Honored to be a part of July 4th and 5th events

On behalf of Swing Factory and YOUR Woodland Park Wind Symphony it was an honor for us to provide our own version of “Musical Fire Works” during both the Old Fashioned 4th of July and 40th Annual Symphony Above the Clouds events.

As the conductor of both groups, it is so very difficult to express how proud I am of not only our musical family of Swing Factory and WPWS, but of our family of supporters who celebrated not only two traditional concerts, but the joy we all felt after so many months of isolation and insecurity.

Thank you board members of the Symphony Above the Clouds for allowing us to help move us from months of darkness to a new bright American Independence Day.

Barb Asbury and board of the Symphony Guild — thank you so much for having faith in the Swing Factory Big Band and Woodland Park Wind Symphony Family to allow us to be a part of the 40th Symphony Above the Clouds Celebration.

Also, congratulations to Gayle Gross, Old Fashioned 4th of July Committee, vendors, city crew, Chris Orton and fabulous ”Stage Talent” for helping bring back this wonderful community tradition. After skipping a full year, “picking up the pieces” of this community function was a challenge that did result in a good time had by all.

It seems each time our family of musicians get together, GREAT THINGS HAPPEN MUSICALLY and PERSONALLY! As “The Leader of the Band,” each concert was “sparkling.”.Equally sparkling was the fantastic help provided by our “Support Team” of spouses, family members, and friends.

I really don’t think I can remember experiencing from our local musicians this much joy during both days of concerts. So many members of the audiences of both days expressed how much they loved hearing live music again.

Enjoyment shown on faces of both performers and audiences is a “pandemic” I think we can all live with.

Oh, by the way … THANK YOU “MOTHER NATURE!”

GOD BLESS AMERICA,

Craig Harms, Musical Director, Swing Factory Big Band and Woodland Park Wind Symphony, Woodland Park

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Re: July 5th symphony

Thank you to the Ute Pass Symphony Guild and their sponsors for a wonderful cap to the July 4th weekend with the nontraditional traditional July 5th Symphony Above the Clouds! What a pleasurable night it was! Low hanging clouds below the stars. Calm breezes. Clear weather. A huge crowd in the open air. Folks happily picnicking with friends and family. People dancing. Children playing. And the wonderful trilogy of musical entertainments!

I know I am not alone in having missed the July 5th celebration, with the pandemic and a couple of weather cancellations. I’m sure I am not alone in saying it was worth the wait! I also appreciate the honoring of our friend Sandi King and Kellie Case’s lovely and true words in tribute to her.

From the rock n’ roll through the fabulous Swing music to the last strains of the “1812 Overture” and cannon fire, and with the “Star Wars” theme playing as everyone gathered up chairs and children and blankets and baskets and headed to our cars, it was such a free and easy feeling, it left a big smile on my face! Thank you one and all! It is good to be together again.

Suzanne Core, Woodland Park

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A thank you to Ryan Baade

I heard that Ryan Baade would be leaving the Woodland Park Parks and Rec department in the near future. I have gotten to see his hard work over the years as both a parent with kids in soccer, basketball and other sports, but also as a coach volunteering from time to time. I will miss deeply the talents and humor he brought to the job, whether it was figuring out some dramatic (at the time) but now forgotten issue with league rules or parent drama, or something more mundane like finding a kid who was on my team but never showed up for practice. Or making the same coaches meeting good, even though I’d sat through it five times before.

Thanks Ryan for the passion, organization and dedication. He is great at his job, the City was lucky to have him, and he will be missed.

Todd Wiseman, Woodland Park

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Re: June 30 Hefter letter

Joel Hefter actually got it right in his letter! Those of us who are leery of Andrew Wommack and his would-be band of religious rulers in Woodland Park actually ARE haters!

Problem is, he’s utterly wrong about the object of our hate. What we hate is the sort of religious, social and political intolerance that Wommack and his devotees espouse, the exact kind that they would establish as the status quo in Woodland Park and Teller County if they were allowed to. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.

