(This post pertains to the future drivers of Aspen in the 1970’s)

Getting your driver’s license is like a “rite of passage’.  Something almost every soon to be 16-year-old looks forward to.  It is the first step of many in their journey to freedom and away from the tyranny of family life under the rule of “because I said so!”  The soon to be emancipated youth of the Roaring Fork Valley were no different.  They had waited long enough to be able to drive and not rely on their siblings for rides, or even worse, their friend’s control of when and where they would take you.

Through all the joy and expectation of the approaching 16^th birthday, was the event that would change everything!  Going from a student driver to that of a bonafide licensed driver.  Well one obstacle did exist and it was not lost on any soon-to-be 16-year-old or soon-to-be licensed driver of any age, and that was Officer Mark Potter, state certified DMV inspector and savior of the pedestrians of the Roaring Fork Valley.  He loomed on the horizon like Zeus’ Fist, which is a cursed pile of rocks for those of you not into mythology, of which no new driver could avoid.

Mr. Potter was known for having a rather unpleasant disposition to put it mildly.  There was no room in his life for stupid questions (all questions asked of him were considered stupid) or dumb people.  He arrived on-time and closed on-time.  Don’t even consider asking any questions or even greeting him when he was not on duty.  And don’t even think of showing up for your driving test without an appointment. Okay, in fairness he might not have been that bad but we will never know for sure.  But what every kid that faced him for the written exam or actual driving test can confirm is that he was what nightmares were made from.

If you failed the driving test, he would find the furthest out possible appointment for your retake and would pencil you in.  Yes, pencil you in as he owned you at that point and you were at his mercy, if you want to call it that.   Those who faced the dreaded Officer Potter were probably the best drivers or at least the best educated drivers in the valley but it was not without a certain amount of anxiety along the way.

The DMV office was originally, well for my generation, in a motor home out at Sardy Field behind the Aspen Airways hanger.  By mid-1974, the DMV office was relocated to Holland Hills, just south-east of Basalt on highway 82 to make it more centrally located in the valley.   Mr. Potter moved on shortly after that and was replaced by Willie Williams.  To say they were nothing alike would be an understatement.

Mr. Williams used to love to play practical jokes on people at their most vulnerable time, taking a test, but it was all in good fun.  He was even known for giving unsuspecting test takers the written exams in one of the foreign language formats just to watch them squirm around in their chairs afraid to ask for help.

For generations families grew up in the Aspen valley not really aware of what changes were taking place elsewhere in the world.  To say we were insulated was putting it mildly.  That was until the late 40’s and early 50’s when Aspen started to attract a new kind of visitor, skiers.  With skiers came the wealthy business elite from places far and wide.  Without really knowing it, our little valley was on a fast track to prosperity and with it would come the loss of a particular identity that only the Aspenites had come to live and love. Unknowingly, many lacked the appreciation for what “daily life” was versus what it would become.

Some of the people arrived as “ski bums” but stayed to have families of their own and became long-time residents, although they lacked the ability to be known as “natives”.  That moniker was reserved for an unknown date decades before because, as we “natives” know, our families had to arrive from elsewhere too but that arbitrary date gave us the added title of an “Aspen Native” that not even the wealthy could buy. The only other option to being a legitimate native was to be born there.

The 1960’s, 70’s and early 80’s brought a new “lifestyle” that many of the “Old Timers” lamented while the new-comers” relished.  Aspen had become a very tolerant party town.  Our parades lacked decorum, our “Winterskol” celebration took on an awkward debauchery theme that got progressively more risqué as each year passed.  The one thing Aspen never lost back then was a willingness by all of her residents, new and old alike, to get along and try to go with the flow.  In those same decades, more and more people moved to the valley.  Some were here on a shoestring and a prayer while others came with an overloaded bank account in tow.  For some this was not going to be their hometown, it was a second home or perhaps a 3^rd, 4^th or more.  First it was the dreaded “Texans” buying everything up and the locals used to love to complain about them, but behind the scenes it really was not the Texans we should have worried about.  It was everyone else from everywhere else. 

Not all the newcomers liked Aspen’s party lifestyle with all the drugs, booze and parties.  It was even one of the first communities to have an established and very vocal gay community when that kind of thing was kept in the shadows.  Yup, Aspen was becoming a very cosmopolitan town whether we pretended to think so or not.  Our little community was changing before our very eyes.

Some of the biggest changes in the mid-80’s into the 90’s was not the continued rise in housing prices or the fact that little jets at Sardy Field were being replaced by bigger and bigger jets, or even the fact that Aspen’s working class was moving “down valley” to places like Basalt, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs and even Rifle, all places that were wholly unthinkable and downright sacrilege decades earlier.  Some found it less expensive to raise a family and others “cashed out” on their small homes or trailers for bigger digs further out of town.  Aspen’s biggest change that no one saw coming or those that did, tried to deny it, was the simple fact that our partiers, like all the members of The Aspen State Teacher’s College and the “experimental apothecary” crowd were growing older.  They had kids now and as much as they loved their party years, that was not something they wanted their kids to do.  Yup, the parties as we knew it were over.  As more time went by, these very same people found themselves moving out of the area entirely.  All replaced by part time residents or people who would never have to work a day in their lives.

So now it is time for the “Little Perspective” this story is really about.

What very few of us stop long enough to think back on is that Aspen was always changing.  We were just lucky enough to live though some of the best of changes and see what our little town would become.  Aspen showed a willingness to change, a process that had to take place or the town would perish and all our memories would be about a time long ago where no one can go back to.  Sure, a lot of us resisted these changes when we took a moment to see them actually taking place.  We still lament about them today, perhaps more than ever, but we are all better people because of those changes.  Just think, if Aspen never changed what would we have to talk about?  What would our younger years have been like?  Would we be talking about them today like we do?  And what about Aspen?  There is a good comparison I like to draw to better highlight what Aspen could have been if none of this had happened.  Some of you may know Lake City, Colorado.  In fact, I suspect many of you have been there or will go some day.  If you go back to Aspen’s origin and compare it to Lake City, they are virtually identical.  They both came to life in the Silver Boom and they both died because of it too.  The difference is, Aspen found a new life a few decades later while Lake City remained a quiet little Colorado mining community surviving on what small ranching revenue brought in as well as the hunters and “Jeepers” who paid it an occasional visit.  It has only one other claim to fame and that is that Alferd “Alfred” Packer had dinner with a few acquaintances during the winter of 1874 just outside of what would become Lake City’s town limits.

So, if you think about it, Aspen would have been just another Lake City if it were not for the original ski bums and “Texans” who put her on the map.  Which caused Walter Paepcke to take notice and come initiate a steady stream of changes that are still going on to this day.

Interestingly enough, Lake City, although decades later, is going through its own renaissance today.  Property values are skyrocketing and the second homes or hunting cabins are becoming more normal.  It will most likely never be another Aspen, but it will also never be the same “old” Lake City it was just a few decades ago.

“Without change you have nothing but history” – Douglas Beck