Sunday morning round-up: Labor Day weekend edition

If this is Labor Day weekend (and it is) that means that we honor the hard-working people of the world by shopping at the new Wal-Mart that pays such sub-standard wages that many of its employees avail themselves of social welfare programs such as SNAP (formerly known as food stamps).  It is true that Wal-Mart has raised its wages of late, no doubt disliking bad publicity. Cheyenne now has two Wal-Marts as well as a Wal-Mart distribution center west on I-80. A real Wal-Mart town, we are. Meanwhile, some Cheyennites prefer to take their hard-earned wages south to Fort Collins to the CostCo store at I-25 and Harmony. CostCo offers livable wages and benefits even as it offers low prices. It can be done.

I attended my union delegate assembly last week in Cheyenne. I wrote about it last week. Gov. Matt Mead addressed the assembly. He said that the next legislative session "is going to be ugly." Oil, gas and coal revenues will be way down. Despite that, he recommends funding the standard budget as is but the state will probably have no money to fund exception requests which, in the past, have been funded to upwards of an additional $600 million. That's a lot in this expansive but least-populated state in the union. He advocates dipping into the state's $2 billion rainy day fund. Stingy Republican legislators, on the other hand, may have other ideas, such as cutting state agency budgets and/or cutting state employees. Gov. Mead says that this approach causes the state to "lose talent and skill" and will cause us to "go into a death spiral" Fewer state services and fewer state employees cause losses in the private sector and this is something Wyoming may not recover from. While many Republican legislators continue to shame state employees, they might want to take a page from our governor's game plan and his new "Wyoming Grown" program. Do you really want to keep your sons and daughters in the state? Or are you just whistling Dixie?

One of the heroes of the labor movement in the West was Joe Hill. I had to wait until I was in college and watching "Woodstock" to discover Joe Hill of Utah. Joan Baez sang "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" in front of a half-million or so people. Joe Hill was a union organizer who was framed for murder and executed by one of The Beehive State's notorious firing squads. Because he was an IWW organizer -- a Wobbly -- and branded as a Red and a troublemaker by the powers-that-be, it was easy to frame him as the bad guy. A group of poets and musicians and union organizers gathered this weekend in SLC to celebrate Hill's legacy. Denver-raised Judy Collins headed up the concert for this "true blue rebel."

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night; Alive as you or me; Says I, But Joe, you're ten years dead; I never died, says he; I never died, says he.

Grady Kirkpatrick at Wyoming Public Radio in Laramie often devotes his "Morning Music" show to a theme. Friday it was Labor Day and working people songs. He played the Stones' "The Salt of the Earth," which I haven't heard in a long time. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote the song in 1968 and the Stones featured it on the "Beggars Banquet" album. According to a Wikipedia article on "Salt of the Earth," the Stones have only performed it in concert a handful of times. It has all the qualities of an anthem, with a paean to working people and a rousing chorus, but doesn't get the crowds going quite like "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Brown Sugar." Still, it's worth remembering what the Rolling Stones, perhaps the richest rockers in creation, were thinking about in 1968: 

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier; Spare a thought for his back breaking work; Say a prayer for his wife and his children; Who burn the fires and who still till the earth.

Notes from a Wyoming union meeting

Wyoming Retirement System Director Ruth Ryerson speaks at Friday's town hall meeting sponsored by the Coalition for a Healthy Retirement at the WPEA delegate assembly in Cheyenne. On the job for two years after stints in Colorado and Texas, she's upbeat about the healthy state of WRS, adding that "the majority of your legislators gets it; the Governor gets it."

Wyoming is a right-to-work state.

Stop laughing all you Wyomingites currently enjoying the right to work two or three or more jobs.

Here's a Wyoming joke:

Q: "What do you call someone in Wyoming working three jobs?"

A: "Under-employed."

Statistics show that Wyoming state employees make 13 percent less than our colleagues in private industry. Our benefits, however, are worth 21 percent more than those in private industry. Those benefits include a public pension, an old-fashioned defined benefit plan where retirees work 25 or 30 years and retiree with a defined monthly benefit for the rest of their lives. Wyoming also offers a defined contribution plan, known by the feds as a 457 plan. You put some in every month, as does your employer. This nest egg grows and grows and by the time you retire, you have a kabillion dollars in the account, enough to buy a solid gold humidor for your mansion in Dick Cheney's Jackson Hole gated community. Many have these plans as 401(K)s. My wife, for instance. All of those folks are supposed to save enough in those plans to retire to a life of leisure.

National statistics show that the average amount in a retiree's 401(K) is $18,000,

That, coupled with Social Security, may be enough to see you through to your date with the Grim Reaper. It also may allow you the right to work at McDonald's.

I spent the past three days at the delegate assembly of the Wyoming Public Employees Association. It's my union, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union or SEIU. My first time at the assembly, even though I've been a union member for most of my 24 years with the state. Members are snowplow drivers, nursing assistants at the state hospital, clerks, mechanics, supervisors, veterans outreach specialists and even a stray arts administrator -- me. Some of my colleagues in larger, more union-friendly states, call themselves "arts workers." I like the sound of that. I feel that my work at the Wyoming Arts Council has paved the way for the Wyoming arts boom of the past five years. With more good things to come. My fellow union members feel the same way. They make Wyoming a better place to live. When my car spun out last February between Rawlins and Muddy Gap, the first person to stop to help was a WYDOT snowplow driver. Nurses and CNAs at the State Hospital in Evanston took care of my daughter when she was a patient there last year. All these people get paid 13 percent below their Nebraska colleagues. Yet they do their jobs with dignity and aplomb.

Still, we heard that our supervisors are taking much longer to hire replacements for those who retiree or leave for jobs in Colorado. Increasingly, those people are not replaced at all and we do the work of two people instead of one. That increases the danger to patients and staff at places such as the Wyoming Life Resource Center in Lander. How many Republican legislators want fewer snowplow drivers clearing the summit between Cheyenne and Laramie as they drive over to a UW football game? Do they think about that when they're calling state employees "bums?" Or when one of our Republican legislators, Rep. Harlan Edmonds, said this during the last session (as remembered by Rep. Mary Throne, who spoke at the assembly): "Our problem is not keeping the good state employees but getting rid of the bad state employees." Edmonds is a state employee. It's possible that Edmonds may be a good state employee, but he's in the "very bad" category as a legislator.

I often wonder if these Tea Party types know there is such thing as Facebook and blogs, places where their hateful words live forever?

I'll write more about these topics in the coming weeks. The upcoming legislative session looks to be combative as the state faces revenue shortfalls with the dip in oil, natural gas and coal revenues. Stay tuned....

Note: See more photos from the assembly on my Facebook page. 

Democrats huddle Sept. 13 for tailgate brunch

I belong to the Laramie County Democrats Grasssroots Coalition or LCDGC for short. It once was the coalition of local Democratic Party women back before inclusiveness and equality caught hold. Republicans snidely call this "political correctness." As far as I know, there are no more Dem women's auxiliaries in The Equality State. The same can't be said for Republican women. There's a Republican women's organization in Natrona County, which figures. 

Anyway, our LCDGC committee is charged with fund-raising for Democratic Party candidates in Laramie County. Thus far, we've raised 80 kabillion dollars, which is just a few bucks short of what Trump spends before lunch every day. We've elected Democrats in Laramie County, which is a lot more than they can say in Casper. We plan to continue, which is why we're having a party on Sept. 13. Here are the details:

Come and help kick off the NFL football season with a Tailgate Brunch sponsored by the Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition, Sunday, September 13, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at 3626 Dover Road in Cheyenne. There will be brunch goodies, mimosas, other beverages, and games.  Wear your favorite football team colors.  Guess the total score for all NFL teams that play on the 13th and you could win the 50/50 football pool.  So come out, start the season off with us, then sprint to the next football party.  $15 admission. 

Guaranteed to be lots of fun!  

For more information call Kathleen at 307-421-4496 or Ken at 433-4394.  

Sunday morning round-up: The harvest is in!

Sunday morning round-up....

A biplane circles the airport, which also brings it over my head as I sit here on the back porch. Don't see many biplanes in these parts, not even cropdusters. Maybe they've found a new commuter airline to service Cheyenne? Here's your goggles -- and watch out for birds!

The crops are coming in. Cherry tomatoes, crookneck squash, peppers and lots of herbs. I threw in some of the squash with rice for dinner last night and tomatoes in the salad. We ate grilled chicken from Colorado marinated with a selection of my herbs. And, no, I didn't get the chicken's name and family of origin when I bought it. Peaches-and-cream corn from Eaton, Colorado. Good eatin' corn. Palisade peaches for dessert. I love this time of year. I'm just a modest backyard gardener who depends on the bounty of farmer's markets.

