Elizabeth N.
Herder of cats
My sister's adopted hometown, which is about an hour from where we grew up, is a fascinating place. Ah hell, since she has it on her FB page, it's Boulder, MT. This bucolic looking place is, happily, still an agricultural community. It also long housed the "state school," where, back in the Bad Old Days, people with various mental illnesses and disabilities were kept, often life long.
During the deinstitutionalization movement, which I believe coincided with the Reagan era, the town and surrounding vicinity absorbed a good many residents who were released and either chose to stay local or who had nowhere else to go. Most of those folks are now gone, except for a few oldtimers.
The property now houses four entities that deal with various categories of folks with problems. Two are private and two are state owned. One state owned place remains the "institution," though it is now home to folks who cannot live in any other setting.
That might make it sound like Boulder is an icky place. Far from it. Those entities provide a nice chunk of employment. There is a lovely, strong community spirit. There is a lot of tolerance for diversity, compared to many ag towns of similar size. It gives me great joy to just hang out in town and shoot the shit with whoever happens to be in the locale of choice, whether that be the café, the pizza place, the bar, the radon mine, the grocery store.....
.....Or (because this is me we're talking about LOL) the THRIFT STORE!!!! The folks who are coming to visit next weekend are hopefully going to LOVE this place. Among the treasures I've found there: NWOT Columbia three-way coat for Mr. EN, calf length 100% down HOT PINK London Fog coat for me, many Lands End bits, cute sundresses, excellent quality kitchen knife, terrific quality wool. Most recently a NWOT but still on the little hanger thingie Cacique bra and several Coldwater Creek items. I ADORE this place and am always thrilled to give them business.
In order to find such marvelous things, one must tolerate an external appearance that is less than promising, to put it gently.
The place is now on its third manager since I started shopping there. First one, years ago, was a lovely old lady, who just died last winter, who invested at LEAST 40 hours a week in the place, for zero money. She never, ever threw anything away, but she kept stuff sorted and boxed and piled to. the. roof. If a customer saw something up by the roof, she was happy to let them go hunting. I found some of my treasures because I saw a scrap peeking out of a box and wanted to go digging. She never, ever spent a penny on the place, either
The second manager was a person of, um, dubious and colorful reputation but a LOT of energy and big talk. She was also from a different generation. She did not know how to spend zero money or live on zero money. She thought she knew how to network and advertise. She and her mom were hoarders. The place quickly became barely accessible on a good day.
Then came the town wide yard sale. The day after, as was long the tradition, most of the leftovers were piled at their back door. Long story short, the place was shut down as a public menace. Great kerfuffle ensued. Manager was fired, new one came in.
I volunteered to help with the great muckout, which was last summer, and we got the place back open. All seemed to be progressing well.
I came back to a dramatically improved place compared to what it once was, and was thrilled. Kerfuffle, however, was still happening. The place wasn't bringing in enough money and EVERYBODY was pissed. Hmmm, well, it's a nonprofit organization, and I do nonprofit development, so, silly me, I thought I'd volunteer to do a consultation.
It took many days of talking to various people (two boards are involved) to get to the bottom of the kerfuffle. It is an example of the downside of small town life, where gossip runs amok, grudges grow out of imagined slights, and so the real problems become indistinguishable from the imaginary ones. If I had gotten involved, it would only have compounded the bullshit. *sigh*
It's like all the stupid bullshit of the place got concentrated on this one issue. I'm glad I dodged that particular cowpie.
During the deinstitutionalization movement, which I believe coincided with the Reagan era, the town and surrounding vicinity absorbed a good many residents who were released and either chose to stay local or who had nowhere else to go. Most of those folks are now gone, except for a few oldtimers.
The property now houses four entities that deal with various categories of folks with problems. Two are private and two are state owned. One state owned place remains the "institution," though it is now home to folks who cannot live in any other setting.
That might make it sound like Boulder is an icky place. Far from it. Those entities provide a nice chunk of employment. There is a lovely, strong community spirit. There is a lot of tolerance for diversity, compared to many ag towns of similar size. It gives me great joy to just hang out in town and shoot the shit with whoever happens to be in the locale of choice, whether that be the café, the pizza place, the bar, the radon mine, the grocery store.....
.....Or (because this is me we're talking about LOL) the THRIFT STORE!!!! The folks who are coming to visit next weekend are hopefully going to LOVE this place. Among the treasures I've found there: NWOT Columbia three-way coat for Mr. EN, calf length 100% down HOT PINK London Fog coat for me, many Lands End bits, cute sundresses, excellent quality kitchen knife, terrific quality wool. Most recently a NWOT but still on the little hanger thingie Cacique bra and several Coldwater Creek items. I ADORE this place and am always thrilled to give them business.
In order to find such marvelous things, one must tolerate an external appearance that is less than promising, to put it gently.
The place is now on its third manager since I started shopping there. First one, years ago, was a lovely old lady, who just died last winter, who invested at LEAST 40 hours a week in the place, for zero money. She never, ever threw anything away, but she kept stuff sorted and boxed and piled to. the. roof. If a customer saw something up by the roof, she was happy to let them go hunting. I found some of my treasures because I saw a scrap peeking out of a box and wanted to go digging. She never, ever spent a penny on the place, either
The second manager was a person of, um, dubious and colorful reputation but a LOT of energy and big talk. She was also from a different generation. She did not know how to spend zero money or live on zero money. She thought she knew how to network and advertise. She and her mom were hoarders. The place quickly became barely accessible on a good day.
Then came the town wide yard sale. The day after, as was long the tradition, most of the leftovers were piled at their back door. Long story short, the place was shut down as a public menace. Great kerfuffle ensued. Manager was fired, new one came in.
I volunteered to help with the great muckout, which was last summer, and we got the place back open. All seemed to be progressing well.
I came back to a dramatically improved place compared to what it once was, and was thrilled. Kerfuffle, however, was still happening. The place wasn't bringing in enough money and EVERYBODY was pissed. Hmmm, well, it's a nonprofit organization, and I do nonprofit development, so, silly me, I thought I'd volunteer to do a consultation.
It took many days of talking to various people (two boards are involved) to get to the bottom of the kerfuffle. It is an example of the downside of small town life, where gossip runs amok, grudges grow out of imagined slights, and so the real problems become indistinguishable from the imaginary ones. If I had gotten involved, it would only have compounded the bullshit. *sigh*
It's like all the stupid bullshit of the place got concentrated on this one issue. I'm glad I dodged that particular cowpie.
