Sunday morning round-up: Legislature weirdness, online publishing, and "The War on Powder River"

Russia invaded Ukraine this week. Putin does not want a democracy on its border. The Ukrainians are fighting back. The U.S. knows what joining the fight would bring. So we work with sanctions and what’s left of our free press. We also send war materiel to help Ukrainians fight the despot’s hordes. Any student of warfare knows a declaration of war would bring disaster. So what do we do?

I hope to have the print edition of my book of stories up on Amazon this week. The e-book is already on the site. Working with Kindle Direct Publishing can be a challenge. A traditional press would do most of this work. Formatting the text, deciding on a book cover, overseeing the printing process, sending out proofs, publicity. It’s all up to me now. Not sure if I’m going to put my second book of stories on KDP. I just want to have books in hand instead of taking up space in the Cloud. This blog is more of a journal than a publishing platform. Wish me luck.

The Wyoming State Legislature is in town. They will do plenty of damage in 20 days. We now experience first-hand what gerrymandering and voter suppression can do. Also Trump. And right-wing social media and TV. The nuts are out in force to suppress mask mandates, UW’s gender studies curriculum, American racism discussions in K-12 classrooms, gender equity, party-switching at election primaries, voting access, and any talk about Medicaid expansion for the state’s working poor. I’m sure more ridiculous proposals will emerge from the muck in the next two weeks. Wyoming voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 and 2020. We now live in a Trumpist fiefdom.

I did not expect a nonfiction account of the Johnson County War to be shot through with irreverent humor. But that's what I got when I picked up Helena Huntington Smith's “The War on Powder River: The History of an Insurrection.” The book was published in 1966 as a Bison Books imprint from the University of Nebraska Press. This 1890s event is often referred to as the Johnson County War. It pitted the rich owners of large cattle herds against the little guy who owned a few head or a few hundred. The cattle cabal wanted to keep the open range in WYO. The little guys wanted to keep the maverick cattle that they found, stragglers from massive herds brought to Powder River Country by rich Easterners and Brits with the hope of amassing beef fortunes. Smith did an amazing job at taking a jaundiced view of an 1890s event that many people outside of Wyoming know little about. Smith’s research is impressive although this non-historian cannot vouch for all of the details. She cracks wise when describing the gentry founded ranches in Powder River Country which they enjoy in summer and desert once the first snow flies. Cowboys remain behind to watch the herds. While the winters of 1884-86 were balmy by WYO standards, the winter and spring of 1986-87 was a whopper. Many thousands of cattle froze to death on the overcrowded prairie. When the beef barons returned from the south of France, they left the round-up of strays to cowboys and got pissed off when small landholders rustled a few cattle. They got their payback in 1892, and also their comeuppance. It is easy to see the hubris of 1892 in Wyoming’s present.

Smith was an Easterner who spent some time in WYO. The TA Ranch south of Buffalo has named one of its dude ranch accommodations for Smith. The TA has the last surviving structures from the range war. Smith was a combat correspondent for Crowell-Collier magazines (Collier’s, Victory, Woman’s Home Companion) during World War II. In 1957, American Heritage magazine republished her account of the Battle of the Bulge. She recounts the breakout of Panzer divisions and how rear echelon soldiers, mechanics and engineers, were issued bazookas and ordered to stop Nazi tanks. Some of them were surprisingly successful and earned medals. Smith’s account has all the battlefield dark humor one finds in a good soldier’s memoirs. She brought that same humor to her account of the Johnson County War. I couldn’t find a full bio online but discovered she was a Smith College grad and wrote for magazines and wrote several books. The UW Heritage Center and State Archives probably has some good info on her. She obviously loved a good story.

In "Ridgeline," a Wyoming tale of Hubris vs. Nemesis

Casting about on the new book releases during the summer, I came across "Ridgeline," a new novel by Michael Punke. He's the author of "The Revenant," an historical novel about Hugh Glass, a bear attack in the wilderness, and Glass's long journey to get revenge to those in his hunting party who left him behind. Leonardo DiCaprio played Glass in the movie which did for grizzly bear attacks what Jaws did for swimming with sharks. Seemed like a realistic depiction of what was the western wilderness in the 1840s. 

In "Ridgeline," Punke tackles what's now called the Fetterman Fight at the foot of Wyoming's Bighorns. On Dec. 21, 1866, a contingent of warriors from Plains tribes, led by Crazy Horse and Red Cloud, lured a U.S. Cavalry contingent from their new fort and ambushed them. Indians died but so did Fetterman and his 81 troopers. Next Tuesday will mark the 155th anniversary of that day. The author depicts the battle so realistically that it's easy to feel the heat of battle on that first day of winter so long ago. Anyone who has visited Fort Phil Kearny, the Wagon Box Fight site, and any of these contested lands in what is now Johnson and Sheridan counties. At the end, I was able to revel in the Indians' victory while still feeling empathy for the soldiers. They were guilty of that classic trait of hubris. They considered the Indians ignorant savages and learned otherwise. Funny how history keeps repeating itself. 

