Every poetry book tells a story don't it

Chris and Annie decided to round-up boxes of books in the basement and bring them upstairs to me. Disability prevents me from diving into the dungeon's stacks but my wife and daughter are only too happy to do the work if I promise to get rid of books, some of which have been sitting in the basement for more than a decade. I have a keeper box and a give-away box which will go to Phoenix Books or the Laramie County Public Library store. I get a smaller box for the keepers in an effort to fool me into thinking it's a good idea to get rid of books when actually I believe the opposite. But we are downsizing, fixing up our house and cleaning the cobwebby places with an idea to sell and move in 2022. Over the years, I have moved many heavy boxes of books. I'm retired so I have some incentive to divest.

My wife, daughter, and sons all are readers. My grown children live in an e-world but they still read physical books. They know it pains me to decide what stays ands what goes. They also know that they will inherit my library and we all know that I should be the ones making the decisions. Before passing from prostate cancer, my father split up his presidential library into five sections, one for each of his sons. I got Reagan (very funny, Dad) but also Jefferson, Grant, and Kennedy. I will ask my two remaining brothers if they want them. If not, to my son will go the spoils.

I have seen wonderful personal libraries left behind when a dedicated reader dies suddenly. Cancer killed a CSU creative writing professor and friend a few years ago. His will sent his Vietnam War books to the CSU library's special collection on the war. Thousands of others remained. I was among his associates who were allowed to pick through the books. I could have filled boxes but I chose three volumes that I now will put in the keeper box..  

Every book tells a story. I met and worked with many of the authors after I switched careers in 1988. after stints as a sports reporter, weekly newspaper editor, and corporate writer, I went back to school in the CSU MFA program. As a teaching assistant, I got involved with the visiting writers program and eventually the CSU Fine Arts Series. I met many writers in my roles with the Wyoming Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and on planning committees for book festivals in Casper, Cheyenne, and Denver. 

I have signed books by Ethridge Knight and Gwendolyn Brooks. In 1990, I was only vaguely aware of Brooks and knew nothing about Knight. An ex-con who got hooked on drugs after being dosed with morphine for wounds in the Korean War, Knight wanted to speak to prisoners so I accompanied him to the county jail. He recited his poems filled with African-American vernacular, prisons slang, and voices of the streets. I heard a different poetry that day. Like rap and spoken word, it had its own rhythms. The inmates, many of them Black and Latino, paid attention, chatted with Knight when the performance was over. 

Knight spoke as a member of the Black Arts Movement. He found his voice based on his own experiences but also influenced by Brooks, Sonia Sanchez and other African-American voices of the 1950s and 60s. You could hear similar rhythms in Brooks' poetry. A prime example is her oft-anthologized poem "We real cool." You can hear Knight's influence in rap and hip hop and slam poetry.  You can hear it in groups such as San Diego's Taco Shop Poets and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in NYC. 

I have a signed copy of Knight's "Poems from Prison," published by Broadside Press the day he was released from prison. It's a keeper, as is Brooks' "The Near-Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems." Brooks won a Pulitzer for an earlier book, "Annie Allen."

I'm keeping Ernesto Cardenal's "With Walker in Nicaragua." Cardenal's life as interesting as his poetry. A priest de-priested by the Vatican when he got too close to the Sandinistas and liberation theology, his role was restored by Pope Francis in 2017. William Walker was a freebooter from Tennessee who conquered Nicaragua and served as its president prior to the U.S. Civil War. He legalized slavery and made English the official language in an effort to link Central America and Cuba with the South's slave states. Imagine if he had succeeded -- our country's politics would be even weirder than it is now. The book from Wesleyan University Press is bilingual with wonderful translations by Jonathan Cohen. 

"The Country Between Us" by Carolyn Forche goes in the keeper box. It includes the "The Colonel," her amazing remembrance poem of a dinner with an officer in El Salvador's death squads. Forche was a finalist in this year's Pulitzer poetry category. 

It breaks my heart when I place a pile of slim poetry books in the giveaway box. Nobody will value them like me. They may sit on the library store's shelves until its next clearance sale. Even then, they may remain unclaimed. Poetry is endangered. Much still is published but a lot of it is online and available only as e-books. The Death of Poetry has been foretold many times. Still, it persists.

Next up: What do I do with all of these novels, story collections, and memoirs? 

Sunday morning round-up: Flowers bloom, visitors swarm the Botanic Gardens, and a cop named Trampas gets busted for meth

A Sunday morning round-up.

I haven't written one of these in a long time. It's possible I lost interest during the plague year. The only things I seemed to have gained during that time was 20 pounds. 

But it's summer and much is happening. Outdoor events such as concerts and art festivals. Great weather prompts people to flock to the parks. I volunteered at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens front desk yesterday. Two weddings going on -- one inside and one outside in the Peace Garden. Large family groups trooped into the Conservatory. We don't ask people where they're from but talked to a lot of locals and Coloradans. Cars in the parking lot from Virginia, Illinois, and California. The gift shop rang up sales, including one for a fine Tara Pappas print. Her show will be in the second floor gallery through the summer.

BTW, the Botanic Gardens annual appeal aims to raise $75,000 to "renovate and enhance the beloved Women's Civic League Peace Garden for safety, accessibility, improved maintenance, and beauty." The Peace Garden is looking a bit beat up. If you donate a certain amount, you get a plaque by the reflecting pool. I look at the names etched in the remembrances scattered around the gardens. I don't recognize most of them but time passes and all that remains of a formerly vital gardening fan is a marker underneath a Prairie Fire Crabapple tree that once was a sapling and now is a human-sized tree with bright pinkish-red blooms. 

The seedlings in my garden look around and ask: so winter is over? And I reply yes, for now. My tomato plants are six inches tall and growing fast now that the sun's heat has returned. I grew my cherry tomatoes from seed last year and got a good yield, as they say in the farming biz. You never know. Results depend on so many factors.

It's usually not a good thing to see Wyoming in New York Times headlines. This morning was no exception. Here's the header: "How a Police Chief in Wyoming's Ranchlands Lost Her War on Drugs." The accompanying photo shows dismissed Guernsey police chief Terri VanDam and officer Misty Clevenger. Both women wear jeans and cowboy hats, the prairie stretching out behind them. You can't really get any more Wyoming than this. The story by Ali Watkins detailed Guernsey's Struggle with illicit drugs and how VanDam's and Clevenger's investigations got sidetracked by the Old Boys' Network. The women were replaced by male police. It didn't take long for one of the new hires, Trampas Glover, to be arrested for smoking meth in his garage while his children were present. Trampas, oddly enough, is the name of the bad guy in Owen Wister's "The Virginian." Best known for calling the title character a "son of a bitch." The Virginian places his pistol on the gambling table and replies, "When you call me that, smile." Thus starts the feud that ends in a climactic showdown.

So a Wyoming story, told remotely, becomes an even Wyominger story with a cop named Trampas busted for smoking meth in his Guernsey garage. 

Trampas: You son of a bitch!

The Virginian (putting gun on table): When you call me that, smile.

Trampas (reaching for meth pipe): Give me a few minutes.

Don't know if Trampas is still a law officer in Guernsey. But he probably is.

One more thing: I'm reading a fine book by Laramie's Ann McCutchan, "The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings." Rawlings, of course, wrote "The Yearling" and other books set in north-central Florida. I went to school nearby in Gainesville. An English major, I had very little interest in Rawlings. Now I do, thanks to Ann's book. 

It's the Wolverines vs. the 2020 Pandemic in Michael Lewis's new book, "The Premonition"

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center web site has become the key Covid-19 site in the U.S. and probably worldwide.

Stats as of 5/13/21:

160 million-plus cases worldwide and 3.3 million deaths.

32.8 million U.S. cases and 584,371 deaths.

And the numbers keep going up, dramatically in some countries such as India.

In the U.S., Connecticut leads the nation in percent of population vaccinated at 42.5% and Mississippi, as it often is, is at the bottom with 23.8%. Wyoming ain't much better at 27.8%. National average is 36.2%.

Statistics are sobering. 

It didn't have to be this way. That's what I kept muttering as I read Michael Lewis's "The Premonition." It traces what could have been if the U.S. had a health care system designed for emergencies like the pandemic and not one geared to profits. The book is not a polemic about a fractured system. Instead, Lewis tracks the efforts of an odd group of citizens forced to face the fact that one day, a plague would be loosed upon the land. They called themselves the Wolverines after the young rebels in 1984's "Red Dawn" who take to the Colorado mountains to fight a Soviet invasion. It's a bit jingoistic but a fun Cold War romp. 

Lewis gave us the insiders' look at the stock market in "The Big Short" and a group of geek baseball statisticians in "Moneyball." Lewis's forte is exploring the people behind big issues, people we may never have heard of but who played a big part in complicated events. Both were made into good movies and "The Premonition" will be one of a rash of pandemic-themed movies and streaming series in the next few years. Lewis is a master at character development and storytelling. "The Premonition" reads like a good thriller and its subtitle "A Pandemic Story" shows the focus. 

