Nebraska and Arizona have been good neighbors to Colorado, sending their sons and daughters to our universities, dumping their tourism dollars in our resort towns, fattening state coffers with their purchases of hunting and fishing and camping licenses.
But good guests know when to leave, and that’s the issue. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, residents of both these states have come here — and failed to return home! No, I don’t have stats to show you, but just look around. You’d have to be blind not to see all the fat, old, white people milling around the 16th Street Mall and the Denver Mint in “Go Big Red” caps, white tube socks and naugahyde-gray Reeboks with Velcro fasteners. Turquoise jewelry the size of AK-47 rounds draped over sweats from Wal-Mart is apparently the go-to look for our neighbors to the south.
But here’s the real elephant (no pun intended) in the living room: obesity.
For several years, Colorado has distinguished itself as the state with the thinnest, fittest residents. We hike and bike and ski and climb mountains. We are healthy, good-looking folks, and we’re rightly proud of our most-fit status.
So here come our neighbors and the issue of which we dare not speak.
You see them pouring off planes at DIA from Phoenix and Omaha, huffing and puffing their way through the terminal, and you know before long there will be a shuttle bus straight to Denver Health so that these people can check in without even stopping by the $4.99-all-you-can-eat buffet in Black Hawk first.
We know where it all ends: more outsiders lining up at Colorado’s public trough, demanding heart surgeries, cholesterol-reducing meds, free wheelchairs and free educations for their grandkids. Most of them are retired, or too unhealthy to work, so how do they contribute to our economy? They don’t. They drain our resources.
Next thing you know, their kids will be dropping babies here. And dollars to doughnuts, they won’t adopt our healthy outdoor lifestyle.
Instead of assimilating, they’ll import their own cultures. Arizonans will watch the Diamondbacks instead of the Rockies. They’ll rip out all our beautiful green front yards and replace them with brown rocks and cactus. Before you know it, they’ll turn our world-class ski resorts into golf courses and our leafy neighborhoods into gated communities with names like Sun City of the Rockies.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that instead of sporty Jeeps lined up bumper to bumper on Interstate 70, our new mode of travel will be golf carts that top out at 15 mph. And you thought a trip to the mountains was bad now.
Nebraskans will change the way we eat, I guarantee it. Three squares a day with some form of bread and potato at every one. Apples, grapes and bananas will disappear, replaced by habit-forming, artery-clogging pies and cakes.
And football. It will become an object of worship. Forget weekends exploring some new corner of Rocky Mountain National Park. Instead, we’ll be glued to the couch, cold beer in hand. (Don’t forget the Doritos!)
How long are we willing to look the other way? What will it take before we stop the menace at our borders?
Ironically, Arizona may be leading the way. Its SB 1070 is a good example of how one state is dealing with the marauders at its gates. The new law, which of course the feds are contesting, requires police officers to ask for citizenship documents anytime they see a person with brown skin doing something that looks a little odd.
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman is pressing for a similar law. Anti-immigrant sentiment is running high in Nebraska, even though the state’s unemployment rate is an enviable 4.6 percent and Hispanics have become part of the fabric of many towns there, according to The New York Times.
They come for the jobs in the meat-packing plants. Bleeding hearts say Nebraska would actually be losing population if it weren’t for Hispanics — but Heineman has not let this specious argument deter him.
Coloradans, in the time it takes to read this, another planeload of Cornhuskers and Grand Canyoners will have landed at DIA. We made it here in time, but they’re simply too late. The clock is ticking.
Mary Winter (mwinte@aol.com) of Denver, a former Rocky Mountain News writer, works for .
