Dreams of redemption along the Wasatch Front

On Monday morning, we delivered our daughter Annie to a mental health treatment center on the Wasatch Front. After farewell hugs and tears, we sought comfort in the Angel Moroni.

SLC is LDS HQ, as any Rocky Mountain resident knows. Chris and I fought our way through traffic to downtown SLC. First stop – the ritzy bathrooms of Grand America, big brother to Little America across the street.  One thing I’ve learned from attending many events at Cheyenne’s Little America – this chain’s bathrooms can’t be beat.

Our second stop was lunch. We prowled Main Street until we found the longest food line and became a part of it. Long lines mean good food, right? The Robin’s Nest boasted on its window that City Weekly had given the place kudos for its vegetarian sandwich. We were the oldies amongst a gaggle of the working young, all in their twenties and thirties. It was difficult to look at these energetic people and not think of Annie, she of the beautiful voice and passion for all things creative. During the past eight years, she’s spent the majority of her time in treatment centers from Cheyenne to San Clemente. Her body is cross-hatched from cuts by razor and knife. Her psyche wavers between the living and the dead. If I think about it too much, my psyche loses its bearings. Instead, I order sandwiches while Chris finds a seat in the crowded café. I order what I think is “The Robin” after the name of the place but it is actually “The Rubin.” The order-taker corrects me then adds, “It happens all the time. Robin, Rubin – we know what you want.”

I briefly consider correcting the menu’s spelling of the esteemed Reuben sandwich, but decide against it. I don’t want to be the dithering old guy holding up the line.

Chris and I linger over lunch. We eat and watch the people. I absorb the energy and feel a little better on this Monday in Utah.

Our next stop: Mormonlandia. We ride the light rail (UTA TRAX) to Temple Square. We walk by the LDS Family History Library, home of a million stories. Chris and I each have distinctly non-Mormon family stories. But we’ve seen the stage version of “Book of Mormon” and know that the actual Book of Mormon is filled with fanciful tales. We were also raised on fancies and delights. Stories of the saints and martyrs and miracle filled our childhoods. Over my crib, my parents hung a print of the Archangel Michael driving Lucifer out of heaven. During mass, we devoured Jesus’s body and drank his blood. Mary the Virgin gave birth in a manger. Virginity was the guiding principle of every young Catholic until marriage, when we were expected to breed like rabbits. There was magic in this, too, as were expected to know how to procreate without anyone actually explaining to us the mechanics. That we had to learn on the street like any good Christian. Sex ed consisted of convoluted birds-and-bees talk from my father and a sixth-grade lesson from a priest who warned that it was a mortal sin to put our hands in our pockets. Now go forth and sin no more, hands swinging freely by your sides.

It is as easy to poke fun at Mormonism as it is Catholicism. But both build empires out of stories. And at the center of both traditions is faith. Unshakable but also rigid. Faith that can move mountains and slaughter innocents.

I feel that power at Temple Square. The Angel Moroni blasts his trumpet from atop the temple. He surveys his domain and pronounces it good.

Chris and I wandered the Temple Square grounds. We checked out the tabernacle and the temple, which denies entrance to The Great Unwashed. Any old person can visit the Vatican. But that’s the rule here. Volunteers give tours of the grounds and dispense helpful hints to tourists. One Mormon retiree in a bush hat buttonholed us and, after a few minutes, gets to the proselytizing stage. This doesn’t take long among Mormons. It’s at its heart, this push to save humankind even after death. Entire generations can be saved post-mortem, thus the big research library and its branches at libraries around the West.

Once the proselytizing begins, Chris moved away. She has a low tolerance for sermonizing. For me, well, I always think there might be a story in it. Like the one I’m writing now.

But I said thanks but no thanks to the retiree and moved on to join Chris. She is photographing the many statues. Joseph Smith and his brother are over there. I move in betwixt them and Chris gets a shot. We both shoot up at the Angel Moroni but, for some reason, those don’t turn out. Maybe the gold reflects too much sunlight. We may be too far away.

