The title poem of Eavan Boland's collection "The Lost Land" always moves me. It begins as a confessional with "I have two daughters" but ends with one of the big topics in Irish and Irish-American writing: diaspora. You know the story: the Potato Famine, the rapacious of the English landlords, the sailing away. The Irish, always sailing away and landing on a foreign shore. The last lines always get to me. I send you to the Poetry Foundation web site to read the whole thing and other work by Boland. Go there now. Read an Irish writer today. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
Showing posts with label Irish-American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish-American. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2025
Monday, November 13, 2017
I remember Uncle Bill
When my first book of stories was published in 2006, I drove from Cheyenne to pick up copies from Ghost Road Press in Denver. I stopped by my Uncle Bill Taylor's house and delivered a signed copy. He called me the next week to comment on the stories. He was complimentary, and especially liked the ones set in post-World War II Denver. He did have a critique, though, one I always will treasure. He commented that my stories didn't seem to have endings. True, I said. I explained that contemporary short stories don't have endings, that some writers describe them as "slice-of-life." He took that in, absorbing the words better in his mid-80s than most of my 20-something students did. He said he would take another look. I am not sure if he did. But I appreciated his diligence. He didn't read books as a rule and I was glad that he read mine. Uncle Bill's reading consisted mostly of the Denver Post sports section. This was fortunate when I was a stringer covering high school sports for the the Post in 1978-81. I knew my uncle would read my blow-by-blow account of the latest game under the Friday Night Lights.
Uncle Bill died Sunday morning. He was our family's last link with what's sometimes called "The Greatest Generation." They were great, in our eyes. My older siblings and I had the pleasure of growing up with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Then my father began to be transferred around the country to build sites for Atlas missiles. We never lost touch, though, but the moving around frayed our connections. We are an itinerant bunch, we Americans. It was traveling that helped our Florida-based family reconnect with our Denver roots. In our gallivanting days, my siblings and I wandered out to the Rocky Mountains to visit relatives, drink Coors beer (couldn't get it in the South), and to see what all the Colorado hubbub was about. My brother Dan ventured to Denver in the summer of 1971 and came back with some stories. Dan's future wife and her pals ventured West that same summer and dropped in on some of our Denver family on the way to the Grand Canyon. I hitchhiked through Colorado with a girlfriend in 1972. My brother Pat and I hitched from Houston to Denver in 1975 to traverse the mountains and see our relatives. Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill always welcomed us wayward family members.
My brother Pat was stationed at Lowry AFB in the 1970s. He found family with the Taylors and my paternal grandparents, who, as luck would have it, lived in a senior housing complex that looked out over the Lowry AFB runway where the Army Air Corps trained its pilots during World War II. My sister Molly moved to Denver for a short time in the late 1970s. She knew she was in trouble when she discovered she had to wear a sweater on July nights. Same goes for my sister Eileen, who kept having complicated encounters with ice and snow on Denver roads. The last straw was a spinout and collision on Florida Avenue in southeast Denver. She saw it as a sign and soon after decamped for the real Florida where the road hazards are real but much less icy.
When my then-girlfriend Chris and I arrived in Denver during the very pleasant summer of 1978, Mary and Bill took us in. We stayed there until we found an apartment in Aurora at the edge of the air force base. We had family but didn't know anyone else. They took us in and we were grateful.
The World War II generation passes and we are sad. My life is different because of the experiences of our forebears during that era. Uncle Bill told me stories of how he and my father drove the Ribbon of Death (the two-lane precursor to I-25) from Trinidad to Denver to see their girlfriends in Denver. They were two sisters, Mary and Anna Hett, who grew up in an Irish neighborhood near South High School . My father worked as a salesman for Armour Meat Company in Albuquerque and Uncle Bill sold insurance in Trinidad, a sleepy town on the New Mexico border. My father would get off work on Friday and take a bus to Trinidad. Bill drove them in his jalopy up the dangerous road to Denver, where they arrived early on Saturday morning. After some frenzied courting, the two young college grads and war veterans were back on the road, reversing the trip they had made less than 48 hours before. I can imagine their conversations as they negotiated a snowy Colorado night. Do you remember when you were in your 20s and in love? You would do anything to bridge the gap. Anything. They did, as soon both couples married and began families. I was conceived in Albuquerque after a spicy Mexican dinner and a few beers in Old Town. I have been fond of Mexican food ever since. Beer too.
We would be nothing without stories. They tell us who we are, and were. I transform tales of those who came before me into tales of the present. One of the critiques I get is "You have so many people in your stories." Yes, I do, because I have so many people in my life. I grew up in a big family and have many friends. They find their way into my stories, with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike. And, as Uncle Bill said, they don't always have tidy endings.
I hate to tell you this Uncle Bill, but your story is not over. We will continue telling stories about you as long as we are part of this world. Some of those stories will outlast us, and tell our descendants what sort of people we were.
We hope we are worth remembering.
Uncle Bill died Sunday morning. He was our family's last link with what's sometimes called "The Greatest Generation." They were great, in our eyes. My older siblings and I had the pleasure of growing up with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Then my father began to be transferred around the country to build sites for Atlas missiles. We never lost touch, though, but the moving around frayed our connections. We are an itinerant bunch, we Americans. It was traveling that helped our Florida-based family reconnect with our Denver roots. In our gallivanting days, my siblings and I wandered out to the Rocky Mountains to visit relatives, drink Coors beer (couldn't get it in the South), and to see what all the Colorado hubbub was about. My brother Dan ventured to Denver in the summer of 1971 and came back with some stories. Dan's future wife and her pals ventured West that same summer and dropped in on some of our Denver family on the way to the Grand Canyon. I hitchhiked through Colorado with a girlfriend in 1972. My brother Pat and I hitched from Houston to Denver in 1975 to traverse the mountains and see our relatives. Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill always welcomed us wayward family members.
My brother Pat was stationed at Lowry AFB in the 1970s. He found family with the Taylors and my paternal grandparents, who, as luck would have it, lived in a senior housing complex that looked out over the Lowry AFB runway where the Army Air Corps trained its pilots during World War II. My sister Molly moved to Denver for a short time in the late 1970s. She knew she was in trouble when she discovered she had to wear a sweater on July nights. Same goes for my sister Eileen, who kept having complicated encounters with ice and snow on Denver roads. The last straw was a spinout and collision on Florida Avenue in southeast Denver. She saw it as a sign and soon after decamped for the real Florida where the road hazards are real but much less icy.
When my then-girlfriend Chris and I arrived in Denver during the very pleasant summer of 1978, Mary and Bill took us in. We stayed there until we found an apartment in Aurora at the edge of the air force base. We had family but didn't know anyone else. They took us in and we were grateful.
The World War II generation passes and we are sad. My life is different because of the experiences of our forebears during that era. Uncle Bill told me stories of how he and my father drove the Ribbon of Death (the two-lane precursor to I-25) from Trinidad to Denver to see their girlfriends in Denver. They were two sisters, Mary and Anna Hett, who grew up in an Irish neighborhood near South High School . My father worked as a salesman for Armour Meat Company in Albuquerque and Uncle Bill sold insurance in Trinidad, a sleepy town on the New Mexico border. My father would get off work on Friday and take a bus to Trinidad. Bill drove them in his jalopy up the dangerous road to Denver, where they arrived early on Saturday morning. After some frenzied courting, the two young college grads and war veterans were back on the road, reversing the trip they had made less than 48 hours before. I can imagine their conversations as they negotiated a snowy Colorado night. Do you remember when you were in your 20s and in love? You would do anything to bridge the gap. Anything. They did, as soon both couples married and began families. I was conceived in Albuquerque after a spicy Mexican dinner and a few beers in Old Town. I have been fond of Mexican food ever since. Beer too.
We would be nothing without stories. They tell us who we are, and were. I transform tales of those who came before me into tales of the present. One of the critiques I get is "You have so many people in your stories." Yes, I do, because I have so many people in my life. I grew up in a big family and have many friends. They find their way into my stories, with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike. And, as Uncle Bill said, they don't always have tidy endings.
I hate to tell you this Uncle Bill, but your story is not over. We will continue telling stories about you as long as we are part of this world. Some of those stories will outlast us, and tell our descendants what sort of people we were.
We hope we are worth remembering.
Friday, September 08, 2017
The Summer of Love; the Winter of Our Discontent
I laughed when I saw the cover of the Aug./Sept. issue of AARP: The Magazine. Over a Peter Max original illustration was the header: "Celebrate the Summer of Love, 50th anniversary, 1967-2017."
I was almost as far away from San Francisco as a 16-year-old could get in the summer of 1967. In the waning days of summer, I was about to become a junior at Father Lopez Catholic High School in Daytona Beach, Florida.
That summer, my classmates thought that I was moving to a new life in Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was already in Cincy, crunching numbers at the General Electric Works. He moved as did so many others -- Florida's aerospace industry had come to a grinding halt.
But what about the moon landing, the one that was still two years in the future? Much of the prep work was finished. NASA and its many subcontractors (GE among them) didn't need all the engineers and statisticians and accountants that they had brought to Central Florida for the task. An engineer friend of my Dad was pumping gas. Others found tourist-industry jobs so they could continue to enjoy the splendors of The Sunshine State.
Two of my friends, Rob and Ann, had already decamped with their families to Schenectady, N.Y., another big base for GE, the one where Kurt Vonnegut once toiled in PR ("Deer in the Works"). Classmates had thrown us a going-away party. Good-bye and good luck!
I was registered to attend another Catholic high school, this one an all-boys school in Cincy that I was certain to hate. I was not a kid who made friends easily. I would not make the basketball team, as the new school was big and had a hot-shot varsity already in place. If I ever met any girls, Catholic or otherwise, they would ignore me. My good grades were due to take a nose dive and I was destined for failure. This was my dark side speaking, teen angst on overdrive. If I wrote poetry then -- and kept it -- it would be something to read. But I was a jock and a surfer and my type didn't write emo poems or any kind of poems. Or so I thought.
My mother worked at a local hospital and still had a two-year-old at home, along with eight other kids. We couldn't sell our house. All the buyers were on their way back north. Prices plummeted. My father said that he missed his wife Anna and his nine kids. Dad left me his 1960 Renault Dauphine so I could take my siblings to school and basketball practice and anywhere else they had to go. I was delighted to have a car and a license to go on the many dates I imagined that I would have.
After six months, my father surprised us all when he decided to leave GE and try to get a job in central Florida. My future was saved.
It wasn't easy for my father. He was a quiet man. I can imagine his life as a bookish professor or a secluded monk, a man without a huge family and all the pressures that brings. As a kid, he spent his time going to the library and building crystal radio sets in his basement. He wasn't a striver or a climber, which doomed him from the start in the corporate world. I know, as I spent five years as a corporate man, twenty-five years in government. I am an introvert but learned how to be a public person. I was tasked with supporting my family. I did that. But there always is a cost, and you may not know about it until you are retired.
