Colorado Weird News

Balloon boy latest in a series of big stories that pop up in Colorado

By Robert Weller

A friend of mine who lives in Nairobi e-mailed me in the middle of Balloon Boy. “I continue to marvel at how Denver always seems to get these big-ticket stories,” said Nick Wadhams.

Wadhams has worked all over the world, too, as well as Denver.

Of course many of the stories aren’t really in Denver, but the media often ties them to the Mile High City, because anything between the Hudson and the West Coast doesn’t matter.

Some have turned out to be not nearly as grave as initially thought. An Air Force pilot in Arizona took off in a Warthog and ended up in a pile of rocks almost 14,000-feet high near Vail.

Initially it feared he might be heading to Denver, to drop a bomb to get even for the trial and subsequent execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeighTimothy McVeigh. I made a lot of overtime on that one. The trial for both McVeigh and his sidekick were moved to Denver in hopes of getting an unbiased jury.

I confess when we flew up above 13,000 in a helicopter with a door open I was scared. Then it looked like one of the Air Force PJs dangling from a longline had fallen. I was split like the character in Animal House when he could take advantage of the mayor's daughter. The devil told me it would be an awesome story. The angel urged me to pray the man was safe. He was. It turned out to have been his backpack.

Don't forget Najibullah Zazi, the alleged Saudi Aurora terrorist, who in repeated leaks by law enforcement sources was said to be planning a mass terrorist explosion. The fact that bomb experts said he was too stupid to pull it off was pushed aside, and use of the Mother of Satan as peroxide bombs are called likely would have resulted in him killing himself. Please spare us and honor his right to a speedy trial and deportation.

Florida, I hear, likes to believe all sorts of important but sometimes odd things happen there. An editor friend who has spent many years in Denver says there is usually a Colorado connection.

How about South Park. Or JonBenet Ramsey. It is rumored the agents who rescued the Dalai LamaDalai Lama from Tibet trained in the Rockies.

Then there was John Denver, who helped make Colorado famous. That speaks for itself. And Hunter S. ThompsonHunter S. Thompson, who ran for sheriff in Aspen on a platform of legalizing marijuana. They are both dead now, but people can buy marijuana as a medicine.

My favorite Thompson line was “there is some shit we will not eat.” He was a huge NBA fan and watched games on a big screen TV in Woody Creek.

President Obama was nominated by Democrats meeting in Denver.

Last week a four-month-old baby in Grand Junction needed to get national coverage to qualify for insurance. The company had declared he was too fat: 17 pounds. They called it a pre-existing condition.

What seemed more likely in this weight- and exercise-obsessed state and happened this week was a two-year-old being denied insurance because she was too thin. Aislin Bates was no relation to Norman Bates, also thin, though she does live in Erie.

Cruising the Internet I remember seeing someone saying being a woman was a pre-existing condition. I don’t remember if it was a joke. Because of the press of balloon boy coverage I had to live it there instead of fact-checking.

Columbine, of course, is not funny. South Park is in Colorado, and it is funny. How about the Unsinkable Molly Brown or the first person convicted of eating human flesh, Alferd Packer. One of history's most repeated historical lies is that Packer got into even more trouble because he had eaten all the Democrats in Hinsdale County.

Even in the 19th Century big stories got attention in New York. Another tragic example was the Sand Creek Massacre.

Tragedy or feared tragedy is a common theme. Much of the Matthew Shepard story came out of Colorado. He died in Fort Collins.

The voyage of the Denver Broncos, getting so close only to be destroyed in four Super Bowls, reminded one of the Myth of Sisyphus or the Flying Dutchman.

By the time John ElwayJohn Elway and crew won two in a row children of a family I know near Washington D.C., and many others, had started rooting for them.

A couple of things may influence that. First is the mountains, which might cause the second, light-headedness.

When Wellington Webb was completing his terms as mayor he told me people want to live here and know about Colorado because of the mountains. Thousands of people around the nation own second homes in the forests.

That produces wildfire stories that tug at the heart when families lose beautiful homes.

One year, after a disastrous wildfire season, I was able to sell a story about how green Crested Butte was.

News coverage of balloon boy showed the snowcapped mountains behind him.

Andrew Hudson, Webb's press secretary and a sax player, commented on Facebook: "98% of Americans scream when losing control on a slippery road. The other 2% are from Colorado who say "Hold my coffee and watch this!"