Nostalgia. It is “the sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past.” We are often nostalgic for the times when the world felt less overwhelming, less busy, less fragmented and more manageable. Nostalgic for those moments when we were more grounded, more engaged, more present and more connected.
In 2013, my wife and I were looking for an educational option that would provide our children with a quality academic experience in a district that emphasized the development of the whole child through enriching learning opportunities, strong relationships with supportive, engaging educators and high-quality curriculum-plus we still wanted to live (mostly) in the woods. We found Ute Pass Elementary.
From Shakespeare to Destination Imagination to field trips to project-based learning to Ameritown to the annual Art Show to the Lantern Parade and beyond, UPE provided our boys with a vibrant, small school experience where they made friends, learned how to learn and were celebrated for their strengths. There was often so much going on, we had to go into the office and take photos of the monthly calendar on the wall to make sure we didn’t miss anything. We helped with the PTO, the Pony Run, the Walk-a-Thon, Craft Day, Dr. Seuss Day and even had stints as coaches for Destination Imagination teams.
At Manitou Springs Middle School, organized sports became a bigger part of our lives, and we realized that commuting from Florissant was no longer a sustainable option, so we purchased a home in Green Mountain Falls. As we became more involved in the community and in the school district, we realized that Manitou and its surrounding communities represent something increasingly rare: a place where you can know your neighbors, whole families of your kids’ friends, and what is going on-good, bad or of interest-in your community.
And that knowledge came from The Pikes Peak Bulletin – especially because we have boy children who became increasingly less communicative in adolescence.
Long before we were cheering at basketball games in the Manitou Springs High School gym, we read about the athletic and academic achievements of individuals and teams in the district. We read about infrastructure improvements and budgetary limitations. We read about arts initiatives and community events. Did we always show up for the drum circles? No. But we knew when they were happening and could always find something to do on the weekends.
The summer cabin dwellers, hikers and tourists abound in GMF right now, everyone taking in the last days of the Green Box Arts Festival, and as we walk the dog, we often find ourselves chatting with people who say, “We can’t believe this place exists.”
During our son’s senior year, the Bulletin ceased publication. After years of sending our parents clippings of the boys’ and their friends’ exploits from the paper, the absence was palpable. The online iteration was clunky, sterile and frustrating – plus there is something satisfying about grabbing the weekly paper when you walk down to the post office to get your mail, especially when all you received was a set of Big O Tire coupons.
Part of the reason people can’t believe communities like Chipita Park, Cascade, GMF and Manitou exist is because we have “parades so nice, you get to see them twice” where the football team rides on firetrucks, the LTGBQ+ community brings the stoke, coffin races are real and Carnivale is (mostly) family friendly. They can’t believe the smell of lilac bushes in the spring, the kids riding bicycles to go fishing in the summer, the grandmothers picking chokecherries in the fall and the massively steep streets that provide us with so many snow days-and sledding opportunities-in the winter. It is an idyllic place filled with diverse, unique and committed people who are proud of their community-even with its flaws.
The new Pikes Peak Bulletin seeks to honor the unique characteristics of the place we all call home and will do so by providing objective reporting on the people, places, events that impact our most personal day-to-day lives. Even though, in “Look Homeward, Angel,” Thomas Wolfe writes, “You can’t go home again,” there are parts of this community we will find have stayed true when we choose to take time to slow down and read about them in our local, free paper.
With a nod to the ubiquitous T. Swift, it may feel like the Nostalgia Era, but I think it is simply Our Now. We record Our Now in the pages of the Bulletin, and that is valuable today – and it will continue to be, though in a different way, when the idyllic days of Our Now are stories, and pictures and treasured memories.