My Dad returned to Florida late that summer. When school started, he was looking for a job. My mom worked as a nurse at a local hospital. We were together again.
What was life like in August 1967 for the average American big family? My parents never had enough money. Both worked, a rarity in 1967. Still, it was never enough. Most of the people we knew were in the same boat.
The Summer of Love? To us, hippies were an anomaly. I thought they were cool but their antics were foreign to me. Sex was dreamed of but an impossible dream, to take a line from a popular 1960s Broadway musical. We sweated and groped in the back seats of cars. There were public school girls who went all the way, or so the public school boys told us. But that wasn't for us.
Remember that this was pre-Disney Florida. Before the boom that caused the founding of dozens of fantasy worlds and caused everyone in Providence and Newark to relocate to Daytona and Sarasota. If it was a feature at Disney, it would be called "A Whole Different World World."
It's a Whole Different World World
It's a Whole Different World World
Segregated schools, no sex on the beaches
Swamps teeming with gators and leeches
It's a Whole Different World World after all
Don't get me wrong -- we admired those people engaging in unbridled sex and drug-taking in The Haight. We might have followed the lead of our parents and cursed those damn hippies. We were fascinated and jealous at the same time. It just seemed so foreign.
Happy 50th anniversary to all of you who engaged in the Summer of Love and lived to tell the tale.
Summer of '67. We all have our stories....
I was almost as far away from San Francisco as a 16-year-old could get in the summer of 1967. In the waning days of summer, I was about to become a junior at Father Lopez Catholic High School in Daytona Beach, Florida.
That summer, my classmates thought that I was moving to a new life in Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was already in Cincy, crunching numbers at the General Electric Works. He moved as did so many others -- Florida's aerospace industry had come to a grinding halt.
But what about the moon landing, the one that was still two years in the future? Much of the prep work was finished. NASA and its many subcontractors (GE among them) didn't need all the engineers and statisticians and accountants that they had brought to Central Florida for the task. An engineer friend of my Dad was pumping gas. Others found tourist-industry jobs so they could continue to enjoy the splendors of The Sunshine State.
I was registered to attend another Catholic high school, this one an all-boys school in Cincy that I was certain to hate. I was not a kid who made friends easily. I would not make the basketball team, as the new school was big and had a hot-shot varsity already in place. If I ever met any girls, Catholic or otherwise, they would ignore me. My good grades were due to take a nose dive and I was destined for failure. This was my dark side speaking, teen angst on overdrive. If I wrote poetry then -- and kept it -- it would be something to read. But I was a jock and a surfer and my type didn't write emo poems or any kind of poems. Or so I thought.
After six months, my father surprised us all when he decided to leave GE and try to get a job in central Florida. My future was saved.
It wasn't easy for my father. He was a quiet man. I can imagine his life as a bookish professor or a secluded monk, a man without a huge family and all the pressures that brings. As a kid, he spent his time going to the library and building crystal radio sets in his basement. He wasn't a striver or a climber, which doomed him from the start in the corporate world. I know, as I spent five years as a corporate man, twenty-five years in government. I am an introvert but learned how to be a public person. I was tasked with supporting my family. I did that. But there always is a cost, and you may not know about it until you are retired.
My Dad returned to Florida late that summer. When school started, he was looking for a job. My mom worked as a nurse at a local hospital. We were together again.
What was life like in August 1967 for the average American big family? My parents never had enough money. Both worked, a rarity in 1967. Still, it was never enough. Most of the people we knew were in the same boat.
The Summer of Love? To us, hippies were an anomaly. I thought they were cool but their antics were foreign to me. Sex was dreamed of but an impossible dream, to take a line from a popular 1960s Broadway musical. We sweated and groped in the back seats of cars. There were public school girls who went all the way, or so the public school boys told us. But that wasn't for us.
Remember that this was pre-Disney Florida. Before the boom that caused the founding of dozens of fantasy worlds and caused everyone in Providence and Newark to relocate to Daytona and Sarasota. If it was a feature at Disney, it would be called "A Whole Different World World."
It's a Whole Different World World
It's a Whole Different World World
Segregated schools, no sex on the beaches
Swamps teeming with gators and leeches
It's a Whole Different World World after all
Don't get me wrong -- we admired those people engaging in unbridled sex and drug-taking in The Haight. We might have followed the lead of our parents and cursed those damn hippies. We were fascinated and jealous at the same time. It just seemed so foreign.
Happy 50th anniversary to all of you who engaged in the Summer of Love and lived to tell the tale.
Summer of '67. We all have our stories....
Friday, March 10, 2017
List for St. Patrick's Day: Top ten traits of Irish-Americans
What does it mean to be Irish-American?
Skin cancer, for one thing. We are light-skinned, except for the Black Irish who are not so much black as black-haired and dark-eyed. My mother was Black Irish, as was her father who came over from County Roscommon. Her brother John -- my uncle -- was often mistaken for a dweller of the Mediterranean, Italian or Spanish or even Basque, or possibly French like the Norman invaders. The Basques sailed the Atlantic and visited Ireland, maybe even made landfall in North America before other Europeans. Irish DNA maps are similar to those of Spain and Portugal and Normandy. You can look it up.
My initial question is important because we are in the midst of March and St. Patrick's Day arrives next week. It's the same week that March Madness begins and gives us two good reasons for day drinking. We also take a page from Mardi Gras in New Orleans and try to celebrate the entire month, or at least for a week or two leading up to The Big Day. Many St. Patrick's Day parades will be held this weekend, including the one in Denver which I will be attending. I was birthed in Denver, surrounded by Irish Sisters of Mercy, and my Irish grandfather is buried there. That gives me some claim to Irish-Americanism, Mile High City-style.
Did I mention that I have never traveled to Ireland to look up my ancestors? This is supposed to be on every Irish-American's wish list. I have gone 66 years without checking this off on mine. What's holding me back? Nothing, especially that I am now retired. I want to experience Bloomsday in Dublin, June 16. This is on my list because I can't seem to finish Joyce's 265,000-word masterpiece, Ulysses, hard as I try. I read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Can't finish Ulysses. This makes me a member of a large club of people who have not finished Ulysses. I decided that a trip to Joyce's Dublin will help me with this task. And I will get to drink many pints of good beer in the process. I will get to hear Irish brogues and good music for a few days. That's enough.
I will make a list of "top ten traits of every Irish-American." Online top-ten lists are the bee's knees right now. A list will be instructional for us all, me included.
Ten traits of every Irish-American:
1. We are a freckle-faced, light-skinned people except when we are not.
2. At least one of our ancestors comes from Ireland. It's helpful if all of your ancestors came from Ireland, but not everyone is perfect.
3. We are Catholic, except when we are Lutheran or Episcopalian or Buddhist or Zoroastrian or Coptic or atheist or transcendentalist or.... Maybe that should be: We were raised Catholic but came to our senses once we were adults.
4. At least one of our ancestors fled the potato famine of the 1840s. When I lived in Boston, everyone's relatives seemed to have arrived on the Mayflower. That must have been one wicked big ship. And the potato famine? It was terrible, but we can't all use this as an excuse to blog about our Irish ancestors who almost died in the famine and then crossed the ocean in a leaky ship to be told "Irish need not apply" for jobs when they arrived in the U.S.
5. We all tell tales about our Irish ancestors who almost died in the famine and then crossed the ocean in a leaky ship to be told "Irish need not apply" for jobs when they arrived in the U.S.
6. We attended Catholic school. This may be a generational thing. I attended Catholic school as did most of my eight brothers and sisters, for a little while, at least. We have stories of berserk nuns and cruel priests. Rulers across knuckles. After-school detentions where nuns smote us with cat-o'-nine-tails as we labored in the nunnery's vineyards. Our children and grandchildren think we are making up these stories because they all went to public schools.
7. We have big families. We did until some godforsaken Protestant told us about birth control. In the old days, we weren't allowed to consort with Protestants. The sixties changed all that.
8. We all have Irish names. My name is Michael Thomas Martin Shay. My wife is Christine Marie. My son is Kevin Michael Patrick. My daughter is Anne Marie. Yet, I have a nephew named Sean Martinez. America!
9. We celebrate St. Patrick's Day. It's almost mandatory to drink a green beer or a pint on March 17. We march in St. Patrick's Day parades unless we are LGBT veterans or twelve-steppers or disgruntled about the state of American politics. Everybody is Irish on this day except when they are not.
10. We are inconsistent and stubborn. Except when we are not.
That's my top ten. Perhaps you have another list?
BTW, Erin go bragh, whatever that means. And slainte -- I know what that means. I plan to use it often on St. Patrick's Day.
Skin cancer, for one thing. We are light-skinned, except for the Black Irish who are not so much black as black-haired and dark-eyed. My mother was Black Irish, as was her father who came over from County Roscommon. Her brother John -- my uncle -- was often mistaken for a dweller of the Mediterranean, Italian or Spanish or even Basque, or possibly French like the Norman invaders. The Basques sailed the Atlantic and visited Ireland, maybe even made landfall in North America before other Europeans. Irish DNA maps are similar to those of Spain and Portugal and Normandy. You can look it up.
My initial question is important because we are in the midst of March and St. Patrick's Day arrives next week. It's the same week that March Madness begins and gives us two good reasons for day drinking. We also take a page from Mardi Gras in New Orleans and try to celebrate the entire month, or at least for a week or two leading up to The Big Day. Many St. Patrick's Day parades will be held this weekend, including the one in Denver which I will be attending. I was birthed in Denver, surrounded by Irish Sisters of Mercy, and my Irish grandfather is buried there. That gives me some claim to Irish-Americanism, Mile High City-style.
Did I mention that I have never traveled to Ireland to look up my ancestors? This is supposed to be on every Irish-American's wish list. I have gone 66 years without checking this off on mine. What's holding me back? Nothing, especially that I am now retired. I want to experience Bloomsday in Dublin, June 16. This is on my list because I can't seem to finish Joyce's 265,000-word masterpiece, Ulysses, hard as I try. I read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Can't finish Ulysses. This makes me a member of a large club of people who have not finished Ulysses. I decided that a trip to Joyce's Dublin will help me with this task. And I will get to drink many pints of good beer in the process. I will get to hear Irish brogues and good music for a few days. That's enough.
I will make a list of "top ten traits of every Irish-American." Online top-ten lists are the bee's knees right now. A list will be instructional for us all, me included.
Ten traits of every Irish-American:
1. We are a freckle-faced, light-skinned people except when we are not.
2. At least one of our ancestors comes from Ireland. It's helpful if all of your ancestors came from Ireland, but not everyone is perfect.
