Family Lore: in May 1915, Martin Hett waits in Liverpool for a British ship that isn't sunk by U-boats

My sister Molly sent me a packet of family letters and documents a few months ago and asked me to make sense of them, see if they came together in a story we could print for family consumption.

I finally read through them all and placed them neatly in a box. They sat in the box with me pondering the contents. I wasn't sure what to do next.

I decided to liberate one batch of papers from the box every day and post about it on my blog. That's the best I could do. 

This is a page about the early history of Martin James Hett, my maternal grandfather.  

Born July 14, 1899 in County Roscommon, Ireland. His mom (maiden name Nora McWalters) died at the birth of her fifth baby in 1900. Martin was 15 months old; Nora was buried in Galway. Widower Thomas Hett remarried to Delia Byrne; they had 11 children. Thomas, whose nickname was Bob, was born in village of Kiltobar, County of Roscommon. He died in 1932 and is buried in County Mayo. He farmed 15 acres and raised cows, chickens, ducks, sheep, and had one mule. Grew potatoes and tended a vegetable garden.

It rained a lot.

The family lived in a thatched-roof house (we have photos). Four rooms, flagstone floor. Cooked and heated with peat (turf) in large cast-iron pots hung from a hook. When Martin was eight years old, he worked for neighbors at six pence a day. He walked barefoot one mile to a school that had segregated classrooms for girls and boys. He allegedly left home voluntarily at 14. In family lore, Martin was 12 when kicked out by his evil stepmother and told to fend for himself. 

He went to Manchester, England, and found work in a coal mine. He worked two miles underground and was paid six shillings a day which was worth approximately $1.50 USD. 

He saved enough money to buy a steerage ticket to America out of Liverpool for $59. He first booked on the Lusitania which didn't arrive at port due to being sunk by a German submarine. He then booked on the Transylvania that was sunk by another U-boat. He finally got on the Cameronia and sailed to New York City in nine days, without incident. Went through Ellis Island and was released into the wild in America. What happened next will have to wait until we dig out the follow-up paperwork.

Editor's Notes

The Cameronia was a feisty little vessel. While sailing into the Mersey River on its return voyage in June 1915, it was attacked by a U-boat. The ship's captain tried to ram the German vessel which dove beneath the waves and broke off the attack. Two years later, the Cameronia was a British troopship headed to Alexandria, Egypt, when it was torpedoed. The ship sank in 40 minutes with 210 souls lost. More than 2,000 soldiers made it to the lifeboats and were saved. 

Dear Senator Enzi: What kind of legacy will you leave to the people of Wyoming?

A letter I wrote and sent Wednesday via USPS to Wyoming Sen. Michael Enzi:

Dear Sen Enzi:

I hope this letter finds you well and excited about your looming retirement from the U.S. Senate. I hope that your legacy of working across the aisle lives on. I know you as a member of the Senate Arts Caucus and someone who worked with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Democrat. That collegial atmosphere has disappeared and we are all the worse for it.

Our paths crossed several times during your national service. The Wyoming Center for the Book was holding its first book festival in Cheyenne in October 2001. We invited you, as a dedicated reader, to come to the festival. We didn’t know if it was possible but your staff was always easy to talk to and quick with responses.

Circumstances intervened in a strange way. You had to abandon your Senate offices due to the anthrax threat and were coming to Cheyenne for the funeral of a local soldier, one of the first to be killed in the Afghanistan war in a tragic helicopter crash. You and several staffers attended our opening evening event, a reading by four poets laureate from the states of Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and Utah. It was held at the old Hitching Post Inn, a local landmark that tragically was destroyed by arson. You addressed the sizeable crowd. It was a strange time. Terrorists had destroyed the Twin Towers a month before. We all were still in mourning. The country was on edge. Your presence at our festival buoyed the audience and was very much appreciated.

On another occasion, we met during the state fair in Douglas. I had worked with the Wyoming Arts Council and the Tourism Division to hold an author’s day at the fair. I believe you were at the fair to celebrate centennial ranchers. You bought a lot of books that day, several from Glendo-based High Plains Press. You talked to some of the writers and had them sign your purchases. Again, it was great to have our U.S. Senator there amongst Wyoming writers, publishers and readers. Education, I know, is one of your main interests and we could see that you took it seriously with your passion for reading.

I bring up these events because they stand in sharp contrast to the vitriol that is breaking our country apart. It was especially evident last night as America watched the first presidential debate. President Trump, whom you support, behaved like a schoolyard bully. He attacked Vice President Biden and moderator Chris Wallace while adding nothing of substance to the debate.

I was awaiting the Wyoming Republican delegation’s response to Trump’s abhorrent behavior but I saw nothing today in the news. This has been the case during Trump’s presidency. He says or does something outrageous and Republicans are silent. Why is that? At this very moment, scores of books are being written about this dangerous time in American history. Our children and grandchildren will want to know how we let a monster claim the most powerful position in the world. He has no respect for democratic norms. He has spurned our democratic allies and cozied up to international bullies such as Putin.  

The future will want to know why. The future will want to know who resisted and who stood numbly by while a narcissistic autocrat shattered our democratic republic. Do you want your legacy to be that you were one of Trump’s silent enablers? When you return to public life in Wyoming, will it be as one of the brave ones who spoke out or one who did not? Yes, our state is a Republican-controlled one, but also one in which its residents respect bravery and honesty, all the tenets of the Cowboy Code.

Congratulations on your upcoming retirement. You will have lots of time to read and I hope you make the best of it.

Sincerely,

Michael Shay

Cheyenne, WY

 

Smoke in the sky, smoke and mirrors from the president

Smoke on the water 

Fire in the sky 

Thought about those Deep Purple lyrics yesterday evening as I surveyed the pall of gray-brown smoke lurking over the western mountains. It was overcast, too, but the main problem was smoke from the Mullen Fire in southern Wyoming west of Laramie and the Cameron Fire north of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. There also may be wisps of smoke from the dozens of fires burning on the West Coast. The sky looked hellish. I smelled the smoke and felt and tasted the fire and brimstone.

Welcome to America 2020. 

Global warming yields raging wildland fires and prompts hurricanes to grow more mean as they suck up the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Wyoming could use some of that rain but not in such prodigious amounts. The National Weather Service retires names of destructive hurricanes. Andrew, Katrina, etc. Maybe some entity could also retire the year of 2020. Now! We don't have to wait for Dec. 31. 

The only big thing we have yet to do is elect a new president on Nov. 3. The current one knows all about smoke, as in smoke and mirrors. The time-tested technique for bamboozling what H.L. Mencken once referred to as "the booboisie." A combination of bourgeoisie and boobs, the latter slang for a clueless populace which will believe anything. ANYTHING!

It won't be easy to send Trump packing. The GOP spent the past couple decades gerrymandering the hell out of states and intimidating voters. Their goal is to hold on to the power they have accumulated and a voting base that skews white and male and uneducated. The GOP knows that demographics are not in their favor. They have driven away young people, Hispanics, African-Americans, the LGBT community, and college-educated adults of all persuasions. They are sunk if everyone turns out to vote. And they know it. 

We see democracy burning. We smell it. Our task is to put out the fire by electing Democrats. After that, the long struggle begins. We must undo the damage that Republicans have done to the U.S. since Reagan. A huge amount of work to do. We will have to mobilize as we did in World War II. Because it is a war. And right now, we're losing.

Wake up and smell the coffee you probable Trump voters!