Of course, throwing out the label “haters” is the predictable conservative pseudo-Christian response to anyone that doesn’t agree with their position. A theocracy, whether at the federal, state, county or even municipal level is completely contrary to what our Founding Fathers envisioned and patterned our government after.

Hefter ought to look up the word “dominion” in his dictionary again. It does mean “to dominate” in a biblical sense or any other sense, regardless of any peripheral implications. Oh, and as to his question about whether we should “burn down the campus and build pot shops, a pole-dancing school and a nude beach?” — well, they might actually generate more tax revenue than Wommack’s nonprofit, non-accredited, so-called bible college does. The real question is, if Wommack and his ilk were running things, would they do it if it was what THE ELECTORATE wanted? Nope, they wouldn’t … and that is the point.

Greg Sauer, Woodland Park

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Letters to the editor are published on a space-available basis, first-come, first-served. Email letters to michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. The Courier reserves the right to edit to reject any submission and to edit submissions longer than 250 words. Letters should have the author’s full name, address and phone number for verification purposes.

The American Dream is not only about wealth

When I read the editor’s column on “The American Dream” (June 30), I was reminded of a photograph I saw on the front page of the Denver Post a few weeks ago. It was a photo of a rainbow-laden gay pride parade. Nothing unusual here; pride parades are common in America. However, the parade was taken in front of the Roman Colosseum. More, the article told of parallel parades in Zagreb and Warsaw. In Croatia and Poland? That IS unusual; homosexuality is still criminalized in many European countries, especially those in the former Soviet Bloc.

I was gratified by the idea that the American Dream might be evolving into something equally possible for everyone, everywhere. Of course, in these cities the dream isn’t the same as The American Dream, which usually orbits around economic prosperity, but surely the focus of their dreams on the FREEDOM to prosper puts it in the same ballpark. It’s not treasure they pursue, but basic freedoms: To live free of censorship, free from forced secrecy, free from neurotic government authorities obsessed with micro-managing their sex lives.

These two articles reminded me how free we Americans really are, and how far we’ve progressed, and how much freedom I take for granted when I’m grumbling to my wife about politics.

I cannot say that “all Americans are gaining freedom” without qualification. There are definitely some disquieting restrictions on freedom coming from the Left. They range from the trivially annoying, such as plastic bag bans; to the more annoying, such as carbon emission regulations; to the wholly non-trivial and occasionally outrageous, such as suppressions of conservative speech and religious practices; these last are dangerous suppressions that often provide and have provided the fuel for civil wars both past and present.

Aside from these last infringements, though, you cannot rationally compare the proscription of plastic grocery bags to the persecution of homosexuals; they’re simply in different categories of personal freedom. No, on balance, more groups are gaining freedoms than are losing them. Women, homosexuals, and people of color have all been aggressively regulated by U.S. criminal law at some point in history. Yet today they are almost as free as white men in this country have always been, at least on paper (you have to start somewhere). Sheesh, even ANIMALS are more free than they were even fifty years ago, a phenomenon totally unprecedented in 3,000 years of recorded European history.

It’s true that there are depressing indicators that upward mobility — the popular bedrock of the American Dream — is slowing down, signs that I’ll probably never achieve my parents’ level of financial security. But money isn’t everything, for as the Great Rabbi taught when the Devil tempted him with unlimited power and wealth: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4, King James translation).

And for the non-religious souls among us? The freedom to live in liberty, and at least the freedom to PURSUE happiness, fill that void comfortably, without the need for organized religion, as they did for the deist authors of our Constitution. I hope the Italian, Croatian and Polish LGBTQ marchers can come to enjoy the same freedoms.

Lance Kildare, Colorado Springs

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LETTERS POLICY: Letters to the editor are published on a space-available basis, first-come, first-served in the Cheyenne Edition. Email letters to michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. Letters should have the author’s full name, address and phone number for verification purposes. The Cheyenne Edition reserves the right to edit submissions. We want to hear from you!