3. We are Catholic, except when we are Lutheran or Episcopalian or Buddhist or Zoroastrian or Coptic or atheist or transcendentalist or.... Maybe that should be: We were raised Catholic but came to our senses once we were adults.
4. At least one of our ancestors fled the potato famine of the 1840s. When I lived in Boston, everyone's relatives seemed to have arrived on the Mayflower. That must have been one wicked big ship. And the potato famine? It was terrible, but we can't all use this as an excuse to blog about our Irish ancestors who almost died in the famine and then crossed the ocean in a leaky ship to be told "Irish need not apply" for jobs when they arrived in the U.S.
5. We all tell tales about our Irish ancestors who almost died in the famine and then crossed the ocean in a leaky ship to be told "Irish need not apply" for jobs when they arrived in the U.S.
6. We attended Catholic school. This may be a generational thing. I attended Catholic school as did most of my eight brothers and sisters, for a little while, at least. We have stories of berserk nuns and cruel priests. Rulers across knuckles. After-school detentions where nuns smote us with cat-o'-nine-tails as we labored in the nunnery's vineyards. Our children and grandchildren think we are making up these stories because they all went to public schools.
7. We have big families. We did until some godforsaken Protestant told us about birth control. In the old days, we weren't allowed to consort with Protestants. The sixties changed all that.
8. We all have Irish names. My name is Michael Thomas Martin Shay. My wife is Christine Marie. My son is Kevin Michael Patrick. My daughter is Anne Marie. Yet, I have a nephew named Sean Martinez. America!
9. We celebrate St. Patrick's Day. It's almost mandatory to drink a green beer or a pint on March 17. We march in St. Patrick's Day parades unless we are LGBT veterans or twelve-steppers or disgruntled about the state of American politics. Everybody is Irish on this day except when they are not.
10. We are inconsistent and stubborn. Except when we are not.
That's my top ten. Perhaps you have another list?
BTW, Erin go bragh, whatever that means. And slainte -- I know what that means. I plan to use it often on St. Patrick's Day.
Monday, March 07, 2016
Democrats hold a "Get Your Green On" bash just in time for St. Patrick's Day
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| A typical St. Patrick's Day celebration in Cheyenne |
Toasting your friends with green beer. Wearing green. Toasting your family with a shot of Irish whiskey. Eating corned beef and cabbage. Substituting Irish Coffee for your latte in the a.m. Singing when "Irish Eyes are Crying" and/or "Danny Boy" at the local pub after a few beers and a few shots. Attending a St. Patrick's Day Parade, such as the one in downtown Denver this Saturday.
If you even do a few of these things on St. Patrick's Day, it can be called a success. That's how Americans celebrate the holiday that honors the patron saint of Ireland. I guess you could also take some time out to drive the snakes out of your town or county, as legend tells us that St. Patrick did for all of Ireland. The tale is a metaphor. Substitute pagans for snakes and you get the idea. St. Patrick, a Christian, drove the pagans out of Ireland. It hasn't been the same since.
Before I get too far along, I want to let my readers know about this:
So, wear green if you are Irish. Wear green if you aren't Irish. Green can also stand in for the greenies among us, and I'm not stalking about those people from Colorado, although you too are welcome. We have amongst us those who are going green in a big way, replacing coal with solar, wind, and geothermal. Some of us are trading in our gas guzzlers for electric vehicles that we plug in and recharge overnight. So, your costume may be a wind turbine, or possibly a Nissan Leaf auto body. Earth Day is right around the corner and it's the Democrats who are showing the way to clean energy. Green also can stand for those "Mr. Greenjeans" gardeners we have in Cheyenne. If you can grow a garden at 6,200 feet in Cheyenne or 7,200 feet in Laramie, you can grow a garden anywhere. Hats off to all of you, who may come dressed as a broccoli, green bean, zucchini or any other green growing thing.The Laramie Coiunty Democrats Grassroots Coalition (LCDGC) is holding a "Get Your Green On" celebration on Sunday, March 13, 5-8 p.m., in the community room at the Cheyenne Family YMCA. The Grassroots Coalition will provide corned beef and cabbage with soda bread. Gourmet cupcakes will be available for purchase with a chance to win a "Pot of Gold." Enjoy the entertainment, which may consist of local legend Michael O'Shea playing ditties on his Irish flute. Hear horror stories about the recently completed Wyoming Legislature, as witnessed by some of our local representatives (Charles Scott: "We don't need no stinkin' Medicaid expansion!"). Be sure to wear green. Prizes awarded for the best costumes. Bring a friend and your greenbacks. Suggested donation $15. Proceeds go to Democrats in Laramie County running for office in 2016.
BTW, the Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition is the FUNdraising arm of the Laramie County Democrats. We had a blast, and raised more than $1,000 at the January POTluck FUNdraiser at Joe's house in Cheyenne. We hope to keep the money rolling in for Democrats, as we have seen the damage that can be done by a veto-proof Republican legislature. It ain't pretty. Our Dem friends in the House and Senate need some allies.
See you on March 13. Get your green on!
Directions to the YMCA: The YMCA is not accessible via Lincolnway. To reach the Y's parking lot, you have to approach from Logan Avenue via 18th Street -- it's on your left. Or you can come via 19th Street (one-way) and take a right on Alexander or via 20th Street (one-way) and take a left on Alexander. The Community Room is at the south end of the Y parking lot. If you have a GPS, use it.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
On March 13, Laramie County Dems will get their green on
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| St. Patrick's Day parade in Montreal. |
The Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition (LCDGC) is the FUNdraising arm for the Dems in Wyoming's most populous county. Our goal is to raise money for our candidates and have some fun in the process. Since the unofficial launch of the 2016 election season last summer, we've held a Flag Day celebration, which raised funds for LCDGC and the Healing Waters program for veterans; a tailgate party, which (we firmly believe) helped propel the Broncos to their Super Bowl victory; a chili/salsa/dessert cook-off; and a Jan. 31 mid-winter POTluck bash to chase the blues away (and bring in some green). At this latest event, we heard updates from our state legislators about what will be another crazy session, this one being held off-campus as the Capitol Complex undergoes a three-year, $300 million renovation. We also heard from Scott Sidman of Wyoming NORML about the revamped medical marijuana initiative.
Now we look ahead to springtime in the Rockies. Thoughts of St. Patrick's Day and the green of growing things fills our heads. Alas, we still have to navigate several more months of snow and wind and cold. But, to celebrate dreams of spring, the LCDGC will be holding a "Get Your Green On" FUNdraiser on Sunday, March 13, 5-8 p.m., at the Cheyenne Family YMCA, 1626 E. Lincolnway. Tickets are $15 at the door. Crackerjack LCDGC cooks of Irish descent will supply the corned beef and cabbage and soda bread. Cupcakes may be purchased, entering you into the "Pot of Gold" drawing for fabulous prizes. The night will feature Irish entertainment and a legislative session post-mortem from our Laramie County delegation.
"Get Your Green On!" We invite you to wear a costume on the green theme. It could have something to do with St. Patrick's Day or an outfit that celebrates the greening of Wyoming when it comes to our environment. Think wind turbine or solar array or geothermal or peddle power or the much-dreamed-about greening of coal. There will be prizes for the best and/or funkiest costumes.
Get more info at http://www.laramiecountydemocrats.org/ or find event updates on the LCDGC Facebook page.
Get more info at http://www.laramiecountydemocrats.org/ or find event updates on the LCDGC Facebook page.
Saturday, August 08, 2015
RedState diarist decries "Know Nothing" Trump
The RedState Gathering in Atlanta is getting big news today. RedState guru Erick Erickson "disinvited" Donald Trump to this confab of conservative bloggers after Trump made some rude and crude comments about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, one of the moderators of Thursday's debate. Here's Trump talking to CNN's Don Lemon:
I went over to RedState to read Erickson's statement. I also stumbled across a diary by Steve Berman that's worth sharing. I've written about the 19th-century Know Nothing movement a few times, even stooping to calling my opponents "Know Nothings" for their belligerent attitudes and knuckleheaded policies. A few of my conservative readers took me to task, feeling that I was calling them stupid. I was not. I was trying to equate their views with those of the Know Nothing Party, which arose in response to Irish Catholic immigration. The Know Nothings' no-nothingness eventually was their undoing.
Berman compares the Know Nothings with the Whig Party, which also disappeared. He contends that Trump's continual Know Nothing behavior could mean the end of the Republican Party. Here's a quote:
The question remains: Why is Trump still the GOP front-runner?
"You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever."Must give credit to Erickson. Not easy to disinvite the GOP front-runner to the largest gathering of ConBloggers. But bloggers of all stripes do actually pay attention to the minutiae of presidential campaigns. As a Liberal Blogger, I shared a hotel with the conservatives when Netroots Nation and RedState gathered in Minneapolis in 2011. I had a few intriguing conversations at the hotel bar. No common ground, but big doses of passion along with some good info I could use in my own blog.
I went over to RedState to read Erickson's statement. I also stumbled across a diary by Steve Berman that's worth sharing. I've written about the 19th-century Know Nothing movement a few times, even stooping to calling my opponents "Know Nothings" for their belligerent attitudes and knuckleheaded policies. A few of my conservative readers took me to task, feeling that I was calling them stupid. I was not. I was trying to equate their views with those of the Know Nothing Party, which arose in response to Irish Catholic immigration. The Know Nothings' no-nothingness eventually was their undoing.
Berman compares the Know Nothings with the Whig Party, which also disappeared. He contends that Trump's continual Know Nothing behavior could mean the end of the Republican Party. Here's a quote:
The final Whig president of the United States was Millard Filmore in 1853. He marked the death of the Whigs, and the rise of the Know-Nothings. Today the GOP faces its own death, and the continued success of Donald Trump in the polls reflects the fact that the Republican Party is staring into its own grave.And this:
Trump is a direct result of the GOP’s inability to define itself as a party with a purpose. If the GOP is defined as “everything that isn’t Democrat” then it’s nothing more than the Whigs of 1854. Dead.Strong stuff. Well written. Check it out here.
The question remains: Why is Trump still the GOP front-runner?
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Ireland's Great Hunger lives on
 |
| "Skibbereen 1847" by Cork artist James Mahony (1810–1879), commissioned by The Illustrated London News, 1847 |
I have never been hungry enough to eat grass or old shoe leather.
Ireland's Great Hunger starved a million Irish and sent many packing for America. Some starved and sickened along the way in the so-called coffin ships. Those left at home ate anything they could find. Many starved anyway.
Our English overlords stood by and did nothing. They did import corn to Ireland but none of the starvelings could afford it. Some relief came from unexpected sources. Knowing what it was like to starve on "The Trail of Tears," Cherokees in Oklahoma sent food to the Irish. The Turks did too.
