Community leaders who made the wise, but tough and disappointing, decision to cancel popular, traditional Wagon Days festivities in its 49th year have the full understanding of a town that is beset with other major concerns.
The Castle Rock fire is the most agonizing public safety threat the Ketchum area has faced in modern history. Families have evacuated homes outside the city limits. Some structures still are not safe from flames. Smoke has made air unhealthful. Roads and highways are busy with emergency fire fighting and law enforcement vehicles from all over the United States.
So, attracting large crowds and heavier vehicular traffic for Wagon Days would have constituted a serious impediment to the already difficult logistics of moving firefighters and equipment quickly to combat the expanding fire line.
Old-timers of the World War II era will remember the disappointment of made-in-America sports events being cancelled out of wartime necessity. On a far smaller scale, putting Wagon Days on hold for a time is in the same spirit -- placing community safety and health first.
The community owes much gratitude to the hundreds of workers and event participants who have taken this cancellation and disappointment so graciously. Glenn Janss, the grand marshal and grand dame of valley arts and culture, is honored no less because of the cancellation.
Planners for next year's parade might already have some ideas for a theme--perhaps a big thank-you honoring Castle Rock firefighters, including wagons filled with men and women who struggled so nobly against the flames in anonymity to keep so many of us safe.
