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    <description>Latest local news from The Durango Herald.</description>
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        <link>https://tj.durangoherald.com/the-escalation-trap/</link>
        <title>The escalation trap</title>
        <description>How small disagreements grow into big conflicts</description>
        <pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:55:47 -0600</pubDate>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[Ron PriceccaHow small disagreements grow into big conflictsEditor’s note: This is the first column in a five-part series.I think it is fair to say that, as a nation, we do not have a very good track record of doing relationships well. While marriage is certainly included in that observation, the problem extends much further. We see similar struggles in families, workplaces, churches and even friendships.So why does this happen? Why do so many relationships that begin with good intentions eventually become strained, distant or even broken? What happens to all those hopes and expectations people have at the beginning?At the risk of being overly simplistic, in many cases, relationships get sick, and the people involved simply do not know the cause or the cure. Sometimes they get so sick that the parties involved begin to believe there is no cure.Researchers at the University of Denver have studied relationships for more than 25 years and identified several patterns that can quietly undermine and eventually destroy them. Relationship expert Gary Smalley reviewed their findings and used a memorable word to describe these patterns. He called them “germs.”Just as germs can weaken the human body if left untreated, these relational germs can weaken and eventually destroy relationships.The first of these germs is called escalation.Escalation occurs when little things become big things. It can start with a simple comment such as, “I didn’t like it when you did that.” The other person responds, “Oh yeah? Well, what about when you did this?” Before long, the conversation has turned into a full-blown battle.Most relationships experience occasional escalation. But if every disagreement turns into World War 7,533, the relationship is clearly in trouble.We see escalation everywhere. It shows up in family arguments, workplace conflicts, road rage and sometimes even in church disagreements. Small issues quickly spiral out of control.Part of the reason this happens has to do with how our brains work. When we become upset, we can quickly shift into the emotional part of our brain known as the limbic system, where our fight, flight or freeze reactions originate.The limbic system reacts quickly and emotionally without the careful reasoning provided by the frontal lobe, the thinking part of our brain. You have probably heard someone say, “I was so mad I couldn’t think straight.” When emotions run high, rational thinking can be temporarily overridden.Psychologist John Gottman refers to this condition as being “flooded.”Some of us remember cars with carburetors. Occasionally, they would get flooded with gas and simply would not start. Pumping the gas or repeatedly turning the key only made the problem worse. The solution was to wait until the excess fuel cleared out.The same principle applies in heated conversations. When one or both people are emotionally flooded, continuing the discussion almost guarantees things will get worse rather than better.Sometimes the best solution is simply to take a break. Wait 20 or 30 minutes and allow emotions to settle before returning to the conversation.It can also be helpful for families, workplaces and other groups to agree on a simple signal that means “time out.” The sports signal of forming a “T” with your hands works well. Others might simply say “time out” or even quote the famous Bob Newhart line, “Just stop it!”The point is not to win the argument. The goal is to prevent escalation before it causes lasting damage.I once heard about an older couple who decided that if they were ever going to argue, they had to do it while naked. As you might imagine, this rule prevented them from arguing in public places. I do not recommend this approach for the workplace, but at home, away from children, it might be surprisingly effective.Animals operate largely on instinct, and humans resemble animals most when we do the same. Escalation is what happens when instinct takes over and reason steps aside.The good news is this: once we recognize escalation for what it is, we are far better equipped to stop it before it damages the relationships that matter most.Ron Price, who has a master’s degree in counseling from the University of New Mexico, is author of the “Play Nice in Your Sandbox” book series and creator of the CPR Mastery video course. He is available for workshops and staff training. Contact Ron at ron@ronprice.com and (505) 324-6328. Learn more at ronprice.com.]]></content:encoded>
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        <link>https://tj.durangoherald.com/looking-back-pioneering-in-southwest-colorado-in-1882/</link>