I’ve read several articles about the typical Trump supporter’s frame of mind. As is the case with us Trumpbusters (We ain’t 'fraid of no Donald!), I don’t fathom the Trump-lovers mind. I mean, every poll shows a 33-35 percent approval rate for 45. New polls show Biden leading Trump 50%-45% in Pennsylvania. Really? Who makes up these 45 percent? Cretins? Gun nuts? Evangelical and Catholic anti-abortion voters? Groundhogs who spend too much time in their burrows playing ultra-violent video games? Ghost of Confederate soldiers killed at Gettysburg. 

And what about that 5% in the undecided column? What are they waiting for, Christmas? (too late!)

My Pennsylvania experiences have been mostly just traveling through. My wife Chris was born in a Harrisburg orphanage, so I thank the state for that. On Labor Day weekend 1993, my eight-year-old son Kevin, our dog and I drove a rental truck hauling our worldly goods to a house in Rockville, Maryland. In a week. I was starting a job at the National Endowment for the Arts, located in the deepest darkest region of The Swamp that Trump swore he was draining. I worked for two years on the seventh floor of the Old Post Office. It's now the seventh floor of the Trump Grand Hotel and Swamp Thing Aerie. 

We hit a Penn Turnpike rest stop for a bio break. As Kevin walked the dog, I went over to a booth sponsored by the local Kiwanis and got a free cup of coffee and a doughnut. A middle-aged man behind the counter asked where I was from. I said Wyoming and he asked if that was Wyoming, PA, and I said, no, that’s WY USA, that big square state north of CO. I told him I was traveling to a temporary assignment with the Feds in D.C. 

He shot me a stern look and asked, “You ain’t one of those Clinton fellas, are you?” 

I said yes, I guess I am. 

He nodded and gave me a look that said I wish I could take back my coffee and eat that doughnut myself. He then moved off to serve another caffeine-deprived motorist. 

One of them Clinton fellas? I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I guess I was. At least one Pennsylvania resident dedicated to highway safety was not fond of this Clinton fella or anyone who worked for him. 

Kevin ran over with the dog. The man served him a doughnut and some juice and didn’t ask if he also was a Clinton fella. I could have told him that Kevin was a dedicated Bush fella, a supporter of George H.W. Bush who said that President Bush had been a big influence on him and asked us to take him to Cheyenne GOP HQ to watch the returns with fellow travelers. Chris and I left him in the hands of strangers and went across town to the Democrats’ reception that soon turned into a celebration. 

When we picked up Kevin, he drank juice and munched a sandwich while he and a smattering of disappointed GOPers watched the TV screen. Kevin later said that the people at the watch party had treated him with kindness. That was back when “kind” could be found in the Repub lexicon. 

I have no beef with Pennsylvanians. But I will if they give Trump the presidency for another four years. Wake up and smell the free roadside coffee, you voters of the Quaker State!

The Covid-19 watch: Trump hopes for an “October Surprise” coronavirus cure

The Covid-19 death counts recorded by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows the U.S. leading the world with 6.26 million cases and 188,000 deaths. California leads the pack with Texas and Florida close behind. Wyoming is second-to-last ahead of only one U.S. state, Vermont, and four of its island territories. Wyoming lists only 4.006 cases with 42 deaths. The U.S. could soon have 200,000 with the possibility of 400,000 by the end of the winter’s flu season.

Those are the stats. The reality is that each of those deaths represents a story. Families grieve but at least they have memories and a story to go with them.

I have already told the story of my stepmother who died with the coronavirus and a handful of debilitating maladies. She was 94 and in a Florida nursing home (go here for the full story). She had more than three strikes against her, three strikes with two outs in the bottom of the ninth with the score tied. Sports references seem apropos in this time of fan-less Major League Baseball.

I watched the Rockies beat the Dodgers in L.A. last night. Two nights in a row! Cardboard fans watched and shouted electronic cheers. It is a surreal scene. Same with NBA games and their projected e-fans inside the Orlando bubble. The NFL begins next weekend and it should be really strange watching the cardboard cutout drunks in Denver’s South Stands with their boos and e-curses. Just kidding. The NFL will censor the real ruckus just as they banished Colin Kaepernick.

Meanwhile, our nation is headed up by a monster whoinsists we are about to turn the corner on the virus as he does everything he can to speed up the arrival of a miracle vaccine to make people love him and vote his way on Nov. 3. The ultimate October Surprise. A survey released yesterday said that 48 percent of Americans would not trust any vaccine that arrived pre-election. Count me among them. I am certain that his base of fans will gladly troupe to the inoculation centers in the hope that they will gain immunity from the flu and become a billionaire like Trump.

Trump’s fans are raging cultists who believe anything Fearless Leader says and contend that anything negative is “fake news.” You can’t reason with them so we must outvote them. It won’t be easy considering the GOP’s mania for voter suppression and gerrymandering. Their goal is to keep people away from the polls. They have an ally in that strategy: Vlad the Putin and his Russian Bots (not a bad punk band name). Trump invited them to be part of our elections in 2016. I’m sure that invitation still stands.

The best ally liberals have in this fight is the Lincoln Project, Trump-hating GOPers that are relentless in their video takedowns of the Orange Demon. Chris and I gladly donated to their cause. Not sure what tricksters Rick Wilson and his pals will do post-election. They would like to reconstitute the GOP. They have their work cut out for them due to the fact that the Trump cult will not be easily silenced. The Lincoln Project could be great allies with liberals in the struggle to bring representative government back to the U.S. Time will tell.

Summer of the Purple Pod Pole Beans and White Dwarf Cucumbers

Gardening vs. Farming.

Hobby vs. Growing Crops to Feed the Family and the Nation

I'm a hobbyist gardener. I am not growing a garden because my life depends on it. I am gardening because I enjoy growing things. I've been a gardener for many years in varied climate zones, from Wyoming to Florida. Unless you have a greenhouse or a Botanic Gardens Conservatory and Propagation Center, it's impossible to grow a Wyoming winter garden. Florida even names towns Winter Garden. When I lived in Central Florida, I had orange trees in my backyard and a garden in the ground, mostly growing root crops. The oranges were bitter because they were not grafted for sweetness. We used them to play fetch with our two big dogs. Root crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and beets went with our winter meals. I grew a few tomato plants and it was a constant battle with the bugs and rot and rust. Plenty of moisture, though, a factor when you're gardening at 6,220 feet. Cheyenne gets some rain but it's fickle. I see black clouds gather in the west, thunder shakes the rafters, the storm produces three drops of rain, and moves on the Nebraska. You're welcome, Huskers! Or black clouds gather in the west, thunder shakes the rafters, and ice balls rocket from the sky, shredding plant leaves and wrecking roof shingles and cars. 

It's the latter that made me put together a container garden for the summer of 2020. That, and lack of a gardener's mobility. The past few summers, I've gotten my gardening fix from propagating plants at the Botanic Gardens. And then coronavirus swept the world and forced the city to close the Gardens and send home all of its high-risk volunteers 65 and over. It didn't help that I'm a heart patient which makes the virus double deadly for me. 

I ordered seeds from the Laramie County Public Library Seed Bank. They were delivered by the United States Postal Service, one of the public services necessary for a functioning democracy (much like the library and the fire department). I planted them in pots in mid-May and was on my way. I planted in all of the containers I have accumulated over the years, some used by my Aunt Patricia who gardened in the challenging clime of Estes Park, elevation 7,523 feet. 

