Help save the University of Wyoming Creative Writing M.F.A. Program

This comes from a Nov. 17 Facebook post by writer and UW prof Nina Swamidoss McConigley of Laramie:

Hey friends -- due to budget cuts, UW has proposed eliminating the wonderful, nationally-ranked creative writing M.F.A. program.

As a current student pointed out, this program is a vital way to provide a diverse set of writers fully-funded opportunities to write from and about an underrepresented place. Graduates from the program have published so many books -- last year, Kali Fajardo-Anstine was a finalist for the National Book Award.

If you care about the arts, communication about rural communities, and opportunities for young writers, it would mean the world to me if you could sign & share this petition to save the program:

https://www.change.org/.../university-of-wyoming-save-the...

You can also email your comments to: progrevw@uwyo.edu

This is a travesty. Many fine writers have been through the University of Wyoming Creative Writing Program. It sponsors many visiting writers and has strengthened state's writing community. Along with Performing Arts and Visual Arts, the program makes UW a destination for creative people all over the country and especially in the Rocky Mountain region. To jettison the program just as its value is being appreciated would be a terrible thing.

The state legislature has wasted years ignoring that hard times were coming for oil and coal, traditionally major sources of revenue. The handwriting was not just on the wall but everywhere you looked. Still, nothing was done and now we are facing the loss of an entity that helps make Wyoming great. Don't let them do this.

Sign the petition at the link above. Send your comments to progrevw@uwyo.edu

I earned my M.F.A. in creative writing at Colorado State University. I then went on to be the literature program manager at the Wyoming Arts Council and spent two years as assistant director of the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Program. The M.F.A. took me in unexpected directions. I was a published writer when I entered the M.F.A. program in 1988. I I had no idea there was such a thing as the Colorado Council on the Arts (now Colorado Creative Industries) that gave fellowships m to individual artists and grants to orgs to put on readings, workshops and festivals.

In grad school, I signed up for the artist roster that funds writers in schools. I had my first assignment to a school on the high prairie when I landed the job at the Wyoming Arts Council. My experience in arts administration was limited to a stint on the CSU Fine Arts Series. I helped bring some incredible writers to campus with a budget provided by student fees and grants to the local arts agency, the state arts council and the National Endowment for the Arts. My first grant to Fort Fund was rejected. Damn -- this is harder than it looks. When I interviewed with the WAC in the summer of 1991, I had no experience in what it took to generate money for arts programs. I was a writer with corporate PR experience and stints as a newspaper reporter. The WAC hired me anyway.

I'll write more about my arts council experience later. Now it's time to save the UW program that will allow its graduates to pursue writing careers and act as springboard to the arts administration world. Other grads teach on every level from K-12 to graduate school. They all are on a mission to present the written and spoken word to the world. A tall task. But we are up to the challenge.

As I was writing this, WyoFile published a piece by Jeffrey Lockwood, a prof who splits his time between creative writing and entomology (arts and sciences). He makes some good points in the essay but it comes back to this: UW can eliminate and outstanding yet small program in the liberal arts and nobody will care. As Lockwood tells it:

Perhaps the creative writing faculty and our students have done ourselves no favors by publishing essays, articles and books that are critical of powerful individuals and structures. However, our task as writers is the pursuit of beauty, truth and right — and this may not align with corporate profits, legislative orthodoxy and status quo ideology. I don’t want to believe that the cut is political retribution, although those in power have demonstrated their willingness to punish troublemakers. Rather, I believe that the university’s course of action is based on the assumption that there will be little or no blowback.

It could make all the difference if you found the time to communicate with the UW Board of Trustees, president and the (acting) dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. Or send your support to an email dedicated to public feedback: progrevw@uwyo.edu

Writers write. What are you waiting for?

Curiosity can lead an artist down exciting and dangerous paths

WyoFile's Studio Wyoming Review posted my review Friday of Georgia Rowswell's exhibit, "Crazy," at the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper.

Here's the opener:

The “Crazy” exhibit at The Nic sent me to my room to find out where my clothes come from.   

Dress shirts from the Dominican Republic. Pants from Cambodia. Sweaters from China. I have drawers filled with T-shirts: Made in Haiti; Fabrique au Vietnam; Hecho en Bangladesh. There are blue jeans from Mexico and sweatpants from Guatemala. I look at clothes labels when I shop. I hope one will read “Made in USA.” It’s a rare find in the 21st century. Our apparel industry went offshore decades ago and is not coming back. 

“Crazy – A Contemporary Quilt about Fashion’s Pressing Problems” opened at Casper’s Nicolaysen Art Museum in September and will be up through Dec. 27. It is one section of a solo exhibit, “Layer, Fold, Unfold,” that features Georgia Rowswell’s fabric art pieces made from thrift-store clothes. Also on display are her “Hot Yellowstone” series and several Wyoming landscapes in “found drawers and boxes.” 

