You under the spell of Boulder, Colorado’s Chief Niwot curse?
It’s not much of a curse, more of a blessing.
Most hometowns in America, the children can’t wait to get away, move to the big city. Same with Boulder, Colorado—only they come right back, more often than not, after realizing that the rest of the world, while cooler, more cultured, with more history, more bars, more going on…isn’t full of bike paths, mountain hikes five minutes out of downtown, and good people doing good work. I dunno. I can’t explain it—maybe that’s why they call it a curse. There’s some weird magic in it.
Story was, Chief Niwot, a peaceable Native American chief who was savaged by our early white mining settlers and their double-talking ways, said: all ye who look upon the Flatirons (our iconic mountains, which are to Boulder as the Empire State Building is to NYC or Golden Gate Bridge is to SF) will be doomed to forever return.
I’m not complaining. For years I’ve been working my arse off, to little effect, broke and stuck here without dough to fly away, just trying to pay my crazy Boulder mortgage and build a national media vehicle, first magazine now web site and talk show…and I wouldn’t rather’ve been stuck in any city in America, just about.
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Our family moved to Wimberley, Texas after almost ten years in West Boulder.
Three months later, we were back in Boulder. We even re-rented our same house (which had been remodeled in the mean time).
Even though Wimberley is a cool little town in the Hill Country, close to Austin —plus we had a cool modernist house right on the cleanest river in the state —our lifestyle was suffering. We couldn't ride bikes, the schools were too downhome for our our Boulder-raised kids, and we missed the earthy vibe big time.
My husband's family lived in Boulder in the eighties and then got moved to Florida for a job, and then to England. When the company in England layed him off he started randomly interviewing within his field and ended up back in Boulder. Now they are building their dream house and I think they will live out the rest of their days there. Nobody denies it….it's because of Niwot's curse!
However, I have lived under the flatirons only once so far, and now I llve and love in Texas, so I am destined to return!
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You need to research what the "curse" was – you've got it wrong. Totally wrong.
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i first came to boulder in '91. ive left and came back 4 times since then. im moving back in dec. boulder kinda sucks but everywhere else sucks even worse.