Andrew Statum

I was not born in Colorado. At least I don't think I was. I don't remember being born so I have to take someone else's word on this, but I always wanted to be. I was born in Virginia, a fact I find boring for some reason. When I was in fourth grade I played a game called "Two Truths and a Lie" and my birthplace was one of the lies and when it came time to reveal my lie, I maintained it was the truth because I wanted it so badly to be so.

When I was eight, my cousin, to whom I always looked up, went to Colorado on a backpacking trip and I idolized her so much I wanted to be just like her, but without the vagina. But I didn't want to be just like her. I wanted to be better than her; more than her. What better way to be more than her than to be from the place she was merely going to on a visit?

So yes, I am from Colorado, I remember now. I grew up in a small village outside of Grand Junction called Mesa Verde. My hobbies as a child included tree climbing, mountaineering, and Legos, hobbies for which my status as a single child and the peculiar geography of my home state afforded ample opportunity for exploration and growth. By the age of ten, I was an accomplished hiker, earning the title of "Junior Mountaineer" a full two years ahead of my closest rival (and best friend) Sam. I knew all the trails by heart and I didn't even need a compass because my inner ears, like all children of my state, were so conditioned by the land that I was able (and still am, to a degree) to orient myself into alignment with the Earth's magnetic field, a force whose power is strangely amplified at Mesa Verde, thanks to the high levels of magnetite found in the topsoil there.

My mother taught preschool at Davidson elementary and my father was an engineer for Boeing in Denver, a job to which he commuted by Volvo stationwagon 1.5 hours each way, five days a week. He made good money detecting flaws in the wing designs of that company's 700 series airplanes. Perhaps you've heard of them? 737's, 747's, 757's? My dad did that.