Voting is easy at the permanently closed Korona Fire Station

The Korona Fire Station has seen better days.

It’s no longer a fire station. Chris and I received a notice that it was permanently closed but it would be open for primary voting on Aug. 18. Good news, as that’s our polling place here in unincorporated Flagler County.

As we left my Ormond dentist’s office (good news on teeth!), Chris called the election office just to make sure we were headed to the correct polling place as we are new to this neighborhood. Mark, Office of Supervisor of Elections, answered. “Yes,” he said, “the Korona station is permanently closed but open for voting.”

We drove east on Grenada to U.S. 1 and headed north. Korona sounded familiar but I didn’t know why. Once we reached the white cinder-block building, memory took me back to road trips in the ‘60s, driving Daytona to Bunnell for basketball games. Driving north to Jacksonville before the interstate opened in 1967. Korona was a blip along the way, a tiny town with a tiny fire station.

Still tiny. But open for business this election day. An election judge motioned to the handicapped parking spot, I grabbed my rollator, and we rolled and walked  inside.

The interior is about the size of a two-car garage. Election judges greeted us. They are paid, these good citizens, but not much. Trained, too. I served as one during many elections in Cheyenne, Wyo. I asked for electronic voting as I need the big screen to read tiny type. They showed me to my seat. I voted. I knew the candidates for the major offices. I was clueless about the local school board candidates. Are they right-wing loonies out to keep books from the minds of our youth? Or are they moderate GOPers or Democrats? I just took a stab at it.

I printed out my ballot, placed it in a “Secret Folder” and brought it to the judge at the tabulator. The ballot then comes out of the Secret Folder to be fed into the machine which is monitored by a judge. He can see my ballot as it’s sucked in. So much for secret. But unless he had special high-tech glasses equipped with a camera, there is no way he could see my ballot and report that there’s another commie in the neighborhood.

I sat in the SUV as Chris went back inside to use the restroom. In the station’s fenced backyard, the weeds are getting a bit out of control. A concrete basketball half-court stands empty. I imagined the firefighters out there playing three-on-three, shirts off under the oaks. Good-natured in-your-face taunts.

More voters arrived as we left. We were stopped at a traffic light at the entrance to Plantation Bay, one of the many housing developments that have skyrocketed the population of a rural county we used to refer to unkindly in our youth. Palm Coast didn’t exist. Bunnell didn’t have a massive new city/county building. Flagler Beach was not becoming another Daytona Beach. Aging World War Two veterans played ball outside the Korona station, awaiting the latest barn fire or fiery collision between liquored-up teens.

I awoke this morning to good news. Democrats made impressive showings in Florida. In Wyoming, 14 members of the Freedom Caucus went down in flames, bested by more moderate GOPers.

Here’s this morning New York Times headline:

“A Stunning Win for the Left in Florida: 6 Takeaways fromTuesday’s Primaries.”

And this from Wyoming’s WyoFile:

“Wyoming Freedom Caucus loses at least 14 incumbent lawmakers.”

Maybe, just maybe, “the times they are a-changin’.”

For some background on the community of Korona, founded in 1914 by Polish immigrants from Chicago and Detroit, see the late Sisco Deen's entry at the Flagler County Historical Society 

Just who is the Batman in this old photo?

The older you get, the more photos appear. Brothers and sisters drop by with a few boxes, say they were cleaning out their closets and would I want these. Before you can answer, they are off in their Kia and the boxes remain. So you bring them in and put them next to other boxes and swear you will get to them someday.

I went through one of those boxes yesterday. It was stifling outside, the Colorado Rockies game wouldn't be on until 4 our time (they won!) so I pulled out a box and sorted through it. There are moments of nostalgia, moments of joy mixed with sorrow. Most are moments of confusion. Who are these people? It seems that not labeling photographs is a family trait. 

I include the above aged and torn photo because it is so puzzling. At first glance, it seems as I am looking at a dapper Batman (note the dapper hat) in the foreground and his offspring in a carriage pushed by his mysterious spouse. But no, because the pic is in with others from my father's family, I peg the foreground figure as my grandfather Raymond Shay, the woman is my Grandmother, Florence, and the baby in the buggy is my father Thomas, their first-born. 

The location has to be the fringes of Denver, looking out on the wide prairie. When Ray and Florence built their first house, it was on the eastern fringe of their City Park neighborhood, so close to the new airport (not much of one in the mid-20s) they could see Eddie Rickenbacker or Charles Lindbergh take off. Rickenbacker cracked up an aeroplane north of Denver in the 1920s and lived to tell the tale. Lindbergh was an airmail pilot flying love letters from Omaha to San Francisco through Wyoming with stops in Denver. He also cracked up a few times but lived a long and complicated life.

The day of the photo: What was it like? It wasn't summer, judging by Florence's big coat and the winter bat cape worn by grandfather. The baby, my father, is wrapped in his swaddling clothes, whatever they are. The fields look bare with harvest long gone. It was just a walk in the neighborhood. The sun is behind the photographer. In the afternoon, it would be heading toward the mountains. Grandfather is probably using a viewfinder camera, which he has to look down into to frame the shot and click the clicker. 

These new parents have been off to war. They met at the army hospital in Aurora where she was a nurse and he was an officer with lung problems. The army sent the lungers to Denver and points west for the dry air and sunshine. Colorado was famous for its TB sanatoria. 

My father, a toddler in the photo, went off to war in 1942 and returned. He met my mother, a Navy-trained nurse in the late 1940s and I was born in the middle of the century.

My wife Christine and I met at a keg party in Daytona Beach and lived our working and procreating lives in Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C. We retired in Florida. We have a cabinet filled with family photo albums, many of them labeled. We have boxes in closets that our kids will inherit and eventually try to pawn off on relatives. That's the way of the world. 

"Zeppelins Over Denver" lands on The Florida Writer magazine "Celebrations" page

My novel landed on the "Celebrations!" section in the latest issue of the The Florida Writer magazine. Congrats to all the FWA members with new books. Some good summer/fall reading ahead.  

