Ya'll come down to the ranch for a little Western Swing (we love you, Bob Wills)

Alicia Padilla with Wheel Ruts Productions and Ernie November are sponsoring another boffo local concert May 17 at Terry Bison Ranch south of Cheyenne. And we just heard that the Wyomericana Caravan will be coming to Terry Bison Ranch on June 9 to wrap of the four-state swing of three Wyoming bands. Things are looking up around here music-wise. Interesting thing about these concerts showcasing Americana music is that they are more country than the nouveau-country acts that are showcased at Cheyenne Frontier Days.

Register now for the Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference in Laramie June 7-9

I'm one of the faculty this year, but don't let that stop you from registering for the conference at www.wyowriters.org. Deadline for early registration is Friday, May 10. 

Wyoming Equality's "An Evening with the Arts" features artwork, books and music

Wyoming Equality is hosting “An Evening with the Arts" on Saturday, May 11, 6-10 p.m., at Suite 1901, 1901 Central Ave., Cheyenne.

We’re expanding on the art show we held last year and adding more entertainment, unique items and speakers! Reverend Rodger McDaniel will be there signing his new book, “Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins.” This is the fascinating true story of Wyoming’s U.S. Senator, Lester Hunt, being blackmailed by Senator Joe McCarthy over his son’s arrest for soliciting homosexual sex. The blackmail ultimately drove Senator Hunt to commit suicide. Rodger will be talking about his book and signing copies for anyone who would like to purchase the book. He has graciously agreed to donate half the proceeds to Wyoming Equality.

In addition to the book, W.E. will have beautiful works of art, jewelry, pottery, and so much more available for purchase. Several local musicians will also be in attendance sharing their talents with the group. This is a great opportunity to enjoy a fun-filled night with unique items for sale all supporting your favorite advocacy group! 

RSVP at the Facebook event page.

Do women feel safe from online threats in The Equality State?

Wyoming's small community of liberal bloggers has been challenged by the controversy surrounding one of our own, Meg Lanker-Simons of Cognitive Dissonance. We are challenged to stand up for our friend and colleague as she is viciously attacked by those on the right. But we also are perplexed by he reports from the University if Wyoming campus police alleging that Meg has perpetrated a hoax regarding a hateful post on the UW Crushes Facebook site. After a quick investigation of Meg's computer and a two-hour grilling, they charged her with interfering with a police investigation. It carries a penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Meg hired a lawyer and said she will plead not guilty when the case goes to court May 13.

Wyoming liberal bloggess Sarah Zacharias wrote a piece for The Big Slice that sums up some of the tangled feelings being experienced by progressives in our conservative state. Go here: "My Friend Meg-Lanker-Simons -- Not Who the Right Thinks She is." 

One of Sarah's key points is whether women in The Equality State feel safe from threats and violence, especially the online variety. This is how she sums it up:

It isn’t ok to bully Wyoming women. It isn’t ok to harass them online. It isn’t ok to threaten them. It isn’t ok to shame them with their own sense of self. It isn’t ok that my community heard the cry of a victim and the first thing we did was feed the dog that bit her.

That is not and never will be the Wyoming way.

As a fourth generation Wyomingite and a determined voice for Wyoming Women, I proudly stand by Meg. I stand between her and anyone who would disparage a woman who is bold and independent and vocal. This is not how we treat people. Not even women like Meg that some find distasteful, no matter her opinions or her reputation.

Very well said, Sarah.

Welcome to the coal state -- and our cool, energy-efficient welcome center

Southeast Wyoming Welcome Center

Join the Wyoming Office of Tourism, the Department of State Parks & Cultural Resources and the Wyoming Arts Council at a ceremony to dedicate WIND CODE, a sculpture by Laramie artist Stan Dolega, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 4, Southeast Wyoming Welcome Center, north entrance, exit 4 off I-25.

Stan’s sculpture was funded through the Wyoming Art in Public Buildings. It's a great addition to the very cool Welcome Center building, which uses alternative energy sources to supply most of its power. According to its architectural firm:

The design team harnessed sunlight and wind to deliver nearly 40 kW of zero-emissions power—enough to offset more than half of the building's electrical demand. Photovoltaic (solar) panels on the roof and walls of the building generate approximately 27 kW of electricity, while five on-site wind turbines provide the balance of renewable power.

The welcome center's HVAC system was built around a ground source heat pump (geo-exchange) system that utilizes the relatively constant temperature of the earth to provide efficient building heating and cooling and features more than 11 miles of heat-transferring geo-exchange coils buried beneath the 26.6-acre project site. Thermal displacement ventilation—a low-energy-use air distribution system in which incoming air originates low in the space and rises in thermal plumes to exhaust outlets at the ceiling—was implemented for the public and office portions of the facility. In addition to saving energy, thermal displacement ventilation enhances indoor air quality and thermal comfort for building occupants.

