Recently, we’ve had weather that would be delightful in April, let alone January and February. It’s a reminder that we’re lucky to live in Colorado, where subzero misery often precedes sunshine and warmth.
Alas, it’ll be gone by the weekend — no more sitting on the porch and getting a sunburn. No more long walks for the dogs, no more heading to our favorite OCC bars and restaurants, no more quick trips to Cripple Creek where we knew we would win (but didn’t!).
We’ll be cloistered at home, with nothing to do but clean house, scold the dogs for their latest mischief, watch TV, scroll our phones … and read.
Winter reading eases stress. A good book, a comfortable place to read and time enough to enjoy it — who could ask for more? So, here are three extraordinary 20th century Colorado authors to read, and they’re all available at the library or any used bookstore.
Kent Haruf (1943-2014) was a Pueblo native who wrote a compelling and beautiful trilogy set in a town on the Colorado Great Plains.
The fictitious town of Holt (perhaps inspired by Yuma) and its inhabitants are described in three books, “Plainsong,” “Eventide” and “Benediction.”
Haruf’s prose is as simple and straightforward as the people he writes about, yet the books are deeply moving and deeply felt. They stay with you, as only the greatest do.
I first read “Plainsong” 20 years ago, and have reread it several times. He has no equal in Colorado, and only John Steinbeck is his equal nationally. Read all three in the order above and, if you don’t tear up at the end of “Benediction,” you have a heart of stone.
Colorado Springs resident Marshall Sprague (1909-1994) was one of our state’s most successful and prolific authors, as well as one of the most readable. “Newport in the Rockies: The Life and Good Times of Colorado Springs,” “Money Mountain” (a history of Cripple Creek) and “The Great Gates: The Story of the Rocky Mountain Passes” are still useful, authoritative and, most of all, fun.
He left the best for last — “Sometimes I’m Happy,” an engaging memoir written shortly before his death.
His account of his adventures as a young man in Mexico driving around in a Model A Ford, not to mention his stint as a reporter for the South China News and eventually the New York Times, is intimate, informative and full of offhand references to famous early 20th century people, such as Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Personal note: I knew Marsh and his family from childhood, and he taught me chess. Also, “Newport in the Rockies” debuted at my mother’s downtown bookshop.
Colorado Springs resident Ann Zwinger (1925-2014) was an overachiever before the word was invented. She was a ferociously talented writer, naturalist, artist, businessperson and conservationist.
Here’s an excerpt from “Beyond the Aspen Grove,” her 1970 masterpiece about a 40-acre mountain property that she and her husband, Herman, owned. It’s profusely illustrated by Ann’s drawings, each a treasure.
(It is) “a place for all seasons, for even in winter there is a promise of spring, and in spring the foretaste of summer. The white of snow becomes the white of summer clouds, the resonant green of spruce becomes the green head of drake mallard … here part of each season is contained in every other.”
We’ll be cloistered at home.
Yet another personal note: I knew Ann and Herman in the early 2000s, when we often saw them at the Ritz Grill downtown. They were wonderful company — and somehow forever young.
So forget the cold! Read, enjoy, reflect and spring will be here soon …