I did not have any premonitions as I read. The unpleasant event has already happened. But I did see the writing on the wall. As the Wolverines gathered and tried to come up with a pandemic plan, they knew something bad was on the way. They also knew that the U.S., despite its hubris, was not ready. These Cassandras had a plan but how to get the clueless to listen? The Centers for Disease Control had become a shadow of its former self. Most experts concentrated on vaccine development rather than what steps to take while awaiting a vaccine, steps that had proven effective in the past.

One of the most interesting aspects of the story is the origins of the core group. In 2005, an advisor to George W. Bush recommended a recently-published book to the president. The book was "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History" by John M. Barry. I was surprised that Bush read it and convened a task force to plan for the next pandemic. It's not like he wasn't busy elsewhere in the world. But he gets credit for acting on a real threat. Plans were drafted and were refined during the Obama administration. We had a plan but then along came Trump.

Another eye-opener: leaders do not need all of the information when an emergency arises. They need to act, even in the face of massive criticism. The example that keeps cropping up is "Churchill vs. Chamberlain." As a leader, will you see the danger ahead, speak out, and eventually find yourself in a position to lead (Winston Churchill). Or do you see yourself as a Neville Chamberlain, more interested in maintaining the status quo, "peace in our time" in this case? As England's prime minister, he made mistakes but he led, pugnacious to the end of the war and the end of his political career.

In the face of the gathering storm, U.S. leaders in 2020 failed to act. For that, they should be judged harshly. Lewis could have spent 300 pages telling us about Trump's many missteps. Instead, he shows us that there was an alternative universe of statisticians, physicians, and civil servants convinced that a plague was coming and we could plan and we could act.

Lewis ends the book deep into the pandemic with the story of Carter Mecher's parents. Mecher is known as the "redneck epidemiologist" in the book and is a members of the Wolverines. After all his work on the disease, he is torn asunder when his aging father gets Covid-19, passes it on to his mother and she dies. In the epilogue, "Sins of Omission," the writer follows one of the main characters, physician and former county health officer Charity Dean, as she seeks the grave of a former patient in a vast California cemetery. We get into Dean's head as she ponders her ability to sense things. But now, late into the pandemic, she now knows that, with communicable diseases, we are always looking into the rearview mirror. 

Covid had given the country a glimpse of what Charity has always thought might be coming -- a pathogen that might move through the population with the help of asymptomatic spreaders, and it had a talent for floating on air.... Now that we knew how badly we responded to such a threat, we could begin to prepare for it.

The French have a term, apres nous, le deluge, supposedly uttered by the despot Charles XV. The basic translation is after we're gone, the flood will come but we don't care.

That could easily be a Trump phrase although it's a bit too poetic for him. It is reminiscent of the slogan written on the back of First Lady Melania Trump's coat: "I really don't care do U?

I prefer to leave with some lines from Jackson Browne's "Before the Deluge." He speaks of another crisis, the looming climate disaster, but it also applies to the current deluge: 

And when the sand was gone and the time arrived 

In the naked dawn only a few survived 

And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge 

Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge 

After the deluge, the Wolverines abide.

Remembering my mother on another birthday we can't celebrate with her

My mother's birthday is today. Anna Marie Shay would have been 95 had she lived. She died in 1986 at 59, 11 years younger than I am now. Ovarian cancer was the culprit and it was discovered too late to give her much hope. She was a fighter. I was able to get my family to Daytona to see her in February of that year, less than two months before she died. She got to meet my one-year-old son, Kevin. I'll always treasure the photos I have of the two of them together. She's looking out for him which is a good thing as he's needed a lot of looking-after. My daughter, Annie Marie, is named for her and her other grandma who also was born Anna Marie. 

Anne, Ann, and Anna are all English derivations of the Hebrew name, Hannah. It means favor or grace. English, French and Russian queens have been named Anne. One Anne (Boleyn) met a gruesome end at the hands of Henry VIII. Anne of Green Gables is a wonderful literary character. Novels feature many Annes. The name is featured in three Shakespeare plays: Henry VIII, Richard III, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Almost as popular as Elizabeth, Margaret and Valentine. Valentine?

My mother was a nurse. She mothered her hospital staff by day and her nine kids at night and weekends and in her sleep. I was 35 when she went to the hospital for the last time. That's half-a-life ago. My youngest sibling, Mary, was 20. It was hard on all of us but maybe most on Mary as she was still a kid. 

Mom's birthday always fell around Mother's Day, sometimes on Mother's Day. Chris and I were married on the Saturday after her 52nd birthday which we celebrated with a birthday party and rehearsal party in my parents' backyard. Coincidentally, Mom's2021 birthday is on a Friday just as it was in 1982, our anniversary is on a Saturday, followed by Sunday's Mother's Day. 

The years pass. Memories remain and many are painful. I retired five years ago and vibrant memories are part of every day. I am a writer so I invite those memories but as I write, they appear more real than the event itself. I remember moments with my grandparents, my parents, brothers and sisters, old friends. It's as if they were whispering in my ear. Mike, do you remember this? Your first dog, a surly Chihuahua named Pancho. Your first bicycle, a surprise from your grandparents. Firecracker wars in the neighborhood, the day you blew up all of your Mom's clothespins because Black Cats go so much farther when weight is added. All those great times with your cousins, back when everyone lived in Denver. The long winter drive from Denver to Washington state when Dad was transferred. I'll never forget the view of Wyoming's lonely wastes through the fogged-up window of a Ford Falcon station wagon. My first kiss. My first lonely day at college. My wedding. And now our 39th anniversary.

I remember Mama.

Writing and editing, editing and writing, writing and...

Editing and writing. Writing and editing. The two are inseparable. Younger writers, such as myself a half-century ago, write something down and pronounce it finished. I wrote my first novel that way. It got me an agent but it was never published due to the fact it was not a very good novel because it lacked a persnickety editor. If you insist on reading the manuscript, you can find it in the Colorado State University Library Special Collections under "Future Wars." It used to share a bunker with a very fine Vietnam War Literature section. Look for that under "Past but not Forgotten Wars."

I've edited many of my pieces since then. I've had others edit my work, profs and student colleagues in the CSU MFA program and the writing critique group I've belonged to for a dozen years. I wasn't always pleased with the comments. That's one of the things about the process. It's not always pleasant. It's the only way to grow.

For the pasty couple years, I've been writing art reviews for Wyofile's Studio Wyoming Review. It's a joy to go into a museum, gallery or studio and learn about art. You'd think that after 25 years at the Wyoming Arts Council where art was on the menu every day, I'd have enough art to last me during my dotage. But the life of an arts administrator features a lot of administration and very little time to appreciate art. These days, I can take on an assignment and spend plenty of time appreciating art and talking with the artists. A half-hour discussion with an artist can tell you so much more than any artist's statement plastered on a gallery wall. 

My final SWR piece appeared last Friday, a book review: Exploring the roots of Basque poetry from a Wyoming perspective. WyoFile editors are discontinuing SWR on June 30. They plan to devote more time and resources to features on the state's many daunting challenges. Recent examples are Dustin Bleizeffer's two stories:  'Love it or leave: The choices facing Wyoming's youth and Portraits of Wyo youth: Six visions of a future in the state. The brain drain of young people leaving the state has been going on for a long time but it may be about to be an epidemic. The articles left me depressed as I already have a son who sought opportunities in Tucson and my daughter looks outside Wyoming for her career as a photographer. Wyoming is one of the most photogenic places on the planet. But as a wise artist once said, "You can't eat the scenery." 

Fill out this short Facebook poll to give us some ideas about where SWR can go from here.

I came to today's blog with the idea to compare/contrast my latest review, the one I submitted and the edited one. I wondered if my version would be superior to the edited one. In some ways, I am still that sensitive young writer. I put both versions side-by-side on my big screen. I read each line. Damned if the revised version wasn't better. 

Blogs in their purest form are not supposed to be heavily edited. If I understand correctly the Blogosphere's many fungible rules, changes you make after a blog is posted must be noted. That is left entirely in the blogger's hands. We can be trusted with many things. Editing is a sacred trust and I treat it accordingly.

The story of the only 1960 Renault Dauphine in Daytona Beach

An April issue of UK’s Autocar featured the Renault Dauphine in its list of "22 Totally Charming Cars." It showed a still life photo of a powder blue Dauphine parked by the ocean. The car looked as if it had just left the 1960s showroom. I contrasted it with the sad photo of a derelict Dauphine in another issue of Autocar and the article "The Haunting Abandoned Wrecks of Rural France.," It showed a rusty shell of a Dauphine being swallowed up by undergrowth in "a remote field in the French Alps."

This tells the story of our family's 1960 Dauphine. I first saw it parked in our Wichita driveway in 1962. My father needed a car to commute to his job as a civilian accountant at the local air force base. That left our 1960 Ford Falcon station wagon at home with my mother who needed it to get us to school, haul us to doctor appointments and run off to the grocery store. I still can see the look of horror on the faces of grocery clerks as Mom hauled her eight children, two of them babies, into the store. My father went to the Totally Charming Yet Obscure Cars dealership and returned with Renault. It was an oddity in a world of Olds Cutlass Supremes and GTOs. Big powerful rides were the thing. The Dauphine was tiny looked almost the same from the front as it did from behind. The engine was in the rear and looked like something that might power a lawnmower. If it didn’t start, you could wake up the engine with a hand crank.