The exhibit asks that opening question: Where do your clothes come from? Instead of a stern lecture, Georgia displays the answer across a wall at the Nic. A good question, one that sparked the Cheyenne artist's interest in finding origins for the many clothing items she collects at thrift shops to make her fabric art. Clothes have labels and Georgia collected items from 36 countries for what some might call a tapestry but the artist calls an embroidery. 

Read the rest of the story at WyoFile's Contemporary fiber art show tackles fashion's pressing problems. And then you can find out your clothing's origins. 

Georgia's curiosity about the origins of her clothes mirrors a similar question asked by author Katherine Standefer. After surgeons implanted a defibrillator in her chest at 24, she wondered about the origins of the materials that go into making this life-saving device. Her book, Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life, explores the author's quest to find out where the titanium, cobalt and other crucial elements and metals are mined. It's a dirty business. She also visited another part of the supply chain: the steel-and-glass "clean rooms" at the L.A. plant that made her device. 

I read the book and attended a writing workshop (sponsored by Jackson Hole Writers) conducted online by Katherine. I was curious about the same things Katherine was because I also have an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator in my chest. A 2013 heart attack damaged my heart and the ICD is there in case I experience an out of control atrial fibrillation (afib) that could stop my heart. I rarely think about it these days but Katherine's book piqued my curiosity and taught me a few things that I didn't know. Part of her book is set in Jackson, Wyo., which brings her story even closer to home.

Curiosity prompted creation of some magnificent artwork and an exciting nonfiction book that reads like a thriller. We all should have such curious minds. 

Agnes McDermott: The open road in an open car

A recommendation letter written on official stationery from United States Post-Office No. 18859, Mason, Ohio:

July 27, 1914

To Whom It May Concern:

            This letter will introduce you to Miss Agnes McDermott, who was employed by me for three and one half years, as Assistant Post Mistress, at this office. This work consisted of general office work, together with some bookkeeping.

            As to her integrity, honesty, capability and Christian character, I have the highest respect, only words of praise to offer in her behalf.

            It is a pleasure for me to recommend her, and I do so knowing from personal observation, that she is worthy of any position she may seek.

            Very Truly,

            Orville L. Girton, Postmaster

Nice rec letter. It came to me with other family documents. It was in two pieces, paper brown with age, frayed edges. I had to tape it together to read it.

I see my 25-year-old grandmother leaving her job with the fresh letter in hand intent on seeking a new and worthy position in Warren County, Ohio, only 22 miles away from downtown Cincinnati. Mason had but 737 residents when Agnes joined the P.O.

I don’t know what Agnes did after leaving the P.O. I do know that she lived with relatives, her sister Julia and brother Leo. I know that she took a road trip with chums to Colorado sometime between 1918-1920. Or maybe she and her pals set off for Colorado the summer after she left the P.O. Whenever she went, it was no mean feat. Motorcars were such a new addition to the landscape that highways were almost nonexistent.

I have no “On the Road” journal entries from Agnes but I do have plenty from Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Eisenhower’s First Transcontinental Motor Convoy in the summer of 1919. Army cars and trucks drove 3,251 miles from D.C. to San Francisco in 62 days. You can read the convoy’s daily log online. The log reported that the roads that my grandmother and friends drove from Ohio to Colorado were chucky, pine brick, fair but very dusty, gumbo mud, sandy with some quicksand, soft sand gumbo and, intermittently, good gravel roads. West of North Platte, Neb., many of the convoy's vehicles had to be rescued from a 200-yard stretch of quicksand. Dust was a constant problem, clogging carburetors and fuel lines. Cars and Army trucks broke down and slid off of bad roads. 

Agnes didn’t get to travel across Wyoming as she and her pals detoured south to Colorado. Eisenhower & Company encountered lots of Wyoming wind (no surprise) and rickety bridges built for travel by horse and wagon. It was good that engineer unit was part of the convoy as they had to strengthen some bridges and rebuild others.

Eisenhower was late to cross-country travel. Between 1913-16, suffragists made at least three long-distance automobile trips to promote the suffrage amendment. The earliest, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, was in 1913 when women drivers from all 48 states took turns driving cross-country collecting signatures on petitions calling for a national suffrage amendment. These women crusaders confronted some of the same problems as Eisenhower’s expedition although they didn’t have a platoon of engineers to help them over the rough spots. Sara Bard Field’s and Marie Kindberg’s 1915 tour in an open-air Oldsmobile included a “machinist” and she saw plenty of action. In 1916, Nell Richardson, Alice Burke and their kitten Saxon drove their “Golden Flier” 10,000 miles visiting cities coast-to-coast.