Many of the remarkable events in the Book of Mormon are illuminated in paintings at the LDS Conference Center. Our guide Gary, a retired Xerox salesman, shows off paintings by Minerva Teichart of Cokeville, Wyoming. Teichart may be one of the most prolific of the Mormon painters. She gave paintings as favors to friends and neighbors. She taught art to Cokeville’s many kids, back in the days when Cokeville had many kids. One room in the center is dedicated to twelve paintings by artist Arnold Friberg, the man who later painted the famous work of George Washington kneeling at Valley Forge. LDS Primary President Adele Cannon Howells sold her own land to pay for the paintings because the church was broke – this was the last time that the church publicly pleaded poverty. “Ammon Defends his Flocks,” “Alma Baptizes in the Waters of Mormon” and ten others were featured in LDS’s The Children’s Friend and millions of copies of the Book of Mormon, which is where Cecil B. DeMille discovered Friberg and brought him to Hollywood to paint scenes for “The Ten Commandments.”

Representational religious art is not my bag. But Teichart and Friberg and the rest of the conference center artists were talented people. The paintings tell ripping good yarns and the characters have to be larger than life. The Catholic Church also commissioned lots of art, much of it by masters of painting and sculpture. We know that Catholics also conducted the Inquisition and murdered scores of native peoples in the name of conversion. We also know that the LDS hasn’t been the most tolerant of religions. Just this past week, church hierarchy announced that homosexuals are apostates and their children cannot be LDS members. This comes at the same time that Salt Lake City elected a lesbian mayor. Not surprising, really, in a place that has the seventh-largest LGBT population among the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas.   

Gary concluded his tour with a visit to the roof. This cantilevered building supports several acres of marble walkways and fountains and high altitude forest and prairie grasslands. From here, I can view the mountains and the prairie, the downtown building boom, and airplanes departing for L.A. and Chicago. Gary told us that beneath our feet is the 21,000-seat auditorium that he showed us earlier. I think of falling through the marble and into that gigantic space. One of the Latter Day Saints might scoop me up and lift me to the top of the temple where I can join Moroni in his eternal symphony. Play on, you mighty angel, play on. Faith comes in many forms. My faith tells me that my daughter will find her own faith. I care not if it be Moroni or Jesus, Adele or Mozart, that bears her up on eagle’s wings. 

Low-sodium chili could be the key to turning Wyoming blue

On or about Jan. 2, 2013, I began considering sodium.

Didn't pay particular attention to it until my heart stopped functioning properly.

"Cut down on the salt," the cardiologists said.

"I don't put salt on my food," I replied.

They told me that salt is everywhere. In processed food -- all that stuff in the center aisles of your local grocery store. Frozen foods too.

"Frozen foods?" I asked. "Pizza and TV dinners and lasagna don't need salt."

"Check the labels," the docs advised.

Due to my wife's diabetes, I check labels for sugar and carbs. Sodium hadn't been a big concern. Until the widowmaker brought me to the ER and the attention of the cardio unit.

They halted my congestive heart failure and installed a stent. Put me on a cardiac diet. For a week, the nutritionist in the hospital kitchen told me what I couldn't have more often that she agreed with my dietary choices. Once I was out and about again, wandering the aisles of King Soopers, I read some amazing horror stories on food labels. Hormel Chili with beans, one of my faves, contained 990 mg. of sodium for one-cup serving. That meant that a can of chili, warmed up in the microwave and served during the Broncos game, gave me almost 500 mg of sodium more than the 1,500 mg. daily intake recommended by cardiologists. Throw in some "saltines" and cheese and beer and soon I was at the average of 3,400 mg. of sodium ingested daily by Americans.

That was a shocker. But prowling the frozen foods aisles was really enlightening. Those big pot pies are one of my guilty pleasures. I loved them as a kid. But they are loaded with sodium. Why? Freezing preserves the food, so salt and MSG are not necessary. One can only assume it's for the taste. We Americans love our salt! And what about the salt lobby? Is there some branch of The Illuminati that loads us with salt, making us compliant, water-logged, obese drones ready to do the bidding of this secret cabal? Get on this, Dan Brown!

Face it, our industrial food system is still stuck in mom's 1955 kitchen. Our families were so happy to be rid of the Depression and the world war, that we would do anything to have three squares a day. Salt was a celebrated part of the Great American Diet. Hell, the East Germans and the Chinese were starving. We got all Henry Ford on our food system. Mom and Dad showered us with mac and cheese and rump roasts and hot dogs and Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies.

Do I blame them? Hell no. All my mom got for Christmas during the 1930s was an orange and a handful of walnuts. Was she concerned with a little bit of salt? Hell no. She was happy to be feeding her kids -- all nine of them. They all grew up to be strapping lads and lassies, me included. I kept eating as if it was 1955 right up until my LAD artery got clogged and I went in for a Roto Rooter job.

