Eagle

Since I posted last, our perfect little mountain Boom Town has delivered its share of down days. While the food, fresh foliage, and morning jogs have been unparalleled, our stories looked barren for some time: Long lists of names and numbers. Dead ends. Emails returned, empty. Contacts with less to say than we hoped.

I’ve re-learned that it’s all in your outlook. When I sit down to our notes from the last few days, I see how all the cold calls and painful prodding have paid off. Really, only two days (yesterday and part of today) started to test my optimism. Two days that made us start thinking of wild story alternatives, like moving up to the remote old mining town we visited today, unplugging ourselves from technology, and chronicling the process.

But people are coming through. It’s amazing how you can drop into a brand-new town and five days later start running into the same people, and turning off the GPS. It’s amazing how people start caring about what two random journalists are doing in their town.

Wednesday, the morning after I last wrote, we met with Susie Davis from The Youth Foundation. I contacted Susie immediately after I checked out their site and learned of an program they run called Neighborhood Net, an after-school access program for kids who don’t have Internet at home.

Susie not only has a huge heart, she’s a goldmine. We left with names trailing off our notebook pages. She also showed us some digital life journals created by area youth (through the Center for Digital Storytelling). I think I felt the tingle of tears in each one of them. We left full of ideas, and a copy of Malcom Gladwell’s recent book, Outliers.

Later that day, a recent high school grad from SOS showed us how the other half lives in this County. Irving Hernandez is a second-generation Mexican, and isn’t afraid to talk about the social dynamics in the perfect-on-the-outside County he calls home. Irving narrated our drive west of Eagle: through his trailer park neighborhood, and the neighboring towns of Gypsum and Dotsero. The latter is completely made up of trailer parks where you’ll find the folks who keep boom towns like this booming. (Video to come!)

Yesterday we met another young woman. Though we learned some interesting things about how little the Anglos and Hispanics mix once they hit high school, nothing concrete came of it. That’s what’s hard about this project: you can have 15 interesting conversations, and yet not a single compelling story idea will emerge. Being a portable journalist is really pushing my boundaries as a storyteller.

Today  after what felt like 50 more business cards handed out (at colleges, chambers of commerce, and community centers), one of Susie’s contacts came through for us. Steve Kauffman, the founder of Access Roaring Fork, is passionate about youth and technology and excited to work with us. We start Monday.

When you’re in God’s country, it’s not hard to look up.

(And even then, Rocky Mountain beer helps)