Grandma was not a suffragist. Somehow, she and her friends made it the 1,194 miles to Denver and explored the Rocky Mountains by automobile along dirt roads, some little more than one tracks cut into a steep mountainside that probably got its start as a mule trail or even a trail blazed by Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. Grandma loved the mountains and returned to stay. 

Agnes may have used her post office reference while job hunting. She worked as a domestic when she met my grandfather, Martin Hett, at a Hibernian Club function. Cities with largest Irish immigrant populations boasted at least one chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, named after references to ancient Ireland by the Greeks and Romans. Denver had three AOH clubs.

My grandparents were an odd match, this tiny ex-postmistress from Ohio a decade older than my tall, lanky and uneducated Irish grandfather. They were married in 1922 and had three children. The middle one became my mother, Anna Marie Hett.

I knew my grandmother as a nice lady who treated us kids to ginger ale and cookies. By the time I moved back to Denver in 1978, she had been dead for four years from complications of arteriosclerosis. In those days, it was called “hardening of the arteries” or that is how it was referred to by my mother the nurse. I was 23 when grandma passed, too busy at school to travel from Daytona Beach to Denver for the funeral. I couldn’t imagine her younger and pregnant, someone who gave birth to my statuesque mother and her sister and their 6-foot-5 baby brother who played college basketball. Whatever was in my mother’s DNA cocktail added to her husband’s Shay-Green mix, brought me to six-feet-tall by the seventh grade and my short but memorable stint as a high school b-baller.

I have nothing written in Agnes’s hand. I can find plenty of official documents online through ancestry.com. Birth certificate, death certificate, census records. Some blank spaces in her personal life cry out to be filled in but, it many cases, there’s nobody around to do that.

I imagine my grandmother tootling along with her pals in an open-top Model T. The road is rough, the way, dusty. She leaves behind her dreary old Ohio burg. She looks ahead, ready for new adventures in a new place. The wind riffles her hair. She can’t imagine that one day it will turn gray and she will be betrayed by the arteries bearing oxygenated blood to a brain trusted by the U.S. Post Office in Mason, Ohio.

But that is exactly what happens.

The week in pandemic news

I wish I could report to you that the pandemic is over. Alas--

Wyoming Dept. of Health, Nov. 14: Seventeen more Coronavirus-related deaths reported.

WyoFile weekly report:

Wyoming reached a critical point in its battle with COVID-19 this week as patient loads overwhelmed hospitals, healthcare workers and contact tracers, prompting the governor to announce plans to tighten health orders for the first time since spring.

Casper Star-Tribune, Nov. 15: Daily Wyoming coronavirus update: 613 new cases, 206 new recoveries (firewall)

Gillette News-Record, Nov. 13: County health officials ask Gordon for mask mandate

AP News, Nov. 13: Wyoming Governor: 'Knuckleheads' behind Covid-19 resurgence

Wyoming Daily News, Nov. 13: Wyoming Governor won't implement mask mandate

When faced with knuckleheads spreading a lethal virus: "We don't need no stinkin' masks."

Go to the Covid-10 Information page to find the Wyoming Testing Location Finder. Chris tested last week after she and some other staffers were sent home after a possible workplace exposure. She was negative. Took less than 72 hours to get results. She is now in quarantine for 14 days. We hope to see her again for Thanksgiving. 

Message for the Commander, France, 1918

A remembrance for what once was called Armistice Day and now Veteran’s Day.

My paternal grandfather, Raymond Arthur Shay, enlisted in the Iowa National Guard in 1912. He was promoted to sergeant in 1915. In 1916-17, he served under General Pershing’s command at the so-called Punitive Expedition on the Mexican border. In May 1917, a month after the U.S., entered World War I, Raymond Shay was in officers’ training school. He joined the 88^th Division as a second lieutenant and went off to France with the 88^th. He returned home to Iowa in May 1919. Later that year, he was diagnosed with a severe lung condition and sent to Army Hospital 21 (later named Fitzsimons Army Hospital) located in Aurora, then a tiny suburb of Denver.

At the urging of his daughter Patricia, Raymond wrote about his service in the Iowa National Guard that was activated for the Mexican Border War and World War I. He wrote his memories in cursive script on 19 sheets of yellow paper held together by a clip. It’s tough for me to read but readers from future generations will see it as we do hieroglyphics in Egyptian tombs; cursive is no longer taught as matter of course in public schools.

We called Raymond Big Danny. I can find some of the details of his service on ancestry.com resources. The stories are another matter. We listened to his stories as kids but they were so old that they might as well be The Tales of Arabian Nights. I remember a few snatches of his stories. The writing he left behind reminds me of those. How he had to arrest one of his troopers on a train bound for debarkation at a Canadian port. The soldier was a bit drunk and was waving around a loaded pistol, shouting about how he dared the Canadian Mounties to arrest him for his German name. One of Lieutenant Shay's duties was transporting bodies from field hospitals and burying them with honor at the new American cemetery in the Hericourt-Alsace Sector. General Pershing came to inspect the troops based in Gondrecourt-le-Chateau after the Armistice. Big Danny outfitted one of the division’s cavalry mounts with his own French Officers Field Saddle, one he bought himself because it was superior to the U.S. Army’s McClellan Saddle named for a Union general who was sacked by Lincoln and later ran against him in the 1864 presidential election (McClellan lost).  