Wyoming Public Radio: "Good morning Wyoming and Central Florida!"

I listen to Wyoming Sounds almost every morning. It's on Wyoming Public Radio. It used to be aired just mornings during olden times prior to 2016 when I retired and began spending mornings writing my historical novel, "Zeppelins Over Denver." "Throwback Thursdays" was my favorite, most of the show dedicated to musicians and bands celebrating music milestones. Wyoming talent was showcased. Grady Kirkpatrick live-casted from Cheyenne Day July 22 at Cheyenne Frontier Days with special guest Jalan Crossland from Ten Sleep who performed that week at a special 250th U.S. birthday bash on the state capitol grounds.

I opened up the WPR site while still abed this morning and heard Grady's interview with Tom Owens. He's a Kansas City author who's written a trilogy on the Kansas/Missouri border wars prior to and during the Civil War. His first volume, "The Chimney," covers the U.S. Army's order to evacuate four counties on the Missouri side of the border so Quantrill's Raiders and Bloody Bill Anderson would have no way to resupply their raiders. The army used a scorched earth policy to move the settlers, kill the livestock, burn the fields and the houses, leaving only a burned landscape of limestone chimneys, thus the title. If this tactic sounds familiar, read about Sherman's March to the Sea, U.S. tactics during the Vietnam War, or Russian tactics during the Nazi invasion of World War Two. 

Owens' follow-up novel, "The Great Wide Open," features members of the Duncan family from the first novel as they travel to locales in the mountain west, including Fort Laramie. I admit that I downloaded both novels for free on Kindle Unlimited. That happened with my novel on its release in May. A mixed blessing. It might get you more readers. It also allegedly boosts your ranking on Amazon. This morning, "Zeppelins" is ranked #667,407 in the literature and fiction category. I believe it inched up a bit. A few more sales wouldn't hurt. 

I contributed to WPR during Wyoming Gives and will do it again. We creators are lucky these days as we can tune in almost any music on our PCs while we write and revise and revise some more. I am doing that this week as I plow through the "Zeppelins" sequel, "Patrick of the Mountains," set in 1922 Colorado, in Denver and in a mountain town adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park. The sequel is due out in 2027. The Ridgeway Press of Michigan published the first book and it is enjoying some modest success among friends, family members, and devotees of historical fiction. 

Ridgeway Press is currently upgrading its web site with a little help from me. Ridgeway was co-founded by poet, performer, and Wayne State University prof M.L. Liebler. It's published some intriguing books, including the collected poetry of John Sinclair, war resister, pothead, and manager of the Detroit band MC5 best known for its call from the stage: "Kick Out the Jams, Motherf**kers!" It also features some of the Trump Sonnets by traveling troubadour Ken Waldman and poetry by Zilka Joseph. Take a look at the upgraded Ridgeway web site. There is no bookstore on the site but links send you to Bookshop.org and to Amazon.

The press appreciates those who request the book from your local bookstores, such as Novel Tea Books or Fern & Fable in Ormond Beach, or asks your local library to feature the books in its "Local Authors" section. Find my novel and story collection in the Ormond Beach Public Library. The reading room looks out on the bridge that straddles the mighty Halifax River. This 25-mile long tidal estuary was once called the North Mosquito River for obvious reasons and probably had a name from the local Timucua Tribes before "Arrival." It was renamed during the British occupation of Florida (1763-1784) after the Earl of Halifax, George Montagu-Dunk, who served as head of the British Board of Trade and Plantations; his name was hung on Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the Florida river.

History holds many surprises, does it not?

Buy on Bookshop.org

On the banks of a meandering river in Colorado

Mike near the headwaters.

This photo appeared on a new post on my publisher's web site. Not sure where it was captured but I do thank M.L. Liebler and his staff at Ridgeway Press for finding it. I was just reading about this stretch of the river in Witness to Water: One Photographer's Mission to Defend the Colorado River by Peter McBride. He and his experienced waterman friend kayaked the river from the Continental Divide to the muddy goo at its mouth in Mexico. I never kayaked it. I did camp by it and hike by it and skip rocks on it and, stashed snugly in my sleeping bag, listen to its soothing sounds.

I camped many times at Timber Creek campground in RMNP. It used to be a first come-first served campground but might not be any more. You could cruise up from Denver, travel over Trail Ridge Road, and still find a place to camp at dusk. We also liked the Long's Peak site. Because it was the jumping-off point for climbers of Long's Peak, I sometimes was awakened at 2 a.m.by the shuffle of Raichle boots on gravel as climbers moved out to be up and down the peak before afternoon storms. One thing you learn in Colorado is that hikers best be up and starting down the peaks by noon to avoid the daily lightning barrage. This was brought home when I read Denver Post headlines yesterday about a teen that was struck and killed and four others injured by lightning on the summit of Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mt. Evans). 

I love my birthplace of Colorado. I just could not figure out a way to stay there. I lived there through birth and part of fourth grade and then Dad's jobs took him to Washington state and Kansas and back to Denver and then on to Florida. I attended school in four different states from fourth through eighth grades. Educators would tell you those are crucial years in a kid's development. All that disruption could lead to a career as a writer or worse. That's exactly what happened. 

I returned to Colorado for work after I graduated from University of Florida and applied to every newspaper in Florida with no results. I met a girl (THE GIRL, as it turned out) who grew up in Africa, Europe, and Georgia (the state). We decided to traipse off together, and found gainful employment in Denver, 1978-88, and then grad school at CSU in Fort Collins, and finally found a career as an arts administrator and editor in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Now I'm back in coastal Florida.

I am glad for my 23 years in Colorado and 33 in Wyoming. Both states are in my blood that now, on summer afternoons, moves turgidly like that sticky mess at the poor dying Colorado River which no longer reaches the ocean.

Time to take a long look at the "Local Authors" section in the public library

Just a small slice of the Local Authors section

The photo shows just a slice of what awaits readers in the Ormond Beach Public Library's Local Authors section. Some of these writers have a long tenure in the area. Some are sort-of newcomers, former residents and library patrons who moved on to other jobs in other places but returned to the area recently.

