Aspen Unstrung
by Sandy Munro
Publisher: AF Munro II
Publishing (2022)
ISBN 0578344351, 9780578344355
Length: 248 pages
Buy Sandy's Book:
About the Author
The author and his wife, Mary Lynn, still live in the mountains of Colorado in the home described in these pages. He can be reached through his website: sandmunromusic.com.
In addition, you may enjoy and enhanced slideshow at the website. It features additional photographs from Aspen Unstrung as well as original and traditional music played by Sandy Munro and friends.
About the Book
Sandy Munro Checked out of the U.S. Navy and moved with his wife and young son to the ski town of Aspen, Colorado. Lured by visions of Rocky Mountain powder days and by a musical invitation from a friend, he packed up his banjo and guitar and headed West.
They found a vibrant community in the midst of radical change as the counterculture arrived in full force. Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson was running for sheriff. John Denver was singing about a Rocky Mountain high, and the town was attracting a mind-blowing array of iconoclasts- musicians, writers, artists, hippies, hippie lawyers, mountaineers, actors, bottom-feeders, ski bums, druggies, seekers…
Many became friends, and some became mentors-among them the physicist and “Seeder of dreams” George Stranahan, inventor Nick DeWolf, raku potter and builder Paul Soldner, and writer Clifford Irving.
In this book, his second, Munro tells their stories and his own—building a house by hand: teaching at Aspen High School; running the town’s music store for 30 years; performing in some of the town’s most notable bands; and encountering a steady stream of unlikely characters along the way.
Growing Up In Aspen by Douglas N Beck
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (2010)
Language: English
Paperback: 188 pages
ISBN-10: 1452895651
ISBN-13: 978-1452895659
Item Weight: 8 ounces
About the Author
Many lament the "burden" placed on them by being born into a family that has its roots and still maintains them in a small town. I cannot speak for them, but the small town I grew up in had more advantages than disadvantages for kids to be kids. I was born and raised in Aspen, Colorado as a member of the 5th generation of my family to live in the valley and of the 3rd generation to be born there. Our family did not come to Aspen as miners as many did back then. We established a grocery business that remained in business until 1968, having opened its doors in 1882. I live in Lakewood, Colorado with my wife and children. Yes, I grew up in Aspen but that does not change the underlying story but only the location. When I was a child Aspen was not well known for football, baseball or even soccer. The kids there learned to be great skiers, hockey players and outdoorsman. Our childhood adventures included camping in the backcountry in the winter. When we got old enough to have a car, it was usually a very used four-wheel drive vehicle that could barely go 30 miles per hour but it could climb a tree. My childhood adventures are many and at my age now, I can remember only a small fraction of them. In the "stories" to follow I will attempt to bring back those adventures as best as I can and with what memories I can scrape from the back of my mind. I had a great childhood, with many friends, loving parents and a real community of people who knew when to help and when to "tell your parents."
About the Book
Much like many small towns, when the kids did something wrong the parents usually knew before the act was even committed. There was no hiding anything from the "collective" parent population. This being a disadvantage is stating the obvious, but there was an upside. Speaking specifically to my situation, at the age of 3 I was skiing down Little Nell on my own without either of my parents in sight, but watchful eyes were always present and my safety was never in question. At the age of 7 I was working my first job, so much for child labor laws, as a plant "waterer" at the first, yes first, Chart House Restaurant. It seemed to have more plants than the rain forest at least that is how I remember it. At the age of 6 I was going up with the crew that eventually built the Snowmass Ski Area, all without my parents in tow. I was skiing to the top of Aspen Mountain with my friends before I was 10 and I rode my bicycle all over the valley and never once angered a passing car, those were the days. I began writing these stories to preserve them for my children and in the process soon gained a following of readers, many of whom I grew up with in the Aspen valley. Happy reading and thanks for taking the time! I hope the adventures are worth the journey.
Stories I Tell Myself by Juan F. Thompson
ASIN: B00RRT33VA
Publisher: Vintage 2016
Publication date: 2016
Language: English
Print length: 285 pages
About the Author
JUAN F. THOMPSON was born in 1964 outside of San Francisco, California, and grew up in Woody Creek, Colorado. He graduated from Tufts University and lives in Denver, Colorado, where he performs computer magic in the healthcare IT industry.