I reviewed the book for WyoFile and you can read it at https://wyofile.com/punkes-new-novel-shines-light-on-fetterman-fight/. Punke is a Wyoming native who grew up in Torrington and served as a living history interpreter at Fort Laramie National Historic Site. He's a UW grad and served as a U.S. trade representative overseas before returning to the West and now lives in Missoula. 

Here's the review's opener:

A good historical novel should be a ripping yarn, one that keeps us turning pages long after bedtime. The writer makes this world so interesting that we want to dash off to the library or the Internet to find out more. The novel’s historical facts should also be solid. Nothing like sloppy research to ruin a good read.

It’s a lot to ask. And into this mix comes the red-hot topic of the year: Which history should we teach our kids? Conservatives wax apoplectic about the New York Times “1619 Project” and its stated goal to tell the real story about slavery. Many prefer the history we learned in fourth grade during simpler times, that America is the greatest nation on earth, by jiminy.

Enter Michael Punke’s new novel, “Ridgeline,” published by Henry Holt and Co. It’s a story about what is known as Red Cloud’s War, which began in 1866 along the Bozeman Trail in Wyoming’s Powder River Country. 

Sunday morning round-up, Wild West edition

Cheyenne Frontier Days is underway. I live maybe a half-mile from Frontier Park, home of the rodeo and night concerts. On most nights, I can sit on my front porch and hear the concerts. Not so Friday night when Garth Brooks was on stage. I could hear a rumble way off in the distance but that's it. My wife and I saw Garth when he performed at the 100th anniversary of CFD. He's got that rock star in him, which sends him zooming all over the stage. One highlight of the performance is when Chris LeDoux joined him on stage. Chris was a country-singer who also rode the rodeo circuit. That gave him an edge on the CFD experience. Cancer took him in 2005. CFD celebrates him this year with a program and posters with original artwork of the LeDoux sculpture they unveiled this year. He means a lot to Wyoming. He bought his first guitar in Cheyenne as a kid whose father was stationed at Warren AFB. He later won at CFD and performed here. He bought a ranch near Kaycee in Powder River Country. Kaycee dedicated a pocket park to LeDoux after his untimely death. It's right off I-25. I used to stop there and sit by myself amongst the prairie flowers. Why? Peaceful. A great place to meditate. After awhile you don't even hear the trucks hauling goods from Denver to Sheridan. The birds, yes, and maybe a guitar note or two. 

I volunteered as greeter at the Botanic Gardens front desk yesterday. I volunteer Thursday and Saturday afternoons. Up until yesterday, the summer crowds have been heavy. Tourists are back on the road after the Covid hiatus and they are drawn to our fine gardens which includes the Conservatory, Children's Village, and nine acres of outdoor gardens. CFD claims most of the attention during the last week of July. The afternoon rodeo and the night concerts are packed. The Indian Village, the vendor fair, and Old Trail Town claim the rest. Yesterday I was on the lookout for visitors in western gear and only one family of six fit that description. Must you wear western gear to CFD? Not mandatory but expected. Kind of like Wyoming's face mask directive -- never mandatory but expected (kind-of). I don't go anywhere without my mask. The Botanic Gardens brought back its big plexiglass sneeze barrier for the duration. We volunteers, mostly seniors, urged the staff to take precautions in what could be a super-spreader event. The Conservatory also kept its distance protocol, although nobody pays it much attention. Covid cases are up in the county, most of the ruthless Delta Variant. But we can't let an invisible bug get in the way of the county's biggest revenue generator. I enjoy the excitement. But I was fully vaccinated back in February. I know that most CFD attendees are on the conservative side. They believe the virus is a hoax and part of a vast liberal conspiracy that includes election-rigging, defunding the police, putting an abortion mill and a taco truck on every corner, force-feeding the 1619 Project to innocent schoolkids, and removing statues of heroic traitors and Indian-killers from our public squares.

Early in the Covid shutdown, I kept track of the stats on these pages. I gave it up as I lost hope that it would never end or I was an optimistic fool believing it would run its course either tomorrow or the next day or certainly the day after that. I was wrong on both counts. Get the latest stats from the Wyoming Department of Health.     

Cheyenne girds its loins for first boom since Hell on Wheels

I am surrounded by nuclear missiles. They lurk in their hidey-holes on the rolling prairie of Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado. I give little thought to them on most days. I sometimes drive past F.E. Warren AFB's main gate and see the three Cold War missiles that greet passers-by. Convoys of missileers pass me on the highway on their way to their `24-hour shifts underground. A recent CBS 60 Minutes piece spoke of the antiquated launch equipment at Warren. This gave me pause, as "antiquated equipment" is not a term you want to associate with our nuke strike force. It's bad enough when films of the 1960s scared us with untoward nuke launches. Col. Jack D. Ripper went a little funny in the head and plunged us into a celluloid Armageddon. While the fail-proof fail safe system showed its flaws, our bomber crews carried out their mission. And the Russkis Doomsday Machine went off without a hitch.