I am one of the latter. 

Pleased to be here. In 1964, my father moved us from Denver to Central Florida to use his fine accountant’s skills to achieve what JFK said in '61: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade."

This wasn’t our family's first move. Our tribe had wandered the West while Dad double-checked the figures on nuclear missiles that lurked in many silos. I was set to enroll in my third school in my third state (KS, CO, FL) in one year. I attended Our Lady of Lourdes eighth grade then moved on to four years at Father Lopez Catholic High School, the old campus that's now a weedy vacant lot at Mason and Nova in Daytona.

After a few years at a non-Florida university and traveling, I returned to Daytona and graduated from DBCC (Daytona State) and earned an English degree from UF where I first took my writing seriously. Then I lit out for the territories.

It takes time, this writing biz. Some times you're an overnight sensation. Other times it takes decades until you publish your first novel. That's me -- 75 when The Ridgeway Press of Michigan published my first novel, "Zeppelins Over Denver," now available for free on the shelves of your local library. Ridgeway is a small press so it doesn’t feature on-line shopping. You can buy a copy on Venmo (see the sidebar, find @hummingbird-minds) or Amazon or your local bookstore. It's your choice. You can write me a check and I will sign the book, put it in a plain manila envelope, and take it to the local P.O. 

Buy "Zeppelins" on Bookshop.org

"Zeppelins" joins my first book of stories, "The Weight of a Body," on the Local Authors section. Select "Weight,” settle into one of the comfy chairs, and read a story inspired by my formative years in Daytona. It's called "Raymond Custy's Garden of Worldly Delights." It is set in the 1960s beach town of Tomoka Beach which is located near Daytona. It may or may not be based on real-life characters. You just never can tell with fiction. 

In case you missed it, June was Nuclear Family Month but just in Tennessee

Amongst all of the semiquincentennial bashes in June, the big beautiful Algae Deflecting Pool hoopla in D.C., the U.S./Israel vs. Iran matchup in the Persian Gulf, and big FIFA goings-on across the norteamericano continent, I missed an important announcement.

June was Nuclear Family Month. So said the Tennessee Legislature, the GOP part. Irked by all the nonsense about Pride Month, the LGBTQ+ Pride Parades and the colorful Pride crosswalks (the ones that goon squads paint over in the dead of night), I neglected to celebrate my nuclear family.

According to the Tennessee Lege, lawmakers of a certain stripe signed off on a resolution that says “one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children” are “God’s design.”

According to a June 6 article by Anita Wadhwani I just read in the Tennessee Lookout, Tenn. Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill in April and it carries no punch to ban anything with rainbows or men wearing eye shadow. It carries the “symbolic weight” of a “government endorsement of only one type of family unit despite a wide diversity of families living in Tennessee including single-parent, grandparent, and LGBTQ+ families,” wrote Wadhwani.

Should Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis decide on something similar, he will have a big problem. Not with me but with thousands of others. I know DeSantis works overtime to please Bubba and Bubbette voters. Mr. Harvard Grad posits himself as one of them. But right now he’s busy executing a backlog of criminals in the state prison system. His Alligator Alcatraz did not go over well and he’s mightily pissed. Rumor has it that he plans to make every Floridian walk around with the “Welcome to the Free State of Florida” banner tattooed on their foreheads. Might look nice on some people.

But GOP state governors have nothing to fear from me. I happen to have a nuclear family right here in the wildlands of Tomoka Station, Fla. One husband (me), one wife (my wife), one son (son) and one daughter (daughter). We can check those boxes. I also come from a nuclear family with the appropriate credentials. My grandparents were all Nuke Family types and so were my descendants going back a century or two possibly all the way back to Adam and Eve if there were such a nuclear pair that parented sons Cain and Abel. Cain slew Abel, becoming the first murderer featured in The Good Book that the Christian Right demands students read instead of Fahrenheit 451.

It’s now early July and I haven’t seen any statistics what the Tennessee bill has wrought. Not much, I suspect. Christian Nationalist blowhards are just that, their efforts filled with much sound and fury, signifying nothing. They hurt people, the ones they hate, with a furor that brought us Trump and the likes of Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem. Haters.

BTW, “nuclear family” is an odd term. My father built silos for nuclear missiles in the West. I lived 33 years next to the biggest nuke base in the U.S. I have strontium-90 from 1950s nuclear tests in my bones. There are lunatics out there with nuclear capability. There have been nuke plant meltdowns in Ukraine and Japan and the U.S. to contemplate.

Nuclear is nothing to imitate.

In the local library stacks, find a book or two by Shay

Several weeks ago, I dropped off two of my books to the Volusia County Library in Ormond Beach. My favorite library now than I’m a Volusia County resident again, this time in Ormond Station in Ormond Beach. During my early years in the area, 1964-78, I lived in Ormond Beach, Holly Hill, and various locales in Daytona. I asked the friendly woman at the desk if the library was interested in stocking copies of my two books. I am a local author now, have been since August 2024 when Wyoming got shut of me.

The Ormond branch does such a great job of featuring local authors and now I’m part of the collections. It includes my historical novel, “Zeppelins Over Denver,” and my first collection of short stories, “The Weight of a Body.” Several of the stories are set in a place a lot like Daytona (Go Green Wave!) and there’s also a scene in another story set in Gainesville where I graduated from UF in 1976 (Go Gators!). The others are set in Colorado, Wyoming, and Maine. I spent decades of my working life in the Rocky Mountain states and visited Maine a few times.

I naturally did a library search for myself and came up with my books and mention of a few others with “Shay” in the listings. I have met several women during the last decade or so by the first name of Shay. I don’t know if it’s a thing or not. I doubt if I would recognize a thing if it was staring me in the face.