Daylight harvesting, which optimizes the amount of healthy natural light brought into building spaces while limiting the use of electric lighting, was enhanced by the welcome center's long axis and relatively narrow width. High-efficiency electric lighting supplements natural daylight when necessary.

Stan Dolega's "Wind Code" sculpture

This ceremony will be part of a 9 a.m.-3 p.m. open house at the Welcome Center celebrating the beginning of National Travel and Tourism Week in Wyoming. Visit the many interactive displays inside which highlights Wyoming's culture, history and energy sources. Interesting to note that this week Gov. Matt Mead announced that Wyoming will mine its ten billionth ton of coal in May. More and more of our coal is destined for China although Washington and Oregon are in a snit about letting thousands of coal trains travel through their bobo urban neighborhoods. Hey, what's not to like about a spritz of coal dust on your mocha latte?

Last Winter Farmers' Market of the season set for Saturday

The Cheyenne Winter Farmers’ Market is held inside the sunny and cozy lobby of the Historic Train Depot Museum in downtown Cheyenne. It features farm and hand-crafted products from Wyoming and the local region. The last one of the season is this Saturday, May 4, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Acoustic Celtic and folk music will be provided by Dave Kramer and Steve Scott. 

What's on tap for Saturday?

• Gourmet local mushrooms
• Farm-fresh eggs, goat and sheep cheese
• Locally roasted fair-trade coffee and herbal teas
• Fresh breads and home-baked treats
• Fresh, local salsa
• Locally made chocolates and candies
• Grass-fed beef, lamb, and bison, free-range chickens, pork, goat's meat
• Locally produced jams, honey, and Amish-style peanut butter
• Take-home BBQ, bratwurst, cabbage burgers, chowders and bisque, smoked wild-caught salmon
• Soup mixes, rubs, and dip mixes
• Natural, locally-produced body care products
• Hand-crafted jewelry, cutting boards, cards, and other hand-made crafts

I've bought a little bit of everything at the market. Last time I went heavy on the pasta from Fort Collins. This time, it's hard to say. I'm so ready for fresh fruits and veggies, but we're still a few months away from that. I grow some of my own but not nearly enough.                  

For more information about the market, please contact Kim Porter, kim.porter@wyo.gov, or Cindy Ridenour, cindyr@meadowmaidfoods.com.     

Update on UW Crushes and Meg Lanker-Simons story

There have been new developments in the story I blogged about on Saturday. What had seemingly been clear has become complicated. This was in today's Laramie Boomerang:

The University of Wyoming Police Department issued a citation Monday afternoon in Albany County Circuit Court for Meg Lanker-Simons, a woman allegedly threatened last week in a social media post.

Authorities allege the post was a hoax.

Lanker-Simons was cited for interference, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and $1,000 fine.

“Subject admitted to making a controversial post on UW Crushes webpage and then lied about not doing it,” according to the citation.

Lanker-Simons is scheduled to appear at 9 a.m. May 13 in Circuit Court. 

Read the rest here.

Meg has publicly denied making this controversial post. This was in today's Casper Star-Tribune:

The UW senior told the Star-Tribune on Tuesday that the police accusations were untrue. Lanker-Simons said she retained legal counsel and filed an entry-of-appearance plea of not guilty. The citation set a court date for May 13. Charles Pelkey, Lanker-Simons’ attorney, declined to comment.

So what's going on here? Stay tuned for more...

Maybe Ponce de Leon had it wrong, and the Fountain of Youth was in Wyoming

Which way to the Fountain of Youth -- and the gold! Painting of Agueybana greeting Juan Ponce de León from the U.S. Military website:www.bragg.army.mil/ 1-295INF/images/MSG%20Pedr... Painting by Puerto Rican artist Agustin Anavitate.

Florida is 500 years old!

Happy birthday, Sunshine State.

This isn’t a real birthday. It marks the year that Juan Ponce de Leon came ashore with his well-armed entourage. So, it celebrates five centuries of conquest. Some 350,000 people were living on the peninsula at the time. They didn’t last long once they were invested with musket balls and European microbes. 

Florida’s peninsula arose from the ancient ocean about 2.5 million years ago. People arrived about 14,000 years ago, riding dinosaurs from Michigan on a spring break trip. Florida was bigger then, as sea levels were lower due to a lot of water being locked up in glaciers. 
   

Population was 4.9 million in 1960. When our family moved there in 1964, the state probably had more than 5 million souls, making it the 10^th most populous state in the U.S.

These days, it boasts almost 20 million souls, most of whom can be found at Disney World the day that I decide to take my family there. It is now the fourth most populous state, right behind California, Texas and New York. I currently live in the least populous state, Wyoming, right behind North Dakota, Alaska and Vermont. 