About the Book
Hunter S. Thompson, “smart hillbilly,” boy of the South, born and bred in Louisville, Kentucky, son of an insurance salesman and a stay-at-home mom, public school-educated, jailed at seventeen on a bogus petty robbery charge, member of the U.S. Air Force (Airmen Second Class), copy boy for Time, writer for The National Observer, et cetera. From the outset he was the Wild Man of American journalism with a journalistic appetite that touched on subjects that drove his sense of justice and intrigue, from biker gangs and 1960s counterculture to presidential campaigns and psychedelic drugs. He lived larger than life and pulled it up around him in a mad effort to make it as electric, anger-ridden, and drug-fueled as possible. Now Juan Thompson tells the story of his father and of their getting to know each other during their forty-one fraught years together. He writes of the many dark times, of how far they ricocheted away from each other, and of how they found their way back before it was too late. He writes of growing up in an old farmhouse in a narrow mountain valley outside of Aspen—Woody Creek, Colorado, a ranching community with Hereford cattle and clover fields . . . of the presence of guns in the house, the boxes of ammo on the kitchen shelves behind the glass doors of the country cabinets, where others might have placed china and knickknacks . . . of climbing on the back of Hunter’s Bultaco Matador trail motorcycle as a young boy, and father and son roaring up the dirt road, trailing a cloud of dust . . . of being taken to bars in town as a small boy, Hunter holding court while Juan crawled around under the bar stools, picking up change and taking his found loot to Carl’s Pharmacy to buy Archie comic books . . . of going with his parents as a baby to a Ken Kesey/Hells Angels party with dozens of people wandering around the forest in various stages of undress, stoned on pot, tripping on LSD . . . He writes of his growing fear of his father; of the arguments between his parents reaching frightening levels; and of his finally fighting back, trying to protect his mother as the state troopers are called in to separate father and son. And of the inevitable—of mother and son driving west in their Datsun to make a new home, a new life, away from Hunter; of Juan’s first taste of what “normal” could feel like . . . We see Juan going to Concord Academy, a stranger in a strange land, coming from a school that was a log cabin in the middle of hay fields, Juan without manners or socialization . . . going on to college at Tufts; spending a crucial week with his father; Hunter asking for Juan’s opinion of his writing; and he writes of their dirt biking on a hilltop overlooking Woody Creek Valley, acting as if all the horrible things that had happened between them had never taken place, and of being there, together, side by side . . . And finally, movingly, he writes of their long, slow pull toward reconciliation . . . of Juan’s marriage and the birth of his own son; of watching Hunter love his grandson and Juan’s coming to understand how Hunter loved him; of Hunter’s growing illness, and Juan’s becoming both son and father to his father . . .
ASPEN: Then and Now - Reflections of a Native Son by Tony Vagneur
Publisher: Woody Creek Press, Ltd. (Feb 4, 2015)
Language: English
Paperback: 362 pages
ISBN-10: 069233906X
ISBN-13: 978-0692339060
About the Author
Tony grew up on the original Vagneur homestead in Woody Creek, named the Elkhorn Ranch by his grandfather, Ben. He attended all 12 grades at the Red Brick School in Aspen, graduating in 1964. He went to college to play football and ended up an English major after the gridiron lost his interest. Tony graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and business administration from the University of Colorado.
Once back in Aspen, Tony began working for his aunt and uncle (Eileen and Vic Goodhard) at Aspen Trash Service, Inc., a relationship that would indelibly mark Tony’s business career for the next 25 years. He also did stints as a builder, a bartender, an equipment operator, a horse trainer, a ski racer, a string of Marlboro commercials and a long run at the T Lazy-7 Ranch. Tony put in seven years as an Aspen Mountain Ski Patrolman, and is now retired still living in the valley.
About the Book
This is a collection of newspaper columns, written about Aspen, Colorado and its agrarian neighbor, Woody Creek. Published during the period 2004-2014. History, ranching, skiing, dogs, partying, horses, love and romance, family, and philosophy all get a chance to shine in this well-written collection of stories, each being almost a short-story within itself.
