Reality check

It is often easy to forget how insulated our communities are in the Platte Valley until something happens which seems to shatter that peacefulness to which we’ve been so accustomed.

I am reminded of the 1998 film “Pleasantville” in which two modern-era teenagers are transported into a 1950s sitcom. Everything in the world seems perfect, bathed in the neutralizing tones of black and white, but reality quickly invades the world of Pleasantville. Soon, that perfect but mundane world is changed and black and white perfection is replaced with color reality.

The communities of the Platte Valley­—Saratoga, Encampment and Riverside—have attracted many families over the years with their tranquil nature and leisurely pace. There has been a perception we are largely unaffected by events outside of the Valley. For many, these communities have been the idyllic small-towns of nostalgia in which you can leave your house unlocked or leave your keys in your car and nothing would happen.

That, unfortunately, no longer appears to be the case.

In the two August meetings of the Saratoga Town Council, members of the police department informed both the governing body and the public about an ongoing drug problem in the community. In just the past month, the police report has been filled with citations and arrests for possession of a controlled substance with some of them being felony amounts. Despite this, and despite being less than an hour away from Interstate 80, there has still been this feeling of safety within the Valley.

That changed for me this past Thursday.

Having lived in Saratoga’s town limits for nearly two years now, sirens aren’t something I’m unused to anymore. Especially late at night. I never sleep completely through the night, often waking up in the early morning for a brief amount of time and Thursday was no different. When I heard sirens racing through town, I went to the scanner app on my phone to try and figure out what was going on. As I listened, my sleep-addled mind began to piece the conversations together.

After what seemed like minutes, but was likely seconds, I realized a manhunt was underway in Encampment. My wife, Telitha, drowsily asked what was going on and I told her all I knew. Then, my phone buzzed with an emergency alert with a shelter in place order for Encampment and Riverside. I attempted to get some sleep, but kept the scanner on throughout the night. A far cry from the sleep podcasts and the gentle music often played at night in our household.

Later that morning, we received the notification while the shelter in place order had been lifted, the suspect was still at large. We also were informed Encampment K-12 School was on a two-hour delay. Telitha and I discussed whether to send Jareth to school or not, ultimately deciding I would work from home and keep Jareth home that day. Even knowing there were checkpoints around Encampment and a law enforcement presence at the school, we made that decision for our own piece of mind.

Not a decision one expects to make on the fourth day of school.

Though law enforcement did apprehend the suspect on Thursday evening, and it did bring some sense of ease, I still couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. I spent most of my grade school years in Bairoil—no services this exit—and remember being able to go out and play with friends until dusk. I remember, in middle school, coming into town to traverse the lamp illuminated sidewalks of Saratoga during street dances. I cannot say I feel comfortable enough to let Jareth do the same now. In a way, it feels like a loss of innocence as my son will never know a world like that.

That’s not to say our communities can’t still have that small-town feel to them. From fundraising for a sick community member to donating to school programs to a shared feeling of loss when someone passes unexpectedly, we are still small-town communities in many ways. At the same time, however, we owe it to our children to come to terms with our new reality.

The larger world is finding its way into our communities and while we can try to protect our children from it for as long as possible, eventually it is a world they will have to live in. Maybe our small communities can give them the tools not only to deal with the larger world beyond our borders, but also help make it a better place.