There was one listing that caught my eye. From the Harlequin Western Romance Anthology 2017 comes this reference to a romance with a Shay in it:

THE COWBOY'S TRIPLE SURPRISE The Hitching Post Hotel by Barbara White Daille Bachelor cowboy Tyler Buckham is stunned to learn Shay O'Neill is pregnant with triplets. Even though he wants to do right by Shay, the thought of being a daddy has him running scared.

That’s a pretty good teaser and I may check out the anthology to see how it ends. I also am intrigued by the title. In Cheyenne, where I lived and worked for 31 years, there was a landmark hotel called the Hitching Post Inn. It was a cross between an old roadside motor inn and a sprawling bunkhouse. It was a big gathering place, a local favorite for weddings, arts events, and political rallies. If you wanted to catch one of the state legislators on neutral ground, the Hitch saloon was the place. I wondered: does the author have Cheyenne roots? Probably not. The term “hitching post” is very western and I’ve probably been in a dozen places with that name during my travels in the west.

I looked up Daille and she lists her home as “the Southwest” so that probably means Arizona and there is a Hitch out in the desert somewhere and probably doesn’t refer to my Hitch which was torn down a few years ago and replaced with an extended stay hotel.

I encourage local readers to check out my books from the library and write a review on the site if you’ve a mind to. Now excuse me as I go out and prowl the Local Authors and Large Print sections at my favorite library.

Journey into "Raymond Custy's Garden of Worldly Delights"

This is the opening of a story included in "The Weight of a Body," my first story collection. It was first published by Ghost Road Press at its tiny office on Evans Avenue off I-25 in Denver.  I dropped by on a summer day in 2005 to pick up the first copies hot off the press. I was dying to show off the books. I delivered the first copy to my uncle. I owed him a visit. His reading was mostly focused on the Denver dailies sports pages -- he was an athlete and a coach -- but he congratulated me and said he'd read it. I then drove back the 95 miles to Cheyenne to share the news with my family. My favorite story is set in a Florida beach town where I spent some of my youth. It has some basis in fact. I did grow up as the oldest kid in a big Irish-Catholic family. My brother and I walked to the beach to surf. My father was a reclusive sort but who can blame him?

I share this as a teaser to my story collection. I have another one in the works but the first one still has some zing. That's the author speaking. Anyway, to read more click on the cover image in the right sidebar.  The collection goes for $14.99 but if you're as dedicated a Kindle reader as I am, you can get a bargain. Check it out.

Raymond Custy’s Garden of Worldly Delights

            In June of 1967, when I was almost 16, my father checked out for a year. Locked himself in his room. Threw away the key. No messages. No contact of any kind. It was as if he died or decamped to Tahiti, only worse, because I could walk down the hall past that locked door and hear London Philharmonic symphonies blasting from the hi-fi. A cough might erupt from behind closed doors; the whisper of slippered feet. Sometimes a thin blue stream of cigarette smoke escaped from the room and formed a cloud in the hallway. If I was alone, I would stand in the midst of the cloud and inhale, hoping that the smoke might be the bearer of some singular message from my dad, the hermit.

            This hermit lived surrounded by eleven children, one wife, two dogs, a cat and a cage full of hamsters. On the brilliant June day my father bolted the door, the family queued up to coax him out. My mother went first. "Raymond Custy!" she yelled. "You come out of there right this minute!"  She waited, arms crossed, bare feet tapping on the wooden floors. I could hear the cars passing on the street, on their way to the beach. I could even hear the slap of the waves on the sand two blocks away.

How a book does -- and doesn't -- get published

Part of my life as a blogger is updating readers as to my whereabouts (I've always wanted to blog this word). Most of the time, I'm in my home office at the PC, typing madly. There are big windows to watch passersby pass by, most of them neighbors in Tomoka Station, Fla. There are lots of kids in my neighborhood, many new arrivals being pushed around by proud parents. Kids on bikes, some motorized but most the old-fashioned pedal kind. Groveside is a new branch of a five-branched development. I see many service trucks: lawn services, fencing companies, contractors building various add-ons: fancy stoves and refrigerators to replace the boring ones the houses came with. Toilets, too, as we got basic toilets  but tall and big and disabled people needed something better.

I have a lot to see, many things to distract me from the jobs at hand. My main job now is promoting my new book. It is no easy task. Best-selling writers have big-time publishers in NYC, companies that handle a book's editing, production, distribution, and publicity. That's what all writers wish for, an advance and a contract for a book to write and revise and then transmit to the publisher. Then it's on to the next book. Or maybe a croissant and a cup of Java. 

That was what the world was like when I first started writing in the 1970s. When I finally penned a sci-fi postapocalyptic novel of my own in the 1980s, I went to a writers conference and sought an agent. I became a pest. Finally, Ray Powers of the Marje Fields Agency said send me a few chapters and quickly disappeared. The next week, I polished some intro chapters on my manual typewriter and a short plot description and sent it off to Ray. He told me to finish the manuscript and send it. 

I will bet you a chest filled with doubloons (or maybe bitcoins) that he thought I would never finish. Many writers don't, you know, especially when they find out how hard a task it really is. But I had a secret weapon. I was born to write and was always hard at it. I don't know why this is. It's beautiful. It's a curse. I am happiest when writing in a journal or pounding away at my keyboard. I have tried to escape into the military, academia, the corporate world. But I keep returning to writing. 

My novel, "Zeppelins Over Denver," took me ten years to write, revise, and find a publisher. My critique group guided me along the way. I got an M.F.A. in creative writing. My CSU profs and fellow student writers were terrific and brutal. I was on a mission from God, as the Blues Brothers put so well. How else to describe it? In the end, though, that's what it takes., You have to possess a missionary zeal to do this. You have to write and quit writing and write more and despair and then write more. In the end, I finished a found an iconoclastic press in Detroit run by a friend, poet/prof/performer M.L. Liebler.

The Ridgeway Press of Michigan publishes books that others don't and I'm one of them. Thank you Ridgeway and M.L He's published tons of books of poetry and essays. His most recent is a memoir with this title: "Hound Dog: A Memoir of Rock, Revolution, and Redemption" from University of Wisconsin Stevens Point's Cornerstone Press. Did you know that university presses publish many wonderful books? Go buy one today. 