So what is a 64-year-old American man supposed to do about food? Eat less. Eat right. Exercise more. Nothing I didn't already know. Then I didn't really, did I? I opted for the easy solution. Pizza and Big Macs and those big plates of food they serve you at every restaurant, especially here in Wyoming and my other home places in the South. I love all that barbecue and chicken-fried steak and burgers and ice cream. But I want to stick around for awhile. That doesn't mean that I, as a creative cook, can't come up with solutions.

Taste my chili -- please! I make a low-sodium chili that is not bad. I am not going to win any prizes at the chili cook-off. But I don't care about that. I just want it to taste good and get some appreciation from my friends and colleagues. You will not unduly tax your heart when eating my chili! I can make that boast.

I'm making a batch today in my slow cooker. I made some last week for the Broncos game and the chili was better than the game, especially when you consider the lackluster performance by Peyton Manning. I kept some as a starter dose for this weekend's chili/salsa/dessert fund-raiser put on by the Laramie County Democrats, which is Sunday, Oct. 25, from 6-8 p.m. Wyoming Democrats must pay attention to our longevity. There are so few of us that we can't stand to lose anyone to heart failure. I'm doing my part by cutting back on the sodium. A lowered heart rate might allow us to once again clinch a majority in both houses of the state legislature by 2050, the year I turn 100. Combine longevity with an influx of young immigrants eager to make their way in Wyoming's very creative atmosphere, and you have Democrats galore. You say that you can't move to Wyoming due to too many right-wing dingbats in the legislature? They can't live forever, especially when you consider the average Wyomingite's salt-laden diet. Be patient.

Today, low-sodium chili. Tomorrow, the world or, at least, WYO.

BTW, do I have a recipe? Not really. My only goal is to keep the sodium content below 350 mg. per one-cup serving, which is what nutritional guidelines recommend for all foods. That is approximately one-third of the Hormel Chili variety I referenced above. It's about one-half of the levels in Hormel low-sodium chili with beans.

That's progress!

Celebrate Free Speech Week by taking illegal Wyoming photos

WyoFile is celebrating Free Speech Week by staging an intriguing photo contest for potential lawbreakers. Let's let the WyoFile folks tell the story -- they're great at that:

Did you get a great picture of a bison in front of the mountains this summer?

What about wildflowers? Do you have some landscapes or sunsets from your trips on public land?

Did you ask the Forest Service, BLM or Park Service for permission to take your photograph first? Believe it or not, Wyoming’s new data trespass laws say if you collect such “resource data” from “open land” without permission, and it could be submitted to someone who works for the government, you’re a lawbreaker. 

WyoFile is an official partner of Free Speech Week.
In celebration of Free Speech Week, WyoFile is asking citizen photographers to submit their once-innocent, now-potentially illegal pictures to WyoFile. Join us in showing Wyoming some examples of photography that, despite the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Wyoming says is illegal now.

There are some rules. Check them out here and let the shutterbuggin' begin.

Downtown Art Alley's second mural now complete

Alert readers inform me that there is another new mural in downtown's Art Alley. It's by Laramie artist and UW grad Dan Toro and seems to represent the performing arts history of our fair city. The open space in the alley now used for summer concerts once was the site of the Paramount Theatre. A movie theatre that also held live concerts, thus the grand piano in the mural. It could also allude to the fact that the Atlas Theatre space across the street is newly renovated and a great venue to stage a concert, play, comedy show or zombie film festival. Thanks to Dan Toro and the DDA. Downtown property owners vote Tuesday on a 20 mill tax levy to fund the DDA. Read more about it in today's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle lead editorial. 

Contemplating downtown Cheyenne's new mural

Here's Jordan Dean's mural on the alley wall between the Plains Hotel and the Majestic Building in downtown Cheyenne. I've been watching the mural's progress, even stopping by to talk to the artist as he hung three stories in the air from the boom lift basket. Jordan's done a great job of blending iconic western elements such as the bison and the eagle with more fanciful images. I can see some 60s-style poster art influences, such as the use of punctuation marks (quote marks, periods) to emphasize parts of the design. That may have something to do with Japanese art styles (manga, anime). I'm no art critic, but I know what I like! Someday soon, will grab a latte at the Paramount Cafe (named for the big empty space in the alley that used to be the Paramount Theater before it burned down) and spend some time contemplating this mural. Kudos to the DDA as it continues to bring life to downtown Cheyenne. 

