New Age in Ridgway

Ridgway is a Western town that never seems to have quite found its identity. It has building spurts and building busts, and half the town is for sale or for rent. The restaurant "True Grit" is dedicated to John Wayne. But next door is a little shop that sells (or would like to sell) loose tea and herbs. They have concerts in the town park in the summer. We had lunch outside at Kate's today, on the way to the dump.

The group above hadn't ordered yet. The median age was probably 65, and they looked like City Market shoppers but they were so NEW AGE! and NUTZ!

The gray guy told the waitress, "These are all my wives." (There's another one who'd had a stroke, not pictured.) The waitress only thought it was mildly funny. Mormon jokes don't always play well in Western towns. But this group seemed to be locals.

The very heavy redhead arrived late and ordered a salad. She was starting a course in the morning that was spiritual, we think. Her friends asked how much it cost to take it, and she said, "Oh, she just wants a love donation." The others were thinking of taking the course too, because the trainer was such a beautiful person. Or maybe they just wanted to make love donations.

The gray guy kept referring to his earthship. At first we thought he was just a far gone space boy, then we realized he'd bought Dennis Weaver's Earthship, an ultra far out and multi million dollar strange home built of recycled tires. For years after Weaver died it didn't sell. Supposedly snakes had found the tires ideal as homes and would drop out from the ceiling, but that may just be Ridgway urban legend. The gray guy was considering trading his earthship for a condo in Telluride.

The gal with the baseball cap lives in a motorhome. She said they wouldn't let her park it at the supermarket in Telluride. She talked about bringing canvas bags to the market instead of recycling, that you were doing a lot more for the world by bringing the bags. (How about not tooling around the countryside in the motorhome, hon?)

But the big gal in the center was the choice one. She'd recently quit her job after two months because she discovered that electromagnetic waves were turning her purple. This is what she said. She wasn't purple at the restaurant.

She went on. "I can't use a cordless phone, I can't use a cel phone. I can't even open a refrigerator." (Someone is obviously opening it for her.) She can't go near a computer because of the waves. She described other symptoms which were unpleasant, aside from turning purple.

But, but, she's found a possible solution. There are clip-on devices you can buy-- it takes two for each offending appliance, but they scramble the magnetic signal so you don't get sick.

We talked it over after we left the restaurant, and both of us had heard it just like this.