Samhain                                                                Winter Moon

Another shooting in Colorado.  In a school.  In the Littleton School District, site of the Columbine shooting.  I was in Denver with Jon and Jen, both teachers in the Aurora School District, when the gunman shot up Batman theatergoers in Aurora.

(granddaughter Ruth at the Stock Show)

The culture of the West and the culture of the East collide with some visible force in Colorado and Denver is the epicenter.  Each January the Great Western Stock Show gathers cowboys and ranchers, rodeo queens and fancy riders, bulls and horses and cows and sheep into one place for a celebration of Denver’s central locale in the Old West.  This is a culture of hardy individualists, folks used to taking care of things on their own and not interested in citified ideas towards guns.

At the same time Denver is the business capitol of the region with shiny glass skyscrapers and people in business suits hustling for a buck.  It’s also a major educational and health services center.  In addition thousands throng through the tented Denver Airport on their way to the ski slopes of the Rockies:  Aspen, Vail, Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge.  This is a culture more interested in public safety, clean streets and good medical care.

(Looking out from the Denver Museum of Art toward the State Capitol building)

It’s an uneasy conjunction, a mixing occurs, yes, but neither group comes away much changed from the interaction.