Old warriors tell old war stories – it’s a tradition. I can appreciate them now since I’m getting old myself – 70 on my next birthday. I’m not an old warrior, just appreciative of their service to the country. I also appreciate the stories and want them to be told forever.

So here’s one remembrance of Lt. Raymond Shay, Headquarters Troop, 88^th Division, U.S. Army. Written in his own hand in Loveland, Colo., sometime in the 1990s.

Setting: AEF front lines, autumn 1918

At Div. Hdgrs I was given a message to deliver to C.O. of 1^st battalion 35^th Inf in front line position. We need motorcycles with side cars for this courier service. I was required to use a regular driver or rider as known then and so I rode the side car. We found Bat. Hdqrs easy enough but it was not exactly as 1 expected. When I asked for the Battalion Commander and said I had a message from Div. Hdqrs, a young 2^nd Lt. said he was. But C.O., I said, I expected a major but would settle for a captain. He said you will settle for a 2^nd Lt as I am C.O. and if I had a message deliver it. When I delivered the message I was still wondering where all the other officers were and asked the Lt. about this. He said well Belfort is only 10 or 15 miles down the road and they are all there living the good life.

The Lt. then asked me the 64-dollar question. He asked if I had ever been in No Man’s Land (that two-block distance between the trenches). I said no as my duty did not take me there. He went on to say one of these days this war would be over and I would be ashamed to go home and say I had never been in No Man’s Land. I said I had not thought of it in that light. I did say it would be better to go home and admit I had not been there than to go into that disputed land and not go home at all. He said I was wrong and he knew how to go out there and it would be safe if I did exactly as he directed. O.K. I said if I don’t go I suppose you will report me to Div. Hdqrs as a poor front line soldier, he said, no, you will get along fine.

He asked if my 45 Colt was loaded, if there was a cartridge in the firing chamber, now pull the hammer back and put on safety catch, hold the pistol in your hand and follow me. He said we would have to proceed with great care thru the communication tunnels as the Germans sometimes sneaked in at night and picked off our men at their convenience. We arrived at the end of this tunnel and were in the Front Line Trench and observation post. The Lt. said we are going out on No Man’s land. He said put your pistol back in the holster and do as I do, follow me, do not make any attempt to go for your pistol unless we are fired upon and that would do no good as we are out of pistol range out here.

We walked around slowly and he pointed to a tree on the German side and said there was a sniper posted there. During all this time, the trench artillery were shelling a small town the rear of the German lines, whatever they were hitting caused a lot of dust to rise.

The Lt. said we have been here long enough so you may return to Div. Hdqrs and tell them that you were in No Man’s Land with the Battalion Commander.

He was a great guy.

Blessed are the righteous as they win elections

On Saturday morning, Nov. 7, we learned that Joe Biden was our new president and Kamala Harris was our new vice president. I was elated. Chris danced around the living room. Millions breathed a sigh of relief. Millions more wept tears of anger. I know how it feels to be on either side. I didn't weep when Trump claimed victory four years ago. Stunned, for sure. Despondent, yes. Fearful for the fate of my country.

I was right to be afraid. 

What about the 71 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020? That's 8 million more than voted for him in 2016. It's a good thing that Democrats and never-Trump Republicans spent the past year in GOTV efforts. We needed all of those 75 million-plus to elect Biden/Harris. We especially needed them in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

So half of the country liked what the Democratic candidate had to say and half sided with Trump. There is no easy explanation. I know that some Republicans liked the expression of the T-shirt, "Make Liberals Cry Again," a clever twist on Trump's MAGA motto. They liked Trump because he hated the same people he did: liberals, experts, people of color, immigrants. That's not all of it. He made many people feel like they had a guy in charge who stood up for their interests when, in fact, he was doing the exact opposite. Evangelicals and conservative Catholics approved of his turning back the clock on abortion, the LBGTQ community, women. I don't attend church but I bet there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the pews on Sunday. Many Christians seemed content to support a leader who regularly practices the Seven Deadly Sins, who wipes his dirty feet on the Beatitudes.

I know that President-elect Biden tells us to have mercy on those who did not vote for him. I don't know if that's possible. Humility is at the heart of many of Jesus's teachings. Trump hasn't a humble bone in his body. He ridicules the meek, he lampoons the disabled. He shows no signs of empathy. His daily dealings give no evidence that he has ever heard of Jesus. The Old Testament of obedience and vengeance is more his style. That's why conservative religionists like him so much. They prefer to smite their enemies with a sword rather than work with them to make a better America. 