My life and welcome to it -- hard work, persistence and pure dumb luck

According to our insurance agent, it would cost a lot to rebuild our house if it was destroyed by a tornado or other insurable natural disaster. Not a flood -- that's different kind of insurance, as homeowners in South Carolina are finding out this week. Our house was built of brick in 1960. As we all know, they don't build them like that anymore. Bricks are expensive, as are brick masons. You can build a wood frame house with a brick facade for something like $125 a square foot. A brick house would cost us $160-something a square foot. So we pray that no tornadoes touch down on us.

When I was in my twenties, I never thought twice about insurance. Or once. For most of that era, I had no health insurance. Nor did I have life insurance. Only when I was in my thirties and children were arriving, did I have insurance -- and worked a corporate job to get it.

Now I'm insured to the gills. And a good thing too, since gills are expensive. Hearts, too. And knees. Diabetes. Mental health crises. Car accidents. Hail storms. Basement floods. Root canals. All of these have entered my family's life during the past five years. I was insured at various levels for them all. What if I had no insurance, as is the case with thousands of my fellow Wyomingites? Well, Obamacare exists, so that's good. Medicaid expansion does not, which is bad. Before Obamacare, your average uninsured worker in Wyoming was SOL. Now at least they have a fighting chance.

So I am blessed, lucky and I guess you'd say satisfied with my state of being insured. It comes at a cost. If you are an artist or writer, you need a day job. Or a night job -- I hear that Wal-Mart is now open 24/7. When you're young, service jobs don't take the same toll that they do when you're middle-aged or old. You work with other young people and you are all making your way in the world, jumping from job to job, hanging out together after work, making fun of your aging bosses, those overweight jerks with three kids and a mortgage. But that gets old as you keep laboring in the vineyards without actually getting to drink any of the wine. And then you're the one having kids and getting fat and it ain't so funny anymore.

I have been a part of the service industry workforce. I've been broke and the family has been on food stamps (now called SNAP) and the infant nutrition program. My wife and I have declared bankruptcy twice. We lost a house to foreclosure. It's painful. When you get back on your feet, it's tempting to go the Republican route of blaming those people who apparently are too lazy to lift themselves up by the bootstraps and join in the prosperity that is America's middle name. But then you remember how difficult it is to get an education and find the right kind of job and make a meaningful living that also supports a family. If you throw in things such as mental health issues and other health problems and learning disabilities and substance abuse. Well, you know that it ain't so damn easy to be Donald Trump or Gordon Gecko. You can do everything right and still fail.

So color me grateful as I sneak up on 65 and I am a person of some means but not mean-spirited. I'm not taking an around-the-world trip anytime soon. But I am taking my wife to Italy in the next few years. God willing and the creek don't rise or a tornado knocks my manse off its foundation. Insurance will help with those things. As for the others, well, that's hard work and persistence and just dumb luck.

I should end my ruminations there. Writers should know when to quit. But another thing occurs to me. I'm a liberal but also a fiction writer. I know that "stuff happens" (tip of the cap to JEB!) in this world. You can be in a classroom at an Oregon community college, dreaming about Friday,  when a fellow student walks in with a gun and blows your dreams to shit. You can be a loving parent, just going to work and thinking good thoughts for your kids, when you get the call that it's your kid who's massacred nine people and killed himself. You can go for a run in the park before work one sunny morning and the next thing you know, you're being hauled off to the ER with a massive heart attack.

Aren't I a Debbie Downer this morning?

Monty Python got me thinking this way. Chris and I saw the local production of "Spamalot" last night. "Always look on the bright side of life" is the show's theme song. King Arthur's time is filled with war and pestilence. People die by the cartload -- "bring out your dead!" -- but Not Dead Fred is having none of it ("I'm not dead yet."). We loved Monty Python for its irreverent, nonsensical humor. In the 1970s, we were living in irreverent, nonsensical times. The art we liked reflected that. The Python, Firesign Theater, "Catch-22," George Carlin, Frank Zappa, National Lampoon, the Furry Freak Brothers, etc. When reality is the exact opposite of what your leaders tell you, the time is ripe for satire. If you revel in satire ("let the revels begin!") then you have to believe that nothing is sacred (sing it -- "every sperm is sacred") or out of bounds. While it is hugely entertaining to lampoon the fundies and Tea Partiers, I can't forget that there are liberal true believers that deserve an equal dose of barbed humor.