So, when 60 Minutes showed that our local launch equipment is falling apart, that our airmen and airwomen are using computers from the Stone Age to take care of Space Age missiles, the Pentagon sprang into action.

It's a good thing that the U.S. Government is funneling taxpayer dollars ($90 billion) to Boeing and Northrup-Grumman to modern our nuclear capabilities. Cheyenne is agog that at least $5 billion of that will be spent locally. Boeing, one of the contractors, will hold a meeting April 11 for businesses "to learn about program support and Boeing supplier needs." N-G cannot be far behind with its own round of meetings..

I scrolled through the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent web site -- GBSD Bound. In flowing language, the writers describe the past, present and future of this program. The Chamber eloquently supports all this. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades. Really good shades, as the flash of a thermonuclear fireball can melt the eyeballs.

It is good news for Cheyenne. Our capital city has experienced incremental growth the past five years. Many here say that this is the spillover effect from Colorado's boom. Cheyenne is the northern terminus to the Front Range. As such, it benefits when billions are being invested into infrastructure and businesses in Fort Collins, Denver, and Colorado Springs. That same boom has caused Coloradans to question their devotion to a Denver filled with overpriced housing, crazy traffic, and herds of shaggy hipsters roaming the territory as bison once did prior to 1859. "This isn't the Colorado I knew" is a common refrain among family and friends in the Centennial State. They ponder moves to the wide-open spaces of Wyoming and Montana and Idaho if only someone would buy their two-bedroom house for $500,000 and some visionary start-up would pay them bundles of cryptocurrency to telecommute from Laramie. The cryptocurrency/blockchain thing is no joke. Our legislature has passed a dozen bills in support of this as-yet unproven e-currency but is scared shitless with the thought of brown or transgender people moving into their neighborhood. And damn that federal gubment (except when it brings $5 billion to town).

Despite my peacenik roots, I am fond of missiles and rockets. My father fed his large family by planting ICBM sites through the West. He worked as a contract specialist with the Martin Company, later Martin-Marietta. He didn't so much build the sites as find reliable people to do so. He later did the same job in Florida for the space program, helping get Neil Armstrong to the moon in 1969, the year I graduated from high school. I saw Apollo 11 blast off. I canoodled with my girlfriend on the beach as we listened to the crackly car radio announce that "The Eagle Has Landed." My brother Dan and I spent our childhood building missile models and memorized all the names of the U.S. arsenal. I read all the Tom Swift books, in which rocketry played a key part. I watched Sputnik arc across the night sky. We were looking up, all of us. We did it together, maybe the last time that Americans were together on any one thing.

As we revamp our nukes, we are faced with new problems. The main one is in the White House, Donald Trump, buddy of the old Soviet spy who runs Russia. We have the North Koreans and Iranians. Saudi shenanigans. Dirty bombs from terrorists. Clean bombs from China. "Paranoia strikes deep/Into your life it will creep/It starts when you're always afraid/You step out of line, the man come and take you away."

We've come a long way from the so-called peace dividend we expected with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Remember that?

Cheyenne hasn't been a boom town since the Iron Horse rolled into town and Hell on Wheels was born. Its incredible growth back then earned it the nickname of "Magic City of the Plains."

Let's hope we're ready for this boom.

No switcheroo at the polls for this city boy in cowboy country

Every eight years election cycle, Democrats in Wyoming are faced with a dilemma. For the August primary, should we change our registration from D to R as in Republican and vote for the least offensive of the R candidates?

Wyoming permits voters to change their registration up to the Aug. 21 day of the primary and vote accordingly. After voting, you can change back and be on your way, your conscience clear that you may have helped keep the more odious conservative gubernatorial candidates from running against the Democratic candidate in November.  WYO is a party preference state, so at the polls you get a D or R ballot based on your registration. Up to 10 percent of voters in the state register as unaffiliated. To vote in the primary, you have to switch to D or R. Most will choose R in this overwhelmingly Red State.

In 2010, this tactic ensured that moderate Matt Mead was the R on the ballot against the D, Leslie Petersen of Jackson. Petersen was the superior candidate. But it was 2010, the Tea Party year, and she didn't have a chance in the general. Mead's opponents were Tea Party regressive Ron Micheli, the wishy-washy Colin Simpson, and former state auditor Rita Meyer.

Local Democrats gathered the night of the primary to nosh and and drink and gab and listen to the results on the radio, just as our ancestors did in days of yore. Micheli and Meyer exchanged early leads. Mead crept up and passed them both by the time all the precincts were in.  We went home secure in the knowledge that our guy had a snowball's chance in hell of winning and that Mead would guide us for the next eight years. This was important to me because I was a state employee and the Gov was my boss. I would work with him and his staff on issues important to the arts in WYO. I wrote the annual "State of the Arts" speech. Sometimes that speech was uttered almost verbatim at the Governor's Arts Awards in February. More often, however, the Gov's speechwriters got their hands on it and mangled it beyond recognition. As a corporate and government writer/editor, I learned long ago that anything I do is a rough draft. Actually, I discovered that as a fiction writer, too. I am never edited when I write in my journal or when I write this blog. The only time I revise my blog post-post is when I make a mistake, particularly a factual error. Blogs are notoriously cavalier with the facts, be you prog-blogger or wingnut from the Right. I attempt to be accurate.

