Congratulations, Colorado graduates. This month, you are graduating from high school or college or trade school, and soon many of you will find yourselves wearing some cheap-silk robe thing and a wackadoodle hat, which you’d never be caught dead in otherwise. On top of this atrocity, you will also be subjected to an ancient tradition, […]
Laura Pritchett
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Laura Pritchett: When it comes to rites of spring, bring on the Bear Dance
As someone not particularly fond of the last miserable, windy throes of winter, I’ll take any spring ceremony I can get. I need to release my grumbles, need to rev up my energy for all the exploring warmer months will bring. And as someone who is fascinated by bears, particularly the whole wonderful idea of […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Laura Pritchett: Just passing through, sandhill cranes remind us of the peace in wild things
Nuclear forces on high alert. Two million evacuees. Photos of bloody children and haunted eyes. The potential for escalation. The knowledge that humans have the weaponry to end all life, shatter this amazing, spinning blue ball, and that our economies and power structures and governments and egos have put those weapons into the hands of […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: Conservation from 1,500 feet reveals an important — if slightly unnerving — perspective
We all have our favorite “little-engine that could” nonprofits—the ones not on most people’s radar, not the Red Cross or UNICEF, but rather the little fellas doing enormous work. My favorite actually has little engines, housed in a few Cessnas, and a few little dogs to boot. EcoFlight is the one for me, not only […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: Hanging with birders sharpens the senses — no matter where you look
I caught some sleep during the short interlude between frenzied barking dogs and the crowing roosters. It wasn’t enough. I won’t lie, this Mexico trip wasn’t easy, and in all the cliché ways: A grapefruit-sized whip spider shedding its exoskeleton on the bathroom ceiling, a scorpion skittering down the hallway, tiny biting ants stinging my […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: As it finally arrives, I’ve written a love letter to snow
If water is the essence of life, then snow is its most playful expression. Consider the wackiness of snow: It’s one of nature’s most fragile compositions, yet its heft can cause great damage. Each flake so tiny—often .05 inch—but from one comes large swaths of blizzards! And while it’s certainly wet, fresh snow is 90% […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: In honor of our children, let’s demand solutions to gun violence
On Valentine’s Day — a day of love — parents across Fort Collins received emails informing us our children had been in a lockdown drill at roughly the same time that 17 children were being killed in Florida. This was in 2018, but I remember my kids’ stunned faces as they told me their drill instructions, which included advice such as: “If running to safety is not […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: In praise of Colorado and grizzly bears and especially Enos Mills
Coloradans love their state, and I am no exception, and with each new season comes a new kind of love. Me, I take a cue from the bears: Fall signals hibernation, which signals books, which signals reading about my state, particularly the areas I’ve just tromped through in summer months. After all, as they say, […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: Coming to grips with the daunting Alzheimer’s elevator ride
About two decades ago, my father stood outside a Denver apartment and wouldn’t get in the elevator because he didn’t know what it was. We were helping my brother move, and we were both hot and tired and hungry and had heavy boxes in our arms, and so when he said, “What’s this?” I snipped, […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: If this is the coolest year of the rest of our lives, it’s time for action
I recently overheard a climate scientist say this zinger: “This may be the coolest year of the rest of your life.” Ooof. The weight sank heavy. To hear such a comment in the middle of a heat dome, the worst air quality in the world, flooding and resultant mudslides, and August heat—well, it hurts. More […]