The past four years have been a trial for me and fellow liberals. The next four will be a different kind of trial. Some Democrats might want to do some smiting of their own. When the oppressed depose a dictator, they often turn out to be authoritarians of a different stripe. The guillotine was made for such times. So much easier to say "Off with their heads" than to negotiate with that head while it still has a body. Maybe in our speeded-up lives we no longer have the patience to deal with those different from us. Social media make judging so easy. 

I have no secret plans to share with Biden. He and his advisors will make some decisions that piss me off. We saw no negotiating in the last four years. It was Trump's way or the highway. When that changes, it will be a shock to us. But negotiation and compromise are American traditions. Let's embrace them again but be ready to stand fast on principles. Or, as Teddy said, "speak softly but carry a big stick."

Read it now or read it when all the election results are in -- "Trump Sonnets, volume 7: His Further Virus Monologues"

As of 11:30 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 6, we don't yet know the result of the presidential election. We do, however, know the result of Ken Waldman's "Trump Sonnets" series. The seventh book in the series arrived today. Subtitled " His Further Virus Monologues," it returns to the single-sonnet form that Waldman made so readable in his first five books. The sixth, "His Middle Virus Soliloquy," is what it sounds like: a long piece comprised of connecting sonnets, two to a page. A 63-page journey of Trumpist ramblings in poetic form. It's a book that urges you to go on Trump's breathless ride through his fevered mind. He is infamous for his rambling monologues at rallies of true believers.  The author gives shape to that.

I read Book 7 in a review copy. We were smack-dab in the pandemic and the election was weeks away. I read it with the same dread and bemusement that I've read the others. Flashing in my mind like a neon sign was this: We elected this man president of the United States? I would finish a sonnet, ask the question, and move on, enjoying the ride. Then something will remind me of that big question:

From July 24, 2020 sonnet: 

I know when I walk off the eighteenth hole  

on November 3rd, I am second to none. 

I'm very prepared for my second term. 

No president's done more in his first term.

I see him at one of his golf courses. I think Yikes -- this man is president! We all are doomed!

I expect different feelings when I reread volume 7. Who knows when we will get all of the election results? Who knows how the lawsuit-crazy Trump will react -- he's already filed a flurry of lawsuits over alleged voting irregularities. Will we get him out of the White House by Jan. 20? 

But I will feel all warm and fuzzy if he is denied a second term. I've already been enjoying memes on Facebook that belittle Trump and his minions. Yes, we can be sore winners too. And it's OK to take a few minutes to gloat. So, as he read what may be the final installment of Waldman's series, I too will gloat. It's been so long since I've had a chance to do that. I will enjoy myself while I can. President-elect Biden's real work begins next week. Trumpists are still in charge of the Senate and Supreme Court. We all need to get busy.

Waldman is a poet and performance artist so it's not surprising that he has developed a video and stage show to go with the sonnets. The video will get more use in the near future because performing artists aren't performing. Due to the president's ineptitude in dealing with the virus, most public spaces are closed. So don't look for Waldman and his partner Lizzie Thompson to be on the road again until 2021. Some have been cancelled and some have been rescheduled for the new year that all of us look forward to. Get more info at kenwaldman.com or trumpsonnets.com.

M.L. Liebler's Ridgeway Press of Roseville, Mich., published all of Waldman's series. Small presses publish many good books every year. Most poets would have few outlets for their work if it wasn't for places such as Ridgeway. Show them some love and buy a book from a small press directly or through an indie bookstore. You'll be glad you did.

What will the future think of us?

Wyoming has seen a huge Covid-19 upsurge in recent weeks. Wyo shows up regularly in the New York Times pandemic tracker. It shows those states with surges, represented by a tiny arrow pointing up. We're right up there with both of the Dakotas, Alaska and Iowa.

WyoFile's week 33 summary Friday said this: 

The White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator visited Wyoming this week as the state cemented its status as one of the nation's hotspots for Covid-19 spread. 

As a press conference, Dr. Deborah Birx, wearing a mask, seated next to Gov. Mark Gordon, also wearing a mask, "emphasized the importance of mask use, widespread testing and limited gatherings" to beat the virus. As of Friday, Gov. Gordon had yet to issue a mandatory mask directive. 

On Friday, the Wyoming Department of Health reported 431 new lab-confirmed cases, a new single-day record. Nineteen deaths were reported last week, more deaths than in any week since the pandemic began. 

The Laramie County Health Department has mandated that everyone wear a mask starting Monday. If the past 33 weeks of plague shows us anything, many Wyomingites will ignore the mask mandate. Enforcement is being left up to businesses and individuals. At our hospital, you can't enter with a mask and getting your temp taken. Not sure how small businesses will treat the order. I don't go out without a mask. But I'm a Democrat and I believe in science.