Mead won in 2010 and 2014. He's a super nice guy as is the First Lady. Mead was so nice for eight years that he almost never got his way with the Republican majority in the state legislature.  Mead now says that he is going to retire to his Albany County ranch and chill, and who can blame him? We thought he would jump right into a Congressional race. Maybe in 2020. Maybe not.

Have I ever crossed over the Rubicon on primary day? No. Will I do it this time? No. The Dems have a terrific gubernatorial candidate in former legislative minority leader Mary Throne. She's a Gillette native, an attorney, a mom and a cancer survivor. Nobody on the Republican side can match her. Mark Gordon comes closest. He's the current state treasurer and a moderate compared to the others. He grew up on a ranch and continues to ranch, as you can see in his many folksy TV ads. He's up against some dedicated crazies but, at least in governor races, the moderate R usually has the advantage. Even now, in Trump times. Where you get the real crazies are in races for the gerrymandered legislature. I've documented some of their worst transgressions. Sometimes I get sad and give up. Then I get mad again...

No switcheroo at the polls Tuesday for this cowboy. Actually, I'm not a cowboy. I'm a Dem and a city boy who's worked in the arts. As a kid, I used to suffer violent asthma attacks when adjacent to livestock. When I ride horses now, I look like the dude that I am. Kind of like Foster Friess, although much younger. Somehow, I learned how to survive and thrive in cowboy country without betraying my liberal social justice background. How about you?

Learning to Breathe, Part I

When I read my work, I usually don't say much before I launch into a story. To explain something and then read it is counter-productive, or at the very least, annoying. I will have plenty to say once you have read this story about an imagined historic incident in 1939, when the U.S. was confronted with another fascist threat. Comments are welcome, as always.   

Learning to Breathe, Part I
Fiction in four parts
By Michael Shay

Until we meet again, my friends.

I breathe for you.

--James Doherty, 1938, In Spain, I Learned to Breathe

In April 1939, Ras Tafari blew into Cheyenne wrapped in a mighty dust cloud.

He rode in the back of a battered westbound Model T Truck. He stood tall, bound to the truck bed by thick ropes. His steady gaze looked to the east, back to Addis Abbaba and to Bath in England, his recent home. His hair was cut close and beard trimmed. A royal robe draped his shoulders and fell all the way to the metal bed, hiding his feet. The dust cloud swirled around him, swabbing the metal skin that stood in for Ras Tafari, Haile Selassie the First, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, Emperor of Ethiopia.

The beacons of the truck’s headlights poked through the afternoon gloom. The black man at the wheel -– his name was Weaver -- strained his eyes to keep the vehicle on the two-lane highway. He drove slowly, expecting some devil to rear-end him at any time. He’d passed bigger trucks all day before being swallowed by the churning Dust Bowl cloud. Now he just hoped that he got to Cheyenne before one of those heavily-loaded behemoths plowed into him.

 James Doherty rode shotgun. His sandy hair was cut short. He wore a jagged five-inch scar on the right cheek of his freckled face, making him look older than his 28 years. “See OK?”

“Hell no,” said Weaver.

“Want me to take a turn?”

“Hell no,” he repeated. “We stop and bim-bam-boom, we get hit in this dust storm.”

“I see what you mean,” Doherty said.

“Can’t be too far, right?”

Doherty nodded.

Weaver grabbed a cloth and wiped it across the fogged interior of the windshield. “You breathe too much.”

“In Spain, I learned to breathe,” Doherty said.

“One of your poems?”

“Want me to recite it?”

Weaver laughed. “I like your poetry as much as you like my driving.”

Doherty laughed. “OK,” he said, “no more driving tips.”

“And save the poetry for the enemy.”

“Sure.” Doherty pulled the cloth out of the driver’s hands and swiped it across the glass. He was new to poetry. One of his comrades in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Marcus Riddle from California, saw Doherty scribbling by candlelight. A poet himself, he took an interest in Doherty’s words. He taught him about meter and rhyme and stanzas. He got better, thanks to Marcus, who was killed at Guadarrama. There were bad days in Spain but that was the worst. He grieved for Marcus by writing a poem which he recited now to himself:

In Spain, many were without breath.

I learned to breathe for them.

Richard of London, lungs collapsed by pneumonia.

Marcus of Sacramento, heart pierced by a fascist bullet.

Paolo of Guernica, disappeared in the night.

Richard, Marcus, Paolo – hundreds of others.

I breathe in, breathe out.

Clouds form in the chill Pyrenees air

as I walk to France.

I see their faces as they were, scared, laughing, angry, numb.

With each breath, they float up and out over the sea.