Speaking of harvests.... Jackson's Vertical Harvest is getting lots of attention these days. Three three-story hydroponic greenhouse is being built on the south end of the city's parking garage on one-tenth of an acre. Once completed, it will supply fresh produce to Jackson Hole, even during the frigid months of winter when anything fresh arrives via Ice Road Truckers. When fully functional, the facility will produce the equivalent of a five-acre farm. The Daily Secret just listed Vettical Harvest as one of "The Eight Wonders of the Design World," along with the new Mexico City International Airport and the Uber HQ planned for San Francisco. So many innovative things going on in Jackson. Yes, there is money in Jackson and that helps. But it's also home to some innovative thinkers which is undoubtedly why there is a TedX JH.

Vertical Dance troupe at the Cheyenne Arts Festival.

Speaking of vertical.... Chris, Annie and I enjoyed the Vertical Dance performance Friday night at the Asher Building downtown. Vertical Dance is a troupe of dancers at the University of Wyoming who perform on vertical spaces, such as the cliffs of Vedauwoo, the side of buildings or in high-ceilinged interior spaces. Their dances are accompanied by live music, this time by a quarter from Laramie, Lights Along the Shore. If this seems like a particularly Wyoming kind of art form, it is. We're all about vertical spaces and the arts!

The dancers were then opening act of Arts Cheyenne's Cheyenne Arts Festival. Friday's turnout was healthy, even though the clouds spit some rain for awhile. You can easily shrug off summer rain showers because you can almost dodge the sparse rain drops. If you do get wet, the sun will soon reappear to dry you, which happened Friday. We visited the artist spaces indoors. Great to see Ron McIntosh and his distinctive artwork. Ron was over from Laramie where last year he became the first individual artist picked up and promoted by the Wyoming Technology Business Center. Ron has a studio at the WTBC and will be featured in a show in Laramie in the fall. The WTBC is now working with musicians and possibly a writer or two to help them bring innovative business practices to their careers. Lord knows, most of us writers could use a plan. And speaking of harvests (again), the WTBC is home to Bright Agrotech, which has brought innovative indoor vertical gardening tools and techniques to the world. Check them out at https://www.brightagrotech.com/

Republican debate -- better than watching reality TV

I watched the entire Repub debate tonight with some Dem friends. My brain has turned to mush. As far as wordplay goes, kudos go to Mike Huckabee. The topic was foreign policy. He recalled Ronald Reagan's words: "Trust but Verify." Obama, said Huckabee, says "Trust but Vilify," referring to Pres. Obama's comments today equating Republicans with the Iranian mullahs. Clever, especially for a guy who always puts The Word ahead of words.

What else stood out? 

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio owed $100,000 in student loans four years ago. I guess he was trying to say that he's just a regular guy whose parents came over from Cuba and he had to take out beaucoup student loans to get the law degree that helped him win a Senate seat that pays a couple hundred thousand Gs annually plus all of the Koch Brothers money he can rake in with both hands. Rubio and I share an alma mater in the University of Florida. On the one hand, I'm happy to hear that at least one Republican candidate speaks openly of his college credentials -- he also has a law degree from University of Miami. On the other hand -- if Rubio gets elected, UF is bound to name something after him. Hope it's not the English Dept. 

Speaking of Florida, did Jeb! really leave Florida better off than he found it? He said that his nickname was "Veto Corleone." Is that true? I'm asking you, Florida Dems. And I'm wondering if Jeb! is really Southern shorthand for J.E.B. Stuart, the hero of the Confederacy. Memories run deep in the South.

Continued on Aug. 9...

Donald Trump said that the big problem we have in the U.S. is being politically correct. For the Repubs, political correctness mean a whole host of things they detest: Powerful women, LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage, higher education, etc. For example, when Donald Trump wants to slam women and such as Fox's Megyn Kelly and says something about her menstrual cycles and people *(even Repubs) get upset, he accuses them of being "politically correct." It follows that being politically incorrect is the norm, which allows anyone to criticize uppity women. The same rules go for people of color, a term which, in itself, is politically correct, as it avoids those terms that many would love to use, including the "N" word, and various racist epithets for African-Americans, Latinos/Latinas, Arab-Americans and others. Republicans are most adept at criticizing campus liberals (eggheads, elitists) who continue to advocate for a liberal arts education for everyone. Republican Gov. Scott of Florida has famously (or infamously, depending on your POV) calling liberal arts majors a waste of time. Union-buster Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin brags about not having a college degree, a trait obvious to all of us with half-a-brain such as this liberal arts major.

I must return to Mike Huckabee for just a moment, As is the case with most preachers, Huckabee has a way with words. In regards to abortion, Huckabee said that "The Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being" and advocates for protection of fetuses by invoking the 5th and 14 amendments, the Tea Party's favorite amendments besides the 2nd. 

Dr. Ben Carson also had some good lines. I was surprised to learn that Carson once directed pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Seems as if he could do less harm by being president. Carson wants to get rid of the IRS and institute a new taxation system based on tithing, which he called "God's fair system." He called Hillary Clinton "the epitome of the secular progressive movement." He also likes to throw around "politically correct." 

Gov. Kasich of Ohio proved to be the evening's beacon of sanity. He said that he and his fellow Republicans should do everything they can to counter the Democrats' continual harping on these supposed Republican traits: The party of and for the rich; the party that suppresses women and minorities; the party of the past. 

Good luck with that.

We'll let Sen. Marco Rubio have the last quote. Referring to himself and the other fine specimens on stage, he said: "God has blessed the Republican Party with all of these candidates. The Democrats can't even find one."

Say Amen.

Sing hallelujah.

RedState diarist decries "Know Nothing" Trump

The RedState Gathering in Atlanta is getting big news today. RedState guru Erick Erickson "disinvited" Donald Trump to this confab of conservative bloggers after Trump made some rude and crude comments about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, one of the moderators of Thursday's debate. Here's Trump talking to CNN's Don Lemon:

"You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever."

Must give credit to Erickson. Not easy to disinvite the GOP front-runner to the largest gathering of ConBloggers. But bloggers of all stripes do actually pay attention to the minutiae of presidential campaigns. As a Liberal Blogger, I shared a hotel with the conservatives when Netroots Nation and RedState gathered in Minneapolis in 2011. I had a few intriguing conversations at the hotel bar. No common ground, but big doses of passion along with some good info I could use in my own blog.

I went over to RedState to read Erickson's statement. I also stumbled across a diary by Steve Berman that's worth sharing. I've written about the 19th-century Know Nothing movement a few times, even stooping to calling my opponents "Know Nothings" for their belligerent attitudes and knuckleheaded policies. A few of my conservative readers took me to task, feeling that I was calling them stupid. I was not. I was trying to equate their views with those of the Know Nothing Party, which arose in response to Irish Catholic immigration. The Know Nothings' no-nothingness eventually was their undoing.

Berman compares the Know Nothings with the Whig Party, which also disappeared. He contends that Trump's continual Know Nothing behavior could mean the end of the Republican Party. Here's a quote:

The final Whig president of the United States was Millard Filmore in 1853.  He marked the death of the Whigs, and the rise of the Know-Nothings.  Today the GOP faces its own death, and the continued success of Donald Trump in the polls reflects the fact that the Republican Party is staring into its own grave.

And this:

Trump is a direct result of the GOP’s inability to define itself as a party with a purpose.  If the GOP is defined as “everything that isn’t Democrat” then it’s nothing more than the Whigs of 1854.  Dead.

 Strong stuff. Well written. Check it out here. 

The question remains: Why is Trump still the GOP front-runner? 

Sunday barbecue with the Democrats

The Laramie County Democrats held a fund-raiser and barbecue this afternoon at AB Camping on College Drive, also home to a nifty diner. The food was delicious as always. I keep telling Chris that we have to get out to the diner some evening and try the ribs. She agrees, but for some reason we haven't done it.

Lee Filer arranged the shindig. He's friends with the owners and they aren't necessarily Democrats but friendship goes a long way in these parts. They give us the space for free and only charge us costs for the food. Pretty cool. Thanks AB Camping!

