Category: The Front Porch

I just read a news article announcing that the town of Hazleton, PA (a place I know cuz I've been there), recently found a way to restrict immigration by requiring all legal documents to be written in English. Aside from being impressed that this relatively small town could get its poop in a group to pass this law (4-1), I immediately thought of Windsor, and how we're not even able to develop ordinances to deal with the cats-at-large situation we've got going on. Both papers in town have run articles about residents who are upset with all the cats that just roam through neighborhoods. One woman even found a cat corpse in her window well! Imagine how that animal suffered, especially in this searing heat we've been experiencing. That cat probably cooked from the inside. Other residents complain of finding cat poop in their sandboxes (been there) and on their lawns (been there, too). And what does our amazingly unenlightened police chief...

So I write a local newspaper column for three years here in Windsor, Colorado. It's popularity grows and my kids get frustrated because we can't go anywhere in town without some reader stopping me to tell me I made her cry or he liked the way I said what everyone in town was thinking but didn't dare say out loud. That column, published in The Windsor Tribune, was called The Family Room. But then my very excellent editor had a baby and had the audacity to decide to stay home and raise her daughter with her own two hands (imagine!). So I was left with a reporter promoted to editor who I think is a control freak and who wanted to approve the topics I wrote about ahead of time. I got a healthy chuckle out of that idea, said "I don't think so," and wrote my last column for that paper. Then I walk across the street to Windsor's other local...