"Always look on the bright side of life." It doesn't mean the exact opposite -- that's too easy. It means what "We'll meet again some sunny day" means at the end of "Dr. Strangelove." Or the same as Professor Pangloss's catch-phrase in "Candide," that this is "the best of all possible worlds." It's that sliver of hope that exists in the face of humankind's rampant stupidity.

There's no insurance for that. Insurance itself is absurd in the face of this life that is uninsurable.

For that, we have humor.

Nothing like a literary weekend, or two, or three...

I attended two literary conferences the past two weeks. The Casper College/ARTCORE Literary Conference is a long-running affair that stretches back into the last century. I first attended in October/November 1991. I drove to Casper in the teeth of a raging snowstorm and, if you think that's easy, try it sometime. An excellent slate of presenters, including Utah's Terry Tempest Williams and Colorado's Lorna Dee Cervantes, led workshops, gave presentations and read their work. I was a greenhorn at the job back then, coordinator of the Arts Council's literary program, and knew few people in the state. Bruce Richardson, a UW/CC English prof, introduced me around. I was a writer who worked with other writers and I thought that was a pretty cool job to have. I was still learning about the state's literary community. At the time, I'd only published a few short stories in journals and had several unpublished (and probably unpublishable) novels in my bottom desk drawer. I knew next to nothing about the arts bureaucracy but was getting a crash course in Cheyenne.

Fast forward to the 29^th annual CC/ARTCORE Literary Conference. The arts landscape has shifted and so have I. Bruce Richardson is a familiar presence. Recently retired from UW/CC, his arts instincts are as voracious as ever. He served as moderator of the panel discussion, the panel comprised of poets, visual artists, authors and scientists. We are omnivores now, the conference morphing into a forum for the arts and sciences which is as it should be. I'm still a writer, with lots of published stories and one book to my credit, but my job no longer is focused on the literary field. I still supervise literary fellowships but now my charge is communications, both print and online. I coordinate the annual fellowship reading at the conference, a collaboration that goes back at least a decade. But now I'm mainly here to document the proceedings, get those important Facebook and Twitter feeds that help boost the WAC's presence statewide and planetary-wide. To do this, I carry my Samsung Note 4 with its 16 mega-pixel camera and note-taking app. I also carry my black-and-white speckled composition book. I've been jotting notes and journaling and brainstorming stories in these comp books for decades. There is just no substitute for pen on paper.

My journal provides quotes and observations that I draw on later, for my own edification, for blogging, for the ages. Here are some notes from the CasColLitCon:

High Plains Press’s Nancy Curtis – court case definition of a publisher (1988): “An entity in the business of making books and written material available and one that makes a good faith effort to distribute those books to bookstores.” Ancient history now.

Jessica Robinson (aka fiction writer Pembroke Sinclair) – “Life Lessons from Slasher Films.” Slasher films trying to get rid of old conservative ideal of men saving women… Women fight slasher – only successful some of the time.”

Emilene Ostlind, editor of Western Confluence magazine at UW. “Narrative is the crux of good science writing.” For all writing.

Rebecca Foust (at Q&A panel): “Sometimes research involves being alive to the world, noticing it and writing it down.”

Joseph Campbell (pen name: J. Warren). Talks about transgressive fiction. Title: Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowry from Arsenal Pulp Press. Desc.: “BDSM sex-positive, BDSM-positive retelling of Peter Pan.” “These books get us to a place of extreme discomfort, take the safeties off. They undo pattern of traditional fiction.”

Katie Smith, creative writing fellowship winner: “I write poetry in unusual places. One of those is my barn.”

Funny what you pick up by just noticing things. That’s what journals are for. 

This past Friday and Saturday, I attended the 11th year of the Literary Connection sponsored by Laramie County Community College and its foundation. This event started when a local book club attended the Literary Sojourn, the legendary gathering of authors and readers in Steamboat Springs, Colo. That event takes place Oct. 10. Looking at its web site, I see it has some amazing writers such as Jim Shepard, whose 1998 novel "Nosferatu" knocked my socks off. It arose out of a short story from Shepard's great collection, "Batting against Castro." Short story maestro Diane Ackerman will be there, as well as novelist Richard Russo. Ethiopian-American novelist Dinaw Mengestu also is on the program. I ask myself: why am I not going to Steamboat next weekend? Three weekends in a row may be a bit much, even for us literary types. Next year, I plan to skip the other two events and spend the weekend with Chris and five authors in Steamboat.