        <title>Looking back: Pioneering in Southwest Colorado in 1882</title>
        <description>The Simon Sisters, seated left to right: Mary Blackmer, Rachel Dickerson and Lydia Millard. Standing: Elizabeth Hammond and Sarah Rust.Courtesy of a Simon descendant Editor’s note: This column, by Fred Taylor, was based on an interview with Anna Florence Robison...</description>
        <pubDate>Wed, 02 Oct 2019 17:19:28 -0600</pubDate>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[The Simon Sisters, seated left to right: Mary Blackmer, Rachel Dickerson and Lydia Millard. Standing: Elizabeth Hammond and Sarah Rust.Courtesy of a Simon descendant Editor’s note: This column, by Fred Taylor, was based on an interview with Anna Florence Robison in 1934. Part 2 of Pioneering in Southwestern Colorado will be published Nov. 1 in The Journal. Permission to re-print this article is given by the descendants of the Simon girls – the Blackmer family, the Dickerson family and the Hammond family.I was born in 1860 at Lee’s Summit, Jackson County, Missouri. In 1872 my father moved to the plains of Nebraska. Many Southern people moved away from Missouri after the Civil War. They went to New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. I had my schooling at Lee’s Summit, where I was born, and in 1904 the old school house was still standing. The grasshoppers caused my father to leave Nebraska, and I came back to Missouri. I knew I was not getting enough for what I was able to do, so I went to Cañon City, Colorado, where I thought I had a brother. I was 22 years old when I arrived there on Feb. 15, 1882. But my brother was over on the Western Slope. I was one of five men with a spring wagon and 20 head of horses snowed in during the winter of 1882 near Cumbres Station. We were caught in a blizzard. We had only overshoes. We had to thaw out our shoes in the mornings over a fire. The canyon was full of snow. Some of the white spruces were 75 feet tall, and we cut the tops out of them. We were there two weeks before we got out and down to Chama, New Mexico. We had food, though, and slept later on in the section house. My job played out, so I went to Dolores and hired to the L.C. outfit, Sept. 15, 1882. Jim and Bill Brumley were running the L.C. cattle – 5,000 head, and they had two cowboys riding for them. I rode for various persons until I was married in 1888 to Marie Simon, down at the old log cabin on the Simon place. All the cowboys from the Blue Mountains and all around were there. And all who were not in the wedding were at the dance Al Nunn gave that night for us. I was 28, and my wife was 26. She had taken up a homestead in the valley, and we lived there after our marriage. LaGrange, who promoted the No. 2 ditch company, suggested to Marie that she should take up the land there because the company he represented planned to put a town in the vicinity. Later the company bought three forties of her homesteads for $1,200, and she retained one forty for herself. The town did not materialize because the No. 1 and No. 2 companies consolidated with S.W. Carpenter, later of Mancos, at the head. The consolidated gave up the town site of the No. 2 company and went in with the town company that promoted Cortez. Carpenter had the place where the Lichliters have lived for a good many years. It was a fine house. He demanded a great deal of respect. He had a private as well as public approach to his house. In 1880, we built the good log house on the homestead. The lumber we used came from the Blatchford mill just east of Summit Reservoir. He owed me 10,000 feet of lumber, but on account of the mud, I had a very hard time getting enough to put a roof and floor in that house. A fine fat team could haul only three logs. It was quite a struggle, but we had a good time all the same. It is better to laugh at your troubles than cry over them. Our two oldest children, Mrs. Leah Blackmer and Ben Taylor, were born in that house on the homestead. We have two besides: Mrs. Ruth Doyle and Mrs. Lillian Cox of Long Beach.Marie and Fred Taylor were married in 1888 “down at the old log cabin on the Simon place,” according to Fred Taylor. “All the cowboys from the Blue Mountains and all around were there. And all who were not in the wedding were at the dance Al Nunn gave that night for us.”Courtesy of Jody Blackmer, a Simon descendant I planted an orchard and shade trees and planned to build a better house some day on that homestead. But we moved to the Simon place and later went to Mancos and McElmo Canon instead. My wife’s father, Louis Simon, went to Kansas in 1855 with a French colony that had lived in Indiana. They colonized again about 40 miles west of Atchinson, and the colony is still there and doing well. Louis Simon had been a leading citizen and well-to-do, but some slick Frenchman persuaded him to put his money into a big flour mill, and it broke him. When he came to Lake City in 1878, he was an old man who had lost all he had. When things in Lake City went to pieces, the Simon family drifted to the Dolores country. They lived the first summer above the present Dolores and