Until we meet again, my friends,  

I breathe for you.

He began to see poetry as a tool, much like a rifle or a hammer. Anna, his woman, was the real poet. Around a fire, she selected words from the air and recited her poems in Basque and, sometimes, in stilted English. Doherty hoped she still was safe in France.

He tossed the cloth on the seat. He saw through the clean windshield that the gloom was beginning to lift. Doherty saw the outline of buildings against the lowering sun. “That’s it.” He pointed. “Maybe we’ll be able to meet the train after all.”

Weaver grunted and sped up.

Traffic increased. Gray shapes passed the old truck through a brown cloud. The gaunt faces of children pressed against windows, gawking at the Lion of Judah in the rear of the truck.

They reached the outskirts of the town. Doherty knew this place – he’d been a union organizer here. Another high plains cow town and railroad burg, this one bigger than most as it was the capital of the big square state that was his birthplace. Doherty gave directions to the driver. Left turn here. Go five blocks. Right turn, pass a stop sign.

The sun appeared by the time they reached the train station. A yellow orb floating in a vast sky. Off to the left was the tall spire of the station. The driver pulled into the parking lot and stopped.

“How’s our passenger?” said Weaver, gesturing to the rear.

Doherty peered out the truck’s tiny rear window. “Still there.”

“Take a look.”

Doherty looked at driver. “He’s there, I tell you.”

“See if he’s secure.”

Doherty shrugged. In the past decade, he’d worked with all kinds of people: American Negroes, Ethiopians, Jamaicans, Basques, Italians, and Jews -- his world had opened up considerably since his Irish-American boyhood in the hardscrabble mining town of Rock Springs.

To be continued...

Look for Learning to Breathe, Part II, on Jan. 2223. 

Sunday morning round-up: Labor Day weekend edition

If this is Labor Day weekend (and it is) that means that we honor the hard-working people of the world by shopping at the new Wal-Mart that pays such sub-standard wages that many of its employees avail themselves of social welfare programs such as SNAP (formerly known as food stamps).  It is true that Wal-Mart has raised its wages of late, no doubt disliking bad publicity. Cheyenne now has two Wal-Marts as well as a Wal-Mart distribution center west on I-80. A real Wal-Mart town, we are. Meanwhile, some Cheyennites prefer to take their hard-earned wages south to Fort Collins to the CostCo store at I-25 and Harmony. CostCo offers livable wages and benefits even as it offers low prices. It can be done.

I attended my union delegate assembly last week in Cheyenne. I wrote about it last week. Gov. Matt Mead addressed the assembly. He said that the next legislative session "is going to be ugly." Oil, gas and coal revenues will be way down. Despite that, he recommends funding the standard budget as is but the state will probably have no money to fund exception requests which, in the past, have been funded to upwards of an additional $600 million. That's a lot in this expansive but least-populated state in the union. He advocates dipping into the state's $2 billion rainy day fund. Stingy Republican legislators, on the other hand, may have other ideas, such as cutting state agency budgets and/or cutting state employees. Gov. Mead says that this approach causes the state to "lose talent and skill" and will cause us to "go into a death spiral" Fewer state services and fewer state employees cause losses in the private sector and this is something Wyoming may not recover from. While many Republican legislators continue to shame state employees, they might want to take a page from our governor's game plan and his new "Wyoming Grown" program. Do you really want to keep your sons and daughters in the state? Or are you just whistling Dixie?

One of the heroes of the labor movement in the West was Joe Hill. I had to wait until I was in college and watching "Woodstock" to discover Joe Hill of Utah. Joan Baez sang "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" in front of a half-million or so people. Joe Hill was a union organizer who was framed for murder and executed by one of The Beehive State's notorious firing squads. Because he was an IWW organizer -- a Wobbly -- and branded as a Red and a troublemaker by the powers-that-be, it was easy to frame him as the bad guy. A group of poets and musicians and union organizers gathered this weekend in SLC to celebrate Hill's legacy. Denver-raised Judy Collins headed up the concert for this "true blue rebel."

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night; Alive as you or me; Says I, But Joe, you're ten years dead; I never died, says he; I never died, says he.

Grady Kirkpatrick at Wyoming Public Radio in Laramie often devotes his "Morning Music" show to a theme. Friday it was Labor Day and working people songs. He played the Stones' "The Salt of the Earth," which I haven't heard in a long time. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote the song in 1968 and the Stones featured it on the "Beggars Banquet" album. According to a Wikipedia article on "Salt of the Earth," the Stones have only performed it in concert a handful of times. It has all the qualities of an anthem, with a paean to working people and a rousing chorus, but doesn't get the crowds going quite like "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Brown Sugar." Still, it's worth remembering what the Rolling Stones, perhaps the richest rockers in creation, were thinking about in 1968: 

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier; Spare a thought for his back breaking work; Say a prayer for his wife and his children; Who burn the fires and who still till the earth.