There were a few scary moments in May when night temps dipped below 40. Common wisdom here is that you wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant your seedlings. I had mine in pots so I could keep the young plants inside at night although I left out the seeded pots. The ground should be warm for germinating and mine remained warm enough to launch plants when the time came. 

You also have to account for strong cold winds. One year I put out seedlings on Memorial Day and the following week came a wind cold enough to freeze tomato leaves. So I had to start again. Hail is terrible, too. One summer I came home from work just in time to fetch my pots to the porch before the hailstorm came. I tried to put a tarp over the ground plants but got pelted by a few big stones and retreated. Golf ball size, mainly, with some bigger ones. The ground was covered when the storm moved east. My poor plants. I thought about farmers out on the open prairie who lost entire crops of soybeans and corn and probably their home gardens too. My loss was insignificant although it stung at the time.

Why bother? It's gratifying to grow things. This year, it helps keep away the Covid-19 blues. The food is great, especially the Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes I grew from seed. I've already picked enough for a half-dozen salads and pasta dishes with more to come. "Early and prolific," read the library seed packet. I grew Purple Pod pole beans in three containers. One is in a big pot with two Dwarf White cucumber plants and a flower mix that Chris got from the YMCA. The beans are an eerie purple and green and grow to absurd lengths if you're not vigilant. I took apart one of the pods to make sure no mutant life forms existed inside. I've eaten the beans in salads and stir fry and I swear that, late at night, garbled voices come from my innards.

I have pots with herbs and flowers, too. Can't barbecue without rosemary and basil and oregano. The lime and Thai basil plants that I bought at Lowe's have been prolific. The two rosemary plants not so much. I think I may have used the wrong potting soil or it's just not a great year for rosemary which comes from the Latin ros marinus which means "dew of the sea.". A few summers ago when I had only a herb garden, I plucked rosemary branches every third night and put them on the grill just for the scent. The next time I grilled, the 6-inch rosemary plant looked untouched. 

During Covid, newscasts have talked about the return of the Victory Garden. Mine could be one but I am not winning any wars over hunger. Lots of people are new to gardening. 

We've also been seeing a renaissance of farmer's markets. I haven't been this year due to the virus. I love our Saturday farmer's market. I go for the smells of roasting hatch chilis late in the summer and the Colorado peaches early in the season. I buy homegrown veggies from small farms in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. I buy homemade olive oil and salsa, honey and peanut butter. 

In Wyoming, we have the Food Freedom Act where people can sell to us right from their homes with no government intervention. Meat producers have to use a licensed kill facility but can package and sell from the back of their pickup. I've had grilled grass-fed steaks and they're yummy with Colorado corn and mutant purple beans from my garden. 

Did you say something?. 

Repost: WyoGal Songs of the West addresses college education programs behind bars

This post comes from my daughter Annie's blog. She's a liberal arts major at Laramie County Community College with a strong interest in journalism and communications. In this post, she tackles a subject that I haven't addressed, how degree programs for prison inmates cuts recidivism. She's watching the Ken Burns Netflix series, "College Behind Bars" and was impressed by the program that Bard College conducts for people behind bars. Give it a read and see what you think. Go to WyoGal-Songs of the West: College Incarcerated: How college in Prison helps prevent recidivism 

Dear Republican U.S. Senators: Stop messing with mail-in voting

Letter I sent to Wyoming U.S. Senators Barrasso and Enzi:

We are lucky here in Wyoming that we have easy access to voting and competent county clerks to ensure that the rules are followed. I've seen many election days as an election judge. When we switched from paper to electronic voting, all of us received training on the new systems. 

Up until the most recent primary, I always voted in person. The experience was gratifying. When I worked the polls, I had many opportunities to work with old friends and to see my neighbors arrive, enthusiastic to do their civic duty. It always seemed like a holiday, even when I had to take the day off from my state job to be at the precinct.

Now that I am retired and partially disabled, I no longer work the polls and no longer venture out to my polling place which are now called voting centers instead of the old precinct set-up. I voted absentee and so did my wife and daughter. My wife is a type-one diabetic and we both are worried about Covid-19 as are most high-risk seniors. So we requested and received absentee ballots without needing an explanation because that is how Wyoming does it.

We will also vote absentee in the general election. All of the news about the slowdown at the U.S. Postal Service concerns us. Yes, we can always go to the city and county building and our ballots into the secure drop-off box. But this also means that we have to drive down there, find a parking place, put on our masks, and go to the drop-off box. What makes absentee voting by mail so preferable is the obvious ease of the process. Mail delivery is quick here in Cheyenne. I often mail a bill one day and see the debit in my account within days. 

So why is Postmaster DeJoy messing around with a system that works so well? I am suspicious of the timing of the dismantling of the quick-sorting machines and removal of convenient postal boxes. Absentee and mail-in voting depends on a dependable USPS. Mr. DeJoy assures us that the system has not been slowed down and then we see that he was a major donor to Mr. Trump and was then appointed to the postmaster position. As I was always told as a government employee, do not create any conflict of interest or even the appearance of one. 

Mr. DeJoy appears to have a conflict of interest and should be removed. I also urge you to support the House bill that guarantees the efficiency and funding of the USPS. If you don't, we can only assume that you support Mr. Trump's campaign to sabotage the post office and suppress the vote. You do believe in everyone's access to the polls, don't you? Then make sure that the functions of the American voting system, once the model for the world, will not be interfered with. 

We are watching.

Sincerely,

Michael Shay

P.S.: When I write letters like these, I tone it down. I want the senator or most likely his staff members to read it and I can register my complaint. If I wrote a letter saying what I really felt, it would start something like "Dear Sen. Barrasso: You miserable son of a bitch and Moscow Mitch ass-kisser. Stop f*cking around with our right to vote." Something like that. There are many ways I could phrase it. I am a concerned citizen and elder of my tribe so I am supposed to show a little couth, even when blogging. I try to do the same on Facebook because I know that Big Brother FB is watching. So, if Republicans keep up their attacks on voting, I may have to adopt a tougher stance. My missives may not get read but I will feel much better. 

Recalling Obama's big night at Denver's Mile High Stadium in the summer of 2008

As I watched President Obama's speech Wednesday night, I thought back to that late-August night in 2008 when he made his acceptance speech at the DNCC in Denver's Mile High Stadium. 

I was part of a capacity crowd that celebrated Obama's first major step along the way to the presidency. I was the embedded blogger with the Wyoming delegation, We sat at the 30-yard-line on Invesco Field, a field where the Denver Broncos would host their home opener in just a few weeks. On Sept. 14, the Broncos beat the San Diego Chargers 39-38 with a two-point conversion at 29 seconds left. Quarterback Jay Cutler had what might have been his best game as a Bronco. After an 8-8 season, the Broncos fired the old coach, hired a new coach and traded Cutler to Chicago. The team was not in the playoffs on the week of Jan. 20 when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president. In the ensuing 11 years, the Broncos would get a new quarterback, lose one Super Bowl and win another. Obama won reelection in 2012 and experienced much drama in his eight years courtesy of the Know Nothing Republicans and Fox News.

But that Aug. 28 night at Mile High was glorious. More than 75,000 packed the stadium. That may be more than attended Trump's inauguration but that number could vary on whether you're listening to Trump's fever dreams or to reality.