The New York Times reviewed a new book about Florida by reporter T.D. Allman. It’s called “Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State.” Here’s what one fantastic Florida-based author, Bob Shacochis (“The Immaculate Invasion”), says about the book:

"I loved Allman's extraordinary book. … Almost every county in Florida bears the name of a butcher, a slavedriver, a madman, a scoundrel or a thief, in a state where for half a millennium the governing mandate seems to be Defeat the Truth, Triumph over Reality. T.D. Allman's counter-narrative to all the pretty lies is a scouring hurricane of research, investigation, and soul-cleansing wrath, and I doubt there has ever been a better, or more important, book written about the Sunshine State, the birthplace of imperial hubris, American-style."

And here’s another Florida writer, Les Standiford (“Last Train to Paradise” and the excellent John Deal series):

"Equal parts social analysis, historical review, and jeremiad, Finding Florida is a passionate, often scathing, and remarkably comprehensive encounter with a confounding, contradictory, and ever-elusive place. If your idea of hell is being chained to a galley oar between a politician and a Chamber of Commerce exec, then you are likely to love this book."

Some customer reviews on Amazon weren’t as effusive: “50% Bluster, 50% Politics,” said one. “A tirade masquerading as history,” said another.

Still, I have to put it on my reading list. I lived in Florida from 1964-78 (with time away for two years of college in South Carolina), which were incredible growth years for me and for the state. Those were my formative years, ages 13 to 27. I went to a high school named after a priest who accompanied Ponce de Leon on his strange quest to find the Fountain of Youth. I graduated from a university that trained most of the state’s politicos, the good (Walkin’ Lawton Chiles) and the bad (UF’s massive football stadium is named after Katherine Harris’s grandfather – yes, that Katherine Harris), which makes me wonder what they were teaching in those poli sci classes. Disney World arose from the dense woodlands and swamps of Central Florida. Miami became the capital of vice and cocaine. Millions of northerners moved into massive developments such as Palm Coast and The Villages. 

And I moved West to Denver, my birthplace, and eventually to Wyoming. The state celebrates its quasquicentennial as a state in 2015, although it is quite a bit older to judge by those dino skeletons I keep unearthing in my yard. I recently dug up a skeletal horse-like creature with a horn on his snout. My daughter says it’s a unicorn but I’m skeptical. Didn’t horned creatures roam the Wyoming savannahs way back when?

I’m part southerner and part westerner. Color me confused. Most of my writing used to take place in the South. Now it’s set in Wyoming and Colorado. I’ve been in Wyoming for 22 years (with two years in D.C. in the mid-90s). But it’s all about people, isn’t it? They are incredibly complicated no matter where you go.

As a helpful guide to my readers, I will put two of my stories on this blog's pages section in a few days. One is set in Florida. One is set in Wyoming. Read them and see what you think. Critiques are welcomed. 

Meanwhile, I must get back to my reading. Latest book is the startling memoir, “When Katie Awakes,” by Florida writer Connie May Fowler. Connie will travel to Wyoming in the fall. More about that later. 

Leukemia is a family affair

My brother Dan found a match.

I wrote over the weekend about Dan’s search for a bone marrow donor. Millions of people are on the donor registry, but very few have just the right qualities to match Dan’s metabolism.

Dan was diagnosed with leukemia just before the 2012 holidays. The holidays, it seems, are a dangerous time for the Shay family. I celebrated them by having a heart attack. My brother Dan celebrated them by going into the hospital for a gall bladder surgery that turned into a diagnosis for acute myeloid leukemia. Five of my other siblings spent Yuletide swabbing the inside of their cheeks and spending the swabs off to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Our sister Molly did not return a swab kit because the Italian post office was on strike, or maybe it was the railroads or the airlines.  Anyway, she finally located her kit at the P.O. and sent it off to Houston.

The first almost-perfect match for Dan was our sister Mary, who is the youngest. It’s better to have a match among family members, as the rejection rate is lower. Mary was excited to be the chosen one. My sister Maureen thought she was going to be the chosen one, as she and Dan have a lot in common.  But Maureen was not a match.

I was not tested. My recent heart attack and my advancing age left me out. Age, it seems, is not as big an obstacle as my medical condition. Donating marrow takes a toll on the body. The docs prefer to have donors between the ages of 18-44, although they will use those in the 45-60 range. Once you reach 60, though, the strain on the donor’s body is higher and the quality of marrow is lower. Since I’ve already had one heart attack, I could easily have another.

My sister Mary is afraid to fly. So, she drove from Tallahassee to Houston with Maureen and Dan. A few days after arrival, Mary went in for a battery of tests while Dan underwent another round of chemo. Complications arose. Not with Dan but with Mary. X-rays detected a spot on her right lung. More pictures were taken. The docs decided to do a biopsy. Results showed cancer. The docs decided to remove the middle lobe of Mary’s lung and the take a look at the lymph nodes while they were at it. Mary, of course, is stunned by this turn of events. People tell her that she’s lucky to be at MD Anderson, the best place in the world for cancer treatment. She agrees, but can’t help asking, “Why me?” She wonders why she’s the only one crying in a hospital filled with cancer patients from all over the globe. Her answer: “They knew they had cancer before they came here. I didn’t.”