I write this with the idea that someone in the future will read this and wonder about the Americans of 2020. As I researched a novel set in 1919, I read a lot of personal stories and small-town-newspaper articles about the 1918 flu pandemic. Some wore masks; others refused. Many died. Young people were vulnerable. In fact, they often died when older family members survived. It was brutal. I can look back from 2020 and wonder why everyone didn't wear a damn mask. I ask that today. I also ask: will anyone read 21st-century blogs 100 years from now?

A President Joe Biden can't halt the pandemic overnight. But he does have a plan. He will have to bring Americans together on a common goal. We beat the Great Depression, licked the Nazis and went to the moon. With real leadership, we can overcome Covid-19.

This is another problem that has to be remedied. We've learned the hard way that millions of Americans love a bully. They love Trump because he hates the same people he does: liberals, atheists, African-Americans, Hispanic immigrants, urban dwellers, and college professors, just to name a few. They want to marginalize, possibly even eliminate, us. Many are evangelicals who spend a lot of time talking about the Bible although they've paid little attention to lessons in the New Testament. They are a hateful bunch who revel in Trump's cruelty. 

What will they do on election day? Trump has given them carte blanche to disrupt the electoral process. It's naive to think they would not answer Trump's dog whistles. They could also be a factor if Trump loses. They are angry and well-armed. Their esteemed leader has been deposed and someone must pay!

Post-apocalyptic novels, movies and TV shows have been on the rise for some time. They have dealt with plagues, asteroids, environmental catastrophes, space aliens, and outside interference from foreign enemies, mainly commies. Nuclear war used to be a big thing. I can't think if many that deal with a Narcissist as president who tries to remake America in his image and who gets plenty of help from collaborators in the G.O.P. Was it beyond imagining?

I once wrote an post-Apocalyptic novel about a future war in Florida. The Cubans invaded, battles ensued and (spoiler alert!) the good guys won. It was a mess of a novel and a copy gathers dust in my bottom desk drawer, the place where all unpublished first novels belong. As it turns out, I only had to wait a few decades to find out that The End could proceed in the light of day right before our eyes. 

It may not come to that. We'll talk after election day.  

Countdown to the Nov. 3 election: be vigilant

We vote on Tuesday, Nov. 3. I should say that you will vote that day, if you are one of those people who likes to vote on election day. So many of us liked the tradition. Some of us even volunteered to staff the polls on E-day and assist voters. 

Why not this year? You know why if you've been paying attention. The G.O.P. is working overtime to intimidate voters and suppress turnout. Trump asked his goons to swarm polling places to allegedly make sure there is no voter fraud. Their mission should be easy as there is no such thing as widespread voter fraud. But there is the imitation factor. Trump is a bully and so are his fawning fans. They want to own the libs by going to the polls and intimidating grandma after she waited five hours in line. To use one of grandma's sayings: They ought to be ashamed of themselves. 

I voted absentee. So did my wife and daughter. We mailed our ballots via USPS for the primaries. That was in the summer before Trump's flunkies began screwing around with the postal system. For the general election, we dropped off our ballots at the County Clerk's secure site at the City and County Building. Many people I know did that, and not only in Wyoming. We just may be a tad more paranoid here due to the fact that Democrats are so heavily outnumbered by Republicans and Independents. 

If he wins, Trump will be insufferable. If he loses, he will be even more insufferable. He's enlisted a passel of attorneys to take the election to court. During his business career, Trump has never shied away from enlisting allies to bend things to his will. We could be waiting a long time for the results. 

My hope is that Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress. Then we can begin to straighten out the messes that Trump and the G.O.P. Senate have created. There's a lot of work to do.

"Sing, Maria" gets to the heart of the story

Fast-forward to the 32-minute mark for True Troupe's staged reading for Annie Shay's script "Sing, Maria" based one one of my short stories.

How to stop "the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II"

Just 16 days to the most important election of my time. 

My voting timeline stretches back to 1972 -- 48 years. In 1972 in Boston, I cast my presidential vote for George McGovern. He didn't win. Nixon did, and you know what happened next.  

I've voted for other candidates who came up short in the Electoral College. I've also voted for people who ended up in the White House. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. Pretty good record. Carter deserved a second term but Reagan swarmed the airwaves with his smarmy lies and he prevailed. I also voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016, my first vote for a woman as president. She polled more votes -- almost 3 million. But GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression, coupled with Hilary's flawed campaign strategy, doomed us to four years of Donald Trump via the Electoral College. 