I have never returned to that field of play, now named after Empower Retirement which was called Sports Authority Field before that. Naming rights are tricky things. Companies come and go, fortunes rise and fall. Empower was created with a merger between Great West Life and another insurance company. Great West insured my family during my career with the State of Wyoming. Great West was OK but battled us on payments related to drug and alcohol treatment and mental health care. Its replacement, Cigna, is much more accommodating. In the U.S. version of free-market capitalism, you never know upon what field you stand. The groomed turf can be pulled out from under you at any time. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. 

That Aug. 28 night 12 years ago is forever embedded in Mile High Stadium. The team brags about the fact that it's the only NFL football stadiums in which a presidential candidate made his acceptance speech and later went to to two terms as president. 

This year, the Dems' presidential candidate made his acceptance speech in an empty convention room. The Year of Coronavirus. The Broncos will play in an empty stadium. That will be eerie. Mile High has a reputation as one of the loudest and rowdiest in the NFL. Not sure if the Broncos will follow baseball with cardboard cutout fans and, in some cases, projections of fans filmed in earlier seasons. The team has quite an imagination so why not?

During the next sixty-some days in 2008, I worked hard to get Obama elected. I walked neighborhoods and called registered voters in Wyoming, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, I worked for Dems jockeying for Wyoming House and Senate candidates. I watched a lot of football too. Obama won, of course, over the late John McCain. Obama fielded a well-oiled machine that delivered votes from some unexpected places (not Wyoming, alas). Obama repeated in 2012 over Mitt Romney. A presidential two-peat is like back-to-back Super Bowl wins. The Broncos did that under John Elway who we don't talk about much because he is such a Trump ass-kisser. Looking back, McCain and Romney were moderates. Republicans grew sick of losing with qualified moderates so turned to a billionaire and white supremacist and reality show host, Donald Trump. They were helped by decades of GOP voter suppression and gerrymandering. And voter apathy, can't forget that. 

So, the democrats held their pep rally this past week and are fired up and ready to go. The GOP Hatefest will light up the airwaves next week. We can look forward to rousing speeches by The My Pillow Guy and Scott Baio. It will finish off with a stemwinder by Donald Trump which will be filled with the cruelty and hatred he has specialized in during the past four years.

Damn. You'd think that the more qualified and more talented team -- the Democrats -- could breeze over the crooks and liars of The Trump Team. A lopsided win, like the Team Formerly Known as the R*dskins over the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII or the Seattle Seahawks over the bumbling Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. You'd think that unless you didn't know history and the vagaries of human nature. Demagogues have subverted democracies before. If Trump wins, we can forget about our democratic republic. It will be nostalgia, just like the rousing cheers for Obama in Mile High Stadium in the summer of 2008. 

In the suburbs and in our minds, there are little fires everywhere

Just finished reading "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng. I had seen the title as I cruised Amazon Prime at night, looking for something to absorb me until sleep. The Amazon series features Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, two great actors. But I was more interested in "Bosch" and Netflix's "Politician" to embark on another streaming fest.

I came across the title on Kindle and said, "this sounds familiar." I read some of the reviews, read the author's bio. One reviewer called it "a suburban drama" and, for a second, I thought about leaving and finding an "urban drama," usually more my liking. But Kindle offers samples so I pulled it up and read it, all in one sitting. I was so bummed out when it ended that I bought the book and dove right in. The book had captured me. Resistance was futile.

Best thing about my Kindle is portability. Also, you can reset type size and screen brightness, all a boon when you read in bed and your partner is already snoozing away. Sill, it wasn't until the pandemic was in its third month that I uncovered the Kindle buried under manuscript pages and thought about giving it a try. My daughter Annie had give it to me two Christmases ago. I told her I was pleased. I charged it, roamed around on the settings screen, explored Goodreads, and then abandoned it. The coronavirus shutdown gave me plenty of time to clean my office and I found quite a few things on my Island of Abandoned Toys. Noise-cancelling headphones, a book about World War I nurses that I thought had been shipped to the library bookstore by Annie, needle-nose pliers, and assorted other things.

The Kindle was the big find. I bought a Michael Connelly novel. "Fair Warning" features Jack McEvoy, former daily newspaper beat reporter now working for a nonprofit company that investigates consumer complaints. I let the Kindle cool for a few weeks and then found Ng's novel.

Ng builds tension with the simplest tools. I was reading the first few chapters and thought well, we know the house burned down. But the fire caused me to ask the usual questions: the 5 Ws and H. I wanted some answers.

The author varies time and place. One of the terms bandied about by writers is "info dump." Usually it's a couple of paragraphs explaining a character's childhood or motivations. It can slow down a story. We prefer fast-paced stories. Think of 19th century novelists and how they spent a few pages describing a character's mannerisms or a manse's manicured gardens. Think of Charles Dickens and his sweeping sagas that have so many words in each chapter. Dickens serialized his work to boost book sales. Often, he promised the publisher to write 20 chapters of 32 pages each. That's a big book. His info dumps could be chapter-length but they always served some sort of purpose. 

Ng does this in "Little Fires." We flash back to origins of major characters in order to understand the present that begins and ends with a burning house. The suburbs, it seems, is comprised of many types of people with many stories worth telling. Big surprise, right? As if "Weeds" and "American Beauty" and "Ordinary People" didn't delve into that deeply enough. It's a wonderful structure that Ng creates. I began to look forward to the flashback sections because I knew that mysteries lurked, that their structure is as exciting as the main narrative and amps up the tension. A great invented story, which is what we seek during this grim time. 

Two senators from Wyoming who don't have a clue

Here are two GOP senators from Wyoming who don't have a clue about what people are facing out here. I sent them a plea to pass the HEROES Act that the House passed more than two months ago. The Republicans in the Senate, led by McConnell, sat on it for two months hoping COVID-19 would go away magically just as Trump believes. It did not go away. Millions are unemployed and all they care about is making sure businesses can't get sued by people who lost their jobs, possibly their lives, during the pandemic. This is the same bunch who passed a trillion-dollar tax cut for rich Americans. They just don't care. And they are as cruel as Trump, their ringmaster. 

Dear Michael, 

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the ongoing federal response to the COVID-19 crisis. It is good to hear from you.

I appreciate you sharing your support for H.R.6800, the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act.  America is in an unprecedented health and economic crisis. To save lives and save our economy, Congress has a duty for the duration of this emergency to assist Americans who are facing uncertainty. American's deserve assurances with their jobs, in their homes, and when sending their children back to school. Any relief funding passed by Congress should be temporary, targeted, and focused on keeping Americans employed, getting our students back to school, and providing our healthcare professionals have the resources they need.  The Senate is considering several targeted measures that address impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and I look forward to debating these measures along with other proposals that will be brought forward during that debate.  Please know I will keep your thoughts in mind as the Senate continues its work on this issue.  

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me about the coronavirus crisis. I value your input and look forward to hearing from you in the future.

John Barrasso, M.D.
United States Senator

Barrasso's net worth in 2018 was $15,928,012 according to Open Secrets. He is the 14th-richest U.S. Senator. Wall Street Journal (9/2019), using info from Roll Call, estimated $2.7 million. I'm sure it's higher now, in the COVID-19 year of 2020, especially after he gave himself a sweet tax cut.

 

Dear Michael:

 

The outbreak of COVID-19 is being carefully monitored and the federal government is working closely with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners to respond to this public health threat.

 

I voted in support of the third Senate package to combat the outbreak of COVID-19, the CARES Act (S.3548), and the Senate passed it unanimously. This package helps to fill in the gaps of the previous packages and provide the financial assistance needed for small businesses and employees in order to avoid massive unemployment lines and a complete economic collapse of our country.

