Missing the good old days?

On Sunday a former colleague and friend of mine found a special memento while cleaning his liquor cabinet. It was an unopened 1988 beer bottle dubbed "Park City Silver Reserve" commemorating Park City Ski Area's 25th Anniversary.

It happened as this person was moving out of Park City and returning to his native Idaho to begin a new life adventure. Over the years, many Parkites have done the same, growing sick of what their town has become and moved out, saying they missed “the good old days”, when they skied faster, had tons of fun and were younger looking, I guess.

To them I say, life is filled with change and Park City is no different. From its miner days on to Western Airlines becoming Delta, the Olympics, years of Sundance Film Fest, shorter winter vacations stays making a close-by airport a must, everything has contributed to Park City's dizzying rate of change.

Not much different by the way to what's been happening to Chamonix, St. Anton or Whistler. Whether we like it or not, and through some overzealous marketing efforts, we've all engineered the changes we see today in ski towns, all over the world. Can we still live with them? Some of us won't and will try to settle in some other places, in an effort to start over, some will and keep on enjoying what they have.

I, for my part, still love it, still believe that this place is the very best of all locales I've ever lived in, and almost can't wait to see how, in ten years from now, change will continue to transform Park City for the better...