September, 1958 Five miles east of the USAF Academy Colorado Springs, CO It is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them. —Adlai Stevenson, New York, NY, 27 Aug 1952 It was a near perfect, late-summer Colorado day. And despite George Delante’s sour mood, an impossibly blue sky canopied the view of his thousand acres east of the Academy; the air invigorated him with its slight nip. Fred walked next to him as they surveyed their sprawling property; a large sign next to the sole dirt road on the property read: High Country Construction Custom Lots, Private Golf Course To the west, the leaves on the aspen and oak trees were tinged with yellow and red, and within the next few weeks a spectrum of spectacular color would flood the Front Range. To the north, prairie grass seemed to stretch to infinity; to the east, rolling hills diffused into Black Forest, a coppice of pine trees that rose in the distance; and to the south—an eyesore of a brick house squat in the middle of a prime, five acre parcel.