 

In terms of a future relief package, the legislation is still being debated. I believe it is important for Congress to spend responsibly. I recognize the unprecedented crisis presented by COVID-19 and I have supported the necessary response, but we have already run up a $2.7 trillion deficit this year, more than triple the size of the deficit we ran at the same time last year. Our focus with any new legislation should be helping kids get back to school, getting Americans back to work and providing health care resources needed to fight this virus. In the meantime, it’s important for folks to continue to slow the spread within our communities by wearing masks and socially distancing when possible.

 

I will certainly keep your thoughts and concerns in mind as I continue to work with my colleagues on this critical issue. Thanks for getting in touch.

 

Sincerely,

Michael B. Enzi

United States Senator

Open Secrets (Center for Responsive Politics) shows Mike Enzi worth $2,137,028 in 2018 (ranked 48th in Senate). Wall Street Journal shows a mere $500,000. Still, Enzi takes his dough into a retirement paid for by you and me, the great unwashed who do not deserve a weekly unemployment bump of $600 because the U.S. has a big budget deficit created by some mysterious force that has nothing to do with the U.S. Senate.

"Meet John Doe" -- a 79-year-old movie has something to say about 2020

I watched Frank Capra's "Meet John Doe" Friday night on Turner Classic Movies. I've seen it before but not in the Trump era. I see it now with new eyes. It's a story about decency. A hackneyed subject, boring even. But a lively tale in the hands of director Frank Capra.

If you don't know the 1941 movie, here's a synopsis. After the credits roll over scenes of Depression America, the film opens with a workman taking a jackhammer to a chiseled stone logo: "The Bulletin: A Free Press Means a Free People." It's replaced by a shiny new metal sign: "The New Bulletin: A Streamlined Paper for a Streamlined Era." 

Cut to the newsroom. An officious young clerk strolls in, points at each expendable employee, whistles, makes the universal cutthroat sign across his neck, and clucks his tongue. The somber looks on faces reveals the awful truth -- that they are now cast loose into The Great Depression with no real safety net. 

Mitchell is one of them. But she is not going to take this lying down. She marches into the editor's office and pleads for her job, saying she will take a pay cut from $30 to $20. Editor Henry Connell is a grizzled old school editor brought in to make the paper, now owned by millionaire businessman D.B. Norton, more exciting and more "streamlined." He has no patience and no job for Stanwyck and shoos her from the office, reminding her to write her final column before she leaves.

What comes next? It's a Capra-style exploration of celebrity, greed, patriotism and fascism. It was released in 1941, almost two years into the war and just a few months before Pearl Harbor. An unsettled time, maybe as angst-ridden as 2020. As the plot unfolds, I had Trump on my mind. Couldn't help it. And I kept contrasting Capra's worldview and the one that emerged after the 2016 presidential election.

In the movie, Mitchell's parting newspaper column is a fake letter from a John Doe who rails against society's ills and says he will make his point by jumping off the city hall building on Christmas Eve. An editor, who's also been fired, comes to Mitchell and says her column is two sticks short. She hands him to new column and he runs with it. When printed, the column causes an uproar. The competing newspaper calls it a fake. Mitchell is rehired at a higher salary and told to produce John Doe. She finds a washed-up pitcher named Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper) who bums around the country with The Colonel (Walter Brennan). Mitchell persuades Willoughby to be Doe and the plot thickens.

Doe takes to the role. He eats regularly and has money. The Colonel warns him of "the heelots," those heels who just want your money. The Colonel is the voice of reason to Doe's aw-shucks naivite. He urges Doe to flee before it's too late. But Doe is stuck -- he likes the attention and having money ain't a bad thing either. Meanwhile, Norton gets his hooks into Mitchell as Doe warms to his role until a radio appearance pushes him over the edge and he flees with The Colonel. Doe is recognized at a diner and the crowds swarm to see him. He sees that he, as John Doe, has made an impact. He returns to the city and forms hundreds of John Doe Clubs, financed by Norton.

Norton is the stand-in for every fascist ascendant in the 1930s and 40s. He issues orders. He has his own paramilitary force (Norton's Troopers). He feels that the country is going to hell in a handbasket and needs a strong hand to restore order. His ultimate goal is to transform all those members of John Doe Clubs into compliant voters. But Doe, Mitchell and Connell rally to stymie Norton's plans. That's a spoiler but, if you know Capra films, that's how they end. Decent people win, the grifters lose.

Which brings us to the America in 2020. Decent people are everywhere. They heal the sick, feed the hungry, help their neighbors.

The indecent are always with us. Perhaps we just notice them more in our time of greatest need. Trump, of course, is Indecent American No. 1. Just the other day he was asked was about Rep. John Lewis's contributions to society. He replied that they weren't so great, that Lewis didn't show up for Trump's 2017 inauguration. He wasn't alone of course -- many thousands had something better to do on 1/20/17. Trump didn't even bother to attend Lewis's farewell at the Capitol Building Rotunda.

Everything is about Trump all of the time. He has his own band of Norton's Troopers. They were out in force the night that Trump decided to go to a church he had never attended to hold up a bible. Donald's Troopers tear-gassed and beat down peaceful protesters.Then Trump's Troopers traveled to Portland to do their dirty work. 

In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had its own problem with fascists. The German-American Bund (America's Nazi Party) had thousands of members. Some 20,000 of them showed up for a rally at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 20, 1939. Bund members battled with protesters outside the Garden. Trump's pop probably said "there was good people on both sides." The Bund supported Hitler and his thugs, possibly history's most indecent group although there are a lot of contenders.

We need decency in film. Not the National Legion of Decency version. The Catholic org rated films and condemned some, telling Catholics that seeing one was a mortal sin and would send you straight to H-E-L-L. To teens in the 1960s, it was a handy guide for those films we just had to see. Censorship tends to backfire on the censor. We youngsters were also keen on reading banned books. I'm no youngster now but I always check the banned books lists to make sure I've read them. It's the decent thing to do.

You can watch "Meet John Doe" on YouTube. For a story about pre-war conflicts between Nazis and protesters in New York City, read Irwin Shaw's short story "Sailor off the Bremen." 

No road trip for me

I decided to cancel my Aug. 3 appearance at ARTCORE'S Music & Poetry Series in Casper. I was on a double bill with musician Lauren Podjun. Writer Gayle Irwin will replace me. I met Gayle through Wyoming Writers, Inc, our statewide writing group.

Why did I cancel? Covid-19. Knowing ARTCORE Director Carolyn Deuel as I do, I am sure that the Bourgeois Pig venue would be as virus-safe as possible. ARTCORE is one of the first local arts agencies in Wyoming. Carolyn has been at its helm for most of that time.

That said, there is one overriding problem. I am a high-risk human during this pandemic. I am 69 and a cardiac patient since 2013. I experienced a widowmaker heart attack and, because I delayed getting help, now walk around with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator or ICD in my chest. This makes me a prime target for the coronavirus. From the beginning, the top three riskiest groups are the elderly, cardiac patients and diabetics. I'm in the first two categories and Chris is one and three. Young, healthy people have caught the virus and died. Often, they also have pre-existing conditions. Any complication can be a deadly one. Young people like to gather and when they do, they pass along COVID-19 and being it home to older parents and other family members.

This doesn't have to be. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing and, if possible, stay home. And wash your hands. Sanitize kitchen and bathroom surfaces.