Don't Get Mad...Get Even by Jack Brendlinger
Publisher: Outskirts Press; 1st Edition (2014)
Language: English
Paperback: 248 pages
ISBN-10: 1478733438
ISBN-13: 978-1478733430
About the Book
A hilarious compilation of stories, most of them about practical jokes Aspenites played on each other during the years between 1960 and 1980. In those years Aspen was a booming tourist town, buildings were cropping up everywhere like dandelions in the lawn. Fortune tellers were getting elected and passing no-growth density laws to stop the runaway boom. Behind this scene were the crazies who had the foresight to be an integral part of the excitement. They were driven by their passion for skiing but also needed to feed their bellies and entrepreneurs they became. Once their livelihood was assured they began to have some harmless practical joke fun, often at the expense of their friends. There are lots of wild stories like riding a motorcycle through your friend's new house on Halloween night, or filling a friend's borrowed rowboat full of 500 pounds of grape Jell-O. The characters in this book didn't get mad they just got even. This is a journey full of outlandish stories, each chapter a new tale, making this the perfect bathroom or bedside book.
Whiteout by Ted Conover
ASIN: B00AZRHP6A
Publisher: Ted Conover, via Smashwords and The Robbins Office
Publication date: 2013
Language: English
Print length: 288 pages
About the Author
The Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Newjack delivers an irreverent, poignant, and revealing meditation on the lives of the rich in Aspen, Colorado.
About the Book
Here is a classic report on the sweet temptation of wealth and the vainglorious quest for paradise as they exist in Aspen, Colorado, featuring a "cast of characters (that) includes such barn-size satirical targets as exclusive health clubs, over-the-hill drug dealers and movie stars and rock stars of wattages bright and dim"
(The New Republic).
Aspen: The Quiet Years by Kathleen Krieger Daily & Gaylord T. Guenin
Publisher: Red Ink Inc; 1st edition (1994)
Language: English
Hardcover: 703 pages
ISBN-10: 0964139901
ISBN-13: 978-0964139909
About the Author
Daily moved to Aspen in 1969, and worked as “Aspen’s last part-time city attorney, a job which I really enjoyed” during the early 1970s, he wrote in an April 2013 campaign ad that ran in the Aspen Daily News. He would go on to win a council seat in that election, voted in along with Mullins and Mayor Steve Skadron. Daily was not victorious in his re-election bid four years later.
“Serving with Art on council was a privilege. He was pragmatic, calm and a walking rebuke to those who like to quit. He reminds us that you’re never too old to make a difference. I miss him,” former Mayor Steve Skadron said Monday,
An attorney for a half-century, Daily was the father of five children: Piper, Rider, Burke, Tanner and Shea. Tragedy struck in 1995 when the vehicle that he, his wife Kathy Krieger Daily and sons Tanner and Shea were riding in was hit by a falling boulder in Glenwood Canyon. Art, who was driving the Suburban while they were returning from a hockey game in Vail, was the only survivor.
About the Book
Interviews with residents who lived in Aspen, Colorado between 1893 - 1947. Those "Quiet Years" were the years between prospecting and prosperity. The book includes many black and white historical photographs, as well as photos of those interviewed.
Days of Stein and Roses by Martie Sterling
Publisher: Dodd, Mead; 1st edition (1984)
Language: English
Hardcover: 208 pages
ISBN-10: 039608480X
ISBN-13: 978-0396084808
About the Author
Skill and a stroke of good luck helped her and her husband Ken fulfill their dream of moving to a western ski town. Martie was selected in 1958 as a contestant on the television game show “Tic Tac Dough,” which the Syracuse University graduate parlayed into a $18,600 payday. The Sterlings moved to Aspen and used her winnings to build the Heatherbed Lodge near the base of Aspen Highlands. Herbert Bayer designed the lodge, which was originally 12 beds.
About the Book
Sterling wrote a book detailing life at the Heatherbed and in Aspen in the 1960s called “Days of Stein and Roses.”
“It’s absolutely priceless,” Georgia Hanson, executive director of the Aspen Historical Society.
“It shows the camaraderie and the spirit of the blossoming age of Aspen.”
Ode To Mustard by Barry Smith
Publisher: Kick the Day Pub (1999)
Language: English
Paperback: 64 pages
ISBN-10: 0966019725
ISBN-13: 978-0966019728
About the Author: Full-time humorist and former audio-visual guy, Barry Smith has, in 15 years of living here, unassumingly become a modern-day embodiment of the “Aspen Idea.” Not content with writing an award-winning weekly column in The Aspen Times, writing and directing award-winning short films, writing and performing award-winning theater (his monologue “Jesus in Montana” won Outstanding Solo show at the 2005 Fringe Festival in New York City), Barry also writes poetry, entertains a vast number of friends with anecdotes and observations, convenes a weekly writers’ salon, and is planning to tour his stage show— among other creative projects.
