Justice Could Be Better Served in Aspen

I was in Aspen, Colo., last week visiting my friend Jean Erck, who has a condominium at the foot of a ski run on the road to Maroon Bells. At Jean’s house, a deck bridges out over a gorge and at the bottom is Maroon Creek, rollicking down the canyon.

For two days, two of her three large and handsome sons were also in residence and one day we took a picnic up to Maroon Lake at the foot of the three mountains called the Maroon Bells. The three mountains are shouldered together, their red earth sides spotted with lingering snow patches like Appaloosa ponies. Because so many cars were making the daily pilgrimage up the road to Maroon Lake, the city wisely stopped private cars from making the trip between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. We went on a bus and the driver told us that the aspens had been dying at a rate threatening extinction in the area from the car engine fumes. Now, they are coming back.

One afternoon, Jean and I were coming back from town and at the right turn up her road, two young bucks stood and stared at us with friendly interest. One was older and had a fine display of antlers that were still soft-looking adolescent velvet. The younger one had antlers no longer than table knives. After a few seconds, they trotted into the belly-high brush and lay down, apparently thinking they were hidden. The older one’s antlers flared above the tall grass marking the unmistakable hiding place of a deer.

One warm afternoon, we went up the valley leading to the pass where the settlers crossed over from San Francisco when silver was discovered. We visited Toklat, a store selling beautiful handmade wool rugs from central Mexico. We met a young Mexican man and a young woman who had just arrived at Toklat--also the name of the town--for a three-month stay. They spoke no English, but they obviously enjoyed the compliments on the rugs they had made. Jean bought a bright orange wooden fox carved with a paring knife and a machete. I bought a blue burro.

Aspen is an honest silver mining town that had a population of about 15,000 miners, fancy ladies, assayers, silver traders and townsfolk, until the nation went off the silver standard and the town dropped to 1,300 people. Now there are 15,000 again, give or take, in the town.

In later years, it had become a popular ski resort and now has fine restaurants, shops and so many boutiques, it looks like a tray of French pastries. We went into one shop that sells, among other necessities, leather jackets embroidered with silk flowers, with laces and ribbons appliqued and sewn in the seams. I could have had one for $900, but I didn’t have a cloisonne Harley-Davidson to wear it on.

Jean and I went to the performance at the Crystal Palace, featuring revues, ensemble numbers, old-fashioned torch songs, great stuff. Much of the material is original, bright, fast, done with an eye wink and the flirt of a can-can skirt. It’s the kind of theater you always hope for and seldom find.

The only imperfection was the fine, buxom statue of Justice on the courthouse building. I have always been especially fond of her because even though she carries her sword and her scales, she wears no blindfold. Nor would you if you had had the opportunity to watch the goings-on in Aspen for the past hundred years. Since I was last in Aspen, two years ago, the city, meaning it kindly, has silvered her with that metallic paint that looks like a $2 filling. Poor lady looks as if she had been wrapped in foil cooking wrap.

On my return trip, on the leg from Denver to Burbank, I met a delightful young man who made the airplane ride a treat. He was trundling the drinks cart and I noticed that he was wearing about a dozen small, gold-colored, metal airplanes pinned to the bib of his apron. I asked him what they were for and he said, “I did the right thing at the right time.”

His name is Larry Kraus and he flies out of Denver for Continental Airlines and has for four years. The airplanes are for valorous action. Larry has successfully delivered a baby on two seats of an airplane, saved a man suffering a coronary by administering CPR, put out several galley fires and stopped a fight in the aisle. Those are just the things he had time to tell me about as he served drinks and dinner.

His wife is a former ballerina named Katie, who was working the same flight. He and Katie bid together for routes and often are successful. They made me forget what a weary chore airplane travel is most days.

Now if someone can just shinny up the courthouse wall in Aspen and restore Justice to her seemly umber everything will be fine. Semper Fi.