Wyoming Governor Gordon conducts COVID-19 briefings and has issued a series of orders. Those policies never included a mandatory mask policy which puts us in the company of such Coronavirus success stories as Florida and Texas. In March, the Governor did issue some strict policies that closed many businesses, performing venues, restaurants and coffee shops. He has gradually loosened the restrictions although he had to extend the latest one from July 31 to Aug. 15 due to a spike in infections that put us on the New York Times and Johns Hopkins COVID site hot zone charts. Today, Idaho is on the list due to rising cases. Tomorrow, it may be your state.

When I do get out of my bunker to the grocery store, I note that many people do not wear masks. I do. Employees do. Others don't. We've all seen mask-shaming and no-mask-shaming incidents online. I don't tell people what to do and that's the prevailing attitude in Wyoming. But the science is clear -- masks help protect you and those around you. Social-distancing does too, and that has been suggested to businesses around the state but not required. Grocery stores guide you with floor signs which keep us separated in line. Arrows point out directions for carts to travel, although that's violated regularly. No head-on casualties thus far, as far as I know.

No travel for me. No reading from my new book. That means I have to stay home to rewrite and revise, a major part of any writing enterprise.

So, in a time when getting out of the house is a blessing, I am not getting out of the house. I have lots of books and know where to get more without leaving home.

P.S.: U.S. COVID-19 death toll passed 150,000 today.

Dark times demand dark humor

We live in absurd times. A Reality TV show star is president. He is a narcissist who is never wrong about anything but is wrong about everything. He enlists creepy people, straight out of a Dickens' novel, to do his dirty deeds.

You gotta laugh. How did we get into such a mess? If I was a serious columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper, I could dissect Trump's faults with a litany of facts and figures. Real journalists do that.

I'm a blogger so am not constrained by facts. I do know truth from lies and I try to adhere to them when it matters. I'd rather turn a nice phrase or get a laugh. I'm a fiction writer, too, which gives me a certain leeway to embellish, maybe even lie.

What makes us laugh at serious topics? It's in our genes, a human response to inhumane acts. How else can we deal with a monster like Trump, a ghoul like Stephen Miller? How can we tolerate war and pestilence?

It takes some talent to get us to laugh at human foibles. It takes skill and wit. Wit in the old-fashioned sense. A person with wit has "the ability to relate seemingly disparate things so as to illuminate or amuse," according to Merriam-Webster. Here's another: "a talent for banter or persiflage," persiflage meaning "light or slightly contemptuous banter or mockery."

A good stand-up comedian has wit. A bad one just tells jokes. A witty politician can turn a phrase, helps us laugh at ourselves. A bad politician heaps scorn on helpless people, afflicts the afflicted.

There's a darkness to good humor. And it takes skill to tease the humor our of war and pestilence, sex and death. The Seven Deadly Sins, a.k.a. capital vices, are as serious as the name. A good comic writer can find a lot of fun in "lust" and its sister, "envy." I've heard many a comedian describe their lustful ways -- failed relationships, oddball sexual practices, the inevitable heartbreak that comes with opening up yourself to others.

A novelist gets thousands of words to show you heartbreak. It can come in many ways. The pursuit of love. How love of country or religion can turn out badly.

We could blame war on "wrath," another deadly sin. For those who experience war, heartbreak may best describe its aftermath.

In the film version of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, a platoon of heroic U.S. soldiers back from Iraq are celebrated at an NFL playoff game. The pageantry of a big NFL bash is juxtaposed with Billy Lynn's memories of Iraq and the guilt he feels at not saving a buddy. One of the scenes involves Billy Lynn and the team owner, played straight by comedic actor Steve Martin. The fatuous owner chides Billy for his uncertainty and notes that his platoon now is bigger than Billy Lynn -- it belongs to America. So America gets to celebrate by playing a football game and shooting off fireworks. EDM beats power the costumed dancers who writhe around the stage while the soldiers stand and get appreciative applause from the crowd. The pageantry and pathos of America on stage.

Dark humor and satire are cousins. Often, dark humor is poking fun at a cataclysmic event. World War II was not a laugh riot but some amazing books came out of the struggle. Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five. Same goes for World War I. The Good Soldier Svjek is a great example, a book that set the stage for later war books and movies all the way up to the present. In the hands of a good writer, one with wit, the most serious war novel can yield some laughs. All Quiet on the Western Front is a good example.

Vietnam was my generation's heartbreak. Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato with its magical-realist elements. Meditations in Green by Stephen Wright is another darkly comic take on Vietnam and its aftermath. The movie Full Metal Jacket came out of a novel by Gustav Hasford but took a darkly comic path in Kubrick's hands. No surprise from the director of Dr. Strangelove. Michael Herr, Hasford and Kubrick collaborated on the screenplay. Herr wrote the memoir Dispatches which was part of the inspiration for Apocalypse Now, which has its own absurdist moments. Herr was a correspondent in Vietnam for Esquire Magazine. Although Herr has admitted that he invented some of the characters and did not actually witness some of the events and dialogue, he contends it is all true. In France, Dispatches was published as a novel. In Vietnam, it was all true and it was all fiction.

Fiction writers yearn to go beyond the history into a place of story, a place where the reader is compelled to move on and possibly laugh or shake their heads or both.

Hunkered down -- four months and counting

I posted my first blog about the pandemic on March 15. In "The pandemic comes to Wyoming," I mused about the deadly virus and the impact it could have on us. I don't have to read between the lines to know I was scared. The spiky virus laid in wait for us all. I had nightmares. Already there was a toilet paper shortage.

Four months to the day later and I'm still here. Still hunkered down, for the most part. I'm high risk so wear a mask when I go out. In the beginning, the only masks I could find were bandannas. I then graduated to hospital-style paper masks that my daughter brought home from her part-time job. Later I ordered cloth masks and we now have plenty. Not enough to share with all of the maskless shoppers at the grocery store. But enough. I still tend to buy too much food when I shop, especially non-perishable items such as canned milk, canned fruit, soup, and pasta. I'm versed on various ways humanity can perish thanks to books and movies. I go all the way back to the bomb shelter building days of the 1950s, duck-and-cover classroom drills. The threat was real then. We thought atomic fire would end us. Other threats lurked, less bombastic ones that could do us in.

And here we are.

If you add to that an imbecile in the White House, economic meltdown, global warming, racial strife, and unhinged evangelicals, we are in deep shit.

It also is a great time for creativity especially if it involves humor. Dark humor. The darker the better.

To be continued...

COVID-19 highlights lowlights are in the headlines

Some days, I get up and stare at the coronavirus news on my smartphone screen. I can access every news source on the planet and, even though most of them have paywalls, many allow me to read the headers and sometimes a bit of the story. Here are some lowlights from today:

New York Times:  With Virus Response, Governors Face Unending and Very Public Test

Denver Post: More Colorado families consider online education as COVID-19 risks look over upcoming school year

Reuters: Coronavirus cases hit 13 million, WHO sounds alarm

Miami Herald: This iconic Miami Beach hotel recently reopened. Coronavirus is making it close again

Wyoming Tribune Eagle: UW confirms a person working on campus contracted virus

And this: UW expects substantial enrollment decline

Toronto Star: Canadian snowbirds in flux as insurance firms deny them COVID coverage – but there is a solution

TrialSite News (Italy): University of Padua Vo Study: One Possible Hypothesis of How to Contain COVID-19

The Jakarta Post: Hong Kong Book Fair postponed amid spike in coronavirus cases

CNN: Trump turns on Fauci as disaster grows

Fox News: Local governments weigh tax hikes to plug coronavirus-induced shortfalls

The news is dismal on this Monday morning. It was dismal yesterday and the day before. The U.S., especially, is seeing spikes in the South and West. A sputtering economy tried to roar again but many leaders, even some Republican ones, on backtracking on their open strategies. The Atlanta mayor, a Democrat, has been diagnosed with the virus and is slowing its reopening which has made the Republican governor very mad. When I say mad I mean angry, although both apply in this case. Florida’s governor. A Trump ass-kisser, is moving ahead full speed on reopening. He plans to get school open next month, saying that if Wal-Mart can open so can schools. U.S. Education Secretary DeVos, a Trump flunky, tells communities to get kids back in school OR ELSE!