The New York Times editorial board today outlined all the reasons we need to get rid of Trump. Read it for yourself, if you can get past the paywall. I subscribe because I need a newspaper of record to prove that we lived through the past four years. I could pay for other newspapers that would be almost as good: Washington Post, Miami Herald, L.A. Times. I like The Denver Post for its Colorado and regional coverage. The sports section used to be excellent. Cheyenne boasts of having the Capital City paper in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. I read it occasionally. I used to subscribe. My son delivered it through the freezing early morning hours of Cheyenne's long winters. Its legislative coverage is good and it does interview candidates leading up to elections. It covers Cheyenne Frontier Days like a Pendleton blanket. But day-to-day, it doesn't have the heft of a NYT and other big-city dailies. 

The NYT covers Trump with as much objectivity as it can. Its liberal bias is a given, although it's not always liberal in outlook. If you read today's Trump piece, you get a complete rundown of Trump's failures (a long list) and excellent reasons to vote him out. It's not as entertaining as reading QAnon posts, listening to Rush Limbaugh, or watching Fox News. Entertaining yet sickening at the same time. 

The Times board op-ed header was "End Our National Crisis." Here's the lede:

Donald Trump's re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.

The piece goes on to list his transgressions, which are legion, and supplies good talking points to counter your crazy uncle's crackpot theories should you be able to gather with family for Thanksgiving. By Turkey Day, the election will be over but maybe not decided. Trump will not guarantee a peaceful transition. Gerrymandering and voter suppression continue. Trump asked his bully boys to come to the polls and intimidate voters which translates in Trumpspeak to "voters of color." One could almost feel as if this was an election in a Third World dictatorship in which U.N. election referees need to be called in. Jimmy Carter's election crews can't cover every polling place but they could try. Our county clerk has called for more election judges because most judges are closer in age to Jimmy Carter than to Kamala Harris. Many have been frightened away by Covid and threats from Nazis.

I've been an election judge, back when I I was a youthful chap in my 50s and early 60s. It would be much better to have a slate of young folks at the polls to report suppression tactics. I was a poll watcher back in the day, too, looking over the shoulders of judges to make sure they followed the rules. The Wyoming Democratic Party has put out a call for poll watcher trainings held virtually Mondays and Thursdays at 7 p.m. Get more info at the WDP web site or on its Facebook page.

Get out and vote and encourage others to vote. Pray or cross your fingers or chant for a return to sanity with Democrats in charge of the White House, Senate and House. We are going to need all the help we can get with the courts clogged with Trump flunkies and the Supreme Court in the hands of right-wing extremists.

Family stories feature twists and turns that don't show up on genealogy sites

Molly Reed Shay was known as "most beautiful" in St. Patrick’s Church, Iowa City, Iowa, 

So says a description printed in tiny letters on a genealogy chart put together by one of my relatives and now in my hands in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in this pandemic year of 2020.

Not sure if St. Patrick’s conducted a beauty pageant but highly unlikely in Iowa’s Mississippi River Valley in the latter part of the 19^th century.  It might have been an observation by a fellow parishioner, possibly a young man with an eye for beauty. It may have been a line spoken at Molly’s funeral in September 1905. Molly died in childbirth on Sept. 18 of that year. Her husband, Michael Francis Shay, might have said it as part of his eulogy if he could have managed to say anything after such a devastating loss.

Molly was not yet 40 and had already birthed five children, two girls and three boys, the eldest being my paternal grandfather, Raymond Arthur Shay. The sixth, Richard, was born the same day his mother died. Raymond later told his grandchildren, me included, that the doctor charged with delivering Richard was drunk. It was a terrible memory for Raymond, who would have been 11 at the time, old enough to be helping out on the Shay farm in what is now Iowa City suburb.

As I wrote this, I thought about what it was like to be 11. My mom gave birth to twins when I was a bit older at 12. I also was the eldest of what would eventually be nine kids. We lived in a drafty old two-story house in Wichita, Kansas. Imagine it was 1905 and we lived on a farm in Wichita’s outskirts and my mom went into labor at home and a drunken doctor came for the delivery and he botched it so that my mother died. Motherless at 12. It would have left a mark that I would feel all of my life.

I can’t say what it did to my grandfather. We called him Big Danny. I hung that nickname on him as a mouthy toddler. Baby Danny was my new brother in 1952 and Grandpa seemed like Big Danny to me. My reasoning is unclear. I was just a little kid with a big imagination.

Molly’s storied beauty passed down to her granddaughters. Muriel, whom I met as a kid growing up in Denver, was homecoming queen at her high school – it says so on the genealogical chart. Muriel’s brother Bobby “took his own life when his mother died in 1934.” Their mother Gertrude (Gertie) died at 33. Molly’s great-granddaughter, Christy, was “homecoming queen at Cherry Creek High” which once was the Denver area’s largest high school and adjacent to its swankiest neighborhood, Cherry Hills. I reported on football and soccer games at its stadium when I covered high school sports for The Denver Post.