Literary Connection featured two very different writers. They conduct free workshops on Friday and get into the nitty-gritty over talks and lunch on Saturday.

Allen Kurzweil is a “novelist, journalist, teacher and inventor” from Providence, R.I. His latest book is an investigative memoir into the life of a 12-year-old boy who bullied him when he was a ten-year-old at a Swiss boarding school in 1971-72. The kid grew into a drug dealer and con man. Allen told us his story in the course of two days, but I am looking forward to reading the book. I’ve read some hair-raising memoirs and have brought their authors to Wyoming. Nick Flynn and Connie May Fowler come to mind. Honest to the point of this reader blushing. Allen said that he approached his story – and his subject -- with a minimum of commentary. “When you’re in the presence of sociopathic behavior, it’s better to record what happens rather than trying to psycho-analyze.”  

Poet George Bilgere was the second author. As he spoke, I picked up many of the references, probably because he’s a fellow Baby Boomer. His work has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s poetry show on NPR. One was "Problem" which was based on an incident in George's favorite café. A retired gentleman named Jerry was writing a sci-fi novel and was having trouble with the question of how to tell time on a world with three suns. George said that his characters could wear three watches. George thought was funny but the sci-fi writer did not. George went to his usual table and wrote a poem about the incident. When  he got home, he called up Garrison Keillor at Writer’s Almanac. He’d been on “Prairie Home Companion” a few times and Keillor had featured many of his poems. He told George to send along the poem. The next Monday, it was on Writer’s Almanac. “Things don’t usually happen that way,” George said. Poetry usually takes a lot longer, with some poems making the rounds for years before they are accepted – if they are. As for sci-fi, well, he prefers real life. “Poetry discovers the strangeness and mystery of everyday life,” he said. 

Discovering the strangeness and mystery of everyday life. That also applies to us short fiction writers.

Sunday morning round-up: The hissing of summer lawns, and the moans of zombies

Sunday morning round-up...

The sprinkler is on. How do you describe the sprinkler's sound? Hiss, maybe, as in "the hissing of summer lawns" (thanks Joni Mitchell). It sounds like summer, especially in this dry climate. We've had only a trace of rain this month. No snow, either, although there is still plenty of September left for that. I remember driving I-80 to the Salt Lake City Book Festival during a first-day-of-fall blizzard, WYDOT closing the road behind me. It snowed on us one Sept. 15 as we moved into our house. Sept. 11, 2014 -- eight inches of wet snow in Casper, all melted by evening. Moisture -- we'll take what we can get.

Rep. Allen Jaggi wrote an op-ed for today's paper. The headline: "Keep an eye on the money." This is one Republican legislator's response to Republican Gov. Mead's idea that the state, faced with declining energy revenues, should dip into its $2 billion rainy day fund. Jaggi doesn't like that idea, although he never takes a swipe at the Gov. He does take a swipe at the Game and Fish Department which is having a tough time living within its means as license fees decline (20,000 fewer, according to Jaggi). That figure is really amazing when you think about Wyoming's reputation as a hunting destination. Rep. Jaggi mentions that higher-end state employees make from $80,000-$200,000 per year (P.S.: I'm nowhere near that level). He also mentions that "we have the biggest state government per capita of any other state" and bemoans the "rapid growth of our state agencies." But he also points out that a Wyoming family of four gets $27,000 in state services and only pays $3,200. The minerals industry makes up the shortfall in this state with no income tax. He seems to be arguing that as mineral revenues go down, so should state services. And what happens to families with a special-needs child who can't get help from the Department of Family Services? One can only conclude that Wyoming Republicans don't care.

I didn't watch this week's Republican debates. I'm still recovering from the first round.

My daughter Annie and I visited the fifth annual Zombiefest yesterday. Actually, she wanted some lunch (brains!) and I wanted to visit the adjacent farmer's market (pears!). Annie settled for a chicken kabob sandwich from the Kabob Truck while I munched on plums from Jeffrey Farms in Palisade, Colo. Zombies wandered the downtown plaza. Many of them pushed children in strollers. The crowd was more my daughter's age than mine, which is terrific. No casualties were reported, although a pair of old Army Jeeps (Zombie Hunters!) were adorned with skeletons. One of the films being screened at the Atlas Theatre was the original "The Hills Have Eyes." It featured Michael Berryman as Pluto, who attended the Zombiefest. He also was one of R.P. McMurphy's fellow residents of the asylum in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

In Ken Kesey's novel, narrator Chief Bromden remembers the nursery rhyme that his grandmother once sang to him:

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock,
One flew East,
One flew West,
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Perhaps this is will be the voice mail message that Wyomingites seeking mental health services will hear should Republicans have their way with the budget.