"Out West in the Rockies" lands at UW

At my day job, scores of press releases arrive daily. Occasionally, I read one and say "Wow!" It happened in March when I saw that artist Ai Weiwei's monumental sculptures were leaving China for display at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson. In Laramie, Dancers of the Joffrey Ballet will be the artists in residence in July at the Snowy Range Summer Dance Festival. Wow! Short story master Tobias Wolff will be the featured presenter at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference later this month. Wow!

But I was doubly impressed last week when I saw the following news release from Rick Ewig, associate director of the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. This highlights a good year for equality in Wyoming. The LGBT community is finding its footing in The Equality State. Or rather the state is taking a turn for the better. Witness the big turnout last weekend at Cheyenne's "Pride in the Park." So many attended that the police arrived to tell us to move our cars as they were blocking traffic. We complied, of course, believing in blocking traffic only when absolutely necessary to get a point across.

But I digress.

Here's the news:

The American Heritage Center (AHC) at the University of Wyoming (UW) in Laramie, which houses several significant collections related to slain UW student Matthew Shepard, is currently developing “Out West in the Rockies,” a first-of-its kind regional lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history and culture archive of the American West.

The scope of of this collecting area welcomes collections from eight Rocky Mountain states: Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Retiring AHC Director Mark Greene helped inaugurate and Associate Director Rick Ewig will oversee this effort.  

Gregory Hinton, creator of Out West, an acclaimed national LGBT western museum program series, introduced the concept to the AHC and serves as project consultant.  Hinton announced Out West in the Rockies at the recent LGBQT Alliance luncheon of the 2015 American Alliance of Museums Annual meeting and Museum Expo in Atlanta. 

Growing interest in the rural LGBT experience underscores the need for a visible, dedicated, centrally located LGBT Western American archive. 

"The LBGT communities are under-documented in many established national archives and historical repositories, but particularly in collections dedicated to the history and culture of the American West,” says Greene, who is a Distinguished Fellow of the Society of American Archivists.  “An archive of this kind is long past due.  The AHC is proud to be committed to this effort.” 

The AHC ranks among the largest and busiest non-governmental repositories in the United States.  In 2010, the AHC was recognized as one of the nation’s premier archives when it received the Society of American Archivists’ Distinguished Service Award.  The AHC currently houses 75,000 cubic feet of materials, with 15,000 cubic feet remaining to welcome new collections.  Thus, with ample storage space, an experience, dedicated, and nationally recognized staff stands ready to accommodate substantial LGBT holdings. 

Rural Montana-born Gregory Hinton recently drove from Los Angeles through the Rockies in blizzard conditions to hand deliver his personal and professional papers to the AHC.  

"Too many LGBT men and women evacuate our rural western backgrounds seeking community, companionship, and safety in the bit city,” Hinton says.  “Happily, not everybody leaves.  And more and more of us return.  Thanks to the AHC, our stories are welcome in Wyoming.” 

A distinguished advisory board of respected western scholars, artists, and activists is being assembled, including W. James Burn, director, University of Arizona Museum of Art; Wyoming State Representative and UW faculty member Cathy Connolly; Rebecca Scofield, Ph.D. candidate, American Studies, Harvard University; and civil rights attorney Roberta Zenker, author of TransMontana. 

"Out West dispels the myth that LGBT history (and communities) are bi-coastal,” says Burns, recent chair of the LGBTQ Alliance of the American Alliance of Museums.  “Rural western LGBT populations are thriving and make significant contributions to the communities in which they live.” 

A call will soon be put out for significant regional collections of organizational records and personal papers consisting of a wide variety of materials, from emails and correspondence to speeches and manuscripts. 

“Everything from scrapbooks and photo albums to press clippings and marketing/promotional material; from digital and analog photos to diaries and blog entries; from professional contracts and grants to minutes and annual reports,” says Rick Ewig, also recent president of the Wyoming State Historical Society and editor of Annals of Wyoming. 

Seeking to immerse themselves in the vast landscape of the rural American West, scholars and historians from all over the world visit the AHC every year.  The AHC is UW’s repository of manuscript collections, rare books, and university archives.

Summer arts events flourish in Wyoming communities

Looking for something to do this summer?

You don't have to look very far.

The Wyoming Arts Council and the Wyoming Humanities Council have teamed up to chronicle "125 Days of Arts and Humanities." Why 125? Because this summer marks the 125th anniversary celebration of Wyoming statehood. The official big day is July 10. On that day, the Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site holds a Statehood Celebration Day. That same weekend, you  can view Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei's sculptures in Jackson or groove to sounds of Marty Stuart and His Superlatives at the Big Horn Mountain Festival in Buffalo or ogle the art at Jackson Hole's art fair or talk mountains at the international climbers' festival in Lander or travel to the powwow in Ethete. Everyone should attend at least one powwow, Interesting and instructional, especially for us white folks who think we have all of the answers.

And that's just one WYO weekend.