Mary had cancer and Dan no longer had a donor, as current cancer patients are not good risks. Mary will be operated on at MD Anderson on May 28. Dan returned to Florida to find a new donor. Local fund-raisers and donor sign-ups were held for him in Daytona and Ormond Beach. News finally came last week that Dan had a 20-year-old donor that fit the bill.

Then came a surprise. The long-delayed kit from our sister Molly landed at MD Anderson. The preliminary test showed promise. When the final results came in, Molly was as good a match as Mary, although slightly older. Apparently, a 57-year-old sibling is a better prospect than a 20-year-old stranger.

There’s a catch. Molly is finishing up a stint as a lactation specialist at Aviano AFB in Italy. She’s been over there for more than a year. She likes her job and, on days off, is learning a lot about fine Italian wines and food. She has traveled to the Vatican and to Venice and Croatia. But she still needs to wrap things up before arrivederci. She’ll be back in the states in late May, make her donation and head back to her home in Tallahassee. She will have to rest up from jet lag and marrow lag.

Dan will receive his transplant of cells and will be in Houston recovering for 100-some days. His body will be vulnerable after the infusion of our sister’s cells. Infections can occur. I’ll probably fly down to see him for a week. I’ll be recuperating from surgery to implant an ICD which will keep my heart beating regularly – and prevent catastrophic heart failure. Just call it the rhythm method. I got rhythm, who could ask for anything more?

The rhythm method? That was my parents birth control process, which is one reason they had nine kids. But if they had used another more trustworthy method, Dan would not have all of these wonderful siblings and their transplant-friendly bone marrow. My wife Chris and I used to joke around with our son and daughter. When they were fighting, we’d caution them: “You may need a kidney someday.” We didn’t realize the truth in that statement.  You may need a kidney someday, or a batch of bone marrow. 

On the Cheyenne Day of Giving May 10, the person you save may be your brother -- or mine

Every four minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with a blood cancer like leukemia. A few months ago, my brother Dan in Florida was one of them, and he's looking for a bone marrow donor. Watch this video and find your local donation program. In Cheyenne, you can register to be a bone marrow donor at the annual Day of Giving, Friday, May 10, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Kiwanis Community House in Lions Park. See you there! The person you save may be my brother -- or yours.

UW Crushes Facebook site goes dark after hateful post targets Laramie prog-blogger

My friend and fellow prog-blogger Meg Lanker-Simons in Laramie was attacked online this week. Here's what an unidentified person said on the Facebook page UW Crushes:

I want to hatefuck Meg Lanker-Simons so hard. That chick that runs her liberal mouth all the time and doesn't care who knows it. I think its hot and makes me angry. One night with me and shes gonna be a good Republican bitch.

This is verbatim. There are so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start. Would this person countenance someone saying this about his sister, wife, girlfriend or mother? If not, why is he saying this about someone else in public? He must think that such comments are OK. Where did he learn that? At home? From his UW pals? Talk radio? These attitudes are in plentiful supply on the web and on conservative talk radio. Sure, some of these words are not allowed on the airwaves. But hateful anti-women messages spew regularly from the big mouths of Limbaugh and Hannity and even women commentators such as Ann Coulter.

The UW Crushes site no longer exists on Facebook. The attitudes, alas, continue. After the story broke, Meg received a barrage of hateful anonymous comments on her Tumblr site, Cognitive Dissonance. I won't repeat any of them here. For the first time ever, Meg had to block anonymous posts. That's saying something for the most outspoken liberal blogger in the most conservative state in the U.S.

We always want to know who's to blame when these things happen. UW Crushes was not an official UW web site, although it carried the university's name and featured its logo. The UW administration had distanced itself from the site that posted "crushes" involving university students. That made it a throwback to the original Facebook at Harvard, if the "Social Network" film can be believed. It seems a stretch to blame UW for the transgressions of one person who may not even be a student. The site's administrators confessed to being engineering students too busy to monitor every status update. One wonders if they will be too busy to monitor the computer systems, nuclear plants and bridges they will be building after graduation.

We could blame Wyoming's conservative culture. Conservatives have had a particularly tough time keeping their prejudicial attitudes to themselves. Remember all of the dumb things Republicans said in the most recent election cycle? Remember Akin's "legitimate rape" and Romney's "47 percent?" Even big-time conservatives like Bobby Jindal have told their colleagues to quit being so dumb in public. That didn't stop some of our Republican legislators for saying stupidisms about the LGBT community during the civil unions debate at the 2013 session. Women in the Equality State continue to experience inequality in the workplace. And they continue to be slapped around at an alarming rate by their menfolk. Violence, alas, is an American as apple pie and is served up often to women.