A mythology builds up around any earth-shaking event that causes the diaspora of hundreds of thousands of people. The Irish have immortalized the Great Hunger in song and story and art. Family stories, too. My own Shay relatives left Ireland for the U.S. in 1847. They farmed in New England and then moved to Iowa, where they prospered. They may have hungered and thirsted through the years, when drought and pestilence visited the Iowa City area. But they were never threatened with starvation of the type they faced in Ireland.
Even amidst prosperity, does the Great Hunger linger within us?
According to an article on the Irish Central web site:
What if our genes, damaged by cataclysmic hunger, contributed to Aunt Clara's delusions?
Researchers have been busily studying the causes of mental illness for generations. Genetics play a role. Trauma, too, as in PTSD. And what is starvation if not a major trauma, as important as war or torture or physical abuse?
Walsh has also researched the dramatic growth in Irish lunatic asylums in the 19th century. The first was built a dozen years before the potato famine. But it continued well into the latter part of the century, along with increased patient populations. They included those with behavior problems as well as "lunatics at large." Families stashed their problem children in the asylums; Aunt Clara too. Husbands stashed inconvenient wives in asylums, freeing them to marry a newfound love interest.
The U.S. built asylums, too. Many are now closed, the sites of horrendous treatment of patients, torture and murder. Others grew up as medications and treatment options improved.
The Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston opened in 1887, three years before statehood, and was first called the Wyoming Insane Asylum. I don't have to imagine "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" scenes or strait jackets and padded rooms and lobotomies -- I'm sure all of that happened there as it did at other asylums, from Ken Kesey's Oregon State Hospital to the notorious Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey. Society's cast-offs are always treated badly.
We are now enlightened. We have super-drugs for the mentally ill. Our treatment has gone beyond shock therapy and mind-numbing drugs. We are stardust. We are golden.
If only that were true.
Anyone with a mentally ill family member knows the challenges of finding the right treatments. This isn't a problem faced only by rural states such as Wyoming. It is a problem everywhere.
It is refreshing to see researchers such as Oonagh Walsh dig deeper into the origins of mental illness. Perhaps my grandfathers' depression was due to being shell-shocked in World War I. Perhaps it was part of the epigenetic change inflicted on his Irish forebears. That doesn't help him, as he's long gone. But it might help me, an aging Irish-American who also suffers from depression.
It may also help my daughter, who's had major struggles with her mental illness since she was 14. She now is a patient as the place formerly known as the Wyoming Insane Asylum. Her parents are now trying to help her in any way we can. Some of that is practical parental involvement. We are strong advocates for our daughter. Knowledge is part of that. We more we know, the better.
And this is what feeds my imagination: the vision of a starving mother in 1847 scouring the fields of County Cork for a few grains of barley. Her future depends on it. She may starve, but the memory of it will last for generations.
Ireland's Great Hunger starved a million Irish and sent many packing for America. Some starved and sickened along the way in the so-called coffin ships. Those left at home ate anything they could find. Many starved anyway.
Our English overlords stood by and did nothing. They did import corn to Ireland but none of the starvelings could afford it. Some relief came from unexpected sources. Knowing what it was like to starve on "The Trail of Tears," Cherokees in Oklahoma sent food to the Irish. The Turks did too.
A mythology builds up around any earth-shaking event that causes the diaspora of hundreds of thousands of people. The Irish have immortalized the Great Hunger in song and story and art. Family stories, too. My own Shay relatives left Ireland for the U.S. in 1847. They farmed in New England and then moved to Iowa, where they prospered. They may have hungered and thirsted through the years, when drought and pestilence visited the Iowa City area. But they were never threatened with starvation of the type they faced in Ireland.
Even amidst prosperity, does the Great Hunger linger within us?
According to an article on the Irish Central web site:
Irish historian Oonagh Walsh believes that the Great Hunger triggered a higher rate of mental illness among later generations, including both those who stayed in Ireland and those who emigrated.She believes that severe nutritional deprivation between 1845-1850 caused "epigenetic change." Here's more:
Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression. These do not necessarily involve changes to the genetic code, but the effects may persist for several generations. Walsh estimated that the impact from epigenetic change from the Great Hunger lasted for a century and a half.
Walsh’s research is still at an early stage, but she expects to see a correlation between the high rates of mental illness and the effects of maternal starvation. She also thinks there may be a connection between the Great Hunger and cardiovascular and other diseases.Just think about this a bit. We all know that mental and physical traits can "run in a family." Red hair, height, odd behavior. Remember Aunt Clara? We had to keep her in the attic -- she thought she was the Queen of Sheba.
What if our genes, damaged by cataclysmic hunger, contributed to Aunt Clara's delusions?
Researchers have been busily studying the causes of mental illness for generations. Genetics play a role. Trauma, too, as in PTSD. And what is starvation if not a major trauma, as important as war or torture or physical abuse?
Walsh has also researched the dramatic growth in Irish lunatic asylums in the 19th century. The first was built a dozen years before the potato famine. But it continued well into the latter part of the century, along with increased patient populations. They included those with behavior problems as well as "lunatics at large." Families stashed their problem children in the asylums; Aunt Clara too. Husbands stashed inconvenient wives in asylums, freeing them to marry a newfound love interest.
The U.S. built asylums, too. Many are now closed, the sites of horrendous treatment of patients, torture and murder. Others grew up as medications and treatment options improved.
The Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston opened in 1887, three years before statehood, and was first called the Wyoming Insane Asylum. I don't have to imagine "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" scenes or strait jackets and padded rooms and lobotomies -- I'm sure all of that happened there as it did at other asylums, from Ken Kesey's Oregon State Hospital to the notorious Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey. Society's cast-offs are always treated badly.
We are now enlightened. We have super-drugs for the mentally ill. Our treatment has gone beyond shock therapy and mind-numbing drugs. We are stardust. We are golden.
If only that were true.
Anyone with a mentally ill family member knows the challenges of finding the right treatments. This isn't a problem faced only by rural states such as Wyoming. It is a problem everywhere.
It is refreshing to see researchers such as Oonagh Walsh dig deeper into the origins of mental illness. Perhaps my grandfathers' depression was due to being shell-shocked in World War I. Perhaps it was part of the epigenetic change inflicted on his Irish forebears. That doesn't help him, as he's long gone. But it might help me, an aging Irish-American who also suffers from depression.
It may also help my daughter, who's had major struggles with her mental illness since she was 14. She now is a patient as the place formerly known as the Wyoming Insane Asylum. Her parents are now trying to help her in any way we can. Some of that is practical parental involvement. We are strong advocates for our daughter. Knowledge is part of that. We more we know, the better.
And this is what feeds my imagination: the vision of a starving mother in 1847 scouring the fields of County Cork for a few grains of barley. Her future depends on it. She may starve, but the memory of it will last for generations.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Irish or not?
What does it mean to be Irish in America?
That's topic enough for a book or two.
I'm Irish enough. My maternal grandfather left County Roscommon for the coal mines of England and then to to the U.S., Denver by way of New York and Chicago. My paternal grandfather's grandfather was a Potato Famine escapee whose original name was O'Shea. My aunt, Patricia Lee Shay, tracked the immigration of our ancestors from Ireland to upstate New York to Iowa over the course of 20 years. Somewhere along the line, the family changed its surname to Shay. Our guess was that Shay is less Irish than O'Shea. Yet it's tough to hide your Irishness -- brogue, red hair, Catholicism, big family and all that.
My maternal grandmother was Agnes McDermott from what's now a suburb of Cincinnati. She motored West with some gal pals and her sister and discovered the wonders of the Rocky Mountains. When she and her sister returned home, they packed up and moved to Denver. A few years later, she met my grandfather at a Hibernian Club shindig, married, had kids and so on. As a baby, I lived in their Washington Park house with my parents. I don't remember much of that time, although it's undoubtedly locked away in my subconscious, waiting to be explored.
My paternal grandmother is the only non-Irish in the bunch. Her forebears come from England and have the surname of Green, settlers of Baltimore. Her mother was a Lee from Virginia, which makes me one of the millions of Southerners who claim they are related to Robert E. Lee, Light Horse Harry Lee and the rest of that warlike clan. I've never checked out the connection as the story itself is fun to relate and I'd hate to spoil it.
So I'm three-quarters Irish and a quarter English. Two sides at war with one another for five centuries. You could say that makes for divided loyalties but the Irish always wins out. My mother was raised on Irish stories from my grandfather's South Denver chums. Mischievous fairies and wailing banshees. Irish stories always seem to be a mixture of magic and terror, much like Irish history and Roman Catholicism. We loved it when our mother read to us but really were waiting for her banshee bedtime stories, which were more thrilling than soothing.
That's my Irish lineage. I've never been to Ireland, which seems an oversight. I've thought about going more than once but never carried through on the thought. I don't really care about looking up my Irish roots. God knows that Ireland must benefit from all of the Irish-Americans flocking in to explore their roots, looking up Great Uncle Sean and Great Aunt Molly. I'm more interested in the literature of Ireland. I'd love to be in Dublin for Bloomsday on June 16. As is the case with many English majors, I almost finished James Joyce's "Ulysses" several times. But I know the "day in the life of" story and have read enough of Joyce's penetrable works ("Dubliners," "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man") to find the event fascinating.
Maybe next year.
I think that my need for storytelling can be traced to my Irish roots. Other cultures value stories but the Irish are almost pathological about it. Irish writers seem a cantankerous bunch. Joyce with his stream of consciousness and banned books. Sean O'Casey with his troublesome plays and Oscar Wilde with his witty plays and troublesome lifestyle. W.B. Yeats is misinterpreted as often as he is explained. Roddy Doyle has an exciting time telling stories of modern Ireland and re-examining its uprising and civil war. I don't even know most contemporary Irish writers. I hear that there's a revival in Gaelic writers. And then there are all of the U.S. and Canadian and Aussie writers with Irish roots.
It's good to be Irish. Even on St. Patrick's Day.
That's topic enough for a book or two.
I'm Irish enough. My maternal grandfather left County Roscommon for the coal mines of England and then to to the U.S., Denver by way of New York and Chicago. My paternal grandfather's grandfather was a Potato Famine escapee whose original name was O'Shea. My aunt, Patricia Lee Shay, tracked the immigration of our ancestors from Ireland to upstate New York to Iowa over the course of 20 years. Somewhere along the line, the family changed its surname to Shay. Our guess was that Shay is less Irish than O'Shea. Yet it's tough to hide your Irishness -- brogue, red hair, Catholicism, big family and all that.
My maternal grandmother was Agnes McDermott from what's now a suburb of Cincinnati. She motored West with some gal pals and her sister and discovered the wonders of the Rocky Mountains. When she and her sister returned home, they packed up and moved to Denver. A few years later, she met my grandfather at a Hibernian Club shindig, married, had kids and so on. As a baby, I lived in their Washington Park house with my parents. I don't remember much of that time, although it's undoubtedly locked away in my subconscious, waiting to be explored.