We listened to a few speeches, ate barbecue and cake, drank iced tea. Rep. Mary Throne commented that her Republican colleagues in the legislature are so negative. She urged us to stay positive as we get out and spread the Democratic Party brand. I had to think. How often am I positive and how often am I negative? About equal measure, I'd say. I write often about positive trends in my community and in Wyoming. The rise of farmer's markets and locally grown food and handmade arts and crafts. The state's music renaissance. The push for equality for all. I post about great people doing great things.

I tear down the opposition with regularity. They deserve the snark.

Or do they?

A hot day -- we don't get to 90 degrees very often. But the good conversation and great food make me forget about the heat. I keep thinking about how my reactions to hot weather has changed. I used to play softball all day and drink beer all night during central Florida summers. Went to the beach, too. Spent many hours in bodies of water, salt and fresh. I feel at home in the water and on dry land.

I'm a Democrat on dry land Wyoming. Outnumbered and -- obviously -- outgunned. I've been in that boat in other states, too. Florida. Colorado, although it helped that I was a Denverite. There's a cachet to being a minority liberal in a majority conservative state. Election days are always tough, but hope abides. We work hard for our issues and candidates but the "R" Know Nothing factor is tough to beat at the polls.

I read a NYT article this morning that Pres. Obama will announce a new energy plan tomorrow at the White House. It places restrictions on coal-burning power plants and stresses renewable energy sources. The Republicans will scream bloody murder, as they always do. King Coal will be around for awhile yet, but its days are numbered. All the Republicans can do is whine and obstruct. They have no new ideas. The presidential candidates keep trying to out-crazy one another. That's what seems to get votes on the Republican side. Thursday night's first so-called debate should be a hoot.

Farmer's markets are for fresh produce -- and for dithering

The drive from Palisade, Colorado, to the Cheyenne Farmer's Market is eight hours.

I'm glad that Red Fox Run Orchards made the trip for the first time. Juicy peaches. Tree-ripened. The vendor tells me that most growers pick their peaches green because it's easier. He lets them ripen on the tree so they taste better. My daughter Annie and I ask for a sample. He plucks two peaches out of a "Palisades Peaches" box. He rinses them off and hands them over with a couple paper towels. "You'll need these -- they're juicy." I look at the whole peach. Most vendors cut off a slice and hand it over. Not this guy. I bite. Juice dribbles down my chin. The paper towel comes in handy.

I buy a large bag. "Keep them in a refrigerator for a week -- they'll keep fresh," says the vendor. I always thought that putting peaches in the fridge was a no-no. But it makes sense if they're already ripe.

I thank him. Grab my peaches and my "This Side of Paradise" canvas bag Annie and I walk on to the next table. At the farmer's market, I gather produce and stories. Food has stories, as do I. I don't take it as far as the characters on "Portlandia," who want to know the name and background of the free range chicken they're about the eat. But I ask every vendor where they're from, as it usually carries a story. The young man selling roasted chilis is from Wellington and drives up to Cheyenne every weekday to wire new houses as an electrician. He's roasting and selling chilis on weekends. Building Cheyenne during the week. He rattled off the names of housing developments going up around the county. One on Four Mile Road. A big apartment complex on Fox Farm Road. He's working at The Pointe just north of us, wiring two to three houses a week.

The family-run Canning Crows from Cheyenne does what you'd expect from the name. Well, their goods are in jars but when people talk about preserving harvests they usually says they are "canning" cukes and tomatoes. Not "jarring," which is what it really is. It is jarring to me when they say canning. I buy a jar of Soldier Jam. "You can tell we're a military family," says the vendor with a smile. She points to a loaf of bread. "Survival Bread," she says. "My son was deployed." She tells me that a quarter of every sale of Soldier Jam goes to send jam to GIs overseas. "Or they can come by and pick it up here," she adds. I buy a jar of Soldier Jam and a loaf of Survival Bread. I also buy a big jar of dill pickles because I am a pickle fanatic. Dill pickle brine has loads of salt so after my heart attack, I cut back. Does pickling demand salt? A question for the Internet. I look forward to my lunch of bread and jam and pickles.

My dithering drives Annie crazy. She's 22 and prone to action. I tell her that farmer's markets are for lingering and conversation and learning about foods. The vendors have at least some interest in their products, or they wouldn't be here. They also are making a living. I can tell when my dithering makes them impatient. So I pay and move on. The coffee lady from Fort Collins sells me some nitro dark roast for my iced coffee. The last time I had nitro it was Odell's Cutthroat Porter from behind the bar at Peppermill's. The porter had a nice head on it. The coffee did not, which kind of surprised me. But it was tasty with some Half & Half and sugar.

We end of morning by buying some Colorado corn, although it seems early for corn. We get some local salsa and then head home to snack.

Hell's bells, it's Wild West Week

Photo from the Wyoming State Archives shows downtown Cheyenne's Mayflower Cafe during Frontier Days sometime around the late-1940s. 

"Hell's bells, it's Wild West Week."

That's what Slim tells Sal Paradise in "On the Road" when he realizes he's landed in Cheyenne Frontier Days. It's 1947 and CFD reputedly was a bit wilder. It might have even been Cheyenne Day, that mid-week extravaganza when everyone gets out of work at noon. Bars are open, the streets are closed, and the beer is flowing freely. Those post-war CFD participants at "Wild West Week" were feeling their oats. The war was over, they were alive and felt so damn good that they weren't freezing in the Hurtgen Forest or rotting in the Bouganville jungle that they rose their horses into the Mayflower Cafe. That actually happened, or that's how local lore tells it. Tanked-up cowboys riding horses into bars. Jack Kerouac was here and on his way to Denver's LoDo before it had a fancier title than Skid Row. Seattle may have coined that term -- Skid Row after Skid Road -- but Denver perfected it. Larimer Street better known then for bums and seedy bars than hipsters and swank bistros.

Chris and I left work at noon on Cheyenne Day and made our way to a closed-off Capitol Avenue. The beer flowed freely yet I saw nary a cowboy on horseback except the mechanical one on the Wrangler sign on Lincolnway. There was music and beer over on Depot Plaza. A spacious stage was set up on the big alley on Capitol between 16th and 17th streets. Technical problems forced the bands out of the alley and out onto the street onto a tiny stage the size of my car. But the bands played on, as they do in tough circumstances. The Burroughs from Greeley is a nine-piece funk and soul band with a cool horn section. They shoe-horned themselves on the stage and played a fine set of original music. In the midst of that, they slowed things down with some John Lennon. I'd never seen this band before. Where have you guys been keeping yourselves? NoCo venues, to judge from their web site.

Hell's bells -- Alysia Kraft leads The Patti Fiasco during Cheyenne's "Rock the Block" concert.

The Cheyenne DDA/Main Street org arranged this event which it dubbed "Rock the Block." DDA contracted with four very good bands to play downtown which, in turn, was designed to lure residents and tourists downtown. To judge from the crowds, it was successful. The audience for The Burroughs was modest, but things picked up for The Patti Fiasco which has its roots in southwest Wyoming. Lead singer/guitarist Alysia Kraft is from Encampment in Carbon County and the band formed in Laramie before moving to Fort Collins. Alysia spends a lot of her time in Austin these days, which is the way of things. Her mom staffed the merch table at the concert. She also was the first to get up and dance to some of TPF's better-known songs, such as "Wyoming is for Lovers" and "Small Town Lights."

Chris and I decamped for a local backyard party that also featured a live band. We saw some old friends, quaffed a few beers and then returned downtown in time to catch the last four songs by the Josh Abbott Band. By that time, the technical problems had been fixed and a packed crowd was rocking out to the tunes of the headliner. Not sure if it was country or red-dirt music or what, but the band was tight. The mostly-young crowd was enjoying it, some even singing along. I point out the age of the crowd because I notice that these days. It matters who is coming out to see your shows. At 64, I may have been the oldest person there. I recognized few of my peers in the crowd. I wondered who they were. Locals or tourists or both? If locals, how come I never see these people at other music events? They aren't attending Fridays on the Plaza concerts or Cheyenne Guitar Society offerings or the symphony. There is something about a summer outdoor event that features good music and alcohol. Arts presenters can learn something from this, if they haven't already.

Chris and I finished our Cheyenne Day by wandering over to the Depot Plaza. A soul band from Denver performed contemporary pop tunes and some oldies from the soul catalog and the disco era. This crowd was a surprise, as it was heavily Latino/a and black. That's unusual in our 93-percent-white state. Cheyenne, which has a better ethnic mix than most in WYO, draws mainly older and white audiences for Depot Plaza concerts, even when the band is hip and ethnic. Maybe there were reunions going on, as often happens during CFD. Cheyenne has an active NAACP chapter and several historically black churches. Warren AFB brought many urbanites to Cheyenne who liked it and stayed. Alas, we usually don't see each other at public events. Maybe Cheyenne Day is the draw, or CFD.