Wyoming is not the only place in the world where some men profess a need to rape women into docile, compliant serfs. But it's the place I call home and this kind of attitude must stop. I have a wife and a daughter and some day will have grandchildren and I don't want any of them to be subjected to violence.

Simpson's Plaza at the University of Wyoming is the site of a demonstration against UW Crushes and rape culture in Wyoming. It will be held on Monday, April 29, 11 a.m.

Graduation day at cardiac rehab

I graduated from cardiac rehab. After 36 sessions, I'm a new man. Call me Bob.

I entered cardiac rehab a shadow of my former self. I had a heart attack at Christmas and congestive heart failure to greet the new year. The docs inserted a stent on Jan. 4, and I was a hospital guest for a week. I started cardiac rehab in late January following several weeks at home of bad TV and bad juju.

I worked my way up from performing a few puny exercises into a super-colossus doing a whole bunch of puny exercises. The nurses and exercise physiologists shouted encouragement at every turn. "Don't hurt yourself with those two-pound barbells!" "You're not supposed to lie down on the treadmill!" Stuff like that.

I now move over to a 12-session regimen at the CRMC Exercise Center. It's staffed by the same nursing staff. Rumor has it that they really make you sweat over there. They use new and ingenious exercise devices to make your heart wake up and smell the coffee. I hear they even have coffee.

But no doughnuts.

Wish me luck.

Wyoming Dems plan ballot referendum to repeal Republican unpaid wages bill

Good! 

This comes from the Casper Star-Tribune:

The state Democratic party’s Central Committee will push a ballot referendum to repeal a new law on payment of unpaid wages on grounds it is detrimental to Wyoming employees. House Bill 79 was sponsored by Rep. Tim Stubson, R-Casper, and is known as the “Collection of Unpaid Wages” bill. 

The bill changed the statute that authorized the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services to determine and collect claims for unpaid wages on behalf of employees. 

It changed the definition of wages to exclude the value of vacation time accrued at the time of an employee’s termination if the employer’s written policies provide for forfeiture of accrued vacation upon termination, and those policies are acknowledged in writing by the employee. 

The bill passed the House 45-14 and the Senate 19-11, with Democrats in both houses voting no. 

Republican Gov. Matt Mead signed the bill into law. It goes into effect July 1.

Read the rest here.

Wyoming Young Writer's Camp finds a new home

My son Kevin attended the Young Writers Camp for five of his teen years. The camp, geared to secondary school students ages 15-18, was held at the Thorne-Rider Youth Camp near the appropriately-named Story for a dozen years. Before that, YWC was held on the grounds of the Ucross Artist Residency Program. Poet Jane Wohl ran the show until she started teaching full time at Sheridan College. YWC alum Micah Wyatt then took over the reins, with assistance from his sister Danica, California poet Jesse Loesberg, and some guest writers, such as me, who dropped in to teach a workshop around the campfire in 2006.

Kevin was still in junior high the first time he went to camp. He loved it. During his checkered high school career, when he regularly skipped algebra and science to board at the adjacent skate park, he never missed camp. Ten years later, he keeps in touch with a whole group of YWC alums. 

After a hiatus of several years, the camp will be held July 27-August 2 at the Northern Wyoming Community College District Spear-O-Wigwam Mountain Campus in the Big Horns. Instructors are poet/attorney/musician Micah Wyatt, fiction writer Christine Fadden and Kara Bacon. Registration fee is $300. To register, go to http://www.sheridan.edu/site/spearowigwam/register-now/

According to the NWCCD web site, the Spear-O-Wigwam grounds is the site of a literary landmark. During the summer of 1928, Ernest Hemingway wrote the first draft of "A Farewell to Arms" in one of the Spear-O-Wigwam cabins. The semi-autobiographical novel was serialized in Scribner’s magazine from May to October 1929, bringing Hemingway international acclaim as the Great Depression began. Even today, the book is recognized as an emblematic narrative of the World War I generation.

Hemingway's old stomping grounds may be a pretty good place for a 16-year-old to find his/her Muse.

Wyoming GOPers get ready to rumble in 2014

Today's Casper Star-Tribune lead editorial carried news of a brewing Republican rumble.

The Wyoming GOP Central Committee recently approved a resolution to repeal Senate File 104 -- the so-called "Hill Bill." SF 104 stripped State Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill of most of her superintendent duties. She and her minions were unceremoniously moved from her suite at the Hathaway Building to a bunker in an undisclosed location. Hill only has a few duties left in her job description. Those include roles as the state graham-cracker-and-milk monitor and manager of arithmetic flash cards.