later down below present McPhee. Louis Simon filed on the first place in Montezuma Valley in 1880 or 1881. William Woolley filed a little later, and Mr. Hartman, Frank’s and Lillian’s stepfather, had a place on Hartman Gulch. Ten or 15 miles in those days was close for neighbors. Mr. Simon had five daughters: Lydia (Mrs. Barlow), Rachel (Mrs. Dickerson, Marie, my wife), Elizabeth (Mrs. Matt Hammond) and Sarah. Marie worked in other people’s kitchens and put Sarah through college and helped to care for the old folks. She learned to be independent too. One time she forded the Dolores when it was high and carried a single shovel placed before her on the saddle. The first religious service was held on the Dolores in the fall of 1883, and the place was the ranch of W.H. Brumley, on which I was working for a cow outfit. A young chap named Sarver from Durango held the service, and it was the first preaching he ever did. He was only about 21. He had not been getting enough to eat, and he looked hungry. Marie Simon and one of the sisters rode up to Brumley’s to attend the service, and I helped them alight from their side saddles. Marie looked good to me then, and she still looks good. Speaking of winters, the winter of ’83 was much like this one (1933-34). On March 20, 1883, the range cattle – 10,000 or 15,000 head of them went up to the hills themselves. The grass was green in the Montezuma Valley. The season was six weeks earlier than usual, and there were no bad late freezes. That was a remarkable year, and I have waited 50 years to see another. The winter of 1879 was a hard one – perhaps as bad or worse than the famous winter of ’84. All freight had to come from Alamosa then. They packed flour from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Animas City on burros and sold it for a dollar a pound. My brother was there, and that’s what he had to pay. On Feb. 10, 1884, after a very mild early winter, it began to snow. It snowed very hard for five days and nights. The storm continued through most of March and into April, and the railroad into Durango was blocked for six weeks. Many people just didn’t have things they needed very bad. There was very high water, and on June 10th, during roundup time, there was a little blizzard blowing. In those days, Dr. Winters of Durango was much like Dr. Johnson of Cortez in the present day (1934). And we thought as much of him. He came on horseback or in a buggy and if it was a hurry-up case, they’d have a relay of horses or rigs along the road for him and he’d make pretty good time. A visit would be $50 to $100. Later, Dr. Landon from Rico used to come down the Dolores River when needed. People didn’t need a doctor quite so readily in those days as they do now. Once I got kicked on the nose by a bronco, and I just slammed it into place and held snow to it. The snow melted like water, and I couldn’t see when I rode home. Nowadays a person would have been taken to the hospital after that accident, but I recovered from it with no bad results. June Head, historian of Montezuma County Historical Society may be reached for questions at 970-565-3880.]]></content:encoded>
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        <link>https://tj.durangoherald.com/moving-from-texas-to-big-bend/</link>
        <title>Moving from Texas to Big Bend</title>
        <description>Big Bend about 1887, showing the schoolhouse and stores, including Harris Bros. Mercantile.Montezuma County Historical Society Editor’s note: The following is based on a Anna Florence Robison interview of Alice Henderson Akin on March 13, 1934.I was born at Millville,...</description>
        <pubDate>Fri, 02 Aug 2019 01:56:25 -0600</pubDate>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[Big Bend about 1887, showing the schoolhouse and stores, including Harris Bros. Mercantile.Montezuma County Historical Society Editor’s note: The following is based on a Anna Florence Robison interview of Alice Henderson Akin on March 13, 1934.I was born at Millville, Rust County, Texas, Sept. 25, 1855. My early childhood was passed at Riley Springs, Texas. After the death of both of my parents, I went at the age of 11 years to live with my aunt at Cleburne. I married James P. Akin from Hot Springs, Arkansas, on July 2, 1874. After our marriage, Mr. Akin and I made our home at Cleburne, where he was marshal a part of the time. We had neither of us any near relatives in Texas. Mr. Akin’s mother and his married sister, Mrs. William Brumley, were already living on a ranch near Big Bend. They kept writing for us to come to them. They said we could do fully as well in Colorado as in Texas and that the winter weather was marvelous. This was the winter of 1883-84, known since as the “Winter of the Big Snow.” That year, there was a very mild, open winter until some date in February when it began to snow. Some say it snowed for 40 days without really clearing off. Others say 48. I do not suppose anyone knows exactly. Mr. Akin’s relatives wrote before it began to snow so much. My husband and I and our four little children – Ed, aged 8 or 9; Tom, 6 or 7, Eula; and the