This could be a tragicomedy but it’s real. Very real. The Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracking site lists more than 3 million U.S. cases and 135-plus thousand deaths. New cases are at 24,000 and climbing as it’s early yet.

Trump fiddles as the U.S. burns.

Chris and I are both high-risk and are staying home. I wear a mask when I do go out to the grocery store or fast-food drive-ups. Hunkering down is still SOP for us.

Good luck, wherever you are.

The "Poetry Apothecary" prescribes plenty of poetry and art

How have the arts been impacted by the pandemic?

Bigly.

No surprise, since the creating of art can be a solitary act but it's enjoyed with others. We gather for concerts, dance performances, plays. We gather in museums and galleries to appreciate the visual arts. We read singly yet gather for talks and book signings by writers. We gather in book clubs to celebrate our favorite writers and maybe drink some wine.

This is the summer of ungathering.

Many arts groups, not content to start planning for 2021, have come up with creative ways to reframe their events. Impromptu performances from city balconies. Zoom collaborations. Drive-in concerts.

I wrote about one of these groups this week for WyoFile's Studio Wyoming Review.

The coronavirus cancelled the annual June Jackson Hole Writers Conference, one of the most esteemed events on the country’s literary calendar. Since planning is done years in advance, staffers scrambled to put conference sessions online for free (registration is usually around $375) and only charged fees for critiques offered by faculty.

Matt Daly, assistant director of the JHWC, came up with the "Poetry Apothecary" that showcases visual arts and writing. The show is up at the Center for the Arts gallery until the end of July. The JHWC web site features a video tour (updated regularly) of the exhibit along with two other videos featuring artist/poet collaborations.

Daly proposed “Poetry Apothecary” well before the pandemic but needed to do some fancy footwork to adjust to the times. As he was helping to redesign the conference, he also was installing the show at the Center for the Arts. As anyone who works in the arts knows, fancy footwork is part of the job.

Read my Studio Wyoming Review article on the show on WyoFile. It was posted yesterday in a slightly edited form. 

All articles need editors. As one, I have revised, reframed, and rejected many stories. I tell young writers to expect changes to everything you write. My daughter Annie recently submitted a script to the True Troupe. The acting company is reviewing play scripts for the fall. Annie read one of my old short stories and transformed it to a one-act. She asked me to be thorough in my critique. I was. What I wasn't prepared for was Annie's interpretation of my story. She condensed and rearranged it. I had the chance to experience my work anew. She had workshopped my story before I had a chance to edit her. 

One of my Dad the Editor lines is "it's not finished until it's finished." She obviously was paying attention. My story, 15 years on, was still being finished. And it won't be finished yet. If the troupe adopts the script, the director and actors and crew will workshop it again. Lines may be dropped and lines may be added. Characters may change or disappear altogether. It's a wonderful process and not one for the faint of heart. 

Take some time to read Studio Wyoming Review. It's supported by WyoFile and grants from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund and the Wyoming Arts Council. 

And then there's this:

From noon to 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, “Prescribe,” a livestream "Poetry Apothecary" reading, will be presented in the Center for the Arts Mainstage in Jackson. Medical professionals read poems as acts of healing. Masks and social distancing will be in effect.

Life in the Time of Distancing

My sister-in-law, Ellen Berry, died last week in Florida after a three-year bout with lung cancer. She was 61.

She was a wonderful person and I will miss her. My wife Chris, her only sibling, was with her at home for five days before she passed. Chris was lucky to get a flight out at a decent price. She was in shock when Ellen’s husband Chuck called with bad news on Saturday morning, June 20. He came home from work on Friday evening and found her on the floor. She was rushed to the hospital and put in ICU.

Chris and I scrambled to get her on a plane from Cheyenne to Daytona Beach. She flew Delta on June 23 on a bereavement fare. She was thankful to be with her sister in the final days.

Chris stayed in Ormond Beach for the planned celebration of life. This morning, she called and said that it had been cancelled due to the coronavirus. In case you haven’t heard, Florida is one of the states where Covid-19 has spiked. Chris’s family decided that gathering for a wake was too risky for all, not just for the over-60 high-risk crowd but for everyone. Many young people have been admitted to hospitals in the last few weeks. They have also acted as disease spreaders, the Typhoid Marys of their generation.

It’s a sad thing when you can’t get together to send off a loved one. This is happening all over the world. We need these farewells just as we need the welcoming ceremonies for newborns. Joy and sorrow must be shared. It leaves a hole when it is not. Weddings, reunions, graduations all need to be shared. For those who can’t attend, the photos are gifts to be shared. They also provide mysteries for future generations. Who is that guy with Aunt Mary?

I feel that lack of togetherness today. Chris and I have been hunkered down at home since mid-March. No St. Patrick’s Day parties and now there will be no Fourth of July parties. I miss human contact. I grew up in a big family and we thrived on human contact. I’m also a writer and spend a lot of time by myself, just me and my imagination and my laptop. When I emerge from my den after composing a few pages of prose, I seek out people to bother. These days, most of that bothering is done by phone, e-mail, Zoom. My family members get together almost every Sunday on Skype. It’s a welcome connection. My siblings and their kids are mostly in Florida, a few hours’ drive from each other. I live in Wyoming, a few days drive or a day-long airplane ride away. We have family clusters in Georgia and North Carolina. A niece works in New Zealand and my sister and her husband live in Lyon, France.

While it is wonderful to see and hear relatives via laptop, I miss the in-person gatherings. In December, I attended my niece Meghan’s wedding in Atlanta. It was such a pleasure to shake hands and hug, so much of it in the four days I was there. It’s a small thing, this contact with another human, but now I miss it when it can’t be done. 

A pleasure center activates when we touch. It’s a rush. Sometimes, it’s scary or sad, as when a family member jets off to take a job a half-world away. Our rushed farewells are now at airport curbside. Maybe we get in a quick farewell as we hustle to the security line-up. Back in the day, you could see your wife all of the way to departure gate. You could hold hands and kiss right up until the final call. You could stand by the plate-glass window and see the plane back up and taxi out to the runway. If you were lucky, you could watch as it took off and disappeared over the horizon. Maybe it was worse to linger at the airport instead of being shooed away from the unloading zone by a robotic voice. 

My grandmother Florence, born a decade before the Wright Brothers flight, took my brother and me to lunch at the old Denver airport, Sky Chef I think it was called. We ate and watched the planes. There even was a balcony where you could stand outside and watch all of the comings-and-goings. I was fond of airports. I wasn’t always fond of flying, especially when I jetted away from loved ones, or jetted toward a loved one’s funeral.

Sadness has crept into everything. Hunkering down has had a price. People have lost friends and lost jobs. Police have killed people just for being black. We have a president and an entire political party that thrive on cruelty. We can’t go out to the brewpub and have a beer with an old friend. I wear a mask and I expect you to wear one even though I can’t see your smile.

