in writing that is found in youth. During my tenure as a teacher, I witnessed their words and how they ignited a soul’s thirst. They have shown true feats of brilliance! In spite of the standard complaint, “Writing is too hard and I cannot put down my ideas in a way that people would understand,” I found this obstacle easily removed when the student truly realized writing is enjoyable.

Learning to write poetry is not a chore, it is a gift! Poetry provides an avenue of creativity. Poems are malleable. They bend with the thought and often, grammatical conventions can be de-emphasized. This is not to say writing good poetry disregards proper diction and grammar, but in many ways it alleviates the pressures of convention, especially for the novice writer. 

Poetry is a necessity if we are to remain a cultured society. It is a way to show our dreams, fears and hopes. Sometimes our worlds are troubled, yet verse enables us to express what is inexpressible. The poem is power. When a poet writes a poem and reads it to an audience, it is no longer his. It has transcended its purpose. It has been given away. It has become a true gift.

– Burt Baldwin, Ignacio

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My first baseball hero – Fat Freddie

Most of the great baseball players

Had nicknames that reflected their skills against their  

foes

Ruth was the King of Swat

DiMaggio was Jolting Joe

But my first baseball hero had no such nickname

He was a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, whose

record in 1940 was first rate

His name was Freddie Fitzsimmons

Whose nickname was Fat Freddie, in view of his

considerable weight

In I940 the Dodgers were an improving team

But had not won the pennant since 1920

They challenged the Cincinnati Reds for most of the

season

And the Reds would have won overwhelmingly, but

for the exploits of Fat Freddie

In 1940 Fat Freddie won 16 games and lost two

A winning percentage of almost nine hundred is

what he’d done

This percentage broke the National League record of

.842

And stood until Roy Face in 1959 won 18 games and

lost one

The Dodgers handled Freddie with great care

He was given at least five days of rest in the main

Freddie owned a Brooklyn bowling alley

And apparently this was where he trained

In the end, Cincinnati pulled ahead

And by season’s end it was they who won

All In all they were a superior team

A gap that Freddie’s great pitching could not

overcome

– Chester Salkind, Durango