My father’s not around to ask but I do wonder why he chose such an impractical car when he headed a family of 10. He might have seen Renaults on the streets of Paris on leave during the war. He might have liked the two-tone horn (loud for city, soft for country) and the fact you could wind it up like a toy car if it refused to go. He never said. But they are some of the Dauphine traits I admired when I was gifted the car in 1967. 

The previous year, I had learned how to drive in it on Daytona's deserted winter beaches. I failed my first driving test in it when I arrived at city hall on Dec. 18, 1966, with a bum fuse. The DMV man asked if I wanted to take the test using hand signals or return on another day, fuse replaced. It was my birthday. I had a date that night with a girl I fancied as my girlfriend. I took the test and failed. I did OK with left and right turns but forgot to gesture down for stop. I was devastated. It was a long slow ride home with my father and am embarrassing phone call to my date. 

My father was transferred from Daytona to Cincinnati early in '67. The Dauphine had many miles and he didn't want to drive it north so he put it in my hands. The idea was to take my brothers and sisters to school and anywhere else they wanted to go. My mother still had toddlers and a baby (No. 9) to care for. We would finish the school year, sell the house, and then join our father in Cincy. My brother Dan and I had been most resistant to the move. We were surfers, for God's sake, and there was precious little surf in Ohio. I played JV basketball for the Father Lopez Green Wave and had high hopes of making the varsity in my junior year. And I had a girlfriend, sort of. 

I did OK bossing around my siblings. I was also OK with having a car. It was no prize after seven years of hard use and three years of assaults by rust spawned by the salt air. It had really earned its rusty-red color. My classmates began to know me as the guy with the French car which sounds pretty romantic until you got a look at it, especially after I ripped off a rear door backing out of the garage and could only find a powder-blue replacement at the junkyard. It looked like a high school kid's car but that was OK as I was a high school kid with a car.

I revel in all of the fun we had. We crammed into the car and rode The Loop around Tomoka State Park, turning off the headlights to admire the darkness and tempt fate. I bought a surf rack and we wandered up and down A1A searching for surf. Girls thought my car was cute and liked to ride. Meanwhile, I tried to find a girlfriend with a muscle car so I could feel like what it was like to drive American. I dated Darlene for a year and got to drive her canary yellow Chevy Chevelle SS 396 and later her canary yellow Pontiac GTO. She had a thing for yellow. Her father bought her a new car every year. She didn’t mind riding in my car and but liked it better when my father returned from Cincy and bought a white Plymouth Barracuda that he occasionally let me drive.

During high school graduation summer of 1969, my Dauphine died. Kind of a drag as I worked two jobs getting ready for college and had to bum rides. I sold my car cheap to a guy who planned to turn it into a dune buggy. I imagine my car’s stripped chassis blasting through the beachside sand dunes before they were replaced by condos. I can also imagine my two-toned car with the two-toned horn abandoned in a “remote field” somewhere in the Florida scrubland.

I am 70 now. I am always 16 driving my Renault down The Loop’s dark road. Sometimes the headlights are on and sometimes they are off. I am happy.

Pandemic tip: You can view most Wyoming public art from the comfort and safety of your car

I was noodling around on my PC and I clicked on the Cheyenne Arts web site. I was pleased to see an upgraded site now includes a Cheyenne Arts Public Art Tour. Kudos to Bill Lindstrom and the tech-savvy people who compiled the tour. Open the site and find a portfolio of the 82 registered public artworks. Click on the photo to go to the page to find more photos and some background on the piece. Location is listed at the bottom of the page. There's a link to a Google Maps which takes you to the map and lists the public art's latitude and longitude. This assists those touring with the help of GPS and also geocaching aficionados. When I was at the Wyoming Arts Council, I was part of many discussions for online tours in Cheyenne, other communities, and statewide. Locally, it never happened until Arts Cheyenne took it on. 

Sheridan Public Arts has been around since 1992. Its permanent collection boasts 59 pieces. Artists and museums loan pieces to exhibit on Grinnell Plaza and downtown. One of the latest is a sculpture by the late Native American artist Allan Houser. No better way to spend a summer day -- tour the art and wrap it up at Black Tooth Brewing Company for craft beers and discussion. 

Not sure if Casper has an online public art tour but the city has many pieces of representational and non-representational artwork. One of my faves is on the Casper College campus. It's "Man and Energy" by Robert Russin. Its somber nature flashed me back to my duck-and-cover nuke drill days. The artist, who died in 2007 was a New York transplant who taught at UW for almost four decades. He is best known for his massive bronze Lincoln head perched at the top of Sherman Hill. Visit Casper is developing an Arts & Culture Pass. Not many offerings yet but these things take time. 

Russin also is known for the playful family sculpture installed in 1983 on UW's Prexy's Pasture. "The University Family" represents a nuclear family of three in white marble. Recently, it has been criticized because it doesn't represent a broader range of UW students and family. One proposal is to move it indoors to protect it and replace it with a more monumental sculpture, such as a bronze of graduating students or a bucking horse and rider. As if the UW campus doesn't already have bucking horses and riders aplenty.

Here's the thing about public art: it's easy to criticize because it's so public. In our bitterly divided country, artwork can be attacked from many sides. And is. The coal/oil/gas lobby that pours millions into UW objected to a public artwork called "Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around" by Chris Drury. UW decided to spirit it away in the dead of night and allegedly burned its beetle-killed logs and chunks of coal in the campus furnace. Many art students were kept warm that night by a funeral pyre of public art.

Russin's "Fountainhead" sculpture outside of the Casper City Hall came under fire for its water feature. The sculpture shows three stylized red oilfield workers surrounding a pole that represents an oil well. Water once shot out of the top to represent oil but had the bad manners to dampen city bureaucrats on Casper's many windy days. Now the water feature ponds peacefully below the artwork.   

Get more on the Casper arts scene via the ARTCORE site. 

The best-known public art program in Wyoming is in Jackson. 

When I started making work trips to Teton County in 1991, the town's library was in a log cabin. A sleek new library replaced it and is now home to a unique public artwork, "Filament Mind." It's indoors so it's a bit less visible than most public art. But it's worth a visit. A short description:

Installed in January 2013, the sculpture is visually arresting: nearly 1,000 thread-like filaments cascade from a mainframe column. Transcending its technological sophistication, the sculpture exudes a life-like aesthetic, at times resembling a bird in flight, a waterfall, a mountain, a crater, even the willows that whistle around the valley. Each filament flows from the column to the wall and an anchor point tagged by a Dewey Decimal System section title.

 

When a visitor begins a search on WyldCat – the online inventory of the library organized by the Dewey Decimal System – a LED light glows on the filament corresponding with that Dewey Decimal section title – say “International Relations” – and related topics glow as well – like “Political Science.”

 

Filament Mind is designed to be the visual brain of the library and by extension, the community.

Wyomingites from less scenic parts of the state pick on Jackson Hole for its chi-chi attributes. See "Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West" by Justin Farrell and Tim Sandlin's "The Pyms: Unauthorized Tales of Jackson Hole." I've made my share of smart-ass remarks on the subject. 

But Teton County boosts Wyoming's stature as an arts-friendly state. Rich residents are arts patrons and assist arts orgs and facilities with generous donations. The annual Old Bill's Fun Run is a Teton County tradition and raises a ton of money for local orgs. Local, state, and federal funds are a part of the mix.

The Hole is home to the National Museum of Wildlife Art and its amazing collections. It hosts tours of its outdoor sculpture. Many artists and writers I know came to Jackson in the good ol' days of cheap, crowded housing (think ski bum) and many short-term service-industry jobs. Many fled as prices climbed but those creative people who stayed are a stubborn lot. 

For insight on the Teton County art scene, go to Tammy Christel's Jackson Hole Art Blog and Jackson Hole Public Art. 

The Wyoming Arts Council supervises the state's public art initiative. Go to https://wyoarts.state.wy.us for more info and calls for entries.

As the pandemic winds down (we hope), summer visitors may be feeling a bit skittish about touring Wyoming (see "Least Vaccinated U.S. Counties Have Something in Common: Trump Voters"). It may be tough to feel safe at a jam-packed music festival or brewfest. 

But no worries, as most public art can be viewed from the comfort and safety of your vehicle. My high-risk family and I cruised Cheyenne's Paint Slingers Art Festival last July. We watched many of the muralists at work, even shouted out questions to the artists and they shouted their answers. We also attended movies and concerts at the Terry Ranch's Chinook Drive-in. We viewed from our car and listened via a dedicated FM station. 

Covid-19 changed so much. We felt the absence of people gathering to enjoy music, dance, and theatre. It also showed us that creativity can bloom in hard times. 