Republicans are miffed. Thing is, SF 104 was a Republican-generated bill. The Central Committee is the steering mechanism for the WY GOP. It appears that the CC was egged on by the Constitution Party and Tea Party members in its ranks. So one core group of Repubs was responsible for the bill that removed Hill, and another core group of Repubs want to repeal said bill.

To make matters more complicated, Hill is suing Gov. Mead for signing off on the bill, and has announced she is running for governor in 2014.

This clash will further alienate Wyoming's usually sensible conservative majority. They may come out in droves to vote for Mead's reelection, or they may sit home in disgust. They may even vote for the Democratic Party candidate, as they often have in the past. Thanks to solid support by Democrats and a sizable bloc of moderate Republicans, I have spent more than half of my 22 years in Wyoming serving a Democrat in the State Capitol. They were Mike Sullivan and Dave Freudenthal. What Dem might run in 2014? Maybe Nancy Freudenthal could be tempted to give up her judge's robes for the many pairs of sensible shoes it takes to go door-to-door in a gubernatorial run. Probable not very likely. Who else is waiting in the wings?

Good question. The Dems have had a tough time fielding good candidates for Gov and other state elected offices. Laramie Democrat Mike Massie was the best candidate for the state superintendent's job in 2010. That was the year of the Tea Party's rise, when it was the kiss of death to have a "D" by your name on the ballot. About Hill, we can now say to Republicans: "We told you so."

We may take the same stance in 2014. How delicious it will be to sit on the sidelines and witness the GOP bloodletting. Problem is, it will be a huge embarrassment to the state. As the CST put it:

The answer will impact far more than education. The near future of the GOP in Wyoming, given the disparate percentage of Republicans here. will dictate the long-term fate of Wyoming.

Businesses are watching. Tourists are watching. Entrepreneurs are watching. The energy sector is watching.

Gov. Mead is a moderate on most things. Yes, he was part of the ridiculous  lawsuit over the Affordable Care Act, and he's stubbornly resisted Medicaid expansion. But he is a strong supporter of economic development in our communities and tourism. He knows that the state's future has more to do with high technology, education, entrepreneurs and creatives than it does with the extractive industries and whether or not a person can carry a gun into his favorite restaurant.

Sure it would be fun watch a GOP Battle Royal. But if you like this place and its people (as I do), you hope for something more civilized.

Nice horsey. Wheeze. Cough. Gasp!

In my childhood dreams, I was Roy riding Trigger while Dale Evans cheered us on. I had a serious crush on Trigger and Dale.

My cowboying experience is limited.

As a kid, I yearned to ride the range with Roy Rogers and John Wayne. My favorite shows were all westerns: Gunsmoke, Cheyenne, Bonanza, The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, Sugarfoot, Have Gun Will Travel, Maverick, and so on. I galloped through my dreams on Trigger or Silver or any number of TV horses.

In reality, I couldn't get anywhere near a horse without heavy wheezing and gasping for breath. I had asthma, and horses and hay and tree pollen and weeds and cats were the enemy. That ruled out any horseback riding, or even horseback viewing from a close proximity. Petting zoos were out of the question.

It was tough on a kid of the West.

I was 27 and living in Florida the first time I rode a horse. My asthma had abated, and a nice young woman named Chris had asked me to accompany her on a horseback ride. This nice young woman had owned a horse at one time, and had been riding since she was a kid. I asked her if she would help me pick out a very docile horse, the kind of horse which would be nice to a newbie. "What's the fun in that?" she said with a smile.

At the stables, she selected a steed with spirit, and then found an old nag for me. We rode along together for awhile, and then she asked if I minded if she galloped ahead. She took off, horse hooves pounding the ground, disappearing into the Central Florida forest. My horse and I galumphed along. Eventually we rounded a bend to find Chris standing in the trail next to her horse. Chris has sand and twigs in her hair. The horse had an innocent look on his face.

"He threw me," Chris said. She held up her right hand. "And he stomped on my hand."

I regarded her nice hand. "Is it broken."

She flexed it. "No. I'm glad the ground's sandy."

I patted my horse, urged her to not get any bad ideas from her colleague. Chris got up on her horse and we rode together for the rest of the afternoon. It was a warm January day, the kind of days tourists flock to Florida for. We rode into the sunset and later got married, moved back to the West and had kids, only occasionally taking time for horseback riding. I must admit that I have successfully ridden horses a half-dozen times.

I'm no cowboy.

But I just published a story entitled "Cowboy Stories." It's part of a new anthology from Colorado's Western Press, "Manifest West." It features poetry, essays and short stories about contemporary cowboys. My fictional cowboy is an urban variety, but has little to do with John Travolta or saloon line dancing. He's just an old cowboy who hangs around a Cheyenne downtown dive bar and tells stories. He has lots of stories. It was seem as if he's too old to have adventures, but he's not. He gets mixed up with some animal rights advocates and some coasters making a film about the New West. Hijinks ensue.

