Pueblo, Colo., a.k.a. Catalog Country

It’s 3:30 in the God-awful morning. You clamber out of bed feeling bent and bedraggled--pummeled like a wad of gum on the Santa Monica Freeway. For hours, you have wrestled pillows and insomnia, and, finally, you accept that sleep this night will not come.

So you stand and stumble aimlessly until you find yourself clutching the remote control, a modern version of warm milk. You stare blankly at the television trying to focus on bikini-clad women, sitting in a hot tub, tilting their heads.

“Call me,” they say.

You flip through channels. A faux hombre in a cowboy hat with wings the size of a Cessna wants to sell you a car, despite your bad credit.

Then you see a well-dressed, calculating wench named Alexa and her yuppie husband, Brad, parting in the rain.

“Take whatever you want: the cars, the mansion, but not my Consumer Information Catalog,” Alexa pleads.

“Your catalog?” Brad replies. “I sent my name and address to New Catalog, Pueblo, CO 81009. This free listing of helpful government publications is mine, and you want to steal it!”

“Oh, Brad,” Alexa sighs. She draws him close, arresting him with her deviant, slushy eyes, slyly reaching with one hand for his goods, a catalog sticking out of his coat pocket. “I would never do that,” she says.

Who are these people? you ask yourself. And where the hell is Pueblo, Colo.?

*

PUEBLO, Colo.--This city, population 100,737, is 1,168 miles northeast of Los Angeles. It is located off Interstate 25, which slices through the Colorado Front Range from north to south. If you are traveling south from Denver, past Colorado Springs, you will pass through Pueblo before hitting Trinidad, the Sex Change Capital of the World.

Pueblo is home to the Colorado State Fair. But it is also home to the Public Documents Distribution Center, a 54,000-square-foot building where more than 40,000 orders for consumer information arrive each week. The center handles so much mail that it has its own ZIP code. If you write only 81009 on the face of an envelope, it will arrive at the center. Even Beverly Hills, 90210 can’t match that.

Since 1975, we have been watching the wacky Consumer Information Center public service announcements and writing to Pueblo to request publications ranging from “Civil War at a Glance” to “Protecting Your Privacy” to “66 Ways to Save Money” to “Backyard Bird Problems” to “Don’t Lose Sight of Glaucoma” to “Hocus Pocus as Applied to Arthritis” to “Talking About Turkey: How to Buy, Store, Thaw, Stuff and Prepare Your Holiday Bird.”

A survey was conducted last year, asking what connections people made with different cities, such as Pittsburgh / steel, Nashville / music. Most people knew nothing about Pueblo, but 22.7% associated it with government brochures, says Mary Levy, CIC director of publications and media in Washington, D.C.

Blame it on those kooky ads, with characters like Alexa and her selfish husband, Brad.

The commercials, typically lighthearted, run during off hours, in gaps between paid advertising. Print ads also run in newspapers and magazines across the country. Years ago, Levy says, a PSA ran during a prime-time showing of “Cheers.” It was a moment of government-brochure glory, resulting in 10,000 orders.

The commercials, contracted annually through a bidding process, have developed a following.

“Some people write in and say, ‘We really liked that last one,’ ” says Al Pino, manager of the center. “They must collect them or something.”

Sometimes, Pino says, tourists will be whizzing along on I-25 on their way to Denver for a Colorado Rockies game or to Trinidad for a sex change and will see the signs for Pueblo.

“They pull up here with their trailers or whatever and ask for a tour,” he says. Pino gladly accommodates them.

It’s not like his last job with the Department of Defense. If you got caught strolling around the munitions depot he worked at--Pino was in charge of the chemical and missiles area--the response would not be so kind.

“I like this a lot better,” he says.

*

The center employs 54 people, with an additional eight part-timers called upon when things get crazy. Pino is proud of his crew.

“From the time an order comes in until the time it goes out the door, we try to keep it at no more than 10 days,” he says. “That’s better than the industry average.” (Catalogs and other publications also are available at https://www.pueblo.gsa.gov on the CIC World Wide Web home page.)

Pino says that last year, based on the number of complaints received, the center recorded one error for every 17,000 orders.

“I think that’s durn good.”

And the Pueblo Chamber of Commerce is durn proud of the center and includes it in a promotional publication given to visitors to the city.

“The PSAs run nationwide,” says Dean Dennis of the chamber. “You almost always, in every situation, find somebody who knows about Pueblo, Colo., because that’s where you write to get government publications.”

His office stocks a supply of CIC literature for people who stop in.

*

Pueblo still has a reputation of being a gritty, lunch-bucket town from its steel mill days. When the mill closed down, unemployment reached 20% in the early 1980s, Dennis says.

Since then, the city has punched its way back. Money magazine lists Pueblo as the 21st most livable city in the country.

It is a community proud of its past, having been home to writer Damon Runyon, for whom the ballpark is named. Comedian Dan Rowan and former Secretary of Defense David Packard, co-founder of Packard-Bell, also are from Pueblo. Some other famous people, such as Bat Masterson and Kit Carson, spent time in Pueblo. Clark Gable was stationed at the Pueblo Army Air Base during World War II.

The average home price is $68,413. The city has 81 golf holes (that’s holes, not courses), 10 movie screens (not theaters).

If you’re ever in the neighborhood, stop by the warehouse and get a tour. And if you’re ever up at 3:30 in the morning, look for the 1996 public service announcement, scheduled for release in May.

Perhaps we will discover if Brad and Alexa patch things up, or, if not, who gets custody of the catalog.