Return to the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens

I returned to volunteer duties at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens this week. In March of 2020, volunteers were put on hiatus during the pandemic. A few months, is what I thought at the time. A few months turned into a year-plus. We're still not out of it but the vaccine and safety measures brought us to a point where we can return to some public activities. 

Touring the Botanic Gardens Conservatory and its grounds are among them. Hours are limited and safety protocols are in place. There is no mandatory mask policy but I wear one as do other staffers and volunteers. All three floors of the Conservatory are open. The Children's Village held its Color Festival yesterday. Based on the Holi Festival in India, it led to a bunch of very colorful families coming over for the tours once they painted themselves with colored chalk. They all looked so happy to be out doing fun things on a sunny spring day. It was a great day for me, too, as I was happy to be back at the Gardens introducing people to its treasures. 

I met a retired couple from Casper out with their adult daughter who now lives in Cheyenne. I met a young man from Massachusetts wearing an Orlando Jai Alai T-shirt and we talked jai alai and permaculture. A group of guitarists and wedding planners came by to practice songs for the upcoming wedding at the Gardens. A group trooped in to hold a baby shower. A middle-aged bearded man in his 40s from Santa Fe walked with a cane and we talked about heart conditions. His sounded a lot worse than mine. He may move to Cheyenne to be closer to family. 

Many young couples visited, some with babies and others looking like they were on their first dates and getting to know one another. I discussed growing giant sunflowers with a woman from Denver. At the close of day, a photographer came in with her model to shoot some scenic photos (the Gardens only allows photography before and after hours). She said she saw some photos taken at the Gardens by another FoCo photog and wanted to shoot the place herself.

I spent time acquainting myself with new procedures. I ate my bag lunch -- no more food items in the Tilted Tulip Gift Shop. I leafed through the binder of CBG memorials which had been assembled by staff during the break. Many trees and flowers dedicated to loved ones. Plaques and pavers and benches, all done as remembrances. 

I thought about my father, a dedicated gardener who learned from his gardener father when growing up in Denver and transferred his skills to a very different Central Florida climate. He enjoyed year-round gardening at home and tending the plants at St. Brendan the Navigator Catholic Church, the same one I was married in. Dad nurtured tropical plants and battled tropical bugs and diseases. Different challenges from those we face in Wyoming.

The Pandemic of 2020-21 is not over yet. Covid-19 may be with us forever, just like the common cold which is related to the current plague. Gardening provides hope as well as food. When you dig deeper into it, you learn about dirt and bacteria and chemicals and the origins of your plants and flowers. Covid emerged from the natural world to infect and kill millions. I was afraid at the beginning of the pandemic. Now that I've been injected with a vaccine that is based on dogged scientific research, I am less afraid. Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) provides instructions to our body on how to make a viral protein to trigger an immune response.

At my front-desk station, I checked in more that 240 visitors. The second-largest count of 2021 after that wonderfully warm Saturday before Easter. I will be there every Thursday and Friday afternoon through April. Come by, tour the place, and talk to me about the art of growing things. 

In Trump Sonnets, poet Ken Waldman tracks how America lost its mind

I just received a copy of Ken Waldman's "Trump Sonnets, Volume 8: The Final Four Months."

This is good news/good news. Another book of Trump sonnets to read. And, as the title says, "final" four months of the Trump scourge. A traumatic four months. A traumatic four years. Poet M.L. Liebler, who published the book at his Ridgeway Press in Michigan, writes in the foreword:

Ken has successfully brought form to the most unformable and unformidable, mean-spirited, fly-by-the-seat-of-his pants scoundrel who did his damndest to take this country down.

Waldman takes us through the final four months through sonnets in the POV of Americans: a dog walker in Brooklyn, a prison guard in Lexington, Kentucky, and a house painter in Hilo, Hawaii. Closer to home are the words of a baker in Cheyenne and a locksmith in Casper. The baker rhapsodizes about the two Q Girls who are "both up for war against Democrats." The locksmith is more thoughtful. He (I think it's a he) says that a civil war may be on the horizon but is wary of "citizens desperate or angry enough" to assassinate a Supreme Court elder or "wayward" senator. There is also an architect in Fort Collins who blasts the "toxic idiocy" of those who believe that Trump won the election. The Brooklyn dog walker sums it up this way: "Put them behind bars -- him, Jared, the kids. Or send them to Mars."

We hear many voices. I've been reading the selections in a more lighthearted mood than I did the first seven "Trump Sonnets." That is because T has disappeared from public view and is no longer on Twitter to rattle my world. He also is gone from the White House which he treated like his own Scarface villa (he already has one of those in Mar-a-Lago).

As evident during Waldman's 35-year career as an itinerant poet and fiddler, he has a keen wit and is always busy creating. He's published 19 poetry and prose books and nine CDs that "mix Appalachian-style string band music with original poetry." As a touring artist whose home base is in Alaska, most of his gigs since March 2020 were cancelled or postponed. He's been featured at the Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey, the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia, and the Word of South Festival this weekend in Tallahassee, Fla. He's also conducted residencies in more than 200 schools, including ones in Casper and Cheyenne. He's also served as a judge for Wyoming Arts Council literary fellowships.

Front Range dwellers can see him on stage on May 22, 7 p.m., at the Lakewood Cultural Center in Lakewood, Colo. He will appear with Willi Carlisle and special guests Ben Guzman and Colin Gould. Tickets are $27 and you can get them here. 

I will file volume eight with Waldman's one through seven in my presidential library. My grandkids, if I ever have any, might like to read them and see how America lost its mind in the 21st century. 

You can't actually buy the book until September 1. Get more info at the Trump Sonnets site or Waldman's home page. The book will be distributed by nonprofit literary book distributor Small Press Distribution at orders@spdbooks.org. 

A poem a day keeps the nighttime devils at bay

Every night before sleep, I call up the Poetry Foundation page and read the poem of the day. It's an eclectic mix, featuring classical bards and contemporary voices. In the last week, I've read work by Grace Paley, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Amy Lowell. Lowell's "Lilacs" was featured the other night. I read it twice, not to make me tired but to fix the look and scent of lilacs in my mind so my dreams are more lilacs and less horror story. 

Dream experts say that we can do this, fashion our dreams before sleep. I'm only partially successful at this. Maybe it's a holdover from the bedtime prayer that my parents taught me. Here it is:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

The key element is "if I should die." This is not a comforting thought for a six-year-old. I say my prayer and settle in for a quiet night of hellfire and brimstone. It lingers there among the more positive terms such as sleep and soul and Lord. My late brother Dan often complained about his insomnia. I never thought to bring up the horrible prayer that we recited every night. The current version of the same prayer goes like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

May angels watch me through the night

And wake me with the morning light

Much more comforting to have angels watch me in the night. Most angels then were beautiful winged creatures bathed in heavenly light. So preferable to horned devils rising from the fiery pit. Our choice was clear: angel or devil. If we chose devilish behavior, we could confess the transgression in confession, say a bunch of prayers, and start over again. That was the wonderful thing about the American Catholicism of my youth -- a promise of better days ahead. If I disobeyed my parents or conjured unclean thoughts, I could spill it to the priest, a shadowy figure behind an obscuring curtain, the kind CNN reporters use when interviewing whistle-blowers or mobsters. Once released, I could say my penance and flee to play baseball with my friends or to sin again -- my choice. 

Lowell's "Lilacs" is a beautiful poem, one that the nuns may have made me read, although Sister Theresa was more likely to assign us rhyming couplets. A description of "Lilacs" called it a patriotic poem. Lowell was a Boston Brahmin, a New Englander to the core and related to Harvard presidents and famous scientists. She may have had to say the same bedtime prayer as I did. That prayer comes from The New England Primer, the first reading text in the American colonies. It was published by printer Benjamin Harris who so hated and feared Catholics that he fled to the Americas during the brief reign of James II. Quoted on Wikipedia, New Hampshire senator and former college English prof  David H. Watters says that the primer was "built on rote memorization, the Puritans' distrust of uncontrolled speech, and their preoccupation with childhood depravity." No wonder it's still sold online as a text for Evangelical homeschoolers. The primer was based on The Protestant Tutor and taught Puritan children their ABCs: 

In Adam's fall/We sinned all (with drawing of Eve being tempted by big snake and then, presumably, tempting Adam)

My Book and Heart/Shall never part (with drawing of Bible with heart on cover)

Job feels the rod/And blesses God (with drawing of Job plagued by boils and pustules)

My parents were diehard Catholics born in the 1920s teaching their 20th-century children a 17th-century Puritan prayer. This 21st century lapsed Catholic enjoys the irony. Meanwhile, I'll skip the praying and keep reading Heid E. Erdrich, Abigail Chabitnoy, Marilyn Chin, W.B. Yeats, Yusef Komunyakaa and many others. 

Now I lay me down to sleep...