Meanwhile, if you're interested in my book, you will have to go to Amazon and look me up on my author page at http://amazon.com/author/michaeltshay. I am at work on an author's page on BookBub which should be the place to go once I'm finished with the design. 

One more thing: I don't make much money from an Amazon purchase. And Ridgeway is not set up for buying books. But you can find me on Venmo at @michael-shay-28 or 307-241-2903. Send me $35.22 and put the mailing address and who to sign it to in Notes. Then, I will put it in a padded envelope, take it to the p.o., send it on its way and pray that it gets there in these times that USPS seems to run with all the efficiency of the governmental agency in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil." Keep your fingers crossed. As you probably know, Amazon is run with the efficiency that we used to expect from USPS. Packages go right to my door. The delivery man even rings to bell and scampers back to his Amazon Prime truck and drives away at a prudent speed. 

I decided to look up Amazon Founder and Blue Origin mastermind Jeff Bezos on Wikipedia. I was surprised to find that he was born in Albuquerque (I was conceived in Albuquerque!) to a teen mom and a Danish unicyclist (my father sold Armour meats and my mom was a registered nurse). During his high school years in Miami, Bezos attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida, my alma mater (English major, class of '76). A local newspaper reported that in his graduation speech, Bezos "hoped that humanity would eventually move heavy industry and large populations into space while preserving earth as 'a huge national park.' "

Think about that when you order an air fryer at deep discount from Amazon. Or a book.

THE NOMAD Literary Magazine takes a trip from Bountiful to Zoom tonight

Two of my short stories are included in "The Breakthroughs" issue of The Nomad Literary Magazine based in Bountiful, Utah. I've been submitting work to The Nomad since its first issue which became a print book. The project was launched by traveling writer/musician Ken Waldman (I just spoke to him -- he was traveling near Terlingua, Texas, which he said was remote and pretty cool) and Utah-based writer Rachel White. Rachel does most of the editing work as Ken travels coast-to-coast. Ken was a frequent visitor to Wyoming and he always stopped to see me in Cheyenne when I was the literature coordinator at the Wyoming Arts Council. While a trip to Bountiful was just a short jaunt across the Rockies from Cheyenne, I relocated to the edge of the Florida wetlands and couldn't be farther away from my old stomping grounds of WY/CO/UT. It's a good thing we'll be releasing the issue and reading our work on Zoom tonight at 7 p.m. MDT, 9 p.m. EDT. Free. FMI: THE-NOMAD.eventbrite.com

Want a signed copy of "Zeppelins Over Denver?"

Title: Zeppelins Over Denver

Author: Michael T. Shay

ISBN: 9781564390905

Price: $30 list, $35.22, signed and mailed

Print length: 426 pages

Format: Paperback

Publishing date: May 5, 2026 by The Ridgeway Press of Michigan

How to order: Venmo $35.22 (book plus USPS Media Mail shipping) to Hummingbird Minds Press on Venmo (307-241-2903); put address and name for signing in notes. It also is available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore. My new favorite is Novel Tea Books in Ormond Beach, a place with comfy chairs and a distinctive selection of teas and munches. It is accessible for those of us in walkers, rollators, and e-scooters. I suggest using a rollator for the ramp in the back and for the quaint spaces inside. There's also a cool front porch with only two steps that can be managed easily.

BTW, when Ingram Spark was uncertain about pub date, I did a test order with Ann Patchett's Parnassus Books in Nashville (I'm reading one of her "Friday Favorites" now) and Books & Books in Miami, originator of the fantastic Miami Book Fair. It took about ten days but books arrived safely. 

Zeppelins Over Denver is a historical novel set in 1919 Colorado 

July 1919. Irish immigrant Patrick Hott and U.S. Army nurse Frannie Lee meet on a train going west through Colorado. He's a lung patient headed for the West's healing climate and she's off to an assignment at a new army hospital outside Denver. As they strike up a conversation, neither realizes that the train is hours away from a disaster that will upend their lives and bring them together to face new dangers as America tries to forget The Great War and race into the "Roaring Twenties." Inspired by his maternal grandmother's war diary and years of research, Shay gives readers a new look at Colorado's post-war boom that also saw the rise of the KKK, a "Red Scare" prompted by fear of Bolsheviks, and labor strife fueled by the infamous Ludlow Massacre

 Michael Shay’s work has appeared in High Plains Literary Review, Nomad, Colorado Review, Owen Wister Review, Poetry Hotel, Flash Fiction Review, WyoFile, Silver Birch Press, Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams from Coffee House Press, and Blood, Water, Wind, and Stone: An Anthology of Wyoming Writers. He was co-editor of the Pronghorn Press anthology Deep West: A Literary Tour of Wyoming. He’s a graduate of Father Lopez High School, Daytona State College, and University of Florida. He earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from Colorado State University. Michael worked as an arts administrator for 25 years, promoting the literary arts for the Wyoming Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. He and his family live in Ormond Beach, Fla.

Contact: michaelshaywyo@gmail.com; hummingbirdsminds.blogspot.com; Michael Shay on Facebook

Writers talk books on a rainy May evening in Ormond Beach

The rain waited until I rolled myself inside the Novel Tea Book Shop in Ormond Beach. In Central Florida, we’ve been waiting for rain since last summer and it seems to be returning. Two days ago, the wide-eyed forecasters on the Weather Channel predicted a Tuesday deluge to cross the state. The clouds appeared but the rain was more a whisper than a monsoon. But yesterday, it came down.

I was in a comfy chair inside Novel Tea for the Wednesday evening Writers Haven. It was billed as a chance to hang out with other local writers to exchange tips and stories, the kind we were working on and the kind you tell about writing’s daily travails. An interesting group arranged around the snack table and living room-style reading room. Me, a novelist and short story writer; a striving sci-fi writer; a guy with copies of the cover of his dark fantasy novel due out this summer; a young woman writing a film script; two romance writers; a writer/editor for two local motor-sports magazines (an illustrator, too, as he’s the shop’s artist-of-the-month); and a woman “between projects” chosen by staff to be the moderator.