Speaking of me, I am mentioned on the chart. Muriel’s other daughter, Jill Scott, was “born 12-19-50, 1 day later than Mike T. Shay. Movie pictures were taken of them when they were babies.” I never saw the film. My mother said that I was a beautiful baby and photogenic but that was my mother speaking.

One more family connection with the line of people spawned by Michael Francis and Molly Shay. Her daughter Marie married Glenn Schafbuch and their son Mickey, born in 1934, went into the Marines after college and later managed television stations in Denver and Portland, Ore. When I decided to move back to Denver in 1978, my father said goodbye and good luck and then suggested that I look up his cousin Mickey and see if he had any leads on jobs in local media. Mickey said he could refer me to KOA noting that they probably had jobs for researchers and reporters. I said no, that newspapers were my trade. He gave me a funny look that said “newspapers are dying, kid – TV is where the action is.” He did send me to talk to an old school chum, the managing editor at the Post, who liked the cut of my jib and brought me on as a high school sports reporter at the paper.

Later, when I was married and had a child, I gave up the newspaper game for the corporate life at Gates Rubber Company where I made the world a better place by telling imaginative tales about automotive and industrial rubber products. My boss’s boss’s boss, Chuck Sonnen, served in the Marines with Mickey. Not sure if he gave me, a Navy ROTC dropout and peacenik, any preferential treatment, but he didn’t fire me. I quit after an illustrious five-year career to pursue the creative writing game. I figured that was where the action was, for me, at least.

I'm not strong on foresight.

Hindsight is my beat.

Pandemic Year 2020: A casual lunch with old friends and poetry

Met my friend (and my daughter's godfather) Dick a few weeks ago along with his wife Mary. Personal encounters have suffered during the pandemic. It's almost like a vacation when you get a chance to see old friends in person. We were appropriately social distanced in Cheyenne's Outback Steakhouse in the middle of a Monday afternoon. The couple from Longmont had been at a ranch near Dubois for Mary's school reunion. Mary wore a maroon mask with her school logo, Dick wore a generic mask and I had on one from the Colorado Rockies. A few months ago I began getting masks that showed something personal. The Rockies seemed have cool ones and, after this season, need all the help them can get. I like Black Lives Matter and Biden/Harris 2020 and VOTE! I may spring for those as they also mean a lot to me and the country.   

My friends and I were arrayed at a distance at a three-top table. We talked about old times and ate a late lunch. Dick recited some of his new four-line poems. He is writing more concise verse these days because, as he said, nobody reads his 50-line poems. There is some truth to that. Even though I have plenty of leisure time, hyperactive lives seem to crave brevity even when it's not necessary.

Dick and Mary both are writers. Mary has published a great biography and is a weekly newspaper columnist. Dick writes poems about spirituality and religion, not unusual topics for an ex-priest. Dick wrote this poem which he read to me yesterday and e-mailed me this morning. It's worth repeating as it is rare to have a poem written for me. It's happened before but the occasions are so rare that I remember it. A former Wyoming Poet Laureate wrote me a poem of condolence after my brother died. It was a wonderful thing to do.

In ancient times (BPC -- Before Personal Computers) people wrote poems for all sorts of occasions. Traditionally, England's poet laureate had two jobs, to write a poem for the new year and one for the monarch's birthday. In the 1800s, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, expanded those duties to writing about important events. The best known of these is "Charge of the Light Brigade" commemorating a British regiment's sacrifices in the Crimean War. I once had to memorize the poem as punishment in after-school detention at St. Francis Catholic School in Wichita, Kansas. I still remember many of the lines: "Cannon to the right of them/Cannon to the left of them/ Cannon in front of them/Volleyed and thundered;/Stormed at with shot and shell,/Boldly they rode and well,/Into the jaws of Death,/Into the mouth of hell/Rode the six hundred." 

The Victorian Era spawned many a heroic verse. That came to a bloody halt in the Great War. 

But back to personal poems. Dick wrote one for me and I wanted to share as poems should be published, one way or another. 

Mike Shay 

by Dick Lechman 

I saw God in Shay 

in his backyard garden 

acting the plant master 

like his friend God, clay master

Thanks, Dick. I would like to think that God exists in me and is revealed as I tend my garden. 

 Amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It rained a lot.

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

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

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

Editor's Notes

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

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

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

Dear Sen Enzi:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Michael Shay

Cheyenne, WY

 

Smoke in the sky, smoke and mirrors from the president

Smoke on the water 

Fire in the sky 

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

Welcome to America 2020. 

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

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

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

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

Wake up and smell the coffee you probable Trump voters!

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

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

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

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

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

I said yes, I guess I am. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summer of the Purple Pod Pole Beans and White Dwarf Cucumbers

Gardening vs. Farming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did you say something?. 

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

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