When your hope shrinks, do a small thing to let the sunshine in

I tried to write a piece about the massacre of 10 innocents at the King Soopers in Boulder. Few subjects make me speechless but mass shootings are one of them. Archivists in 2121 may come across articles about massacres of civilians in the U.S. and thank their lucky stars that sensible gun laws finally were enacted in 20__ and that we would never see headlines like this again. That's as hopeful as I can be, that someday the U.S. will lose its cruel streak and the NRA will be bankrupt and all of our gun nuts will die from natural causes. There's hope in that. I liked these lines from a Naomi Shihab Nye poem I came across on the Poetry Foundation web site: 

When your hope shrinks 

you might feel the hope of 

someone far away lifting you up.

I'll write about the hope of small things. 

I bought a small grow-kit from Amazon. Nothing fancy. Just a metal tray, soil, and three seed packets. The chives and Florence fennel sprouted and are on their way to summer salads and desserts. I stuck some basil seeds in with my pot of Thai basil and still waiting for those. I planted chive seeds from hometownseeds.com but got nothing. I’m going to plant again today in a new pot and see if they do better. I like chives and you can put it in all sorts of dishes. But I can’t get it to grow. Best thing to do is buy some chives that already are far along and try not to kill them.

My herbs have taken over the end of the dining room table up against a south-facing kitchen window. The table is Formica laminate and is a remnant of 1950s kitchens. It’s in the mid-century modern (Mid-Mod) school of furniture. We had tables just like it when I was growing up. A perfect match for mac and cheese and meatloaf. I look at the table and see my mother and all of the many Susie Homemaker mothers of the era. My mom also was Anna the Nurse and knew when and when not to patch up our many wounds. When I was 7, our exchanges went something like this:

Me: Mom, I’m hurt! 

Mom: Are you bleeding?

Me: No but… 

Mom (kisses my head): Go outside and play – you’ll be all right.

Sometimes I was bleeding. She applied Mercurochrome to the wound and sent me outside to play. Writing about “Mercurochrome Memories” in ScienceBlogs, dblum writes that the bright-red antiseptic is a mercury derivative of a red dye discovered in 1889. The antiseptic version was developed 20 years later by researchers at Johns Hopkins, source of many of our magic potions and miracle meds. The FDA declared mercury a neurotoxin and it’s no longer made in the U.S. But never fear:

Science tells us that if once you were painted with Mercurochrome, your body has probably stored at least a trace for you. Nothing apparently too dangerous, just a reminder of your chemical past.

My chemical past. As a Downwinder from Colorado and Washington state, I already have some bomb-blast radiation in my body. And traces of lead paint – can’t forget that. I also have mercury in my dental fillings. And then there’s DDT. Damn, if I had known all this, I wouldn’t have lived to be 70 and (I hope) much longer.

I gave up ground gardening a few years ago when a spinal injury prevented bending and stooping. I grow my veggies in containers now. I’ve been successful although gardening at 6,200 feet in a semi-arid region continues to be a work in progress. My seedlings don’t go outside until mid-May. Most insects aren’t a problem but hail and wind and drought are. I keep growing things because it brings joy and I like the challenge of the cherry tomato harvest in August. You can get good ones at the store or farmer’s market. But I like to pick and eat them when they are still warm from the sun. It’s like eating sunshine. We all could use more of the simple act of nurturing a small thing to "let the sunshine in..."

Snowbound and Covidbound all in the same week

We received 31 or 36 inches of snow in our weekend blizzard, depending on who's doing the reporting. Anything more than 30 inches is a lot so I won't quibble. What I can say is that I haven't been out of my house since last Friday when I ran a couple of errands on a cloudy day with all the weatherpeople saying that you bastards are really in for it with this Snowmageddon. Pshaw, said I. But they were right. 

Our governor announced on March 12 that most Covid restrictions will expire on March 16. On that day, residents from Cheyenne to Casper were practicing weather-enforced social distancing. Cheyenne doctors and nurses were shuttled to work on a snowmobile belonging to a 17-year-old high school student. You can still get around our neighborhood on snowmobile.

By the time the snow abated on Monday, I could not open our front door. Snow on the porch was piled at least two feet of hard-packed snow. A winter snow is usually what they call "champagne powder" at Jackson Hole Ski Resort. It's light and airy enough to blow into a ground blizzard when the wind blows. When stacked up, it's great to ski in. You can glide and carve into it, blowing up white clouds as you make your way downhill. 

Snowmageddon snow is like concrete. I say "is" because it's almost a week later and our neighborhood is a snowscape. A plow made its first appearance yesterday afternoon. It made one pass down the street and then was gone. It created a path wide enough for one vehicle flanked by four-foot walls of snow. The mounds block our driveways so we're still stuck. Not sure what comes next. Melting is going to take a long time. Our food is running out. We are going stir crazy. 

In days gone by, I would have been out there with the shovel as I was in so many other storms. After the Christmas Eve Blizzard of 1982 in Denver, I was outside with my shovel on Christmas Day, shoveling my walks and those of my neighbors in City Park South. Chris and I lived on the top floor of a 100-year-old two-story house. We shared it with a lesbian couple who were our son's first babysitters three years later. We sometimes barbecued together on the tiny front porch. I never knew our neighbors in the basement apartment. 

Our landlord was the one-man Danish counsel for Colorado who owned a tie store downtown. His lavish City Park home had a security gate and was surrounded with cameras just in case the Swedes decided to invade. We sometimes drove over to pay our rent just to see how the other half lived. We wondered how working for Denmark in a remote outpost and selling ties led to such opulence. We imagined that a tie shop on a side street might be a perfect cover for a drug dealer or arms smuggler. We wondered what they made in Denmark that might find a black market in Denver. Cheese danishes? Fjord photos? Reindeer antlers? We didn't know much about Denmark.

So here it is Thursday and maybe I will get out of my driveway and maybe I won't. I haven't shoveled snow since my heart attack in 2013. I rely on a walker (a.k.a. personal mobility device) now. It's possible there exists a walker equipped with a snow blower but I haven't yet looked that up on Amazon. Even if I get in my car and get out of my driveway, I'm not sure about the condition in the rest of my neighborhood. I'm really stuck if I get stuck. 

Our neighbor Mike sent over a couple of teens to clear our walks. They did a good job and we paid them $20. We wanted to make way for the mail delivery person but we haven't got any mail since Saturday. I've been missing those fliers for vinyl windows and life insurance. I might have received a St. Patrick's Day card or two but won't find out for a couple more days. Over the years, I have seen USPS vehicles chained up and struggling through the snow. But chains won't help them get through big drifts of concrete snow.

Daughter Annie has been staying with us during spring break. She has many assignments due next week so we don't see much of her. She ordered a grocery delivery yesterday but didn't tell us. The Instacart person drove up in a massive SUV. She dropped off three 12-packs of Diet Pepsi and packages of toilet paper and paper towels. For edibles, she delivered a family pack of Chips Ahoy cookies, a bag of Cadbury mini-eggs, and a carton of eggs. We quizzed Annie about why she had paid a person to collect Cadbury mini-eggs and Diet Pepsi and drive these crucial, life-giving items through snow clogged streets to our house. We wondered why she hadn't asked us if we needed anything from the store such as bread or peanut butter or soup or spaghetti. You know, necessities for the snowbound.

We're still waiting for an answer.

State Legislature's Judiciary Committee advances pot bill

The state legislature continues its in-person, maskless session at the Capitol Building. As a group, they are a tempting target for criticism because most of them are GOP knuckleheads of the Trump and QAnon variety. If given half a chance, they would storm their own capitol just because they could. Many bill themselves as Libertarians, some even represent the Libertarian Party. That causes some unusual behavior. They voted a marijuana bill out of committee so the entire chamber can get into the fray. Both Dems and Repubs and Tarians have been known to smoke pot. But they too are growing tired of driving all of the way to Fort Collins to stock up on supplies. They also know that Colorado and other legal states are raking in the dough via steep reefer taxes and they think they might want to horn in on the action. Early estimates for a 30 percent pot tax show that the state could get $47 million in income the first year. That could take a chunk out of the current $500-million plus deficit caused by the decline of coal and the energy severance taxes it provides. If toking coal could have the same impact on the budget as it does heating up the atmosphere, the lege would approve its immediate use. 

But the bill has a long way to go before Grandma can get her hands on some Chugwater Kush or North Platte Knockout. But she may be the first one in line at the dispensary. Senior citizens have shown a real yen for pot legalization. Friends who worked on the recent Wyoming medical marijuana campaign said that the age group most eager to sign the petitions were 60-plus. The reasons are obvious. Nostalgia for all of those heady days in their teens and twenties is a part of it. When Colorado legalized weed, pot tourism, especially with Boomers, became a thing in Denver. It may not be as big now as more states have legalized it. But it may.

More importantly, pain relief. Old people such as myself have pains they treat with Aleve, and, in chronic pain situations, opioids. Seniors have traded in their poisonous Percocet prescriptions for a bag of chronic, some mint-flavored gummies, or even six packs of cannabis craft beer. Unlike our twenty-something offspring, we are less likely to get high and into our cars for quests to find the perfect munchies. We are retired and just stocked up on snacks at Albertson's Senior Discount Day on the first Thursday of every month (don't forget those e-coupons). We can settle into our Lift chairs, get high, and ask Alexa to play Dark Side of the Moon over and over and over again. 