My paternal grandmother is the only non-Irish in the bunch. Her forebears come from England and have the surname of Green, settlers of Baltimore. Her mother was a Lee from Virginia, which makes me one of the millions of Southerners who claim they are related to Robert E. Lee, Light Horse Harry Lee and the rest of that warlike clan. I've never checked out the connection as the story itself is fun to relate and I'd hate to spoil it.
So I'm three-quarters Irish and a quarter English. Two sides at war with one another for five centuries. You could say that makes for divided loyalties but the Irish always wins out. My mother was raised on Irish stories from my grandfather's South Denver chums. Mischievous fairies and wailing banshees. Irish stories always seem to be a mixture of magic and terror, much like Irish history and Roman Catholicism. We loved it when our mother read to us but really were waiting for her banshee bedtime stories, which were more thrilling than soothing.
That's my Irish lineage. I've never been to Ireland, which seems an oversight. I've thought about going more than once but never carried through on the thought. I don't really care about looking up my Irish roots. God knows that Ireland must benefit from all of the Irish-Americans flocking in to explore their roots, looking up Great Uncle Sean and Great Aunt Molly. I'm more interested in the literature of Ireland. I'd love to be in Dublin for Bloomsday on June 16. As is the case with many English majors, I almost finished James Joyce's "Ulysses" several times. But I know the "day in the life of" story and have read enough of Joyce's penetrable works ("Dubliners," "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man") to find the event fascinating.
Maybe next year.
I think that my need for storytelling can be traced to my Irish roots. Other cultures value stories but the Irish are almost pathological about it. Irish writers seem a cantankerous bunch. Joyce with his stream of consciousness and banned books. Sean O'Casey with his troublesome plays and Oscar Wilde with his witty plays and troublesome lifestyle. W.B. Yeats is misinterpreted as often as he is explained. Roddy Doyle has an exciting time telling stories of modern Ireland and re-examining its uprising and civil war. I don't even know most contemporary Irish writers. I hear that there's a revival in Gaelic writers. And then there are all of the U.S. and Canadian and Aussie writers with Irish roots.
It's good to be Irish. Even on St. Patrick's Day.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Scenes from my brother's wake
I bled at my brother Dan’s wake.
Dressed for an 85-degree Florida Saturday. Flowered baggies and a “Life is Good” T-shirt. Barefoot. Speaking on the phone to my wife Chris in Wyoming, I wandered among the people gathered for the send-off in Dan’s backyard.
"You’re bleeding,” said a young woman not of my acquaintance. She pointed at my left leg.
I looked. On the back of my left calf, a rivulet of blood flowed amongst the islands of freckles spawned during my long-ago beach days.
"I’m bleeding,” I said into the phone.
“How did that happen?” Chris said.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t.
“Better get a bandage.”
We hung up and I set out to get a bandage. I was distracted along the way. Old friends. Family. I stopped to talk with a first cousin John I hadn’t seen in decades.
“You’re bleeding,” said my sister Molly. She looked concerned.
“I bleed easily these days,” I said. “Blood thinners.”
“Better get a Band-Aid.”
Such helpfulness. I didn’t care about my leg. But others did. It was a day of caring. A day we said good-bye to my brother. I could suddenly see what others saw. A 62-year-old man carting around a cardiac device, circulatory system pumped full of drugs. He sports a nifty goatee but we’re not fooled. Take care of yourself, old guy.
I hunted for a Band-Aid. Rifled the drawers in the bathrooms. Didn’t want to bother Dan’s widow Nancy. She was busy.
I wandered into the garage in search of a beer. This was an Irish-American wake, after all. Found the beer and talked with my brother Tom and some of his friends out front in the smoking section. Today, I think mortality. Why are these people smoking? Heart patients dwell on smoke and mortality.
“You’re bleeding,” Tom said.
I explained the blood thinners, heart disease, etc.
“You have blood on your right leg too.” He pointed. A fist-sized copper smudge marked my right calf.
This was getting ridiculous. I found an open restroom and wiped the blood clean. The wound was less than impressive. Two dots the size of pencil points. Looked like a very short vampire had sunk his fangs into me in the bright sunlight of the Florida afternoon. I unrolled some toilet paper to carry around with me. First aid.
“You’re bleeding.” I looked at my leg. The blood river was back.
“These blood thinners are ridiculous,” said the 62-year-old heart patient.
I was walking around a wake with my leg drooling blood. Bad manners. Bad juju. Blood on the tracks. Blood on the furniture.
Nancy found me some bandaging equipment and a warm towel. I wiped the blood clean again. Put two Band-Aids on the wounds. "There,” I said. I put away the first-aid kit.
Hours later. It was dark. The tiki lamps were lit.
"You’re bleeding,” someone said.
“You must be kidding,” I said.
But it was no joke. The blood was back. I was woozy from blood loss. Or maybe it was the three beers I’d managed to imbibe during the course of the last four hours. Could have been stunned by the fine homemade food – Boston beef, hot wings, pasta salad, cookies. Fortified blood. Healthy blood yet thin.
This is when my nephew Thomas came to the rescue. The first-year med student took me by the arm and told me to sit. Nancy again fetched the first-aid materials. Tom snapped on gloves and proceeded to patch me up. It was a spectacle. I sat at the dining room table as dozens looked on. The operating theatre. Tom removed the Band-Aids and cleaned up the wound.
“That’s it?” He pointed at the tiny wounds.
“Blood thinners,” I said.
Doctor-like, he furrowed his brow. “I see.” He was practicing his bedside manner.
He slapped a dressing on the wound. He wrapped it tight with gauze, enough gauze to patch up all of the wounded in that Atlanta depot scene from “Gone with the Wind.”
“There,” he said, obviously pleased with his work. I wasn’t bleeding openly any more. Everyone seemed relieved.
At Blake’s urging, we all went outside on the dock to sing a rendition of “Goodnight Irene.” This is an ancient ritual with Blake and I. Old friends singing old songs late into the night. Blake was Dan’s good friend for 40-some years. My friend too. We sang for Dan and for ourselves. My sister filmed us. Somewhere on Facebook, that film is entertaining the multitudes.
I bled at my brother’s wake.
That was only the bleeding you could see.
Dressed for an 85-degree Florida Saturday. Flowered baggies and a “Life is Good” T-shirt. Barefoot. Speaking on the phone to my wife Chris in Wyoming, I wandered among the people gathered for the send-off in Dan’s backyard.
"You’re bleeding,” said a young woman not of my acquaintance. She pointed at my left leg.
I looked. On the back of my left calf, a rivulet of blood flowed amongst the islands of freckles spawned during my long-ago beach days.
"I’m bleeding,” I said into the phone.
“How did that happen?” Chris said.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t.
“Better get a bandage.”
We hung up and I set out to get a bandage. I was distracted along the way. Old friends. Family. I stopped to talk with a first cousin John I hadn’t seen in decades.
“You’re bleeding,” said my sister Molly. She looked concerned.
“I bleed easily these days,” I said. “Blood thinners.”
“Better get a Band-Aid.”
Such helpfulness. I didn’t care about my leg. But others did. It was a day of caring. A day we said good-bye to my brother. I could suddenly see what others saw. A 62-year-old man carting around a cardiac device, circulatory system pumped full of drugs. He sports a nifty goatee but we’re not fooled. Take care of yourself, old guy.
I hunted for a Band-Aid. Rifled the drawers in the bathrooms. Didn’t want to bother Dan’s widow Nancy. She was busy.
I wandered into the garage in search of a beer. This was an Irish-American wake, after all. Found the beer and talked with my brother Tom and some of his friends out front in the smoking section. Today, I think mortality. Why are these people smoking? Heart patients dwell on smoke and mortality.
“You’re bleeding,” Tom said.
I explained the blood thinners, heart disease, etc.
“You have blood on your right leg too.” He pointed. A fist-sized copper smudge marked my right calf.
This was getting ridiculous. I found an open restroom and wiped the blood clean. The wound was less than impressive. Two dots the size of pencil points. Looked like a very short vampire had sunk his fangs into me in the bright sunlight of the Florida afternoon. I unrolled some toilet paper to carry around with me. First aid.
“You’re bleeding.” I looked at my leg. The blood river was back.
“These blood thinners are ridiculous,” said the 62-year-old heart patient.
I was walking around a wake with my leg drooling blood. Bad manners. Bad juju. Blood on the tracks. Blood on the furniture.
Nancy found me some bandaging equipment and a warm towel. I wiped the blood clean again. Put two Band-Aids on the wounds. "There,” I said. I put away the first-aid kit.
Hours later. It was dark. The tiki lamps were lit.
"You’re bleeding,” someone said.
“You must be kidding,” I said.
But it was no joke. The blood was back. I was woozy from blood loss. Or maybe it was the three beers I’d managed to imbibe during the course of the last four hours. Could have been stunned by the fine homemade food – Boston beef, hot wings, pasta salad, cookies. Fortified blood. Healthy blood yet thin.
This is when my nephew Thomas came to the rescue. The first-year med student took me by the arm and told me to sit. Nancy again fetched the first-aid materials. Tom snapped on gloves and proceeded to patch me up. It was a spectacle. I sat at the dining room table as dozens looked on. The operating theatre. Tom removed the Band-Aids and cleaned up the wound.
“That’s it?” He pointed at the tiny wounds.
“Blood thinners,” I said.
Doctor-like, he furrowed his brow. “I see.” He was practicing his bedside manner.
He slapped a dressing on the wound. He wrapped it tight with gauze, enough gauze to patch up all of the wounded in that Atlanta depot scene from “Gone with the Wind.”
“There,” he said, obviously pleased with his work. I wasn’t bleeding openly any more. Everyone seemed relieved.
At Blake’s urging, we all went outside on the dock to sing a rendition of “Goodnight Irene.” This is an ancient ritual with Blake and I. Old friends singing old songs late into the night. Blake was Dan’s good friend for 40-some years. My friend too. We sang for Dan and for ourselves. My sister filmed us. Somewhere on Facebook, that film is entertaining the multitudes.
I bled at my brother’s wake.
That was only the bleeding you could see.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Isn't The Equality State the proper place for civil rights activists and racists to meet?
The weekend's summit meeting in Casper between the NAACP and the KKK is kicking up a fuss.
The Independent in the UK gave it big play as did a slew of my fellow bloggers (go here and here).
