Paula Anderson and Doris Butler have been friends now for over thirty years – both heavily involved in saving family farms and orchards in and around Grand Junction, Colorado.

Traveling through the neighboring towns of Grand Junction, you will notice several small orchards full of peaches and cherries. You might spot neat rows of vineyard in people’s backyards and at the very foot of the Grand Mesa.

In 1977, Paula rolled into town as the Citizen Participation Coordinator for a new planning initiative to save the farmland. Doris, a housewife and orchard owner, was living in the community at the time and opened her house to host the first organizing meeting, where Paula and Doris were able to plant the seeds of the future Mesa Land Trust.

The two women recalled the extraordinary vision and commitment that the East Orchard community embodied, remembering local meetings that often ran until 2 o’clock in the morning with passionate discourse.

Their conversation exemplified the pride you will find in Grand Junction and Palisade, Colorado – pride in their agriculture. Boasting a unique micro-climate in Western Colorado, the bounty of these communities can be tasted during the annual Palisade Peach Festival or the autumn’s Wine Tours of Grand Mesa.

In a growing American landscape of carbon-copied planning, Grand Junction and the Western Slope is an oasis of original local flavor, thanks to such community-minded neighbors like Paula and Doris.

On the right side of his neck like a sprouting daffodil, you can see two hands joined in prayer, growing out from under Chris’ collar — fingertips just barely tucked behind his ear. Melisa described cute, fantastical creatures that adorn her, albeit nowhere in sight.

Beyond ink, Melisa and Chris have a few more things in common.

“They say that if you love your job, it’s not a job at all,” says Chris, who is passionate about auto-body – with plans on building his own shop.

“Absolutely,” replies Melisa, who as a librarian, goes home after work just to continue researching, reading, and mulling over information access. “You see the connection between your art and your work,” she empathizes.

The small room has been sound-proofed – improvised, that is. Layers of soft white linen have been carefully stapled over all four walls to capture bouncing echoes. This StoryCorps field recording was conducted at Arrowhead Correctional Center, a minimum security prison located in Canon City, Colorado – otherwise known as the Corrections Capital of the country. Melisa and other prison-library staff invited StoryCorps across red-tape and barbed-wire fences, to host a day of recorded oral histories for those “offenders” with a desire to speak into a microphone. Chris participated along with seven other men who are also currently serving time at Arrowhead.

“What is one of your happiest memories?”

“July 19 of ’06 when my daughter was born.” A proud father, Chris went on to describe his daughter’s laughter, revealing that one of the best things about being a parent was being able to put a smile on his baby’s face. “She represents the part of life that I never got to see…that because of my circumstances, I never experienced. She gives it all back to me.”

Recalling his own childhood, Chris described the moment when he realized, at twelve, that he was the only person left to take care of his needs.
“What made you realize you had to do it all on your own?”

“I just got hungry one night.” And so began Chris’s story of a childhood and adolescence spent on the street – a story whose final word was “crossroads”, a word born on July 19^th, 2006.

“They have this country western songÖ ëWhen tough little boys grow up to be dads, they turn into big babies again…’ She pulls on me like that.”

Libraries are already special places. The prison-library, however, represents perhaps the only ‘space of possibility’ in a setting otherwise defined by stringent limitation. What regularly brings Chris and Melisa to the library has something to do with a self-searching that Chris describes as his first duty as a parent – that is, to know himself. His interview is a dedication to his own future, and to his daughter.

Special thanks to Diane Walden of Arrowhead Correctional Library, Christopher Aguirre, and all the interview participants for collectively creating an unprecedented platform in Canon City. With dreams of developing another oral history project at Arrowhead, Ms. Walden hopes to extend such a conversation in the future to include family-members of prisoners.

2 TB butter
2 TB olive oil
1/2 lg. onion, mined very finely
10 mushrooms, chopped very finely
2 cups aborio rice
pinch saffron 4-5 cups chicken broth
1 cup white wine
1/2 -1 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste…..Saute onion and mushrooms in olive oil and butter. When soft, add rice and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the saffron, 1/2 cup wine and 1 cup broth and let simmer with the lid off, stirring frequently. As the liquid is absorbed, add more, a cup at a time until the rice is cooked, about 20 minutes. Add the rest of the wine last. Before serving, add the parmesan cheese and let cook 5 minutes stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve AT ONCE with parmesan cheese. Risotto waits for no man (or woman)!

“If I make something that they taught me how to make, they’re still alive…they’ll be alive because you’re eating the food that they made.”

Married couple Jodi & Page came to the MobileBooth in Denver this afternoon to talk about the way they first met — online.

“He thought that it was sad that I would use the ‘internets’ to find someone,” Jodi said of his father.

Little did dad know, that not only would the two get married within the year, but that he would also jump on the internet bandwagon, becoming an ordained minister online so that he could preside over their wedding.

Jodi and Paige wanted someone official at the altar, but preferred that it not be a stranger. “My dad…who’s practically atheist. He got online and was able to get ordained, just like that,” said Jodi. “You can do that in Colorado.”