The lege might stun us by legalizing marijuana. More than likely, they will defeat the bill and form an interim committee to study hot pot topics: Will legal pot turn our children into liberals? Will it make our athletes kneel for the national anthem? Will it attract hordes of BLM and antifa activists who will invade the capitol and, instead of breaking windows with flags or smearing shit on walls, will get everyone high and try to levitate the building? Important questions that need much mulling over.

La Petite Fadette: the novel by George Sand and the silent movie with Mary Pickford

"La Petite Fadette" is a novel by George Sand published in 1849. I'm reading it now after watching a 1915 silent film, "Fanchon, the Cricket," loosely based on the book. I'm a fan of the silents shown on TCM on Sunday night. In "Fanchon," Mary Pickford plays the lead. She was a darling of Hollywood at the time and in 1919 formed United Artists with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin. She plays Cricket, named for her small stature and hyperactive nature. Some people in the village consider her a witch because that's how the villagers saw her grandmother. Fadette and her little brother Grasshopper live with her in a tumbledown cottage out in the woods.

The cinematic Fanchon falls in love with the local hottie named Landry and scandal erupts because he is from a "good" family and she is not. Common plot line for many books and films. In the end, romance prevails and the two are married. The end.

As the credits rolled, I noticed that it was based on Sand's book. Wonder what the book is like? Despite my time as an English major, I never read any of Sand's numerous works. She's not really a part of the canon, at least when I was in grad school. Women authors were a few in the 1980s version of the big list. An oversight, as she was a woman author when that was very rare, author of many novels (one of my grad school mentors had the 28-volume English language set in his library). Sand was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin and called Aurore by friends and family. She lived the bohemian life in Paris, wore men's clothing, smoked, and had numerous affairs with the literati and some musicians, Chopin, for one. Victor Hugo liked her work. Sand spent time on the barricades during the 1849 revolution. 

No surprise but "La Petite Fadette" is quite different from the Pickford film. In the novel, Fadette is small and describes herself as ugly, obviously no Mary Pickford, although Fadette is not always reliable in describing herself. She is dirty and wears tattered clothes. Still, she exerts a strong presence. Landry protects her during the village's feast day and even dances the bouree with her, which scandalizes the bourgeoisie. I was taken with the character. She's more outspoken than I expected, less a victim than a young woman trying to find her way in the world. Like her grandmother, she is endowed with mysterious healing powers, which she utilizes late in the novel with Landry's twin brother, Sylvinet. 

The prose is a overwrought, keeping with the style of the era. Long passages of dialogue and description. The author inserts her own opinions. She obviously wrote at a brisk pace which left little time for editing. Chapter 20 seemed to go on forever as Fadette and Landry critiqued each other. By that point, I was attached to the main characters and into the story.  

I am a strong advocate of editing and revising. But sometimes we lose some of the sloppy humanity that's a part of all good books. Think about Dickens and Tolstoy. Dickens was paid by the installment as his work appeared serially over weeks and months. Tolstoy, well, if you've read "War and Peace," you are familiar with endless descriptions of formal balls, philosophical discussions, and Napoleon's very, very long siege of Moscow. It also was first published serially in The Russian Messenger. W&P is wordy and unwieldy. Tolstoy didn't even call it a novel, saying that "Anna Karenina" was his first novel. What can I say -- I see it as a novel.  

George Sand wrote 59 novels and 13 plays. The Russians, especially Dostoevsky, were crazy about Sand's work during her lifetime. She's been featured in at least four Hollywood movies. "A Song to Remember" with Merle Oberon as Sand and Cornel Wilde as Chopin. I can't say I'll read more of her books, although not all are available in English. I have read one, which should please my English professors. It pleases me, too. Oh, and I saw the movie.

Art and writing share a sense of mystery

My colleague Sue Sommers in the Studio Wyoming Review group opened up her latest review of an art show with this writer's quote: 

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” —Joan Didion, “Why I Write” (1976, the New York Times Book Review)

This is a theme that I've stressed with student writers over the years. It's a cousin to a quote by Flannery O'Connor: 

“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.”

Before I spent a lifetime as a writer, I would have disagreed with these quotes. "I'm good. I know what I think -- it's right here in my head." I wasn't mature enough to understand what Didion and O'Connor were saying. 

The act of writing is a transition. The idea is a bit of ether, an unformed thing in our mind. Writing transforms what is in my head to another thing altogether. Writing, also an act of translation, gives shape to the idea. Sometimes, results surprise us. We also may be frustrated when the results don't seem quite right. 

It's not just the mind at work. It's also heart and soul, bloodstream and gut. The entire human ecosystem gets into the act.

This is what is so hard to explain to student writers. What is this thing that you are trying to tell me? Reach deep. What does it feel like? What does it smell like? Use your senses. 

My daughter Annie was writing a composition paper on sexism. She knew I had taught a lot of college composition classes. I read it, encouraged her to dig deeper. She wasn't really having it as the paper was due to next day. She insisted that she had satisfied the assignment and I couldn't really argue with her. The professor gave her paper a 90 and she was disappointed. I said nothing.

What could I say? I've spent decades in an effort to unravel my thoughts for the printed page/computer screen. I know the tricks of the trade. In the end, I'm not sure exactly what happens to turn the scrap of an idea into a finished story, novel, or blog post. I'm rarely satisfied with the result. But I keep at it because there's no way I can give up the pursuit. It's part of me.

Sue Sommers' review of "Bold Wanderings" at Pinedale's Mystery Print Gallery points out some of the traits and mysteries of creativity, whether you be artist or writer. Read the review for details (link at the top).

Senate Democrats go it alone in passing Biden's stimulus bill

NPR just posted this news. It bears reposting:

The Senate approved President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan Saturday, securing additional aid for American families, workers and businesses — and a legislative victory for the Biden administration.

After more than 24 hours of debate, the evenly divided Senate voted 50-49 to approve the measure. Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska was absent because he was in Alaska for a family funeral.

The package delivers a new round of financial assistance to Americans grappling with the impact of the pandemic, including $1,400 direct payments, an extension of supplemental unemployment benefits and an increase to the child tax credit.

Individuals earning up to $75,000 and couples earning up to $150,000 would receive the full direct payments of $1,400 per person. But those payments would phase out for individuals and couples who make more than $80,000 and $160,000, respectively.

The income cutoff was lowered after moderate Democrats demanded that the latest round of checks target lower-income families.

Federal unemployment benefits would be extended through Sept. 6 at the current rate of $300 per week and the first $10,200 of those benefits would be tax-free for households that earn $150,000 or less.

Read the rest here.

My comment: Rich Republican senators can now go home and tell their constituents how they're always looking out for the little guy. And by the way, why not donate your $1,400 stimulus check to my next election campaign when I will be screwing you over again.

Got 181 likes. Some commenters didn't like what I said. So what?

Both of Wyoming's senators are multimillionaire Republicans, Barrasso and Lummis. They have blasted our lone U.S. rep, Liz Cheney, for voting for Trump's impeachment. 

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It ain't spring yet, but I can see it on the horizon

In normal years, spring is opening up time in Wyoming. Bright morning sun streaks through the windows. We open the windows to let in the fresh breeze. Then we close the windows when the 60 mph gusts blow in. We wave to our neighbors the first time we see them outside since October. I check on the bulbs planted last fall t see if anything is blooming. That often happens with the spring snow, lilies making a show of it by bursting colorful heads through the white blanket.  

Spring 2020 brought a radical change. We closed down just as the weather turned nice. Houses became fortresses against the gathering plague. Schools closed. Jobs disappeared. Events cancelled. As the fatalities rose, we hunkered down. Stores delivered our groceries. Beer could only be bought by stealthy visits to drive-up windows where you almost wanted to whisper your order through your new mask that didn't fit. Our downtown craft distillery stopped bottling vodka and churned out plastic bottles of hand sanitizer. Overnight, Zoom became a thing.

This spring feels different. It won't officially be spring for another 25 days. But we yearn for it. Chris and I got our two Covid shots of vaccines that didn't exist this time last year. I've ordered seeds for sprouting -- I'm already a little late doing that. We are already a week into the Lenten season and it seems like a miracle that the plague is receding. I am blessed to be alive and among the vaccinated and I can pay my bills and buy groceries. I have a roof over my head. I'm retired so my 8-to-5 working days are behind me. 

I thought about all of this last night as I watched "Nomadland" on Hulu. Thousands of my fellow Americans live in vans and small RVs. They crisscross the country looking for a place to land and a place to work. They exist on disability checks and small pensions. Work service jobs when they can get them. Their humanity comes through in a film that features real people and real places. Credit goes to director Chloe Zhou and lead actor Frances McDormand who transforms from Fran to Fern in the film.

Some people opt as a life as a nomad. Others are forced into it due to substance abuse, mental illness, or circumstances beyond their control. It raises big questions about the state of our country. But it merely asks you for empathy which is in short supply after four years of the hate and greed of Trumpism. Not too much to ask. I came away from it with the same feeling I had after watching "The Florida Project." In it, a different kind of nomad moves from cheap motel to cheap motel in Orlando's Disney neighborhood.  The film shows a lot of heart notably in the form of the six-year-old main character.