I sipped an Earl Grey Moonlight iced tea. The tea was Earl Grey with orange, blue sunflowers, and natural flavors. I drank it and chipped away at a monster chocolate chip cookie that I shared with my son Kevin. I shared the story of my new historical novel set in 1919 Colorado, as foreign a land to Floridians as Florida is to Coloradans (do I have that right or is it Coloradoans?). I had copies with me. Four were signed copies to my sister-in-law Nancy and her three adult children. I slipped her the books while nobody was looking and she slipped me the cash which I could use on any number of novels or teas or giant cookies. I also slipped a copy of my novel to Stephanie Gonter, one of the shop’s co-owners. I brought along my book of short stories. I am on a mission to monetize my writing journey, no easy task for us small-press-published authors.

One of the more interesting conversations was on A.I. Many self-published authors are avoiding A.I. writing yet they also employ A.I.-designed covers. Angel Lowden, the store’s other co-owner, worked the counter. She said that she and other booksellers are on the lookout for A.I. covers and usually won’t accept them in their book stock. The cover is hugely important these days and she suggested getting a professional to do the job. My daughter Annie designed the “Zeppelins” cover. She’s an artist and marketing ace and gave her dad a special deal.

Novel Tea is everything an indie should be. It’s located along a leafy street on the main floor of an old two-story house. It features a big front porch with easy chairs. Inside are overstuffed chairs and many, many books. There is a food bar and a bar-bar that serves beer and wine. Some in the gathering jumped right into happy hour. I am a teetotaler these days so Novel Tea’s specialties and their huge array of leaf teas add to the allure of its name. The play on words is nice too. I noted the shop features an array of craft brews including those from Ormond Brewing Company which is on the other side of the tracks on the line that serves Ormond Station. In reality, there is no train to Ormond Station but me and my neighbors are working on it. The shop’s next big event is June 3 with Boozy Books at the brewery. Here are details from the web site:

Our Summer Boozy Book Fair returns on June 3rd from 5 PM to 9 PM at Ormond Brewing Company.

Browse books from Novel Tea Book Shop, shop local authors and artisans, and enjoy a relaxed evening with a drink in hand. Whether you’re building your summer TBR, looking for a unique gift, or just want a fun night out, this is your spot.

We’ll have:
Local authors and book signings
Handcrafted goods from local vendors
Books for all ages and interests
Ormond Brewing featuring your favorite brews

Come out, support local, and celebrate the start of summer with us.

Free to attend. Bring a friend. 

It’s wonderful, really. Support local. Stephanie stressed that she and her partner are always looking for fun new ways to sell books and teas. I am now local but didn’t sign up in time for Boozy Books. Next time…

Note on accessibility: From the street, Novel Tea appears inaccessible for those of us using walkers, rollators, and e-carts. But it's very accessible. Parking on the east side of the building is ample (mind the cats!) and there is a ramp inside the entrance located near the artist studio. Staff will rearrange chairs to accommodate.

"Zeppelins Over Denver" now available to pre-order

On April 24, I guesstimated that "Zeppelins Over Denver" would be out by summer. You have to be careful with these things as publishing tends to take time and you don't want to get readers' hopes up unnecessarily. 

"Zeppelins" is now on pre-order (May 5 official pub date) at your favorite bookstore or even from your least favorite big-box outlet that places book bins somewhere among twelve-packs of underwear and rows of gleaming BBQ grills. 

My goal is to get the book into local stores and those in my old stomping grounds of Wyoming and Colorado. It's a bit tricky because the book is set in Colorado, specifically Denver, in 1919. I'm now officially a Florida resident, a return to my roots and the comfort of family. My Colorado roots go back to 1919 when all of my grandparents decided Denver was the place to be. 

My grandmother Florence decided to extend her tenure as an army nurse in France to the new army hospital in someplace called Aurora. There she met and married my grandfather Raymond, a cavalry officer from Iowa who left the war with lung problems so they shipped him to the hospital that eventually became Fitzsimons Army Hospital. Cavalry officer met nurse and there you go. 

My Irish immigrant grandfather Martin left sweltering Chicago after having a lung surgically removed due to empyema. The surgeon urged him to recuperate in a drier clime, Arizona, for instance, or maybe Denver. He chose Denver. Grandmother Agnes, the first postmistress of a tiny town near Cincinnati, jumped into a Model T with her sister and two gal-pals and drove the rugged road to Colorado. She and her sister decided to stay while the others returned to the banks of the Ohio. Martin and Agnes met at the Hibernian Club and one thing led to another and here I am.

That's just background. The setting is important to me as I was born in Denver, did some of my growing up there, returned after college to work, left Denver to go to grad school up I-25 at CSU, and then moved north to Cheyenne to work for the Wyoming Arts Council for 25 years. Retirement party with great homemade pie on a Friday in January 2016. On Monday morning, I sat and started writing this book.

Co-worker at retirement party: Hey Mike, whatcha gonna do after retirement? You can't just sit around, you know. 

Me: I'm gonna sit around and write a novel. A historical novel.

Co-worker: That's nice. Give me another slice of that pie.

Ten years later, I'm in Florida and I have a book. Easy as pie.

Stay tuned here for more updates. 

Ormond Beach No Kings Day Rally brings out the crowds and the creativity

Great crowd of concerned citizens at this morning's No Kings Day Rally at the Grenada Bridge in Ormond Beach, Florida. Many, like me, veterans of previous protests, others just concerned veterans. I parked my scooter next to Vietnam combat vet in a walker who doesn't support whatever this war is we are raging in Iran and vicinity. He grew up in Ormond and knew some of my b-ball teammates from Father Lopez High School (Go Green Wave!). Met a woman my age who, late at night, assembled her big sign held up by a mop handle. She moved recently from Long Island. "Left my blue state to come here." People with their dogs and kids and grandkids. They felt the need to be here on this sunny Saturday. I felt privileged to be in their company. A few photos below by Kevin Shay.