Read the story to find out what happens. Keep posted as to publication dates by going to Western Press at Western State Colorado University in Gunnison.

Hi-yo Silver! Away!

I like beverage stories with heavy peach tones and a profoundly bitter bite

I know that it’s trendy to want to know the origins of what you eat and drink. Much fun has been made of foodies and craft beer snobs on Portlandia. There was that one memorable episode when a foodie duo was adamant about finding the name and origins of the chicken they were about to consume. 

This isn’t new. Mo Siegel, founder of Boulder’s Celestial Seasonings, composed paeans to his Rocky Mountain teas on each box.  Ben & Jerry are side-of-the-ice-cream-carton storytellers. Every inch of Dr. Bonner’s Pure Castile Peppermint Soap is filled was advice to the human race:  “Do one thing at a time, work hard! Enlarge the positive!” He loved exclamation marks!!!!!

Not all of these are edible, although Dr. Bonner swore that his soap had 18-in-1 uses. But you get my point – advertising has long told stories on the sides of cans and boxes and bags. I read all about Frosted Flakes and Sugar Pops at the breakfast able. No mention was made of the cereal’s sugar content, which was probably 1001%. Storytelling can be very selective.

Today, our beers and wines and food come with stories. I bought a batch of Clif Bars yesterday at Safeway. These are actually energy bars that taste good. They are high in protein and low in sodium with no trans fat. Sugar is high, so my diabetic wife cannot eat them. The stories are good. The bar is named after founder Gary’s father, Clifford. Gary tells the story about how he was living in a garage “with my dog, my skis, climbing gear, bicycle and two trumpets.” He went on a long bike ride with his friend Jay and experienced an epiphany when he “couldn’t take another bite” of those “other” energy bars. So he spent two years in his mother’s kitchen perfecting his own energy bars, which you can find at any supermarket.  Kind of a nice story, right? He’s probably moved out of that garage, too, although I wonder what he did with his twin trumpets? 

I came across a bottle of wine with a story the other night at Uncle Charlie’s. The red wine is on the Dreaming Tree label and is called “Crush” after a song by Dave Matthews, one of the partners in the vineyard. On the back of the bottle, he tells a story about dogs in the back of a pick-up. Not sure what that has to do with blending Merlot and Zinfandel to get “Crush,” but I’m willing to cut the guy some slack. 

Craft breweries excel in beer label stories.New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins has a story for each of its beers. Here's the story for its new Rampant Imperial IPA:

A burly and bitter Imperial IPA, Rampant pours a pure copper and carries the sheen of a rightly hopped beer. The Mosaic and Calypso hops bring stonefruit to the front seat, and the addition of Centennials nod towards citrus for a well-rounded aroma.

The taste expands these hops with heavy peach tones and a profoundly bitter bite. There is some malt sweetness to stand this beer up, and Rampant’s finish is bone-dry.

As stories go, it's no Rick Bass or Flannery O'Connor. But we beer drinkers appreciate its bone-dry finish.

I should say "we former beer drinkers." I'm drinking red wine now, in limited qualities. I could say it's doctor's orders. My cardiologist did say that red wine is a better choice than beer, even those that bring stonefruit to the front seat. Red wine outdoes beer in the resveratrol and flavonoid categories.Tastes pretty good too.

It's all in the story....

Marcia Tatroe talks about "Embellishing the Garden with Art" April 20

My father's Irish sweater

It’s April 16 in Wyoming, the snow is falling and I’m wearing my father’s cream-colored cableknit cardigan. Sometimes it’s called an Aran sweater or, in Ireland, an Aran jumper. It wasn’t made on the islands but in the village of Glen Columb Kille in Donegal. 

My father didn’t get the sweater in Ireland because he never traveled there. That’s what the Internet is for, to order Irish sweaters online and have them delivered a few days later by the UPS man. A few members of Dad's family have been back to Ireland since Thomas O’Shea and family departed the potato famine in 1848. My father was overseas just once and that was during WWII. He was stationed in England but didn’t make the jump over the Irish Sea.  He did make the jump over the English Channel, as did his father in WWI. They both got to France to fight Germans but didn't make it to The Old Sod.

Aran jumpers have a history. I didn’t know that until I looked them up on the Internet. Aran Island women used to make the sweaters from unscoured wool so that the lanolin remained in the fiber to deflect the moisture faced by their fisherman husbands. They didn’t keep them afloat, alas, as many went down to the sea in ships (and boats). In fact, once the fishermen went into the drink the sweaters probably got waterlogged and dragged the lads to their deaths.

My sweater was knitted with a rope design, meant for either a Boy Scout, a hangman or a fisherman. I looked it up on the Aran Sweater Market web site. I couldn't find my design there, although I was pleased to see that I could buy an O'Shea clan sweater for $199. More than 500 Irish clans have their own sweater design, according to the site. 