We haven't yet processed the Time of Trump. If you carried a bleeding heart into the 2016 election, it has been bleeding since. We may be suffering from a type of PTSD, a reaction to four years' worth of daily outrages. Reading good books and watching good movies may help us heal. It may also help us to greet our human comrades with good will when spring opens our doors.

Message to Wyoming senators: Do your job, impeach Trump

An e-mail I sent to Sen. Barrasso this morning. I sent one to Sen. Lummis with slightly different wording:

Dear Sen. Barrasso:

I hope you are paying attention to the Senate proceedings of the Trump impeachment. Did you see the rampaging mob as it beat up Capitol police and carried the Confederate banner into the House of the People? Did you hear them call out for your GOP colleague V.P. Pence? They wanted to punish him for having the temerity to challenge Dear Leader’s tortured fantasies about the election. The mob’s goal was to do harm to people who disagreed with Trump and stymie America’s political process. They only partially succeeded, but people did die and the Capitol was ransacked.

I urge you to vote to impeach Donald Trump. Words and actions have meaning and Trump’s went into feeding a lie that the election was rigged. He sparked the riot and needs to pay the price. If not, he will get away with it and the next demagogue elected to the presidency will be smarter and more ruthless. Next time the mob will come for you.

You have a conscience and can change your mind. The electorate saw it during the votes to certify the election, during the hubbub surrounding Rep. Cheney’s vote for impeachment. You know what to do. You do.

Sincerely,

Michael Shay, Wyoming voter

Wyoming Legislature more interested in whinin' about Biden than in fixing state's budget woes

 The op-ed in Sunday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle had a lot to say about the State Legislature's priorities during this time of big budget shortfalls. I got through the paywall to read it and you might be able to here.

The sum it up, the authors wondered why the GOP-controlled Lege is spending so much time whining about Biden's proposed energy policies rather than the issue at hand: Wyoming is broke. You would think the budget and revenue-raising would be tops on the agenda. But they are not.

The GOP also is spending a lot of time and energy to censure Rep. Liz Cheney for her vote to impeach Trump for the second time. The Wyoming GOP, still trustworthy Trump cultists, slapped Cheney's hand for doing something about what we all saw on Jan. 6 -- an insurrection to stop the certification of the Electoral College results. Biden won, of course, and on that day in Congress, that vote would be certified. Despite efforts by QAnon and Trump and his MAGA acolytes, any doubt as to the reality of the election would be banished.

You saw what I saw. Rioters wearing camos and carrying Confederate flags, took over the U.S. Capitol Building. They sought out members of Congress they detest and were going to do Gods-knows-what to them (they had weapons and nooses) in the chaos. I didn't believe what I was seeing. I do believe that they were doing Trump's bidding. The man is a power-hungry fascist whose main goals are accumulating wealth and power.

We finally banished him to Mar-a-Lago. And now he's being impeached. Liz Cheney was one of ten Republicans who joined Democrats in the impeachment vote. A courageous move, as events of the past month show. The Trump cult is alive and well. Some even think they can come to D.C. and witness Trump's swearing-in ceremony on March 4. Pathetic.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have work to do. The pandemic ("a hoax," Trump said) still rages, people are out of work, hungry and sometimes homeless. Pres. Biden got right into solutions which the Republicans are doing their best to sabotage. Acting quickly and decisively is crucial. Yes, impeachment will be a distraction but it must be done. The next demagogue elected under the GOP banner may be even more devious and power-mad than Trump.

We need to get involved and stay involved to make sure that doesn't happen. Everyone must vote and make sure that the Wyoming GOP does not chip away at our access to the polls. On my right sidebar are some orgs that are in the fight. I will write more about them in future posts. The Wyoming Legislature site tracks bills under consideration and lists contact info for your legislators. 

Be active, be noisy, be Americans. 

What does it cost to save a life?

I am pleased that WyoFile published my review of Katherine Standefer's nonfiction book, "Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life." In it, the author recounts her diagnosis of Long QT Cardiac Syndrome and how the cure can sometimes be as daunting as the ailment.

Standefer walks Planet Earth with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). It's a high-tech device about the size of a Zippo lighter (remember those?) that surgeons implant in a cardiac patient's chest. If that person's heart experiences irregular rhythms or stops, it shocks it back to life. As one research center noted: "It is like having paramedics with you at all times." 

Tiny paramedics.

Standefer playfully calls this intricate medical device her "titanium can." When we met online in November, she said, "Welcome, Cyborg." 

Surgeons installed my ICD in July 2013 when I was 62. Read my blogs about it here and here. 

Standefer is at least a generation younger than me. However, her cardiac problem is genetic and is a killer. 

In 2009, she was a 24-year-old college grad living in Jackson. She busily balanced outdoor jaunts, a budding relationship, several jobs, and performing in a local band. In what Standefer calls "the last morning of my first life," she passed out in a parking lot and was rushed to the hospital. After tests, a cardiologist said she had Long QT Syndrome and needed a defibrillator implant. If she didn't get one, she was vulnerable to Sudden Cardiac Death which is as final as it sounds. Problem is, she had no catastrophic health insurance for a procedure that could cost as much as $200,000.

This is when Standefer's saga began. 

“Lightning Flowers” explores two questions, Standefer told an audience during a Nov. 18 Zoom reading co-sponsored by Jackson Hole Writers Conference and Jackson Hole Book Trader. The first is: What happens to a 24-year-old who passes out in a parking lot and tries to access proper medical care? And the second: What does it cost to save a life?

First things first. Wyoming residents without means have few options for procedures like this. She found out that Colorado had an indigent care program for state residents. She made the decision to leave her life in Jackson behind and move back to Colorado so she could get the life-saving operation. She did, but there were complications. Once in recovery, she wondered about the second thing: what is the true cost of modern medicine? Her journey takes her to the California lab that made her device and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She traveled to Madagascar and Rwanda. She interviewed miners and the impoverished people who lived with the poisonous byproducts of modern medical engineering. And then it was time to write the book.

The U.S medical establishment does one thing very well: research and development. New life-saving gizmos come online all of the time. I have an ICD and artificial knees. My diabetic wife is equipped with an insulin pump. During the Covid crisis, Moderna and Pfizer and others used new technology to develop a vaccine in record time. I received my first injection two weeks ago. I had a passing thought about all the materials the nurses used at the hospital. Syringes, vials, the medicine itself. Where does it all come from and where will it go? 

"Lightning Flowers" prompted me to ponder this question. Last night, the nightly news reported that people in developing countries are less likely than those in developed countries to get vaccinated against Covid. Some countries are raising holy hell about it and I don't blame them. It doesn't take much imagination to conjure a world war caused by lack of access to a cure for a plague. Countries that have vaccine supplies (looking at you, U.S.) are having a difficult time getting it into people's arms. One-percenters fly to places to get vaccine intended for the 99 percent, as in the recent case where a white couple traveled to the Yukon to get vaccine intended for elderly indigenous people. Capitalism at its worst. 

I am a First Worlder with insurance and access to miracle drugs. Millions of others do not have such an advantage. I aim to find out why and report what I find.

Meanwhile, read Standefer's book to trace her journey of discovery. Order a copy from your local indie store. Click the JH Book Trader link above. 

Wyoming Legislature committee advances bill to punish rooftop solar

I sent this via email to Senators Hutchings and Driskill:

This quote comes from a Jan. 21 WyoFile article:

Supported unanimously by the Senate Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee, Senate File 16 -- New Net Metering Systems represents the third time in 18 months legislators have sought to cut the amount paid to customers who generate more solar electricity than they use.

We installed rooftop solar last spring and saw reductions in Black Hills Energy bills in the sunny months but not much difference since last October. It’s a work in progress. I still pay the going rates for natural gas heating and hot water. I also still buy coal- and gas-generated energy to prop up the solar. I buy locally and pay state sales taxes. I’ve lived in Wyoming for 30 years and done my best to make it a better place.

Is SF 16 just another way for the GOP-dominated legislature to smack down the solar power industry?

Wyomingites, especially us retirees, are finding that rooftop solar can save money when household budgets are strained by the pandemic. Why would you want to halt that? We are doing our bit to address global warming. What are you doing?

I advise that you spend more time in planning for the alternative energy future rather than bemoaning the fossil fuel past. 

Do your job. Defeat SF 16! 

Sincerely,

Michael Shay

Covid-19 still rages but health workers making progress with vaccinations

I received my first Covid-19 injection on Jan. 15. I saw a message Wednesday on the MyChart page of the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. It said that those 70 and over could call a number and make an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine, part one. I called immediately and was surprised to get through the first time as the MyChart message said that lines would be busy and callers should leave a call-back message. I didn't have to.