 

That's me with the cool compression socks. The man
behind me, a Navy vet (didn't get his name), lent me his wife's sign.

Some Stetson Law School (and UF) alumni want nothing to do with lawless AG Pam Bondi

Spectrum News in Tampa featured this header the other day:

Stetson Law School Alumni say no to school donations after Bondi congressional hearing fallout.

The move comes after a congressional hearing where [Pam] Bondi came under fire about the handling of the Epstein files. Some 500 Stetson Law School alumni said they’re disappointed in her conduct during that hearing.

Yes, Attorney General of the United States of America Bondi supposedly learned about attorney generaling in the general vicinity of Tampa/St. Pete.

Bondi is a graduate to Stetson Law School in Gulfport and University of Florida in Gainesville. No news yet whether UF alumni don't want their donations going to the school that spawned Bondi. I did write to UF in February saying I wouldn't donate to the school as long as long as Gov. Ron DeSantis keeps screwing around with our school. 

Will any of this make any difference? Well, 500 SLS alumni signed the pledge that went to Stetson. They are upset that the outlaw Attorney General could hang out a Stetson shingle. I don't blame them. I am angry that Bondi attended UF where she supposedly learned something about ethics. You can laugh if you want. I don't think Ethics 101 is required but maybe it's a graduate  course, maybe even one you might find at an accredited law school.

Our governor went to Harvard which is no excuse. He's MAGA through and through. A political opportunist in a crimson and black robe. Or is it a white robe and a hood? 

Dear UF: No donations for you until Gov D is gone

Feb. 17. 2026

TO:             University of Florida Annual Giving Program

FROM:       Michael T. Shay

RE:             Gator Nation Stand Up and Holler Giving Day

I am a proud Florida Gator, class of ’76. I have donated to UF when the budget will allow. I’m retired now and the budget allows but I am not donating and there is one reason for that: Interference in UF by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-run Florida State Legislature.

It is alarming to see the search for a UF president go on and on as we await DeSantis’s choice to rule the state’s flagship university, my alma mater. These right-wing politicos take their order from the Trump wing of the GOP and it has led to disaster on the national and international scenes.

So today, on the eve of Giving Day, looking at Mr. 2-Bits’ tie pinned to the bulletin board above my PC, I decline to donate until DeSantis and his MAGA goons are gone. Instead, I donated $25 to the Independent Florida Alligator. Their reporters are on the case and I will continue to follow the Alligator with interest and with whatever support I can send their way.

I leave you with this:

Two-bits, four-bits, six-bits, a dollar

All for an independent UF stand up and holler!

The crowd cheers.

Editor's Note: Read the Alligator's latest story on the unending UF presidential search.

Sunday morning round-up: Big & Strange, WY and FL

A round-up is a task performed by cowboys when they bring in the cattle.

I am not a cowboy. But I spent 30 years in The Cowboy State of Wyoming so sometimes feel like one.

Yesterday, a big galoot from Laramie, Wyoming – Frank Crum, 6-foot-7, 315-pound OL for the Denver Broncos -- caught a touchdown pass from Bo Nix as the Broncos beat the Bills. Crum grew up in Laramie, played football at Laramie High School, and played six years for the UW Cowboys. His father and grandfather all played for UW. Way to go, big fella.

Later, in overtime, Bo Nix powered the Broncos to the OT win. He broke his ankle along the way and now is out for the rest of the playoffs.

Meanwhile, UW’s Josh Allen, everyone’s favorite in Laramie where UW retired his uniform number in tribute, sat and watched his Super Bowl dreams evaporate.

A big, strange day for Wyoming. Wyoming excels in Big & Strange.

I miss it. Now living in Florida which has its own Big & Strange.

Earlier in the day, Chris and I cheered on the Florida Gators as they beat Vanderbilt 98-94 in NCAA men’s basketball. The Gators (UF my alma mater) are a hard-driving bunch with players from all over, some appearing mysteriously out of The Portal. There’s this small guard Xiavian Lee who portalized from Princeton to make amazing shots and there’s Rueben Chinyelu who steamrolls his way to the bucket. I was happy to see the win and glad there was no OT to interfere with the Broncos/Bills game. I know of no Wyoming connection for the Gators but looking for one.

Just finished reading (for the second time) “Never a Lovely So Real,” a biography of Nelson Algren by Colin Asher. I love the book for its unflinching portrait of Algren powered by Asher’s love of the subject. Algren was my first writing mentor, a strange old man dressed in rumpled clothes and a beat-up cap who taught writing to UF undergrads in 1974. I was a non-trad student, a university newbie at 23 who had been out doing something interesting. Nelson taught writing in many places (including the MFA bastion at Iowa) and was openly scornful of learning writing in the academy. He came from those mean streets of Chicago and learned his trade on the road. He wrote about the travails of regular folks. He must have looked around that stifling classroom and said what do these people know of the ways of the world? Go out and do something interesting and then write about it. I did. Was still learning. Algren told great stories and my Vietnam vet buddy Mike and I took Nelson to a strip club on Gainesville’s outskirts and had a swell time. We smoked pop with him although he said it didn’t do much for him as he had smoked it many times with jazz cats in 1930s Chicago. Nelson liked one of my stories and gave me his agent’s contact info which I never followed up on. He also gave us all a list of recommended reading and I worked my way through it, parked deep in the stacks of the UF library. Asher has a new book coming out which sounds cool. It’s titled “The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music” and will be released by W.W. Norton on June 30. Check out his cool web site at colinasher.com for more info.