Adding to the drama is the fact that NAACP higher-ups apparently did not approve of the meeting, which seems silly to me. My colleagues at the NAACP Casper branch came off looking cordial and knowledgeable in Jeremy Fugleberg's excellent Casper Star-Tribune article. KKK Kleagle John Abarr seemed a bit cluelesss, but redeemed himself by joining the NAACP and even kicking in an additional $20 donation. This is a good thing for an organization that has a tough time recruiting members and raising funds in a place that's subtitled "The Equality State" and often falls short of living up to that vaunted title.
The CST's Fugleberg is following the continuing drama on Twitter. You can too.
Lest you think that the KKK is the quaint little Christian social organization portrayed by Abarr, read deeper into the many media articles.
Not quite sure about the KKK's history in Wyoming (little help here, Phil Roberts!). But I do know a bit about the Klan in Colorado. It was a powerful organization in Denver during the 1920s. Unable to find enough blacks to torment, the KKK picked on Irish and Italians and Chicanos -- all Catholics targeted by the Nativist "100% American" elements in the KKK. Hooded Klansmen burned crosses in my Irish grandfather's South Denver neighborhood, in Italian Pueblo and throughout the state. Hipsters in Denver's pricey Wash Park may not know this, but people who once occupied their renovated houses used to avoid walking around their own neighborhood. My mom and her brother and sister were chased home from their Catholic school by protestant kids from South High. They threw rocks at them and called them "rednecks" because the Irish tended to have sunburned necks from working out in the sun all day. They labored on the railroad and on construction projects and on farms east of town.
The Klan elected a Governor and had the Denver mayor and a passel of Republican legislators in their pocket. But their power waned as people grew tired of their hateful, regressive agenda.
Hard to imagine solidly Democratic Denver as a Klan bastion. It's hard to believe that the Klan still exists in 2013. Let's hope the dialogue that started in Casper continues.
Hope.
The Independent in the UK gave it big play as did a slew of my fellow bloggers (go here and here).
Adding to the drama is the fact that NAACP higher-ups apparently did not approve of the meeting, which seems silly to me. My colleagues at the NAACP Casper branch came off looking cordial and knowledgeable in Jeremy Fugleberg's excellent Casper Star-Tribune article. KKK Kleagle John Abarr seemed a bit cluelesss, but redeemed himself by joining the NAACP and even kicking in an additional $20 donation. This is a good thing for an organization that has a tough time recruiting members and raising funds in a place that's subtitled "The Equality State" and often falls short of living up to that vaunted title.
The CST's Fugleberg is following the continuing drama on Twitter. You can too.
Lest you think that the KKK is the quaint little Christian social organization portrayed by Abarr, read deeper into the many media articles.
Not quite sure about the KKK's history in Wyoming (little help here, Phil Roberts!). But I do know a bit about the Klan in Colorado. It was a powerful organization in Denver during the 1920s. Unable to find enough blacks to torment, the KKK picked on Irish and Italians and Chicanos -- all Catholics targeted by the Nativist "100% American" elements in the KKK. Hooded Klansmen burned crosses in my Irish grandfather's South Denver neighborhood, in Italian Pueblo and throughout the state. Hipsters in Denver's pricey Wash Park may not know this, but people who once occupied their renovated houses used to avoid walking around their own neighborhood. My mom and her brother and sister were chased home from their Catholic school by protestant kids from South High. They threw rocks at them and called them "rednecks" because the Irish tended to have sunburned necks from working out in the sun all day. They labored on the railroad and on construction projects and on farms east of town.
The Klan elected a Governor and had the Denver mayor and a passel of Republican legislators in their pocket. But their power waned as people grew tired of their hateful, regressive agenda.
Hard to imagine solidly Democratic Denver as a Klan bastion. It's hard to believe that the Klan still exists in 2013. Let's hope the dialogue that started in Casper continues.
Hope.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Have fun at the Celtic Festival, but don't barf on my boots
My people are in town for a party.
My people are the Celts, descendants of a loose band of European tribes who eventually settled Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Some of them made their way to the Western Wildlands of America where they built the railroads, mined coal, opened bars and played the bagpipes at funerals.
The party is the Cheyenne Celtic Musical Arts Festival, held this last weekend in June at the Historic Depot downtown. It features concerts, vendors, a gathering of clans, a parade, Irish step-dancers and a fiddle contest. Beer and food, too. There are Scottish-Americans in kilts walking around with flasks disguised as cell phones and pens. A clever lot, those Scots. We Irish-Americans just walk around openly with a pint of Guinness or a black-and-tan, preferably one in each hand.
"The drink" has not been kind to the Irish. I drink, but the drink has never laid claim to my soul as it has to so many of my brethren and sistren. Without it we wouldn't be the Irish, I suppose, but with it.... It may lead to good stories and music, but it's laid waste to a lot of us.
Enough with the teetotaling talk. It's a downer at festival time.
One of the key elements of any Celtic fest is the Scottish-Irish-Welsh heritage. There are whole counties in Appalachia populated by Scots-Irish. They gave us bluegrass, folk and country music traditions, and a feisty attitude. Unions, too, as the Scots-Irish miners rose up against their Scots-Irish millionaire overlords. We've always been good at pummelling our own kind.
Last night, after the torch-lit march of the clans (my wife Chris was in there with the Cumming clan), there was much talk about the 2014 vote on Scottish independence. Some are for it, some against it. "The Staggers" blog at The New Statesman says that if the vote on the "devolution settlement" were held today, Scotland would remain in the U.K. First of all, doesn't "the staggers" refer to a state of staggering drunkenness? Secondly, I though that the devolution issue was settled once and for all in the 1970s with Mark Mothersbaugh and Devo.
In the so-called British Isles, history binds and history divides.
And gets increasing confusing to us colonials.
All of the Celtic or Scots-Irish festivals I've attended have been fun. There's even a Celtic band in Cheyenne called Gobs O'Phun. That's what it should be about, after all.
So, get out to the plaza this evening to enjoy Molly's Revenge and Ceili Rain, which lit up the stage last night. Enjoy a draught or two of Guinness. But I warn you, if you throw up on my boots, I'll apply my shillelagh to your noggin. That tradition is Irish and Western.
My people are the Celts, descendants of a loose band of European tribes who eventually settled Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Some of them made their way to the Western Wildlands of America where they built the railroads, mined coal, opened bars and played the bagpipes at funerals.
The party is the Cheyenne Celtic Musical Arts Festival, held this last weekend in June at the Historic Depot downtown. It features concerts, vendors, a gathering of clans, a parade, Irish step-dancers and a fiddle contest. Beer and food, too. There are Scottish-Americans in kilts walking around with flasks disguised as cell phones and pens. A clever lot, those Scots. We Irish-Americans just walk around openly with a pint of Guinness or a black-and-tan, preferably one in each hand.
"The drink" has not been kind to the Irish. I drink, but the drink has never laid claim to my soul as it has to so many of my brethren and sistren. Without it we wouldn't be the Irish, I suppose, but with it.... It may lead to good stories and music, but it's laid waste to a lot of us.
Enough with the teetotaling talk. It's a downer at festival time.
One of the key elements of any Celtic fest is the Scottish-Irish-Welsh heritage. There are whole counties in Appalachia populated by Scots-Irish. They gave us bluegrass, folk and country music traditions, and a feisty attitude. Unions, too, as the Scots-Irish miners rose up against their Scots-Irish millionaire overlords. We've always been good at pummelling our own kind.
Last night, after the torch-lit march of the clans (my wife Chris was in there with the Cumming clan), there was much talk about the 2014 vote on Scottish independence. Some are for it, some against it. "The Staggers" blog at The New Statesman says that if the vote on the "devolution settlement" were held today, Scotland would remain in the U.K. First of all, doesn't "the staggers" refer to a state of staggering drunkenness? Secondly, I though that the devolution issue was settled once and for all in the 1970s with Mark Mothersbaugh and Devo.
In the so-called British Isles, history binds and history divides.
And gets increasing confusing to us colonials.
All of the Celtic or Scots-Irish festivals I've attended have been fun. There's even a Celtic band in Cheyenne called Gobs O'Phun. That's what it should be about, after all.
So, get out to the plaza this evening to enjoy Molly's Revenge and Ceili Rain, which lit up the stage last night. Enjoy a draught or two of Guinness. But I warn you, if you throw up on my boots, I'll apply my shillelagh to your noggin. That tradition is Irish and Western.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
My father's Irish sweater
It’s April 16 in Wyoming, the snow is falling and I’m wearing my father’s cream-colored
cableknit cardigan. Sometimes it’s called an Aran sweater or, in Ireland, an
Aran jumper. It wasn’t made on the islands but in the village of Glen Columb Kille in
Donegal.
My father didn’t get the sweater in Ireland because he never
traveled there. That’s what the Internet is for, to order Irish sweaters online and
have them delivered a few days later by the UPS man. A few members of Dad's family
have been back to Ireland since Thomas O’Shea and family departed the potato
famine in 1848. My father was overseas just once and that was during WWII. He was stationed in England but didn’t make the jump
over the Irish Sea. He did make the jump
over the English Channel, as did his father in WWI. They both got to France
to fight Germans but didn't make it to The Old Sod.
Aran jumpers have a history. I didn’t know that until I
looked them up on the Internet. Aran Island women used to make the sweaters
from unscoured wool so that the lanolin remained in the fiber to deflect the
moisture faced by their fisherman husbands. They didn’t keep them afloat, alas,
as many went down to the sea in ships (and boats). In fact, once the fishermen went into the drink the sweaters probably
got waterlogged and dragged the lads to their deaths.
My sweater was knitted with a rope design, meant for either a Boy Scout, a hangman or a fisherman. I looked it up on the Aran Sweater Market web site. I couldn't find my design there, although I was pleased to see that I could buy an O'Shea clan sweater for $199. More than 500 Irish clans have their own sweater design, according to the site.
Despite all that, I celebrate my Irish roots. I may even get an O'Shea sweater. It may never stop snowing here in The New Sod.
My sweater was knitted with a rope design, meant for either a Boy Scout, a hangman or a fisherman. I looked it up on the Aran Sweater Market web site. I couldn't find my design there, although I was pleased to see that I could buy an O'Shea clan sweater for $199. More than 500 Irish clans have their own sweater design, according to the site.
O’Shea is the Anglicisation of the original Gaelic Ó Séaghada, which comes from the personal name meaning ‘hawk-like’ or ‘fortunate’. The sept was located in the Barony of Iveragh in County Kerry, where they were lords until the 12th century. Some of the family migrated to counties Tipperary and Kilkenny as early as the 14th century. In Kilkenny the name is often spelled O’Shee. One of the most famous O’Sheas was Katharine, or Kitty, who was the mistress of Charles Stuart Parnell.