baby Henrietta – started for Colorado late in March. It had probably been snowing here for six or more weeks then. We were snowbound for a week or more three miles the other side of the section house on Cumbres Pass. There were quite a number on the train, and the only food with us was a few sacks of dried beans and some Limburger cheese. During the time we were snowbound in the train, they brought food to us from the section house three miles away on snowshoes. I was not well, but somehow I didn’t mind it as I would have supposed. I wasn’t sorry I came, and I didn’t want to go back. There was one other woman on the train besides me, and everyone was kind and helpful. The head man at Cumbres, a Mr. Leyden I believe his name was, had a sled made to bring me and the children to the section house, where we could be more comfortable. I had a heavy and long winter coat, which I had recently bought for my journey into Colorado. It was not suitable for plodding through such snow as there was on the pass. The character of the trail was such that I could not ride far, and then Mr. Leyden put his own coat on me and wrapped my feet well in gunny sacks. He took my arm and helped me to walk that snow trail. Before he left the snowbound train, the man got out our baggage and let me open my trunks and get out bedding. We even took my feather bed along to the section house. As we went along the trail, Mr. Leydon would point out to me stove pipes sticking out of the snow. That was all you could see of the houses. They had cut stair steps in the snow for us to go down into the section house from the trail. The snow was that deep. They made us very comfortable in the section house, where we stayed another week before we could go on to Durango. There was about 100 men at work cleaning snow off the tracks. It was too high for me on the Cumbres, and I had to sit up much of the time in order to breathe. The brakeman made liniment for my husband to rub on my chest, and it helped much. When we got to Durango, my husband decided to go on over to Brumley’s on the Dolores River on snowshoes. It was nearly April. I remained with the children at a house in Durango where Miss Lizzie Allen and her sister were staying at the time. We had come to Durango on a freight train, and we stayed in the outskirts of town, so I took little notice of the place. When the roads became good – perhaps it was the first of May, or anyway late April, W.H. Brumley, my husband’s brother-in-law, came for the children and me and our things in a wagon. The water was very high everywhere on account of so much snow. The mountain roads with the deep ruts and the steep slopes on the outside edges frightened me. And when we came in sight of the greatly swollen Dolores at the Billy May ranch above Big Bend, the water formed a huge lake, and it seemed that I had reached the “jumping off place” indeed. We crossed the Dolores below the Morton place and stayed the first night with the Mortons at Big Bend. We lived in a log cabin near W.H. Brumley’s house across the river from Big Bend for several years. Mr. Akin worked with his brother-in-law’s cattle. We did not get lonely, for Mr. Akin’s mother was there with his sister, and Jim and John Brumley lived there too. There were enough of us that we did not need to be especially afraid of the Indians. The children went to school in Big Bend in the summers. The first two or three schools were held in a dugout. Then they built a log school building, which was standing until a few years ago. My oldest boy, Ed, used to row Bill and John Brumley’s children, Tom, Eula and himself across the Dolores in a skiff to attend school. I used to be uneasy about them, for the Dolores was so swift there. At Big Bend, we had plenty of vegetables and beef to eat because we could raise them ourselves. But all other groceries and supplies we had to get from Mancos or Durango by wagon or pack horses. But we all managed to be quite comfortable nevertheless. We used to get vegetables from the German settlement. Jim Trimble, the Moores, Mortons, Grandma and Grandpa Johnson and Mr. Ordway were among our good neighbors in those days. A Miss Benson, who taught school at Big Bend, also started a Sunday school there. We had dances around at private places, which were greatly enjoyed by all. They used to have the finest suppers at Nunn’s place down the river. About midnight, everyone would gather around the “big table,” and it remained set all night so that anyone who was hungry could go and get more to eat. And some guests stayed until morning. Another diversion was horse races. We lived across from Big Bend until the railroad came and the town was moved to its present site. Paul Akin, my son, was the first baby born in present Dolores. We lived for a while in Dolores, then moved to the Burch place, 10 miles above town. Later, we bought a place of our own where we lived until our return to Dolores 19 years ago. June Head, Historian of Montezuma County Historical Society, can be reached for questions or comments at 970-565-3880.]]></content:encoded>
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