I get up every day cursing Trump and his fascist minions. Cursing is one thing. Doing something about it is another. I am a lifetime voter and Democrat who has been active in party politics. It ain’t always pretty but you gotta get your hands dirty if you want to make something. Algren was blacklisted for 30 years for being a Commie. His pal in the WPA Writers Project, Richard Wright, was forced out of the U.S. for his activism. I write regularly to the dimwits who want to turn Florida into a Maga Playground. Write. Demonstrate. Vote, please vote. There’s a good chance that Trump and his goons will find excuses to close the polls in November. Do not let him do that. It’s up to you.

A (belated) Christmas memory, Colorado and Capote

"The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere

Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow."

That's the refrain in "Colorado Christmas" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, a song written by Steve Goodman. I listened to it numerous times during the Christmas season and call it up other times. It's pure nostalgia, a musician in a L.A. hotel dreaming about "Telluride and Boulder Down below." No mention of Denver, my hometown, or Aurora, where I did some of my growing up, or Fort Collins, where I attended grad school. Telluride is a wonder, deep in the Rockies, well known for skiing and summer music festivals. Something beautiful about sitting on a grassy field under the stars listening to music. Boulder, of course, is known coast-to-coast for its counterculture vibe, beatniks and hippies, Naropa Institute, the CU cafeteria named for a Colorado cannibal, "South Park," and the Flatirons jutting up to the west like, well, flatirons. John Fante grew up in Boulder. You can get heated up about your favorite cause and then cool off at the Dalton Trumbo Fountain Court on the CU campus.

So, is NGDB from Colorado? They are in the Colorado Music Hall of Fame and many in its roster of performers live in Colorado. Long-time member Jimmy Ibbotson had a recording studio in Woody Creek outside Aspen, also known as the lair of the late Hunter S. Thompson.

I first heard "Colorado Christmas" in Aspen. Christine and I were up in Starwood, heading to our friend Steve's father's house, when we got stuck in a snowbank. We drove an AMC/Renault compact, not even front-wheel drive. Driving up the night before, we got lost and stopped at an intersection where a big 4WD was parked. Obviously lost, we waved, the window rolled down, and John Denver poked out his head. Yes, he said, this is the right road to Starwood. We thanked him and didn't even ask him for a song. We maneuvered up the scary road to the summit. Two hours later we drove down. The next morning, we drove back up and got stuck. As we did the usual rock-and-roll motion to free the car, "Colorado Christmas" came on the radio. I thought it was the most beautiful song I ever heard even though at that very moment we were stuck on a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow. "The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere..." What could we do? We laughed, and kept on rollin'.

We live in Florida now.

Speaking of Christmas memories --

"A Christmas Memory" was a 1966 Emmy-winning televised story by Truman Capote. A remake appeared later but it lacked what made the earlier one stand out, narrator Capote. So special to hear his voice recall a rural Alabama childhood memory. A young Capote (Buddy in the story) is deserted by his parents and stays with his grown-up second cousin Sook whose goal for the season is to make 30 fruitcakes for friends and neighbors. She is dirt-poor in the midst of the Great Depression and she and Buddy scrape together what they have saved during the year and set out on their quest. First stop: salvage "windfall pecans" from Farmer Callahan's grove. They buy makings at the general store and a bottle of bootleg whiskey from Ha Ha Jones Fish Fry and Dancing Cafe. They make the cakes and distribute them just in time for Christmas. The cakes are sweet and imply a bit of a buzz. The sweetest part is the young Capote and his grown-up voice, this tiny story that came from the writer who gave us true stories of Kansas murderers, Manhattan society dames, and tortured souls who haunt Tiffany's. Capote was a tortured soul but how he could write. 

We remember our brother Tommy

Tommy Shay and his dog Duke

In Memoriam: Tommy Shay 

Thomas Gerard Shay (“Tommy”), age 65, passed away peacefully after a short illness on Christmas Day, 2025, with family at his side.  He was an organ donor and willed his body to medical research. He was born in Denver on Jan. 28, 1960, and grew up in Wichita, KS, Moses Lake, WA, and Daytona Beach, and was a long-time resident of Palm Bay where he worked as a machinist for 30 years at Winchester Interconnect, Melbourne. He is survived by brothers Michael Shay (Christine) and Timothy Shay (Jen) both of Ormond Beach, four sisters Molly Shay Shakar of Decatur, GA, Eileen Shay Casey (Brian) of Winter Park, FL, Maureen Shay Martinez (Ralph) Ormond Beach. and Mary Shay Powell (Neill), Tallahassee, and his significant other, Tani Hopkins, Decatur, GA. His brothers Daniel Shay (Nancy) of Ormond Beach and Patrick Shay (Jean) of Palm Bay preceded him in death, as did his parents, Anna Hett Shay and Thomas Reed Shay. His family meant everything to him and he will be mourned by his nephews and nieces: Kevin, Annie, Meghan, Connor, Ryan, Bryce, Thomas, Michael, Katie, Maggie, Erin, Katie, Olivia, Finn, Mayzee, Sean, Maddie, Olivia, Morgan and his many great-nieces and nephews. Tommy grew up surfing in Daytona Beach and was a founding member of the “Hartford Heavies.” The family dog, Shannon, was his constant companion while he surfed.  As an adult, he spent Sundays surfcasting with friends on Melbourne Beach. He lent a helping hand to family, friends, and neighbors who looked forward to ripe avocados and limes from Tommy’s backyard orchard. He camped with his dogs Ophie and his hound Duke who passed away in 2023. He was proud of his stamp and coin collections. Tommy was a metal detector hunter and tossed foreign coins on the beach for other hunters to find. “He looked out for everyone,” said his surf-fishing buddy.  Tommy loved dogs and requested donations be made to Riley’s Rescue of Brevard County, 215 Krefeld Rd. NW, Palm Bay, FL 32907 or FL Aid to Animals/Palm Bay, 3585 Bayside Lake Blvd. SE, Palm Bay, FL 32909. Tommy was a spiritual person but at his request, no service will be held. His family has tentatively scheduled a Paddle Out on April 4, 2026 at the Hartford Avenue approach in Daytona Beach; details to be determined.

The family welcomes comments and remembrances. 

https://www.news-journalonline.com/obituaries/psar1368055