Today is Saturday, the second-to-last day of CFD. Chris and I volunteer tonight at the Old-Fashioned Melodrama in the Historic Atlas Theatre. Volunteering -- another CFD tradition. Another Shay family tradition.

See you tonight at the Atlas!

What comes first -- the writing or the crazy?

The Electric Lit site carries some cool articles about the writing life. A recent one was about writers and mental health. I've often wondered; what comes first, the writing or the crazy? Are people drawn to writing because they are crazy? Does the solitude and navel-gazing of writing lead to depression? It's possible that the writing just deepens an existing depression. 

Here's some possible explanations:

The Swedish researchers offer one potential explanation for their results: social drift. Individuals with severe mental illness often have a hard time holding a steady job. Some may turn to self-employment—including in artistic fields. But it’s not clear why this should apply more to writers than to other artists.

Another possible explanation can be drawn from the theory of depressive realism, which essentially claims that depressed people are depressed because they see the world as it is—depressing. They are “sadder but wiser.” Writers have to be careful observers of human nature and society. Painters and composers can take inspiration from suffering; but writers have to: drama comes from misery—comedy, perhaps even more so. Depressive realists may often be drawn to writing for this reason.

Writers (me included) love to include our bizarre jobs in our bio. Chicken plucker. Tobacco picker. Manny. Before he was drafted, author Tim O'Brien worked at a slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouse Five author Kurt Vonnegut wrote ad copy at GE. Poet Philip Levine worked the assembly line at the Chevy plant. Poet and fiction writer Lolita Hernandez worked 30 years at the Detroit Caddy plant. Some writers take odd jobs in order to write about them. George Plimpton and Barbara Ehrenreich come to mind. 

Because "author of the great American novel" is not a job category on Craig's List, writers need jobs. Judy Blume once was asked about the first thing that a writer should do. "Get a job," was her reply. That's what we used to yell at our fellow surfers when we drove down Daytona Beach. "Get a job!" Surfers are faced with the same dilemma confronted by writers. Surf or work? Or... What's the best job to have where I can surf in the morning and make gobs of money doing a brainless activity at night? 

Some of us insist on getting day jobs as writers. In Denver, I wrote sports and features for daily newspapers and suburban weeklies. I was managing editor of an entertainment weekly. I was a free-lance editor and writer and, later, an editor of corporate publications where I wrote about fan belts and rubber hoses.  Until you've read one of my scintillating pieces about a Gates fan belt, well,  nevermind -- I wouldn't subject you to that. I did write a humor column about the strange creatures who inhabited the corporate parking lot. One day, I was summoned into the chief's office:

Chief (crankily): We must write something about the crazy drivers in the parking lot. I almost was run over twice this morning.
Me (enthusiastically):We could publish a boring missive from one of our vice presidents who could chide his minions about their bad behavior.
Chief (frowning): Think of something better.
Me (smiling stupidly): May I take the week off to go to the mountains? I think a lot better up there.
Chief (glowering): Take a slow walk in the parking lot of quitting time. That should give you some ideas.

I did as he suggested and almost got run over twice. I immediately went home and was greeted by a squawking brood of children. They reminded me of a flock of crows (technically, a murder of crows) and I was inspired to turn the parking lot transgressors into various kinds of misbehaving birds. The chief was so impressed that he promised not to fire me that week.

What does this have to do with writers and depression? While I was writing it, I wasn't depressed. One maxim I learned about depression is this: "When depressed, learn something." You could change that to "write something." While you're writing, you're otherwise engaged. It doesn't cure depression, but may hold it at bay for awhile. It's a physical disease, as physical as allergies or cancer. To keep it at bay, I write. I also take two different antidepressants, exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet and learn something new every day. I also work a steady job that involves writing and editing. It takes time from my fiction writing, but if I didn't do it, I would have no insurance and no income. I could abandon it all, go to Florida and become a beach bum. Then I'd have a bunch of punk surfers yelling at me to get a job. It would be deja vu all over again. I couldn't help being depressed.

Remembering Watergate Summer

Remember the summer of '74? Watergate summer.

CNN's Special on "The Seventies" last night took me back. "America vs. Richard Nixon." America won, I suppose, but it was an embarrassing episode in a raucous time. Vietnam was over, sort of, although the final blow was almost a year away. Demonstrations on campuses and in the streets had disappeared, replaced by a general malaise. I was a community college graduate who worked nights in the drug and alcohol ward in Daytona Beach's county hospital. In the fall, I would be off to the University of Florida to finish my degree.

Nixon was the enemy. I'd voted for McGovern and the anti-war faction within the Democratic Party. It seemed like a majority in 1972 but it was a delusion. Voters were pissed off that year. Mad at the longhairs and the draft dodgers. They were mad that despite everything they were told, we didn't seem to be winning in Vietnam. Integration had happened, dammit, and despite fleeing to the lily-white burbs, Middle America didn't seem to be better off or any happier. Now women were uppity, burning bras and demanding to be let out of the kitchen and into the ranks of management. Homosexuals were in the spotlight, exactly where they shouldn't be.

Nixon and his people knew all this. The Southern Strategy emerged. Turn all of those disaffected white Democrats into a voting bloc that would ensure a Republican landslide. And they did it, by gum. Solid South for Nixon. Almost a Solid USA, except for those lefties in Massachusetts (where I voted for the first time) and D.C. At the same time Nixon was making election history, investigators were looking into a third-rate burglary at the Watergate Hotel. Two years later, instead of cementing a generations-long lock on the White House for Repubs, Nixon was waving bye-bye from the steps of a chopper and flying off into the history books. The CNN special was barely able to hit the high and low points of Nixon's downfall. It was sad, even for those who hated Nixon. I remember my father saying that I could gloat now that Nixon was gone. But I could tell that he was shocked and saddened by the whole episode and I didn't feel like gloating.

What did Watergate do for me? Woodward and Bernstein inspired me to become a journalist. I never was a muckraker, except on the e-pages of this blog. My journalism career led me to some interesting places, but never the corridors of power. Watergate probably cemented my liberal politics, although I didn't realize that for decades. Nixon's departure, and his distraction from happenings in Vietnam, probably led to the end of that war in 1975. Ford pardoned the draft dodgers. Nixon probably would have never done that. Nixon's election strategy was used brilliantly by Ronald Reagan. Southern states no longer vote Republican as a bloc, or at least some left the fold to vote for Obama in 2008 and 2012. There are wackos in southern legislatures. But there are wackos in Wyoming's legislature too. The good news is that the Southern Strategists are dying off. The bad news is that I'm the same age as they are and just as close to the Grim Reaper.

What comes next?

God only knows -- and he/she/it ain't saying.

Superday was the end to a pretty super week

Promoting the brand at Cheyenne's Superday.

When asked to describe Cheyenne's Superday, I sometimes say, "It's like Denver Capitol Hill People's Fair -- without all the hippies."

I get puzzled looks from those who've never attended the People's Fair. That's OK. The People's Fair was -- and still is I guess -- a sprawling street fair started by the counterculture types at Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN). This may be hard to believe, but 45 years ago, Capitol Hill was largely unexplored territory, populated by winos, ethnic minorities, longhairs in crash pads, culties, and Greatest Generationites who never got the memo to escape to the burbs.

Adventurous long-haired entrepreneurs bought old houses, staking out a claim in the territory. Enough of them arrived to form a united front, which turned out to be CHUN. That, of course, led to a People's Fair and, much later, legalized marijuana, coffee shops on every corner and craft breweries on every other corner. Hipsters, too. Who needs to read long boring histories about the Front Range when you can come here and get an encapsulated version?

Superday is Middle America's street fair. It was political parties and candidates, during even years anyway.   Non-profits of all kinds have booths. Alzheimer's Association, NARAL, Latina Conference for Youth, Head Start. YMCA. There's a big car show and lots of play areas for the kiddos. Military recruiters are on hand, as are a host of evangelical orgs. Many of the flyers I carried home from Superday featured offers to save my soul and that of America, which seemed to be in particular peril this week after some historic SCOTUS rulings. Save your soul -- all hell is breaking loose. And don't forget to make a generous donation!