During all of this, we have discovered humanity in unexpected places. Creativity, too. Let’s let those thrive as we figure a way out of this.

Haiku for departed robins

Minnows got to swim
Robin hatchlings got to fly
One feather remains

Watching the robins like a hawk

Robins are good parents. Both mom and dad brings food to the chicks. When the adult robin alights on the nest, the movement prompts sightless hatchlings to reach for the sky and open their beaks. They cheep, too, a tiny sound but one that the parents recognize. The adult robin regurgitates a diet of worms and insects into the outstretched mouths. They make the trip from nest to great outdoors back to nest up to 100 times daily. They seem insatiable, these young ones. They grow as big as their parents within a month. They are klutzy when they try to fly and this is the most dangerous time in their young lives. A fall can be fatal because parent robins can't boost the kids back into the nest. They fall prey to cats and foxes and raptors. Humans are told not to pick them up and put them back in the nest because the human scent will cause the parent to shun the offspring. Not so, say the experts. Mom and dad know their kids by sight and sound and not smell. To catch falling birds, Chris draped a blanket over a trash can three feet below the nest. Our robins' nest is accessible but most are not. It was built on top of our porch's solar control box. It's just out of my reach if I wanted to reach it. The adults buzz us humans as we water the plants or barbecue a steak. Unlike blue jays, robins seem content on close encounters. Blue jays peck at the heads of interlopers. The shock troops of the bird world. The time from robin egg to hatchling to fledgling is a short one. Humans take note. Thirty days for robins. Thirty years for the process in the typical human nest. Robins should be glad they don't have basements.

As the hymn says, gonna lay down my sword and shield

A viral plague kills thousands and forces millions to hunker down at home and practice social distancing when out in public.

Black Americans killed on the streets by rampaging police.

Millions of Americans lose jobs due to record unemployment.

The President of the United States hides in the White House guarded by armed troops and a fortified fence.

Riots in the streets.

Armed secret police of unknown origin face down peaceful protesters in the nation's capital.

This could be a blurb for a best-seller or an action-packed new movie.

Instead, they are news headlines.

That was the week that was. The U.S. is in deep do-do. Trump can't be blamed for it all. But he can be blamed for making it much, much worse. He is totally unfit for the highest position in the land. Where other leaders unite, Trump divides.

What makes it worse is that Trump is a lifelong racist and a narcissist. He can't look weak even when he is. He has all the traits of a schoolyard bully.

What does a person like this due when threatened? We've seen it. Brute force. He is the commander-in-chief and thus he commands unlimited power, or so he believes. He wanted to unleash troops on protesters. It's been done in the past but you have to go back the Vietnam War protests to see it in action. It happened but not to the extent we feared. Heads were beaten, rubber bullets fired, tear gas employed, arrests made. But the protesters didn't give up and critics of both political parties and a phalanx of retired U.S. generals condemned Trump's tactics. Protests have calmed down. The rioters have not been identified but you know they were radicals intent on watching the country burn. White supremacists. Anarchists. Black radicals.

The protesters cause is just. Peace prevailed. Many police sided with the protesters. A Tennessee National Guard unit laid down their shields after protesters sang the anthem of nonviolent protest.

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside.

And study war no more...

I have a part to play in this. Not sure yet what it is. But it's clear we need to change the way government employees treat minorities. Not just police. Everyone up and down the chain of command including police and the President. I was a government employee for 25 years. Now retired, I wonder what I could have done better. As many have said, racism is a systemic problem. I am not a racist. But as a white guy, I worked for a system that perpetuated certain racist policies. It was built that way. I may have thought about that briefly during my public service. But how did I transform it to serve everyone's needs?

I was slightly woke but really blind and now I see.

What did I do in the arts that made a difference? And what can I do now?

Stay tuned...

Stand your ground, speak out, act up

Last night it appeared that the country was coming unglued.

I'm not talking about the pandemic or massive unemployment or peaceful demonstrations staged all over the U.S. (and overseas) by people outraged by the Minneapolis policeman's murder of George Floyd. The murder was only one of many deaths of black men by police over the years.

Some of the peaceful demonstrations were hijacked by others who just want to watch the cities burn. Nobody seems to know who they are. White supremacists? Antifa activists? Anarchists? Police provocateurs? All of the above?

One thing is clear -- citizens of Minneapolis/Atlanta/NYC/Denver/L.A./D.C. saw their efforts go up in the smoke during the past week. In some of those cities, police put down their batons and marched or knelt with the marchers. A powerful gesture by people under siege.

By far, the worst provocateur of all was Donald Trump. Using typical strongman tactics, he brought in police to clear the streets near the White House with tear gas and rubber bullets. His goal? Posing in front of a church that he last visited on Inauguration Day, 2017. It was a photo op for his rabid base of followers that for some odd reason includes millions of evangelicals. To the rest of us, it looked like a desperate gesture by a pathetic loser. Comical, too, in that he apparently did it because he looked like a coward on a previous night when he was hustled by the Secret Service into a bunker beneath the White House. He took shelter out of fear when young black D.C. residents chanted "I Can't Breathe" with pictures of George Floyd. We already knew that Trump is a bully and a coward. This act crystallized his reputation.

I could say that "I have no words" but apparently I do (see above). This year has been a shitshow from the start. First, we weren't prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. Then leadership in D.C. showed no leadership and we ended up with (at last count) almost 2 million cases of the virus and more than 100,000 deaths, so far. We are the world leader in COVID-19. Not something you want in the Guinness Book.

Trump has lied repeatedly about the U.S. response. It was no big deal, he said. It will go away quickly. Hydroxychloroquine is he magic elixir. Anybody can get a test -- we have millions of them.  Blame China! Take off your masks and get back to work at Wal-Mart.

All ridiculous. Trump is ridiculous except when he's not. He has all the traits of a dictator and none of the redeeming qualities. Hitler, for instance, loved his dogs. After his death, Franco became an ongoing skit on Saturday Night Live. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Putin is buff. Juan Peron was married to Madonna (or someone who looked like her).

Trump does not have a dog and has no sense of humor or wit. His only hobbies seem to be golf and grabbing certain parts of the female anatomy.

Where do we go from here? I donate to causes I believe in. As always, I will vote. I requested an absentee ballot due to possible COVID-19 restrictions in November. Also, Tinpot Dictator Trump may call off the election due to a fake national emergency. Dictator-for-Life seems to be the title he seeks. I will take to the streets when necessary. Rapper Killer Mike gave a rousing speech in Atlanta the other day and named some social justice orgs we can get involved in. Last night on Colbert, KM urged everyone but especially blacks to get involved in politics. Outrage doesn't always translate into action but it can.

Perhaps the activists of the ACT UP movement, such as the recently departed Larry Kramer, said it best. Silence=Death.

Silence=Death.

The robin and the solar system

Between sunup and sundown on a May day, a robin built a nest on my solar system. When I say solar system, I mean to the control box that monitors the roof's solar panels. The greater system, the one that is powered by the sun, is also the source of power for my house's system. The electrician and crew spent a week installing the metal boxes and the panels. The robin watched from her perch on an elm branch. She pounced when the networks of steel and aluminum and copper were in their proper spots. Hers is a fine nest, a work of art. Robin sits in the nest and stares when I arrive on the patio to water plants or grill a burger. If I linger too long, she flees and and watches me from an elm branch. She is wary of the bipeds who built her foundation. We're known for our mischief. Any living thing can tell you.