On a cold Friday afternoon, I joined the queue at the CRMC Health Plaza on 20th Street. Three other oldsters lurked ahead of me but we all got into the inner sanctum quickly. The nurses briskly got us to the injection room. My nurse was close to my age. I handed in my paperwork and she shot me in my right arm, the one I use all of the time. That was the point, as movement is important on cutting down the pain and stiffness that goes with the shot. It must have worked as I had no pain and stiffness the next day although I felt a bit fatigued. That was my only symptom. My follow-up shot is Feb. 12 at the same time, same place.

I felt lucky to get my shot so quickly. When I posted the news on Facebook, I had a number of friends asked how I got an appointment. I gave them the news and the number to call. Not sure if they succeeded. You hear all sorts of stories. Busy phones, long lines, three-hour waits. Florida has had trouble as the Governor ordered shots for everyone 65-and-older, a teeming cohort in the Sunshine State. The vaccination stations were overrun. News got out that you didn't have to be from Florida to get a shot so "vaccine tourism" was born. A few days ago, a state government spokesperson announced that shots from Miami to Pensacola, Tampa to Daytona, were restricted to Floridians. So much for vaccine-based travel.

Chris was able to get her injection at the Laramie County Department of Health. She's a youngster at 64. But she works with children at the YMCA which moved her into the educator category and eligible for round one.

My daughter here in Cheyenne and my son in Tucson await their injections. They're youngsters yet I hope they get on the list sooner than later.

In their weekly Friday Covid report (Week 45), WyoFile wrote that health workers in the state had administered 28,889 first doses but less than 5,000 had received their second doses. That's a start. Wyoming has a population of about 580,000. Many live in rural areas which makes the task even more daunting. The Pfizer vaccine had to be stored at sub-freezing temps. Most hospitals are up to standards but not every town has a hospital or even a healthcare clinic. Many live way out of town and it's winter out there which could make travel by the 65-plus cohort even more challenging. 

We also have a new variant of Covid in the state. From WyoFile: 

Health officials, however, remain concerned about the discovery of the UK variant in the northwest pocket of the state, where case counts are soaring. The variant infected an adult male and early information suggests he was exposed to the virus variant locally, the Department of Health said.

State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist was not surprised by the discovery, she said in a release. 

“However, this strain is more transmissible than previous COVID-19 variants and that is a serious concern,” she said. In fact, Teton County is being gripped by a surge that has prompted health officials to move it into the highest category for COVID-19 risk, “critical. 

Teton County is approximately seven travel hours from Cheyenne, and that's on a good day. Add another hour or two for bad weather. 

Still, Covid has shown an amazing ability to quickly cross the globe. Thousands of miles are no impediment to a virus. Other variants include California, South Africa and Brazil. The U.K. strain is rampaging across its namesake country. Now named B117, it has been found in 50 countries. Experts guess that it could cause a 30-40 percent increase in deaths. 

Johns Hopkins now counts 2,109,758 deaths worldwide and 419,058 in the U.S. Wyoming has recorded 571 deaths. 

So, get your vaccine when you can and always wear a mask. Stay home, if possible. And keep posted on news from the Biden administration. Those folks actually have a plan to coordinate vaccinations across the country.  

The 2017 Women's March gave us hope in the dark and dismal early days of Trump

I feel almost giddy as this week spells the end of Trump in the White House and a new president installed. A new day for Washington, D.C., and America. A new year. Promise is in the air.

On the night of Nov. 3, 2016, all hell broke loose. Hillary Clinton led the results, at least in the beginning. And then came Florida and Pennsylvania and it was all bad news from there. Chris and I left the Democrats' celebration party early. She went to bed. I watched the West Coast returns even though my heart was broken.

I joined a group of millions across the globe in the 2017 Inauguration Day women's marches. We held one in Cheyenne attended by locals aided by protestors from around the state, western Nebraska and northern Colorado. The crowd was estimated by the Cheyenne Police Department as 1,200 but it may have been more as the police are usually conservative in their crowd estimates. It was a big crowd in our Capitol City with a population less than 70,000. Did this old bleeding heart good. Read my recap of the event here. 

We only had a tiny idea of what the next four years would bring. Nature's way of causing us further trauma. It culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by by raging Trumpists. Many have been arrested for their attack on the seat of this country's duly-elected legislature. They stormed democracy when they stormed the building. Those filmed images will stay with me forever.

Come on Jan. 20, 2021!

What comes next after the Jan. 6 coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol?

We witnessed a coup attempt Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Trump and his goons incited other goons to storm the Capitol and disrupt the approval of electoral college votes. They ended up trashing the place and killing a policeman. The mayhem delayed the counting of the votes until 3 in the morning on Jan. 7.

My daughter watched some of that day's CNN reports with me. She asked questions and I had no answers. 

She left for school and my mind wandered. I had attended two Vietnam War protests in D.C., in 1970 and 1971. D.C. Police were everywhere. At the May Day 1971 protests, promoted as "Days of Rage," President Nixon called in the National Guard and 82nd Airborne. Helicopters filled the air. Buses were lined up in a cordon around the White House. Federal drug enforcement undercover cops tried to blend in with the crowd, ready to bust pot smokers but there were too many of us so they just studied the freaks and took detailed notes.

These were the preparations for a bunch of longhairs. We were angry but unarmed. Would some have rushed the White House or Capitol and trashed those places? Maybe. They were angry about Vietnam. But were we prepared to interfere with a lawful election? Hell no. Many young men were angry when Nixon was elected in 1968 and 1972. We knew that it meant more Vietnam and a continuation, possibly forever, of the military draft. Most of us were there for peaceful protest.

Some Days of Rage protesters disrupted traffic and blocked the employee entrance to the U.S. Justice Department and engaged in various other acts of civil disobedience.

The police and military were more than ready for them. May 3 ended up being the biggest arrest cache ever in D.C. The jails overflowed and officials had to corral the longhairs at RFK Stadium (football season was long over). 

Where were these duly-appointed guardians of our democratic republic on Jan. 6, 2021? Nowhere to be seen. Until later in the day, after the worst was over.

This was an inside job and just the beginning of an old-fashioned coup. Are we ready for the next attack that may come on Jan. 17 or possibly Inauguration Day? 

We better be.

Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep

Happy New Year.

We are glad to say goodbye to 2020, the Year of the Pandemic. It also was the year that a majority of voters and Electoral College tallies booted Trump from office.

But not soon enough.

He's done plenty of damage to our democratic republic since Nov. 3. Call it a massive temper tantrum or Trump's reveal of his fascist inner self. He always wanted to the Da Boss or Der Fuehrer, as if he could ever be a leader to those of us with a heart and soul. 

Interesting reading in the New Yorker about America's authoritarian tendencies. Adam Gopnick writes in "What we get wrong about America's crisis of democracy." His main point is that authoritarianism is always with us and it behooves all of us to battle it all of the time. 

The default condition of humankind, traced across thousands of years of history, is some sort of autocracy... America itself has never had a particularly settled commitment to democratic, rational government. 

He goes on to talk about demagogues such as Barry Goldwater and Joseph McCarthy. Roy Cohn even rears his ugly head, as he did in "Angels in America." Cohn counseled McCarthy "in all things conspiratorial" and, not surprisingly, was Donald Trump's mentor.

As Steven Stills wrote and Buffalo Springfield sang: 

Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. Get out of line, the men come and take you away.

You are not paranoid to see an autocrat behind every tree. In the Trump administration, they are political appointees in very important positions. They also are GOPers elected to Congress and, alas, to the Wyoming State Legislature. Although they talk about them a lot, they don't believe in democratic principles. They are always with us, Gopnick says. He notes this:

The temptation of anti-democratic cult politics is forever with us, and so is the work of fending it off.

Damn. Just as we thought that all of our work is done here. Biden is in, Trump is out. Depending on what happens next week in Georgia, Democrats may even control both houses of Congress. Can we now rest on our laurels, as bloated as they may be from 10 months sitting in easy chairs avoiding the plague?

No.

The authoritarian Goldwater said something about eternal vigilance. That's what we have to be -- eternally vigilant. No rest for the weary, those of us whop have been involved in progressive politics most of our lives. We work hard to get Democrats elected and then relax. While we're at play, the bad guys are marshaling their forces, raising money, and forming PACs and think tanks to capture the next election cycle. Scary news this morning: Trump is the GOP front-runner for 2024. He will be merely 78 at election time, the same age President-elect Biden is now. If Trump wins (God forbid) he will be 82 when he gets impeached in 2028, the same age Generalissimo Francisco Franco was when he died in 1975 just in time to be a buzz-phrase on SNL: 

And this just in -- Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!

After a year such as this one, it's painful to hear that our work is not done but just beginning. We can never let up. Retirees such as me cannot go to Florida and play pickleball all day. We can go to Florida but, the first thing to do after buying up all the sunscreen in Walgreen's is seek out fellow Democrats and get involved. Voting is important but just a tiny piece of this. Work for candidates. Volunteer for good causes. Attend city council meetings and, when necessary, speak up on behalf of accountability. Write biting letters to the editor and use humor when appropriate -- this will make friends among progressives and befuddle authoritarians such as Trump who were born with no sense of humor. 

Democracy is not easy. If it were, everyone would have it.