I worked the booth for the Laramie County Democrats and its fund-raising arm, the Grassroots Coalition. We were sited adjacent to Head Start and an empty spot that was the site of an unspecified org which chose to take their cause elsewhere when they saw the neighborhood. They were OK with the U.S. Army booth next door. But Democrats? No way. They didn't even stick around to see our nifty "Love is Love" rainbow T-shirts and the life-sized cardboard cut-out of President Barack Obama, who had a pretty good week.

Democrats are woefully outnumbered in Wyoming and Laramie County. But we tend to show up at things like Superday. Republicans don't have to show up as FOX News does the work for them. We get plenty of dirty looks. And more than one person said they didn't want to have their photo taken with the Prez. They were polite about it. Wyomingites are polite, except when you turn them loose on online forums. That's when they vent their spleens, anonymously, of course. There are some pretty ugly spleens out there.

One middle-aged woman made a beeline to our booth and announced that she was an ex-lesbian. That was fine with us. We supposed that being an ex-lesbian was just as good as being an ex-husband or an ex-NFL linebacker or an ex-Republican. Unfortunately, she didn't let it go at that. She contended that homosexuality was a choice. And now we were all going to have to recognize gay marriage and that it was the Democrats' fault. I had seen this person at Tea Party rallies. She crowded our booth and asked each of us, in turn, if we were homosexual. At that moment, none of us were, so that's how we answered. She responded that we could all change that status and become a protected class, thanks to the Democrats and now, the U.S. Supreme Court and its judicial tyranny.

This went on for some time. We tried to reason with the poor woman but to no avail. She eventually moved on, leaving us a bit flustered. Instead of arguing with her, maybe we should have called out the gendarmes? But she probably would have screamed about "government overreach." We could have calmed her with soothing music or therapy-speak which, to Democrats, is almost like a second language. But we all got into the spirit of the debate/shouting match. When you're a liberal living in Wyoming, you tire of these shouting matches. No attempt at logic tends to reach the blunt skulls. Liberals, for our part, tend to be condescending, which doesn't help. Eventually you have to throw up your hands and walk away, heading to the nearest bar.

"Out West in the Rockies" lands at UW

At my day job, scores of press releases arrive daily. Occasionally, I read one and say "Wow!" It happened in March when I saw that artist Ai Weiwei's monumental sculptures were leaving China for display at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson. In Laramie, Dancers of the Joffrey Ballet will be the artists in residence in July at the Snowy Range Summer Dance Festival. Wow! Short story master Tobias Wolff will be the featured presenter at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference later this month. Wow!

But I was doubly impressed last week when I saw the following news release from Rick Ewig, associate director of the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. This highlights a good year for equality in Wyoming. The LGBT community is finding its footing in The Equality State. Or rather the state is taking a turn for the better. Witness the big turnout last weekend at Cheyenne's "Pride in the Park." So many attended that the police arrived to tell us to move our cars as they were blocking traffic. We complied, of course, believing in blocking traffic only when absolutely necessary to get a point across.

But I digress.

Here's the news:

The American Heritage Center (AHC) at the University of Wyoming (UW) in Laramie, which houses several significant collections related to slain UW student Matthew Shepard, is currently developing “Out West in the Rockies,” a first-of-its kind regional lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history and culture archive of the American West.

The scope of of this collecting area welcomes collections from eight Rocky Mountain states: Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Retiring AHC Director Mark Greene helped inaugurate and Associate Director Rick Ewig will oversee this effort.  

Gregory Hinton, creator of Out West, an acclaimed national LGBT western museum program series, introduced the concept to the AHC and serves as project consultant.  Hinton announced Out West in the Rockies at the recent LGBQT Alliance luncheon of the 2015 American Alliance of Museums Annual meeting and Museum Expo in Atlanta. 

Growing interest in the rural LGBT experience underscores the need for a visible, dedicated, centrally located LGBT Western American archive. 

"The LBGT communities are under-documented in many established national archives and historical repositories, but particularly in collections dedicated to the history and culture of the American West,” says Greene, who is a Distinguished Fellow of the Society of American Archivists.  “An archive of this kind is long past due.  The AHC is proud to be committed to this effort.” 

The AHC ranks among the largest and busiest non-governmental repositories in the United States.  In 2010, the AHC was recognized as one of the nation’s premier archives when it received the Society of American Archivists’ Distinguished Service Award.  The AHC currently houses 75,000 cubic feet of materials, with 15,000 cubic feet remaining to welcome new collections.  Thus, with ample storage space, an experience, dedicated, and nationally recognized staff stands ready to accommodate substantial LGBT holdings. 

Rural Montana-born Gregory Hinton recently drove from Los Angeles through the Rockies in blizzard conditions to hand deliver his personal and professional papers to the AHC.  

"Too many LGBT men and women evacuate our rural western backgrounds seeking community, companionship, and safety in the bit city,” Hinton says.  “Happily, not everybody leaves.  And more and more of us return.  Thanks to the AHC, our stories are welcome in Wyoming.” 

A distinguished advisory board of respected western scholars, artists, and activists is being assembled, including W. James Burn, director, University of Arizona Museum of Art; Wyoming State Representative and UW faculty member Cathy Connolly; Rebecca Scofield, Ph.D. candidate, American Studies, Harvard University; and civil rights attorney Roberta Zenker, author of TransMontana. 

"Out West dispels the myth that LGBT history (and communities) are bi-coastal,” says Burns, recent chair of the LGBTQ Alliance of the American Alliance of Museums.  “Rural western LGBT populations are thriving and make significant contributions to the communities in which they live.” 

A call will soon be put out for significant regional collections of organizational records and personal papers consisting of a wide variety of materials, from emails and correspondence to speeches and manuscripts. 

“Everything from scrapbooks and photo albums to press clippings and marketing/promotional material; from digital and analog photos to diaries and blog entries; from professional contracts and grants to minutes and annual reports,” says Rick Ewig, also recent president of the Wyoming State Historical Society and editor of Annals of Wyoming. 

Seeking to immerse themselves in the vast landscape of the rural American West, scholars and historians from all over the world visit the AHC every year.  The AHC is UW’s repository of manuscript collections, rare books, and university archives.

Update on Laramie County Democrats' Flag Day fund-raiser

Here's an update on tomorrow's Flag Day fund-raiser in Cheyenne. I have it on good authority that Uncle Sam (or someone who looks a lot like him) will be there:

The Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition is hosting a Flag Day Garden Party on Sunday, June 14 at 3626 Dover Road, Cheyenne, 2-5 p.m. 

Tim Fields from Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing will make a presentation about this worthwhile program that assists our local veterans. 

Aimee Van Cleave, Executive Director of the State Democratic Party, will update us on Dem happenings around the state. 

There will be desserts, beverages, and musical entertainment  provided by Terry and Theresa Barbre who will play the bagpipes and drums. 

And maybe even Uncle Sam. 

The cost is $15; $5 will go to Healing Waters and $10 to the Laramie County Democratic Party. The Dems will pay the entry fee for up to 10 Vets who are not members of the LCDGC.

We're asking the Grassroots Members to bring a dessert which has the colors red, white and/or blue. No cream pies or anything that needs refrigeration unless you want to bring a cooler too. We are going to cut some of the desserts to serve that day, plus we will set aside some of them to be auctioned off as a fund-raiser for The Laramie County Democrats. We will also have the cards to play 50/50.

If you choose, wear the colors red/white and or blue. We want to take this day to honor the flag and to honor our vets.

Let's have a great turn out for this special event! Bring a friend(s).

If you have questions, contact Kathleen 421-4496 or Ken 433-4394.

Democrats' Flag Day fundraiser features Project Healing Waters presentation

I'm on a committee with the Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Organization that stages fund-raisers for for Dem candidates, mainly local and legislative. The committee raised $10,000-plus in 2014. In the political world, that seems like a drop in the bucket. The Koch Brothers, before they finish their morning coffee, donate $10 million to Repubs. But those thousands in local funding paid for yard signs and flyers and even paid advertising, all things crucial to name recognition, especially for newbies.

It appears that another election is on the horizon. How does this happen? A dozen or so Republicans have already announced for president in 2016. Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have announced on the Democrats' side. Locally, Lee Filer has announced a return bout with fundie Repub Harlan Edmonds. Filer held the seat for two years. Did a great job. Ran again in 2014. Dems stayed home and Repubs voted in Edmonds. You have to get out a vote, people! GOTV efforts will be crucial in 2016.

The LCDGC is staging a fund-raiser this Sunday. You are welcome to attend If you're a Dem who has publicly declared your allegiances, You are welcome if you're a lapsed Dem. You are welcome if you're a closeted Dem, uncertain about making your feelings known in a sea of conservatives. Veterans are doubly welcomed, as it's Flag Day and we're a friendly bunch. 