That's a lot of thought going into one sweater. And is there an "unbroken chain between the Irish that emigrate and those who remain at home?" I feel very Irish-American but not very Irish. Quite a few generations separate me from Thomas O'Shea. My maternal grandfather, Martin Hett, emigrated from Ireland to England when he was 12. He labored in coal mines for five years until he could afford the trip to America. Grandpa Martin lived to be 90. During his 72 years as an expatriate, he never returned to Ireland. His memories were of privation, a drunken father, an evil stepmother and sadistic priests. Not the kind of memories that breeds nostalgia.The hand knit O’Shea sweater (shown at right) incorporates the blackberry, rope, honeycomb, link, and zig-zag stitches. The blackberry stitch represents the Holy Trinity, rope represents good luck, honeycomb is symbolic of work, link stands for the unbroken chain between the Irish that emigrate and those who remain at home, and the zig zag stitch symbolises the ups and downs of marriage. This beautiful Aran sweater has been hand knitted in the traditional báinÃn (pronounced ‘baw neen’) colour, the natural white of the wool. It comes to you complete with a clan history and crest. It is made of 100% pure new wool, is water repellent and breathable. It has been hand crafted in the traditional Irish style, and, with care, will last a lifetime.
Despite all that, I celebrate my Irish roots. I may even get an O'Shea sweater. It may never stop snowing here in The New Sod.
Friday, March 15, 2013
On St. Patrick's Day weekend, I ponder the possibility of a Pope Howdy Doody I
 |
| As a kid, I bore a startling resemblance to TV's Howdy Doody. |
I just had a flashback. I get those occasionally. I wonder
if it’s my damaged heart playing tricks on my brain.
Back in those black-and-white days of the 1950s, my younger
brother Dan and I found ourselves in the same ward at Denver Mercy Hospital. We
had double pneumonia, which is twice as troublesome as single pneumonia. It
sound worse, too, doesn’t it? Our mother was a nurse at Mercy, a graduate of
the hospital’s nurses’ training program at the tail end of World War II.
The Mercy nuns were in charge. They wore full habits back
then, which lent them an air of authority and mystery seasoned with a dollop of menace. They were neither the
horror of the nuns portrayed in some books or plays written by lapsed
Catholics. Nor were they the sweethearts portrayed in “Sister Act” or “The
Sound of Music.” They were tough yet fair. They seemed to treat Dan and I a bit
better than the others. This was probably due to our mother.
One day, Dan seemed to have a brainstorm. He waited until
one of the nuns was in the ward, and he sat up and said, “I want to be a
priest.”
The nun scurried over. “A priest, is it?” The Mercy nuns all
spoke with an Irish brogue, yet another import from that benighted isle.
“Yes, sister.” Dan beamed angelically.
“That’s a good boy,” said the good sister, patting Dan on
the arm. “And how would you like some ice cream, Daniel boy?”
“Thank you, sister.” More of the beaming. My brother had
black hair and blue eyes, Black Irish like my mother. I had bright orange hair
and was covered with freckles from head to toe. The kids at school called me
Howdy Doody, who was a red-haired, freckle-faced TV puppet. He was an agreeable
sort but dopey looking. I didn’t like him.
The nun returned with Dan’s ice cream. None for us. After
all, we didn’t want to be priests. This was the highest calling a kid could
attain. Parish priests ruled the Catholic roost. We know now that some of them
were less than saintly. But back in those patriarchal days, they could do no
wrong.
The next time a nun entered the room, Tommy piped up: “I
want to be a priest.” The nun came over, patted Tommy on the head and said he
was getting some ice cream too. So half of the kids in the ward now had ice
cream and I had none. Before the fourth kid, the one in the bed by the wall,
could speak up, I also said: “I want to be a priest.”
The nun walked over, put her hands on her hips sand said, “I
suppose you want to be a priest so you can have some ice cream.”
“No sister.” I was no dummy, although I looked like one. “I
had a dream. In it, I was a priest.”
This got her attention.
“A dream?”
I nodded. “Yes sister.”
“And in this dream were you eating ice cream?”
“No sister. I was dressed like a priest and was saying
mass.”
“You’re a fine lad, saying mass in a dream. You almost could call that a vision.”
“Yes, sister.”
She looked down at me. “We’re out of ice cream. I’ll get you
a popsicle.” She frowned and walked out.
“Copycat,” said Dan.
“Not,” I said.
“Popsicle.” Tommy snickered. He bit into his ice cream bar.
I got a cherry popsicle. The nun broke it in two so the kid
in the far bed could have some.
As I ate the popsicle and stared at the two ice cream
eaters, I vowed that next time I would be quicker on the draw and fake my
priestly calling with much more alacrity than I had earlier. Perhaps I should
be a bishop? Or pope? Too grandiose, perhaps. But imagine the world’s surprise
when Howdy Doody the First donned the papal garments and those bitchin’ red
shoes.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
St. Patrick's Day -- a look back
On the road to the Black Hills this St. Patrick's Day. Too preoccupied with the upcoming St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl in Deadwood to write anything original. So I'll leave my readers with this St. Patrick's Day column from 2011. It covers a lot of Irish genealogical history: Potato Famine, Irish Diaspora, excessive drinking, superiority of Irish literature, Catholicism, etc. Read it here.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Celtic harp, with narration, enlivens St. Patrick's Day
I'm not going to be in town, but maybe you will be and are looking for something a little less green-beer-oriented on St. Patrick's Day:
"The Story of St. Patrick: Celtic harp with narration and friendly conversation" by Michael Riversong at the Paramount Cafe, 1607 Capitol Ave. Cheyenne, on Saturday, March 17, 5:30-8 p.m. This is an informal family friendly performance by Michael Riversong. Children are especially welcomed. FMI: Michael Riversong, Biblical Bards, http://home.earthlink.net/~mriversong
Saturday, September 03, 2011
On this Labor Day weekend, "Take 'Em Down"
In March, when Wisconsin public workers were battling anti-union legislation, this blog featured a video of the Dropkick Murphys' song, "Take 'Em Down," dedicated to that struggle.
The fight still rages this Labor Day weekend. But it's not only workers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio battling regressive governors and legislatures. Workers in almost every state have seen ugly anti-worker legislation raise its ugly head. You can trace these proposals back to ones crafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC. Each year, legislators (mostly Republicans) gather at the ALEC conference to pick up their marching orders. This August the conference was held in New Orleans. This fall, you can expect to see more legislation that attempts to take away any protections for public workers, including teachers. Here's a recent article on the subject in The Nation.
In Wyoming, Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill is attempting to classify all of the department's jobs "at-will." With this designation, any worker can be fired at any time for any reason. Although Wyoming is a so-called "Right to Work" state, permanent state employees (once past the probation period) are covered by various protections from this sort of random, politically-motivated dismissals. Fortunately for state employees such as myself, Wyoming Attorney General ruled this week that agency heads cannot set their own personnel policies. The AG's opinion was issued Aug. 25 and schooled Hill on the law. To put it simply, she cannot make up the rules as she goes along. The Wyoming Department of Administration and Information (A&I) determines personnel policies at the request of the Governor. If it's time for rules to be changed, the Gov has to take that action and not Ms. Hill. Perhaps she forgot to read the state org chart. The Gov's office announced that it may have something to say on the matter next week. Read about the AG's decision in the Sept. 2 Casper Star-Trib.
Interesting to note that 40 people in Hill's 146-employee department have left since the new Superintendent took office in January. In some places, that would be classified as a purge.
Hill came to office in the Tea Party wave of 2010. She handily defeated Democrat Mike Massie, a former state senator and one-time staffer at the Wyoming Humanities Council. Not only did we lose one of our few Democratic senators, we also lost the opportunity to have a highly intelligent and efficient voice for education in the superintendent's chair.
Hill and her pals in the legislature want to blame teachers for Wyoming's lack of progress in public education. The problems go deeper than that. But you know how those Tea Partiers are -- thinking deeply is not their strength.
Meanwhile, let's celebrate workers on this Labor Day weekend. Here are the lyrics to "Take "em Down" by the Dropkick Murphys:
When the boss comes callin' they'll put us down
When the boss comes callin' gotta stand your ground
When the boss comes callin' don't believe their lies
When the boss comes callin' his take his toll
When the boss comes callin' don't you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin' we gotta organize
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash them to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
When the boss comes callin' you'll be on your own
When the boss comes callin' will you stand alone?
When the boss comes callin' will you let them in?
When the boss comes callin' will you stand and fight?
When the boss comes callin' we must unite
When the boss comes callin' we can't let them win
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash 'em to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
We gotta take the bastards down
When the boss comes callin' they'll put us down
When the boss comes callin' gotta stand your ground
When the boss comes callin' don't believe their lies
When the boss comes callin' his take his toll
When the boss comes callin' don't you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin' we gotta organize
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash 'em to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash 'em to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
The fight still rages this Labor Day weekend. But it's not only workers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio battling regressive governors and legislatures. Workers in almost every state have seen ugly anti-worker legislation raise its ugly head. You can trace these proposals back to ones crafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC. Each year, legislators (mostly Republicans) gather at the ALEC conference to pick up their marching orders. This August the conference was held in New Orleans. This fall, you can expect to see more legislation that attempts to take away any protections for public workers, including teachers. Here's a recent article on the subject in The Nation.
In Wyoming, Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill is attempting to classify all of the department's jobs "at-will." With this designation, any worker can be fired at any time for any reason. Although Wyoming is a so-called "Right to Work" state, permanent state employees (once past the probation period) are covered by various protections from this sort of random, politically-motivated dismissals. Fortunately for state employees such as myself, Wyoming Attorney General ruled this week that agency heads cannot set their own personnel policies. The AG's opinion was issued Aug. 25 and schooled Hill on the law. To put it simply, she cannot make up the rules as she goes along. The Wyoming Department of Administration and Information (A&I) determines personnel policies at the request of the Governor. If it's time for rules to be changed, the Gov has to take that action and not Ms. Hill. Perhaps she forgot to read the state org chart. The Gov's office announced that it may have something to say on the matter next week. Read about the AG's decision in the Sept. 2 Casper Star-Trib.
Interesting to note that 40 people in Hill's 146-employee department have left since the new Superintendent took office in January. In some places, that would be classified as a purge.
Hill came to office in the Tea Party wave of 2010. She handily defeated Democrat Mike Massie, a former state senator and one-time staffer at the Wyoming Humanities Council. Not only did we lose one of our few Democratic senators, we also lost the opportunity to have a highly intelligent and efficient voice for education in the superintendent's chair.
Hill and her pals in the legislature want to blame teachers for Wyoming's lack of progress in public education. The problems go deeper than that. But you know how those Tea Partiers are -- thinking deeply is not their strength.
Meanwhile, let's celebrate workers on this Labor Day weekend. Here are the lyrics to "Take "em Down" by the Dropkick Murphys:
When the boss comes callin' they'll put us down
When the boss comes callin' don't believe their lies
When the boss comes callin' his take his toll
When the boss comes callin' don't you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin' we gotta organize
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash them to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
When the boss comes callin' you'll be on your own
When the boss comes callin' will you stand alone?
