If you ever have the option of choosing where to live with retirement approaching, pay attention to what people say about college towns. There is a pervasive youthful energy, and the entertainment and educational opportunities are plentiful and inexpensive.

Fort Collins is such a place, and I often find that I have to choose between several competing events or activities as the appointment book pages fill up from week to week.



Last Friday, Pat and I went to a university production of Bent, a play introduced with vignettes of gay life in Nazi-dominated Berlin, and evolving into a love story within the confines of a concentration camp. There were many tears shed among the audience in the little intimate theatre as the lights came up at the end.

Tonight, I went to a University student chamber music showcase with some lesser and well known works. The familiar pieces were unconventional in their instrumentation - the moving Adagio from Samuel Barber's String Quartet No. 1 with euphoniums and tubas, and Rimsky-Korsakoff's Flight of the Bumblebee with four bassoons! Fun. Free too. The Bent performance set me back $13 for both tickets.

Last night, I went to the university for a public forum on a number of local and national issues. I chose to participate in a discussion on energy policy, and I was alarmed at the naivete of the published discussion guidelines, but encouraged that at least one other participant was aware of the Peak Oil factor and how it is beginning to manifest with a vengeance.

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