On Sunday, June 14, Flag Day, the Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition is sponsoring a fundraising event at 3626 Dover Road, 2-5 p.m. Tim Fields from Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing will make a presentation about this wonderful program that assists our local veterans. There will be desserts, beverages, musical entertainment and maybe even "Uncle Sam". The cost is $15; $5 will go to Healing Waters and $10 to the Laramie County Democratic Party. The Party will pay the entry fee for up to 10 veterans who are not members of the LCDGC.

We're asking the Grassroots Members to bring a dessert which has the colors red, white and/or blue. No cream pies or anything that needs refrigeration unless you want to bring a cooler too. We are going to cut some of the desserts to serve that day, plus we will set aside some of them to be auctioned off as a fund raiser for the Party. We will also have the cards to play 50/50. If you choose, wear the colors red/white and or blue. We want to take this day to honor the flag and to honor our veterans

See you there for another fun FUNdraiser!

If you have questions, contact Kathleen 421-4496 or Ken 433-4394.

For more information on Healing Waters, go to http://www.projecthealingwaters.org/. PHWFF is sponsoring its third annual fly-tying competition. According to its web site, the contest is "open to individuals who meet the definition of a PHWFF participant."

For those locals curious about the art of fly-tying, visit the Art of the Hunt exhibit showing now at the Wyoming State Museum.

Wave good-bye as the Boomer train leaves the station

We staged a farewell lunch for a work colleague today. She's moving on to greener pastures, and by that I mean another job. That's what young people do, move on. It's the circle of life.

Ten of us dined at the Albany which, as you locals know, is right across the street from the UP train station, now known as the Cheyenne Historic Depot. Twentieth-century passengers used to eat at the Albany before their trains departed for Chicago and San Francisco. There also was a Burlington Northern Depot, which has been torn down.

I rode trains as a kid growing up in the fifties. By the time I was in my teens, I had switched to air travel, as did most Americans. At 16, I was driving a car and have been ever since. Train travel was passe. Slow and annoying. Kind of like us Baby Boomers, now reaching retirement in alarming numbers.

I thought about this at lunch. Half of us were new employees from several different departments. They all had moved on from other jobs, as young people do. I was the oldest one at the long table. We conversed, had fun, teased the departing one. As the only one with a camera, I shot photos. Not to say nobody else could take pictures. I probably was the only one there lacking a smartphone equipped with the usual snazzy camera. I have a dumb phone. "They won't trust me with a smartphone," I sometimes joke. My colleagues have heard it more than once.

Pretty soon, I will head out the door of my workplace for the last time. Retired at 65, wondering where all the time went. I'll walk on down to the Historic Depot and climb aboard the train that takes Boomers to wherever we go when we retire.

All aboard!

New Flash Fiction Review: "Welcome to Zan Xlemente, Zalifornia"

New Flash Fiction Review published one of my pieces April 27 in its "New Work" section online. It's a fairly new online mag with a wonderful group of editors: San Francisco's Meg Pokrass, the excellent Boston short story writer Pam Painter, Texas short-short fiction writer Tiff Holland, and advisory editor and anthologist James Thomas. I read on the W.W. Norton web site that James and his colleagues Robert Shepard coined the term "flash fiction." I met Meg Pokrass through Facebook. She's one of the few writers daring enough to feature new work on FB and ask for feedback. She talked about this experience, and read some of her work, on a snowy mid-September day at the 2014 Equality State Book Festival in Casper.

I consider myself a writer of short stories that aren't that short. Stories in my first published book are of traditional length and follow a structure similar to those penned by writers I've studied, everyone from Hemingway to Tobias Wolff.

But over the past 20 years, I've published three short pieces, including the one below. I had a 1,000-word piece in the Norton anthology, In Short: Brief Creative Nonfiction. I published a short-short called "Flying Nurse" in High Plains Register a few years ago. I've been writing short blog pieces here for ten years. In my youth, as editor and columnist for a Denver arts and entertainment weekly, I wrote columns that were 750-1,000 words. Most of my magazine and newspaper pieces have been fairly short, although I've also written some long-form mag pieces. Humor and satire, which I purport to write on these pages, is better short. It's challenging to write short. And fun. Which is why I'm going to stop right here, referring you to my latest flash fiction:    

WELCOME TO ZAN XLEMENTE, ZALIFORNIA 

My daughter M went to a nuthouse in San Clemente and all I got was this lousy metal keychain with CALIFORNIA writ large the blue of the sea under a gold-and-orange/red sun.

Read the rest at New Flash Fiction Review.

May showers bring August tomatoes -- we hope

During my recovery from April's knee replacement surgery, my friend Liz brought me a Roma tomato seedling. I placed the sprout in my kitchen's south-facing window. If I lived in a more temperate climate, I would have marched the plant outside and put it into the ground. But I live in Wyoming, where April is still winter. Many of us have turned to the use of high tunnels or cold frames or other sheltering devices to ensure an adequate harvest. But not me. I continue to wait for those frost-free days of late May. Very late May, or even early June.

Two weeks ago, on a rare sunny day, I bought some flowers. I sat out on the porch, repotted them and set them out to enjoy the sun. While I was at it, I repotted the Roma and two cherry tomato plants brought over by my neighbor.  The dirt had a calming effect on my throbbing left knee. The sun, a welcome visitor. Still, I knew I was tempting fate to ignore the first commandment of High Desert gardeners: "No outdoor planting until Memorial Day."

True to form, rain and snow and frost arrived in southeast Wyoming this week. I could have hauled the potted plants inside, as I'd already done once. Instead, I pulled out my trusty tarp and covered them. It traps heat and moisture, and keeps snow and frost from the leaves. It's a big tarp -- I can cover the entire garden plot adjacent to my back porch. There was no need as I had kept to the letter of the law and not planted anything in the ground. I did cover the strawberries, But there's really no need, as my strawberries are hardy varieties cultivated at the Ag Dept.'s old High Plains Research Station. These babies can take the snow and ice and, to prove it, keep coming back year after year.

The tarp covered the plants four days and four nights, through a light snow and two overnight frosts and days of rain. I uncovered them Thursday evening after work, the moment I glimpsed the first ray of sun. The weathercasters assure me that the frosts are over, with low temps going down to 40 degrees but no colder. Soon, the usual warm, low-humidity days of summer will take over and I can put away the tarp.

This morning, the sun is out. Soon, so shall I be.

"The harder they come, the harder they fall" -- the novel

"Violence is as American as cherry pie."

Black Panther and SNCC activist H. Rap Brown said this is a 1960s speech in Maryland. His life, unfortunately, became a testament to those words.

I was thinking of that quote as I read "The Harder They Come," the terrific new novel by T.C. Boyle. It's about the American way of violence. But it's also a family story, a heartbreaker for those of us who have raised challenging children. Boyle is a master stylist, a writer equally adept with the novel and the short story. He's best known for his dark humor and satire. We get that in this novel. But also a big helping of tragedy.

For his epigraph, Boyle reaches further back than the 1960s for a quote from D.H. Lawrence: "The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."

If needed, you can immerse yourself in another dose of violence by watching the 1972 Jamaican crime film "The Harder They Come" and its Jimmy Cliff song of the same name. Despite reggae's "peace-and-love" rep, most of us boomers first encountered the music via a high body count.

I'm two-thirds of the way through Boyle's novel. So good and so horrifying, it's kept me up at night. It may do the same for you.

U/D 5/21/15: Finished the book. Glad I kept with it.

This shouting and cane shaking is thirsty business

Great to see that Amy Surdam has been named the new executive director of the Cheyenne Downtown Development Authority/Main Street. The organization has been looking for a new director since the departure of Christie DePoorter last year.

Surdam was one of the founders of the Children's Museum of Cheyenne, which will be built sometime soon in "The Hole" downtown. That organization came up with a plan to fill "The Hole," something that the city has been working on for a decade. She and her colleagues get kudos for action in the face of widespread inaction.

Surdam is a nurse practitioner who managed the CRMC Urgent Care Center when it opened near downtown in 2012. She also is a major in the Wyoming Army National Guard. Married to a CRMC ER doctor, she was quoted in this morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle as someone who "loves our downtown" and wants to "create a place where my own children will want to return to live and work."

