From the Crow’s Nest

I decided to call these occasional editorial remarks “the Crow’s Nest” because it gives me a chance to “crow” about the good things I come across on my daily rounds, and it also gives me a chance to “eat crow” about things I, or we, or anyone really, gets wrong.

Luckily, I don’t think there are any urgent issues of the latter type for the moment, but I’m not done typing this yet so we’ll see how it goes… 

This time of year is one of my favorites.  In addition to the great weather and cluster of holidays and events, there’s also just something about the anticipation of impending winter.  It’s a dirty word, of course, for a lot of the people I spend time around.  Words associated with the predominant form of precipitation during  the first and last quarters of the year (if that’s appropriately vague enough) are often informally forbidden from city council chambers, emergency responder bays, senior centers, and many other places.  It makes everything more difficult. It’s cold.  It costs more just to stay alive from November to February or so.  Everything gets wet and dirty.  Things break.  On a windy day, there’s every chance you may just get picked up by a gust and never seen again.

Still, there’s something about the bite in the air, the lower angles of light during the day.  The smell of wood smoke.  The sight of steam rising from a mug.  

It’s book reading season, and football watching season, and finally retiring the yard tools you still haven’t gotten around to trying to figure out how to use season.  

But it’s also the season of musical choirs, and holiday plays, and harvest festivals, and gift fairs, and craft events, and so many other activities that bring communities together.

Last week was a widespread example of that, as there were few corners of the county where something—or a lot of somethings!—wasn’t happening during the week.  While each community had its own specific events, one of the unique and interesting things I’ve come to really appreciate about Caribou County is how intertwined the communities are at a deep level.  There are countless people who, say, live in Bancroft but work in Grace or Soda, or vice versa, or have kids in school in one town but work in another, or have a husband or wife that works for the county or another city, and so on through dozens of permutations.

It makes for a nicely expanded sense of what a community can really be, and the types of events that fill the fall and winter tend to bring that out better than any others.  Halloween is always a joyful holiday, where some of the last energies of the summer find their expression in the excitement of kids and the creativity of their parents.

Once October ends, though, there is often a clear mood shift to the more somber an meditative part of the season.  Veterans Day is one of the pre-eminent days of observance in this area, and as the shadows grow longer it’s a fitting time of year to honor the sacrifices of those who have committed themselves to serving this country.  We will bring you veterans event coverage from around the valley as it transpires.

Thanksgiving is another reflective time, where not only families but communities come together to celebrate the passage of another trip around the sun.  A community Thanksgiving will be held at the Caribou Senior Center in Soda Springs, and we will bring you more information as it is settled.  This year’s Festival of Trees in Soda will also be a Thanksgiving adjacent event, pulling together members of the community and local business for a day of mutual celebration.

The Community Christmas Concert on December 14 is another event that will pull from the amazing human resources across the valley.  The dozens of talented musicians who will converge on that day to ring in the holiday are part of what makes this time of year something to look forward to with such relish.  

One of the things that the young and…less than young share is an acute awareness of how the weather and the time of year profoundly affects our daily experience.  While there are obviously some folks who would prefer not to have to dress in five layers to head outside to start the car warming up before stripping down to a comfortable four layers for the drive to work, there are also those of use for whom the weather and the time of year could not be more perfect! …although not even people like us are fans of the upcoming February, of course.