If this makes Barry sound like an overachieving Renaissance man— wait, it gets worse. He can also be found playing blues guitar, snowboarding, hiking, biking and trying not to topple over while holding complex yoga poses.
About the Book
"Ode To Mustard" is a collection of humorous poems and stories by Aspen Times’ humor columnist Barry Smith, with illustrations by Chris Pomeroy.
The Shoes of Kilimanjaro by Cameron M. Burns
Publisher: Hard Pressed Books; First Edition (2002)
Language: English
Paperback: 184 pages
ISBN-10: 0962962716
ISBN-13: 978-0962962714
About the Author
Mr. Burns has been writing about environmental, green architecture, energy, and sustainability issues for more than twenty-five years as a reporter / correspondent with various newspapers and as a contributing editor with numerous magazines. His essays, articles, op-eds, features, blogs, and other material on "green" issues have been featured in, among others, the Times of London, Newsweek, the Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News, the Albuquerque Journal, the High Country News, the Aspen Daily News, the Aspen Times, the Sangre de Cristo Chronicle, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Ouray Plaindealer, Solar Today, Nikkei Ecology (Japan), The World & I, Ecos (the quarterly magazine of CSIRO (Australia)), Indian Architect & Builder, Yes! magazine, and many others. His work has been featured on numerous websites (including energypulse.net, treehugger.com, Yahoo! Green, www.energybulletin.net, www.sustainablebusiness.com, www.changereport.com, greenbiz.com, www.greenerdesign.com, www.climatebiz.com, www.greenclips.com, and greenerbuildings.com).
Mr. Burns holds a bachelor's degree in environmental design from the University of Colorado (1987) and has done graduate studies in environmental management at Harvard (2004-06) as well as graduate work in film and television production at the University of California (1987-88).
About the Book
A collection of 13 of Burns’s most popular travel essays, The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories is filled with entertaining stories about adventure travel in Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, Great Britain, and the Caribbean. Each essay offers Burns's unique, often weird, views about the earth, society, and human achievement (of lack thereof).
In the introduction, Burns explains his thesis that adventure travel can mean any kind of travel, as long as it challenges the traveler: "There are two definitions that most of us from the latter 20th century/early 21st century agree upon when it comes to adventure. The first is that we generally think of adventure as having to be outdoors, preferably in a wilderness setting. The other thing about adventure is that we generally associate it with an activity that can be life-threatening, where someone has the potential to be seriously injured or die. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language [1962 edition] defines it in about five different ways, most of which center around taking risks, i.e. "1. the encountering of danger," and "2. an exciting and dangerous un-dertaking, etc. " Adventure can be much more subtle. Adventure, I believe, should focus more on Webster’s third definition: "an unusual, stirring experience, often of romantic nature."
Generation of Swine by Hunter S. Thompson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2003)
Language: English
Paperback: 336 pages
ISBN-10: 0743250443
ISBN-13: 978-0743250443
About the Author
From the bestselling author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the legendary Hunter S. Thompson’s second volume of the “Gonzo Papers” is back. Generation of Swine collects hundreds of columns from the infamous journalist’s 1980s tenure at the San Francisco Examiner.
About the Book
Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best―covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN―24 hours of mainline news. Showcasing his inimitable talent for social and political analysis, Generation of Swine is vintage Thompson―eerily prescient, incisive, and enduring.
The Magic of Conflict by Tom Crum
Publisher: Touchstone; 2nd edition (1998)
Language: English
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN-10: 0684854481
ISBN-13: 978-0684854489
About the Author
Thomas Crum is an author and presenter in the fields of conflict resolution, peak performance, and stress management. He is known throughout the world for “The Thomas Crum Approach,” designed to help people become more centered under conflict, more resourceful when facing challenges, and more effective under stress.
About the Book
This set of simple techniques, including meditation, breathing exercises, openness, and play--Aiki--leads gently to a reordered state of mind. From overcoming apathy to understanding how conflict doesn't have to mean contest, Aiki turns mind-body integration principles into powerful tools.
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