That's the crux of the matter, isn't it? Where will our kids want to live when they're in their 20s and 30s? Good jobs are one thing. Quality of life is another. While young people may find work in Cheyenne, they often choose to live south of the border in Wellington, Fort Collins or Greeley, Colorado. Many would rather live in the college town of Laramie and face the treacherous daily winter commute over the pass than live in Cheyenne. This week, the Laramie City Council passed a measure that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. This is the first municipality in the state to pass such a measure, an effort that's regularly defeated by the Know Nothings in the State Legislature. Laramie, off course, was the site of Matthew Shepard's murder in 1998.

Laramie's downtown is a happening place. I say this as a 64-year-old soon-to-be-retiree. Let's go over to Laramie, ma, and get one of those Geritol-laced lattes at Coal Creek Coffee, sit outside on the patio and watch the trains rumble by. I'd rather be perusing the shelves at Night Heron Books or lunching at Sweet Melissa's. But you get the idea. Downtown Laramie is full of life while Cheyenne is still working on it. Lots of credit goes to Trey Sherwood, director of the Laramie DDA/Main Street org.

I think Cheyenne may have found a similar dynamo in Ms. Surdam.

The City of Cheyenne received some good news this week. The feds have pledged $3 million to the city's West Edge Project. The city now has $15 million to get that project going. It will transform the west end of downtown into a network of parks, business and living spaces. You can find out more about it here. One of the more intriguing ideas in this effort is an idea to take renovated historic railroad cars, park them on spurs and turn them into bistros and shops. The city is working on this with the High Plains Railroad Preservation Association. This is a terrific way to celebrate Cheyenne's heritage, a city founded in 1867 as a "Hell on Wheels" railroad camp.

The Cheyenne DDA/Main Street has some funding challenges, as we've been reading about lately. Local naysayers don't see the value of a vibrant downtown development organization. They often get the most ink and air time because they're the loudest and crankiest. You kids get out of my downtown! This gray-headed, cane-wielding (knee replacement surgery) old guy could be one of the cranky ones. But if you see me down at the Depot Plaza shaking my cane at a group of young people, I'll probably be saying something like: Welcome to our downtown, kids. Spend your time and money down here, and don't forget to volunteer for some of DDA/Main Street's fine projects. And while you're at it, fetch me an IPA from Freedom's Edge or the Cheyenne Brewing Company. This shouting and cane-shaking is thirsty business.

Mark Twain really liked Anne of "Anne of Green Gables" -- and so did I

Most people consider "Anne of Green Gables" a children's book, specifically, a book for girls.

As a child, I didn't read it. I read a lot. Sci-fi classic. Classics for boys, such as "Treasure Island" and "The Three Musketeers." The Hardy Boys mysteries. Tom Swift adventures.

But "Anne of Green Gables" or "Little Women" or "Little House on the Prairie?"

Not this cowboy.

My loss, as it turns out. Artificial barriers delineating what you should or shouldn't read does nobody any good.

I was charmed by the staged reading of "Anne of Green Gables" put on by the Next Step Performance Company this weekend at the LCCC Playhouse in Cheyenne. Small theatre, big cast. Next Step puts on productions that raises money for scholarships for students majoring the fine arts. Cast and crew are all volunteers, which allows ticket sales and auction proceeds to go to scholarships.

"Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a serious story. An aging duo, brother and sister Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, are getting too old to do all of the chores required by Prince Edward Island farmers in 1908. Matthew is in his 60s and Marilla in her 50s. Had automation come to the farm in 1908? Matthew has heart problems. His solution for cardiac arrhythmia is to get back to work. Marilla does all of the cooking and cleaning. Darns socks. Makes clothes. Bakes pies. On PEI, you have to make hay while the sun shines, which is does about the same length of time as it does in rural Wyoming.

They decide to adopt a 13-year-old male orphan to help out around the place. Orphans must have been a dime a dozen in 1908. Unfortunately, Matthew arrives in his buckboard at the Avonlea train station to find a scrawny 11-year-old girl waiting for him. The taciturn Matthew is kind of taken with the talkative Anne "Anne with an E" Shirley. The practical Marilla, not so much. "What good is a girl on a farm?" she asks. Anne must go. A neighbor says she will take Annie. The neighbor it bitchy Mrs.Blewitt, who has a zillion little kids and goes through hired help like there's no tomorrow. Marilla knows that Mrs. Blewitt probably will work Anne to death, which wouldn't have been much of a crime in an era of widespread child labor. She lets the lively Anne stay at Green Gables. Matthew is pleased. Anne gets into some minor-league scrapes. She stands up for herself with the town gossip, Rachel Lynde (played with aplomb by my one-time arts colleague, Rita Basom). Matthew spoils her with little gifts. Marilla gets on her case but you can see her attitude softening as time goes on.

Women readers know this story. I don't. No less a literary personage than Mark Twain thought that Anne was "the dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice." The book has sold 50 million copies in 20 languages during the past 107 years. That's 500,000 copies annually, give or take. The author's home and the green gables farmhouse on PEI is a literary tourist stop, visited by scores of loyal readers from all over the globe. The town of Cavendish, the model for Avonlea, plays up its legacy. Nearby is a national park dedicated to Montgomery's works.

I didn't know any of this until I saw the staged reading and conducted a Google investigation of "Anne of Green Gables." Amazing story, really. We writers secretly yearn for our legacy to outlive us. I don't have much of a legacy. I visit those old homesteads and birthplaces of those who do. The best example I can think of is Nebraska's Willa Cather and her town of Red Cloud. The entire town is dedicated to Cather and her books and stories.A wonderful places to spend a warm spring day.

Living writers are learning how to enhance their local brand. Buffalo's Longmire Days celebrates the mystery novels and the TV series spawned by Craig Johnson's fiction. Carbon County celebrates  the fictional creations of native son C.J. Box. This is a trend that will only get bigger as the "local" craze grows. If you're a locavore, you should be devouring the creations of local writers, artists and performers.

Capital Chorale adds a dash of humorous seasonings to a rainy Cheyenne night

By now, decades into the electronics revolution, you would think that everyone would be safely at home on a rainy Friday night playing e-games or watching a super-hero flick on their mega-widescreen TV.

That's not the case. The more electronic options available, the greater the need to get out among our fellow humans. Yes, we are an untidy and argumentative bunch. We do like to get together to enjoy the arts.

Friday night featured a variety of offerings in Cheyenne. Chris and I attended the Cheyenne Capital Chorale "Tasteful Tapestries" concert. The Cheyenne Little Theatre offered "9 to 5 -- the musical" and the LCCC Theatre featured "Anne of Green Gables." Bands performed at local bars. The Suite Bistro held its usual karaoke night, which could be considered an art form depending on who's on stage at the time. If it's me, forget it.

My daughter Annie, however, has a great voice and was performing with the Capital Chorale last night. "Tasteful Tapestries" was all about food, as am I, so it was a natural choice to attend. Because I've been homebound for a month due to knee replacement, I've had an opportunity to hear Annie rehearse her solo and the other songs on the CCC repertoire. Unlike her violin practice in the fourth grade, which set neighborhood dogs howling, Annie's singing is a joy to hear. Her solo was the classic tune from "The Sound of Music," "My Favorite Things." A tuneful little ditty that I've heard hundreds of times during screenings if Chris's favorite film. The song has plentiful references to Austrian foodstuffs -- schnitzel with noodles and strudel -- so it fit easily into the evening's program. Janet Anderson performed "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," a song by Harry McClintock about the musings of a Depression-era hobo made famous in "O Brother, Where Art Thou." The Cheyenne Capital Quartet (plus one) tackled the classic "Snap, Crackle, Pop" advertising jingle, which brought back memories of endless bowls of Rice Krispies. The trio of Paula Egan-Wright, Sarah Scott and LuWana DePorter celebrated caffeinated beverages with the "Java Jive."

After breaks to bid on silent auction items and to buy yummy pastries (pecan pie!), the chorale launched into "The Seasonings" by P.D.Q. Bach, the pen name for musician and humorist Schickele. It's been decades since I've heard P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742) performed. I forgot how clever and irreverent he can be. Songs included "Tarragon of Virtue is Full," "Bide Thy Thyme" and "To Curry Favor, Favor Curry." The pianist was accompanied by bicycle horns, triangles and some mysterious homemade instruments. The cast expanded to include a pair of cheerleaders, a chef, football players, and soothsayers.

A whopping good time was had by all. And money was raised for the 2015-2016 season.

And to think that all of this entertainment was brought to us by volunteers, our family members, friends and neighbors who are in it for the love of music.

Summer arts events flourish in Wyoming communities

Looking for something to do this summer?

You don't have to look very far.