At Cheyenne's Edge Fest, first comes the work and then the party

Cheyenne's West Edge Project will hold a combination planning workshop and music fest on Friday, Sept. 18, at the Asher Building at 500 W. 15th Street downtown. The work has do be done first, and then the party.

Here's a bit about the workshop:

This open workshop on Sept. 18 from 2-5:30 p.m. will give you the opportunity to get your hands dirty in Cheyenne’s West Edge. You get to be the designer and help transform a parking lot into an activated courtyard! Friday.

After the workshop comes the music and the food and the beverages. I like the way that this group is thinking, this mix of brainstorming and TGIF. The goal of the West Edge Project is to transform this part of downtown into an urban live/work/play space. It already has some money in the bank, some of it voter-approved sixth-penny tax funds, In its first phase, the parking lot across from the municipal building will be repurposed into a parking lot, green space and performance area. To see more, go to the cool web site at http://www.cheyennewestedge.com/ which looks as if it was designed by the creative folks at Warehouse 21. WH21 occupies a refurbished warehouse in the West Edge.

See you Friday!

Name an issue and the Know Nothings are against it

A letter writer to the local paper this week used the tired old trope "love it or leave it" in regards to Cheyenne newcomers advocating for change.

Downtown redevelopment. Bike lanes. Legal protections for the LGBT community. The arts and education.

Name an issue and they'll be again' it, dammit. Cheyenne's fine just as it is. You darn California and Colorado liberals go back to where you came from.

The issues are many. Young people such as my daughter cannot find competent mental health care. Hundreds of K-12 students would go hungry over weekends so get shipped home on Fridays with sack lunches. UW graduates cannot find good-paying jobs in their hometown. When they do find one with, say, the state, the pay is 13 percent below private sector wages and Republican lawmakers call you bums. Our downtown has a big hole in its midst and dozens of unoccupied buildings. Gays and lesbians go to public meetings to voice their opinions and abuse is heaped upon them by ranks of grouchy Know Nothings.

Everything's just peachy in Chey-town.

My family and I have lived in Cheyenne since 1991. I'm still a newcomer in some eyes. Because I'm a liberal, me and my views are always in the minority. I have a good job and own a house and my kids attended public schools. I have great friends. As I've said before, if I counted on only having liberals for friends in Wyoming, I'd be lonely.

Americans are migrating to silos. I don't mean the missile variety -- we have plenty of those and people even live in decommissioned ones out on the prairie. People are finding other like-minded people to dwell with. If you're a liberal, you live in a city. If you're conservative, you live in the country or small town. Depending on your location, the suburbs are a mix of outlooks but tend to be conservative.

For much of its existence, Cheyenne has been pretty good about avoiding progress. But during its "Hell on Wheels" days, it was the fastest-growing city on the high prairie. We were supposed to be Denver, you see, but the sharpies down south lured the railroad and developers and boosters and before long its largest daily newspapers was promoting itself as "The Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire." Wow. Didn't take long for this dusty two-bit cowtown at the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek to become the capital of an empire.

And Cheyenne got left in the dust.

One in six Wyomingites live in our county tucked into the southeast corner of this big square state. Who are they? Older than the national average, and overwhelmingly white. Lots of retired government workers live here, including many military. Working cowboys are outnumbered by railroad retirees and those who managed to survive the oil patch. We do have a lot of cowboy fans -- that's University of Wyoming Cowpokes fans not the ones who cheer for Tony Romo on Sundays.

So I'm surrounded by old white guys like me. They tend to be the watchers of FOX News and members of the Tea Party. I can relate to their gripes. But I just don't see how blaming Latinos and gays and our black president helps the future. Their kids and grandkids in Omaha and SLC pick up their smartphones and see a bunch of angry old guys making a scene at a Cheyenne city council meeting. This is not their idea of a good time -- or of a dynamic place to live.

Advice to my Boomer peers -- tone down the hateful rhetoric or this place has the same life expectancy as a roomful of Medicare recipients.

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.