On any weekend, you are almost certain to find a beerfest. A beer festival addresses the basic necessities of a summer weekend: craft beer, BBQ and music. Craft beer continues to make waves in WYO. We have some award-winners at Melvin Brewing/Thai Me Up in Jackson and Alpine. Snake River Brewery in Jackson has been brewing up Pako's IPA and a whole host of specialty brews for decades. They were among the first in the region to can their output. A new brewpub, Cheyenne Brewing Company, opens in early June in Cheyenne. You can get a more comprehensive list of craft brewers in Wyoming at

The Wyoming Brewers Festival is set for Cheyenne June 19-20. One of the interesting things about this festival is that its proceeds go toward rehabbing our city's historic train depot. The brewfesr culminates with a Saturday night concert by the Taylor Scott Band. Scott grew up in Cheyenne. There was a time when you could see the teen-age Scott and his band perform for free downtown. He's gone on to bigger and better things, his voice and musical skills honed from constant touring with his new band. Don't miss it.

Some final words. I've been working in the arts in Wyoming for 24 years. I continue to be amazed by the scope and variety of summer events. Many of the festivals on the list have arisen in the past 10 years. This is especially true of the brewfests, most of which feature music and some have art exhibits. Local food is a major element. At the Wyoming Arts Council, we joke about the fact that our small staff couldn't possibly attend all of the summer arts offerings. We could try, but who would be left to shuffle the state paperwork? But all of you can get out and support these events. That's what keeps these events going -- the sweat equity of local organizers. And your attendance.  

It's 1939 in Cheyenne, Wyoming -- what side are you on?

I'm working on a short story set in 1939 Cheyenne. I rarely venture this far back in time. Two stories in my first collection were set in post-World War II Wyoming and Colorado. I have gone far into the future with some of my sci-fi. But never back to the 1930s. I wasn't around then, but my parents were, both young people struggling through the Great Depression with their working-class families. I've read fiction set in the thirties. Nelson Algren, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Steinbeck, Eudora Welty, Irwin Shaw. The twenties and thirties may have been the golden age of the American short story. I've read hundreds of them. Big Blonde. How Beautiful with Shoes. A Rose for Emily. A Bottle of Milk for Mother. The Killers. Flowering Judas.

One of my favorites is Irwin Shaw's "Sailor Off the Bremen." Shaw is best known for his post-war novels such as "The Young Lions" and "Rich Man, Poor Man." But it's his stories that I've read and studied. They were collected into a volume, "Five Decades."

"Sailor Off the Bremen," published in The New Yorker in February 1939, is about international politics and revenge. In New York Harbor, communists stage an anti-Nazi demonstration aboard the German ship Bremen. A Nazi steward beats up a demonstrator, whose family and friends believe that the Nazi should pay. They find out who the steward is, trap and beat the crap out of him.

When I first read that story decades ago, I knew little about the years leading up to World War II. I was a student of the war. As was the case with many Baby Boomer boys, we watched movies and TV shows about the war our fathers fought in. Some of us read books, too, as my father had a great library. We knew war as boys know war. Names of battles, famous generals, types of airplanes and tanks.

What caused the war? Hitler and the damn Nazis. Tojo and the stinkin' Japs. Excuse my use of the term "Japs" -- that's how Americans spoke about residents of the Empire of Japan during the war and after it. That's about as far as it went until I got older and began reading about it. America was dragged kicking and screaming into it. I don't mean after Pearl Harbor, but before it, when many Americans had no reason to care what happened to French farmers and Chinese peasants. We'd been dragged into another European war in 1917, and many wondered why we had to bail out the French and the Brits once again. Isolationism was rampant, especially among those in the individualist-minded Rocky Mountain West. Many of the leading isolationists in Congress were from Montana and Idaho and South Dakota. Probably Wyoming, too, although I haven't done any research on the matter.

I am reading a book on the subject. "Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's fight over World War II, 1939-1941," by Lynne Olson.  I just finished a section about the very close Congressional vote to extend the conscription act, a vote held four months before Dec. 7, 1941. Conscription had been passed a year before in which young men were drafted into the army for a year. That year was up and many of those young men wanted to go back home. They spent their time digging ditches and marching around with fake rifles and didn't see the point as the U.S. wasn't at war. So when Roosevelt and his interventionist allies tried to extend the draft, many in Congress weren't eager to sign on, including ,many Democrats. The final vote was 203 aye and 202 nays. And some of the ayes were about to change their votes when Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn closed the vote with an arcane procedural move. It took the U.S. a long time to mobilize after the Dec. 8 declaration of war. Imagine how long it would have taken if the draft had been abandoned? History can turn on a single vote.

One thing is clear -- even four months before we entered the war, isolationism was strong in this country. I wondered what it was like for the average joe, the guy who became G.I. Joe in the war years. The economy had picked up once we got into the 1940s, but problems of the Great Depression hadn't gone away. What made you an interventionist and what made you an isolationist? in 1941, there wasn't a bomber or missile that could reach the U.S. from potential enemies. But what would happen if Hitler took over the world and eventually threatened us? And what about all of those rumors of Nazis murdering Jews?