The Wyoming Arts Council and the Wyoming Humanities Council have teamed up to chronicle "125 Days of Arts and Humanities." Why 125? Because this summer marks the 125th anniversary celebration of Wyoming statehood. The official big day is July 10. On that day, the Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site holds a Statehood Celebration Day. That same weekend, you  can view Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei's sculptures in Jackson or groove to sounds of Marty Stuart and His Superlatives at the Big Horn Mountain Festival in Buffalo or ogle the art at Jackson Hole's art fair or talk mountains at the international climbers' festival in Lander or travel to the powwow in Ethete. Everyone should attend at least one powwow, Interesting and instructional, especially for us white folks who think we have all of the answers.

And that's just one WYO weekend.

On any weekend, you are almost certain to find a beerfest. A beer festival addresses the basic necessities of a summer weekend: craft beer, BBQ and music. Craft beer continues to make waves in WYO. We have some award-winners at Melvin Brewing/Thai Me Up in Jackson and Alpine. Snake River Brewery in Jackson has been brewing up Pako's IPA and a whole host of specialty brews for decades. They were among the first in the region to can their output. A new brewpub, Cheyenne Brewing Company, opens in early June in Cheyenne. You can get a more comprehensive list of craft brewers in Wyoming at

The Wyoming Brewers Festival is set for Cheyenne June 19-20. One of the interesting things about this festival is that its proceeds go toward rehabbing our city's historic train depot. The brewfesr culminates with a Saturday night concert by the Taylor Scott Band. Scott grew up in Cheyenne. There was a time when you could see the teen-age Scott and his band perform for free downtown. He's gone on to bigger and better things, his voice and musical skills honed from constant touring with his new band. Don't miss it.

Some final words. I've been working in the arts in Wyoming for 24 years. I continue to be amazed by the scope and variety of summer events. Many of the festivals on the list have arisen in the past 10 years. This is especially true of the brewfests, most of which feature music and some have art exhibits. Local food is a major element. At the Wyoming Arts Council, we joke about the fact that our small staff couldn't possibly attend all of the summer arts offerings. We could try, but who would be left to shuffle the state paperwork? But all of you can get out and support these events. That's what keeps these events going -- the sweat equity of local organizers. And your attendance.  

In "Interstellar," the future is as corny as Kansas in August

Imagine that humankind gives up its dreams of space travel to farm corn in Kansas full-time.

That’s the kind of boring future imagined by Christopher Nolan in the film “Interstellar.”

Humans no longer shoot for the stars. An unnamed blight is killing all the crops except corn – and even its days are numbered. Dust Bowl-style storms blot out the sun and everything (laptops included) is coated with a fine layer of dust. Unemployed astronaut Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) farms corn with his two kids, an irascible father and a fleet of robotic combines. His daughter gets into trouble at school when she writes a paper contending that the U.S. did land on the moon as “corrected” textbooks proclaim that we invented our space triumphs to bankrupt the Russkis. The new reality is not to “look to the skies” but look down at the dirt as humans try to save a planet that’s beyond saving.

A fascinating conceit for a movie. We make fun of conspiracy nuts who contend that the moon landings were invented on a Hollywood soundstage. In Nolan’s universe, scientists are the kooks. Waste money on rocket ships when the earth is dying? No sirree bob -- not with my tax money.

NASA’s scientists have been driven underground. They are busily at work launching space probes to find other habitable planets to screw up. They recruit Cooper to join other astronauts to explore those likely places to resettle the populace. As we know from the Kepler telescope observations, earth-like planets exist but they are 100-plus light years away. The solution: fire a rocket through a wormhole that has mysteriously appeared near Saturn. “They” put it there, whoever “they” are (their identity is revealed by film's end).

Will the scientists find a new home for earthlings? That’s the question that involves the viewer for most of the movie. Great special effects, as befitting the CGI era (no streams of flashing lights as in “2001”). The robots are cooler than HAL, equipped with wit and sarcasm. The main robot threatens to shoot one of the crew through the airlock as happened in the pivotal scene in “2001.”

Woven through all this are complicated human relationships. In the end, that’s what motivates humans – their relationships with others of their kind. Cooper would not leave his beloved family behind, especially his daughter Murph, unless he could save them by jaunting off into space. Turns out that Cooper’s colleague in space, Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), has a love interest who was on an earlier space probe. It is love that motivates humans. As the Beatles sang, “love is all you need.” Not bad when you can wrap up a sci-fi epic with a sixties melody.

What else is there? What makes us distinctive among known life forms? Any big-brained chimp can plant corn or build a space ship. But it takes love for a wife or daughter or father to motivate us to reach for the stars. Humans are a mess, for the most part. But we are always offered a path to redemption that is as mysterious and complicated as the physics of a wormhole.

Love is all you need…

For Baby Boomers, the arguments go on forever

Big news from the Brookings Institution: Baby Boomers are in each other’s faces – again. According to a Brookings report:

“The primary political output of the divided boomers has been frustrating gridlock and historically low evaluations of congressional performance.”

As an early cohort Boomer (born 1950), I’ve been engaging in political arguments since my high school days. I grew up Catholic, attended Catholic school and went to mass regularly with my large family – I’m the oldest of nine children. For most of my childhood and teenhood, arguments with my parents revolved around curfews and whether rock was devil music (Parents: Hell Yes; Mike: Hell No.)  Vietnam wasn’t a hot topic – not yet, anyway. Civil rights, drugs, abortion, and all of the rest.

My first two years if college was one long political argument. I was a ROTC guy, but didn’t want to be. But I also didn’t want to go to Vietnam. I solved this by smoking pot, skipping classes and engaging in dorm-room political arguments that raged into early mornings, punctuated with long sessions of devil music. 

Over the decades, family gatherings have been filled with toasts to our continued good health and raging political arguments that may last an entire Thanksgiving weekend.  Most of my friends are boomers. Many are liberals, even here in Wyoming, but others are not. I no Longer have lunch with some conservative friends because it leads to indigestion on all of our parts.

These arguments will rage until we can rage no more. They can be traced back to the divisions caused by the Vietnam War. You might say: “That was a long time ago, guys – can’t you get over it?”

In a word, no. The divisions are deep and will only be solved by cohort replacement – death of all of the Boomers.

Go back to spring of 1970. On April 30 of that year, Pres. Nixon announced that U.S. troops would be sent into Cambodia. We had been told that Vietnam was winding down and now here was news that is was winding up instead. That led to protests in college campuses across the U.S. The most radical one was held at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, a place I had never heard of until then. On May 2, KSU students burst down the ROTC building. That was a bit off a shock to us ROTC guys at University of South Carolina. We spent quite a bit of time there. Attended naval science classes there during the week. Played basketball in its gym at night and on weekends. We assembled there in uniform weekly for our drills. Following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, demonstrators had trashed our ROTC building. There were no real signs of the damage when I arrived in September 1969.

Ghosts remain.

We make enormous decisions when we’re young. We hope to receive guidance from our elders. We don’t always get it, or the right kind. So we end up making decisions on our own that come back to haunt us later. Then, at 64, we have to forgive our younger selves for our ignorance and our passion. I can remember how lonely and afraid I was at 19. It’s as if it happened yesterday. I was supposed to be a man but I was just a little boy.

I was sensitive and gifted with a great memory. That helped me lead a life of empathy. It also contributed to my passion as a writer. I could have turned out otherwise. Nixon parlayed a natural distrust of pointy-headed intellectuals and anti-American college brats into an election strategy. At a NYC demonstration after Kent State, hard hats rallied for Nixon. Most of these blue collar guys were Democrats then. By the next election (1972), Vietnam and student protestors and civil rights had turned them all into resentful Republicans. Many of their sons and daughters continued this policy of resentment. Some of them remained liberals and activists who continued to march for peace and justice. After the Vietnam War and civil rights struggles came the women’s movement and LGBT rights. The anti-nuke movement and swarms of environmentalists. All of these people looking for special treatment! Reagan and his policies arose from that resentment. That, eventually, gave rise to the Tea Party, that privileged group of Boomers who are wildly indignant about nearly everything.

But for me and my fellow liberals, there were more struggles ahead, more wars to protest, more inequalities to be addressed.

So Baby Boomers continue to argue. Not sure how our descendants will see us. Hippies. The Me Generation. Warmongers. Peaceniks. The generation who brought us the Millennials with all of their faults (everybody gets a trophy!). The generation that despoiled the planet with their excesses and stood by and did nothing.

Argumentative? You bet. And don’t expect the conflict to cease as long as we have breath enough to hurl an invective.