This opinion piece reflects the views of John Hazlehurst only and are not endorsed by the Pikes Peak Bulletin.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
(T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land)
After March’s warmth and sunshine, we somehow believed that April would bring a transformative spring, with showers, more sunshine, tulips, daffodils and dozens of happy harbingers of summer. And what did we get? Snow flurries, wind, frost and misery.
You’d think that we could find some solace online, or in books, newspapers and friends – but given the primacy of politics in these fraught times, it’s not easy to escape the craziness.
Here are some suggestions for things to do while we wait for brighter days:
Get rid of accumulated junk. Think of it as recreation, not work. That newspaper clipping from 20 years ago, the 2011 workplace guide you co-authored with whatshisname, the box of slides from the late eighties, your college yearbooks … actually, don’t get rid of them. Enjoy them, keep them and get more stuff.
But don’t spend a lot of money. Go buy books and clothes at The ARC or Goodwill. Embrace the past, not the present or future. Realize the joy of literature, the thousands of books that await you, that will delight you, amuse you, make you smile and even make you laugh out loud. Here are a few, randomly selected from my groaning, overpopulated shelves:
“Nora Ephron: I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman.” It’s a great read. Ephron, a generational talent whose films include “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally,” turned her incisive wit on the process of aging. Sadly, she died at 71, six years after the book was published. And even though we both lived in New York in the 60s and 70s and had friends in common, we never met. Probably just as well – I was kind of a jerk in those days.
Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall,” “Bring up the Bodies” and “The Mirror and the Light.” This trilogy is arguably the greatest publication of the 21st century. It’s more than a simple work of historical fiction – it brings you into history as if you were a participant, not an observer. Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour come alive through Mantel’s magical recreation of their times, trials and lives. I have yet to watch the TV series, but given the cast, I will soon!
Marshall Sprague’s “Newport in the Rockies,” Anne Zwinger’s “Beyond the Aspen Grove” and “Colorado: Big Mountain Country,” by Myron and Nancy Wood. All written in the mid-20th century by brilliant, talented and fun inhabitants of our fair state, they’re as engaging today as they were half a century ago. Sprague was prolific, authoring “Money Mountain: The Story of Cripple Creek Gold” and “So Vast So Beautiful a Land: Louisiana and the Purchase,” about the Louisiana Purchase (obviously enough!).
Nancy Wood was by far the smartest, most talented, most prolific and most interesting of the four authors. She wrote 28 books, including “Many Winters,” a book of poetry that sold more than 200,000 copies nationwide. She was beautiful and passionate, with three husbands, multiple boyfriends and many admirers. Born in 1936, she died in 2013.
Marsh Sprague, whom I knew from the 1940s until he died in 1994, taught me how to play chess, how to write, how to be a journalist and how to woo beautiful women. His wife Edna Jane, known to all as “Eje,” was smart, beautiful and fun – I had a crush on her, although her kids were my age.
Author/Naturalist/Artist Anne Haymond Zwinger and her husband Herman bought 40 acres west of Colorado Springs and named it “Constant Friendship” after the Maryland land that her forebears settled in the 1730s. Her book “Beyond the Aspen Grove,” profusely illustrated by her drawings, is a love letter to the land, its inhabitants and its plants, flowers and trees.
My wife Karen and I came to know Anne and Herman when we all used to hang out at a now-shuttered downtown bar. They were fun friends and great company, and we missed them when they moved to Oregon. After six decades together, Herman died in 2013,and Anne a year later. We miss all of those who are gone, and cherish their printed legacies – but I’d trade the damned books for a noisy good time at a downtown bar with our deceased pals…