When the boss comes callin' will you let them in?
When the boss comes callin' will you stand and fight?
When the boss comes callin' we must unite
When the boss comes callin' we can't let them win
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash 'em to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
We gotta take the bastards down
When the boss comes callin' they'll put us down
When the boss comes callin' gotta stand your ground
When the boss comes callin' don't believe their lies
When the boss comes callin' his take his toll
When the boss comes callin' don't you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin' we gotta organize
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash 'em to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash 'em to the ground
Let em know
We gotta take the bastards down
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Irish diaspora brought us The Great Shame and -- for many -- much better lives
Looking for some especially depressing books to read during St. Patrick's Day week, I chose The Great Shame, and the triumph of the Irish in the English-speaking world by Thomas Keneally. Keneally is an Australian of Irish descent who wrote such great books as Schindler's List, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and To Asmara. I've met Keneally several times and he looks a bit like a leprechaun (see book jacket). A leprechaun who can write!
It's an old story. Irish peasant gets sideways with his landlord, goes to jail and is convicted, and eventually is deported to Australia. Hugh Larkin was his ancestor who was shipped away in chains and, strangely enough, into a better life. He missed the Great Potato Famine, for one thing. There were jailers and landlords in Australia but not nearly so many. A man with grit and wit could make it there.
That's what so many Irish found during the diaspora. If they survived.
Thomas O'Shea, who somewhere along the line changed his surname to Shay, was born in County Clare, Ireland, on Dec. 20, 1815. He died in Clear Creek Township in Johnson County, Iowa, on May 14, 1879. According to his very precise gravestone at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Iowa City, he was "63 years, 4 mos, and 24 days." Not sure about the hours and minutes.
His wife was Ann (Anna, Annie) Agnes Burns, born somewhere in Ireland about 1825. My daughter Annie bears her name. My daughter was born on March 9, 1993, in Cheyenne in County Laramie, USA. Wonder how much of the Irish Annie is in our Annie? She's stubborn as hell and beautiful and smart. I wonder if she would have made it to the U.S. intact from famine-ravaged Ireland. I think so.
Annie and Thomas emigrated around 1850. It could have been earlier. But the cause is clear -- threat of starvation. The 1850 New York census shows Thomas Shay, 30, and Annie Shay, 23, living with their three children in Brockport in Monroe County, just a bit west of Rochester. The family left for Iowa about 1859, just in time to avoid most of the Civil War.
The 1870 federal census records show that Thomas Shay owned real estate worth $4,000 in Clear Creek Township, Iowa. It was 96 acres. He and Annie, 43, now had eight children. The youngest was Michael, 6. The family owned three horses, four mules, four milk cows, four "other cattle," and 18 swine. He and his family farmed wheat, corn, oats and (of course) "Irish potatoes." They harvested 15 tons of hay and produced 300 pounds of butter and 30 gallons of molasses.
Beats the hell out of eating weeds or grass, the only crops growing in the Irish countryside. Not an easy journey across the ocean and across half of the country. But, in the end, Thomas probably thought it was worth it.
Ann Burns Shay was buried next to her husband in 1909. By then, her youngest son Michael's first-born son Raymond was 16. Raymond's son Thomas was born in 1923 and, after he married Anna Marie Shay in February, 1950, I was born 10 months later.
There are many family stories mixed in with the data. And so many relatives named Michael and Patrick and Molly. Show a little imagination people! Our names are traded like baseball cards. My father was named after his great-grandfather Thomas from Ireland and his uncle Thomas, who died in 1918 from the Spanish flu. He was in the Iowa National Guard at the time with his older brother Ray. They were in France with the AEF. More Johnson County boys died of the flu than died in battle during World War I.
My middle name is Thomas. I have a younger brother Thomas. We call him Tom or Tommy. I have a nephew Thomas who is trying to get into medical school. My sister Molly is his mother.
We've done pretty well here in the States. My parents never traveled to Ireland to look up relatives. Neither did I. Maybe we're beyond that. The Republic of Ireland, until recently, was known as the Celtic Tiger and some Americans of Irish descent traveled back to The Old Sod to work. They may be back soon.
Happy St. Patrick's Day on Thursday.
I'll raise a pint to the dear departed -- here's to you, Pat! -- the living, and all those Michaels and Annies and Patricks and Mollys yet to come.
It's an old story. Irish peasant gets sideways with his landlord, goes to jail and is convicted, and eventually is deported to Australia. Hugh Larkin was his ancestor who was shipped away in chains and, strangely enough, into a better life. He missed the Great Potato Famine, for one thing. There were jailers and landlords in Australia but not nearly so many. A man with grit and wit could make it there.
That's what so many Irish found during the diaspora. If they survived.
Thomas O'Shea, who somewhere along the line changed his surname to Shay, was born in County Clare, Ireland, on Dec. 20, 1815. He died in Clear Creek Township in Johnson County, Iowa, on May 14, 1879. According to his very precise gravestone at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Iowa City, he was "63 years, 4 mos, and 24 days." Not sure about the hours and minutes.
His wife was Ann (Anna, Annie) Agnes Burns, born somewhere in Ireland about 1825. My daughter Annie bears her name. My daughter was born on March 9, 1993, in Cheyenne in County Laramie, USA. Wonder how much of the Irish Annie is in our Annie? She's stubborn as hell and beautiful and smart. I wonder if she would have made it to the U.S. intact from famine-ravaged Ireland. I think so.
Annie and Thomas emigrated around 1850. It could have been earlier. But the cause is clear -- threat of starvation. The 1850 New York census shows Thomas Shay, 30, and Annie Shay, 23, living with their three children in Brockport in Monroe County, just a bit west of Rochester. The family left for Iowa about 1859, just in time to avoid most of the Civil War.
The 1870 federal census records show that Thomas Shay owned real estate worth $4,000 in Clear Creek Township, Iowa. It was 96 acres. He and Annie, 43, now had eight children. The youngest was Michael, 6. The family owned three horses, four mules, four milk cows, four "other cattle," and 18 swine. He and his family farmed wheat, corn, oats and (of course) "Irish potatoes." They harvested 15 tons of hay and produced 300 pounds of butter and 30 gallons of molasses.
Beats the hell out of eating weeds or grass, the only crops growing in the Irish countryside. Not an easy journey across the ocean and across half of the country. But, in the end, Thomas probably thought it was worth it.
Ann Burns Shay was buried next to her husband in 1909. By then, her youngest son Michael's first-born son Raymond was 16. Raymond's son Thomas was born in 1923 and, after he married Anna Marie Shay in February, 1950, I was born 10 months later.
There are many family stories mixed in with the data. And so many relatives named Michael and Patrick and Molly. Show a little imagination people! Our names are traded like baseball cards. My father was named after his great-grandfather Thomas from Ireland and his uncle Thomas, who died in 1918 from the Spanish flu. He was in the Iowa National Guard at the time with his older brother Ray. They were in France with the AEF. More Johnson County boys died of the flu than died in battle during World War I.
My middle name is Thomas. I have a younger brother Thomas. We call him Tom or Tommy. I have a nephew Thomas who is trying to get into medical school. My sister Molly is his mother.
We've done pretty well here in the States. My parents never traveled to Ireland to look up relatives. Neither did I. Maybe we're beyond that. The Republic of Ireland, until recently, was known as the Celtic Tiger and some Americans of Irish descent traveled back to The Old Sod to work. They may be back soon.
Happy St. Patrick's Day on Thursday.
I'll raise a pint to the dear departed -- here's to you, Pat! -- the living, and all those Michaels and Annies and Patricks and Mollys yet to come.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Ashes to ashes -- now take the bastards down!
So Ash Wednesday was yesterday. This marks the beginning of Lent. I wore ashes on my forehead for most of my life. I miss them, but I can no longer stomach the Catholic Church and its bigotry against the LGBT community and women. And hypocrisy on child sex abuse by priests. I do like the Pope's cool shoes.
As Lent begins, I also think of St. Patrick's Day and the holiday's importance in our Irish-Catholic family. Many of those memories involve drinking and toasts to The Old Sod where I've never been and to where my Irish grandfather never wanted to return. It'd odd to be nostalgic for a place I haven't visited. But it's in my blood and I grew up with the stories. I credit some of my storytelling and writing skills to DNA and a certain spirit that travels down the generations. My parents, both terrific readers, get a lot of the credit. So do the nuns and priests and public school teachers who educated this lad.
Irish have a creative side, a drinking side, a dark side, a feisty side. I was thinking of that when I watched this Dropkick Murphys song as accompaniment to videos of the worker protests in Madison, WI. "Take the bastards down." Has a good ring, don't you think? As a public service to me and my readers, I'm going to track down the origins of this song. The Murphs are known for their ass-kicking shows. Maybe this is an original. Maybe an old union song. I will let you know. Meanwhile, here's the vid:
UPDATE: Here's a post from the Dropkick Murphys web site (with cool T-shirt):
As Lent begins, I also think of St. Patrick's Day and the holiday's importance in our Irish-Catholic family. Many of those memories involve drinking and toasts to The Old Sod where I've never been and to where my Irish grandfather never wanted to return. It'd odd to be nostalgic for a place I haven't visited. But it's in my blood and I grew up with the stories. I credit some of my storytelling and writing skills to DNA and a certain spirit that travels down the generations. My parents, both terrific readers, get a lot of the credit. So do the nuns and priests and public school teachers who educated this lad.
Irish have a creative side, a drinking side, a dark side, a feisty side. I was thinking of that when I watched this Dropkick Murphys song as accompaniment to videos of the worker protests in Madison, WI. "Take the bastards down." Has a good ring, don't you think? As a public service to me and my readers, I'm going to track down the origins of this song. The Murphs are known for their ass-kicking shows. Maybe this is an original. Maybe an old union song. I will let you know. Meanwhile, here's the vid:
UPDATE: Here's a post from the Dropkick Murphys web site (with cool T-shirt):
Hey Everyone -- the Dropkick Murphys would like to take a moment to acknowledge the struggles of the working people of Wisconsin and to pledge our support and solidarity by releasing the song “Take Em Down” from our upcoming album. We think it’s appropriate at the moment and hope you like it.
We have also created a limited edition “Take ‘Em Down” t-shirt which will be available for sale shortly at www.dropkickmurphys.com/merch. Proceeds from the “Take ‘Em Down” t-shirt sales will benefit Workers’ Rights Emergency Response Fund (https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4002/wi-response).
Monday, February 21, 2011
Which Side Are You On?
Dropkick Murphys rock out an old union song. And remember the struggles of the Irish in America.
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