O’Shea is the Anglicisation of the original Gaelic Ó Séaghada, which comes from the personal name meaning ‘hawk-like’ or ‘fortunate’. The sept was located in the Barony of Iveragh in County Kerry, where they were lords until the 12th century. Some of the family migrated to counties Tipperary and Kilkenny as early as the 14th century. In Kilkenny the name is often spelled O’Shee. One of the most famous O’Sheas was Katharine, or Kitty, who was the mistress of Charles Stuart Parnell.

The hand knit O’Shea sweater (shown at right) incorporates the blackberry, rope, honeycomb, link, and zig-zag stitches. The blackberry stitch represents the Holy Trinity, rope represents good luck, honeycomb is symbolic of work, link stands for the unbroken chain between the Irish that emigrate and those who remain at home, and the zig zag stitch symbolises the ups and downs of marriage. This beautiful Aran sweater has been hand knitted in the traditional báinín (pronounced ‘baw neen’) colour, the natural white of the wool. It comes to you complete with a clan history and crest. It is made of 100% pure new wool, is water repellent and breathable. It has been hand crafted in the traditional Irish style, and, with care, will last a lifetime.

That's a lot of thought going into one sweater. And is there an "unbroken chain between the Irish that emigrate and those who remain at home?" I feel very Irish-American but not very Irish. Quite a few generations separate me from Thomas O'Shea. My maternal grandfather, Martin Hett, emigrated from Ireland to England when he was 12. He labored in coal mines for five years until he could afford the trip to America. Grandpa Martin lived to be 90. During his 72 years as an expatriate, he never returned to Ireland. His memories were of privation, a drunken father, an evil stepmother and sadistic priests. Not the kind of memories that breeds nostalgia.

Despite all that, I celebrate my Irish roots. I may even get an O'Shea sweater. It may never stop snowing here in The New Sod.

Celebrate Earth Day! Buy a Bulgemobile!

Bruce McCall's Bulgemobiles, first seen in National Lampoon.

I was a clean-cut lad of 19 when the first Earth Day was christened on April 22, 1970. I remember it well. The magnolias, dogwoods and the Carolina coeds were all in bloom. Not that it mattered much, as my chances were better going out on the town with a bloomin' tree than a real-live coed, most of whom seemed to be focused on their hippie boyfriends. A year later, I would trade my weekly ROTC haircuts for none at all. But in the spring on 1970, I was one squared-away but clueless guy. I was unaware that such a thing as Earth Day had sprouted amidst the counterculture. The earth was a mess. Polluted American rivers, such as the Cleveland's Cuyahoga, caught fire regularly. A few years earlier, Rachel Carson's had exposed the deadly effects of pesticides in Silent Spring. Counterculture types were getting back to the earth with Whole Earth Catalog as their bible and ganja as their guide.

Here it is, 43 years later, and Earth Day has shown a surprising persistence. In some places it's treated as an official holiday, without the day off and newspaper advertising supplements. Celebrate Earth Day! Buy a Bulgemobile!

Yesterday, while perusing the library's electronic card catalog, I saw a number of Earth Day books, most geared to young readers. There were surprisingly few for adults, although there is a new bio of Rachel Carson. The library had plenty of titles on climate change and global warming, many reflecting the battle over the topics, one that has been settled on the side of real science instead of right-wing fantasies.

Governmental entities are even getting into the act when it comes to sponsoring Earth Day events. The much-maligned Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sponsoring a bunch of Earth Day events all over the U.S. Our region (CO, MT, etc.) boasts a number of them. Alas, there are none in Wyoming, which should make WY Rep. Cynthia Lummis very happy.

My employer, the Wyoming Division of State Parks and Cultural Resources, has teamed up with the Cheyenne Parks and Recreation Department to celebrate Earth Day and National Let’s Get Outside Day at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens' Paul Smith Children’s Village on Saturday, April 20, from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. Activities including the making of trash robots, plant necklaces, a story time and a Story Walk, featuring the Giving Tree. Parents are encouraged to recycle old garden hoses by bringing them to the event for use at the Children’s Village. FMI: Ashley Rooney at 307-777-6560 or Ashley.rooney@wyo.gov.

In the "health and fitness" category, local gubment is stepping up to the plate with Step Up Cheyenne. What does health and fitness have to do with the environment? You don't want to be the human equivalent of a bulgemobile, do you? My family participated in StepUp last spring and summer and it did wonders in reducing our unwanted bulges. Walking 10,000 steps a day took 20 pounds off of me, leading to a svelte appearance that caused me to consume fewer resources. This is a public-private collaboration, sponsored by businesses (Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, WinHealth Partners) in partnership with Cheyenne Parks & Rec, Cheyenne Greenway Foundation, Laramie County School District No. 1 and a host of others.