As always, I tried to put myself in that era in the form of a fictional character. And so goes my story and along with it, hours of research. Research can be addictive, especially in this age of unlimited accessibility to online sources. But I stopped myself and wrote the story. It's called "Ras Tafari in Cheyenne." I'm excerpting it on my blog because I don't know what else to do with it. If you have any ideas for markets, let me know. The excerpts will begin in mid-January -- I'll keep you posted.

Gubment-hating righties invade Wyoming

The takeover of Wyoming by right-wing zealots has begun.

It may seem that Wyoming was lost to the rising tide of extremism a long time ago.

But you ain't seen nothing yet.

Republicans handily outnumber Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature. We got a new batch of right-wing crazies in the most recent election, notably Harlan Edmonds in HD 12 who defeated incumbent Democrat Lee Filer. Filer had been a staunch advocate for his constituency and had shown how to get things done even though outnumbered. But voters in his district, the ones who showed up, punched that "R" button, letting Red State partisan politics rise above their own best interests. Edmonds is a gubment-hating state employee. His wife is on the board of the Wyoming Liberty Group, a right-wing lobbying group funded by Susan Gore and backed by the Koch brothers. Its goals include destroying the state's pension system. Its ultimate goal is to turn Wyoming into the poster child for a philosophy that starves state government to make it small enough to drown in a bathtub, as Tea Party favorite Grover Norquist once famously said. Wyoming can then become the ultimate refuge for the new oligarch class -- energy billionaires, Dick Cheney and family, Susan Gore, Wal-Mart heirs, Wall Street rip-off artists and all of their fellow travelers. Wyofile's Gregory Nickerson has done several articles on the impact of outside forces on Wyoming politics. On Dec. 9, he wrote about a conservative think tank the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Naples, Florida, conducting a push poll in Wyoming. The results, of course, showed that 70 percent of Wyoming residents oppose Medicaid expansion in Wyoming.

They spent $742,000 on the Uncover Obamacare project in 2013. The Wyoming effort is part of that campaign for year 2014.

One of FGA’s principal funders is Donors Capital Fund, an Arlington, Va., donor-aggregator group that raised $60 million in 2013. It granted $213,500 to the Foundation for Government Accountability in 2012. 

Donors Capital Fund also gave $240,000 to the Wyoming Liberty Group in 2009, $230,000 in 2010, and $15,000 in 2011.

Word on the street says that funneled more than $1 million into Wyoming last year. The Wyoming Liberty Group had nine attorney-lobbyists on their staff during the last legislative session and are certain to have more in 2015. As Wyoming blogger Rodger McDaniel stated in a Dec. 13 op-ed in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Rep. Cale Case (R-Lander) is on the board of directors of the Liberty Group. One wonders why a state legislator would be on the board of a group hell-bent on destroying the state employee retirement system. Rep. Case used to be a moderate. We wonder when that changed.

See more at http://wyofile.com/gregory_nickerson/florida-group-takes-aim-wyoming-medicaid-expansion/

Might be time to change that obnoxious county name

The always-interesting Meteor Blades reported Wednesday on Daily Kos some good news that came out of  Tuesday's election. Amongst reports about Berkeley, Calif., passing the first tax on soda pop and voters approving legal pot in Oregon, Alaska and D.C., was this from South Dakota:

It's Oglala Lakota County now: Voters in Shannon County, South Dakota, whose residents are 92 percent Oglala, a division of the Lakota (Sioux) people, voted overwhelmingly to change the name to Oglala Lakota County Tuesday. The vote was 2161 to 526. Shannon was the name of a guy who a lot to do with prying South Dakota land out of Indian hands.

This could be a trend. Wonder if that could ever happen in other counties around the West? Wyoming already has a county named for Chief Washakie of the Shoshone. Washakie is celebrated throughout the state, with a statue in front of the state capitol in Cheyenne and a monumental piece of the chief on horseback in front of the main dining hall at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Ever wonder how many Native Americans are in Washakie County? Approximately 46 out of 8,289 residents. There was a time, of course, when all of the people in what is now Washakie County were Native Americans.

It's only fitting when a balance comes to Western history. Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana used to be called Custer Battlefield. It's web site now acts to correct some of the history surrounding this place:

This area memorializes the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry and the Sioux and Cheyenne in one of the Indians last armed efforts to preserve their way of life. Here on June 25 and 26 of 1876, 263 soldiers, including Lt. Col. George A. Custer and attached personnel of the U.S. Army, died fighting several thousand Lakota, and Cheyenne warriors. 

My town of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was first named Crow Creek Crossing by Gen. Grenville Dodge when he platted the place as a future railroad camp in 1857. Some of those who accompanied him on this expedition thought a better name was Cheyenne after the Cheyenne nation that traversed the area. I'm glad Cheyenne stuck, as Crow Creek Crossing sounds like the name for a gated community. Maybe there is one by that name. Not sure what Crow Creek looked like in 1857, but these days it's a quaint little stream that only gets significant during spring flash floods.

Our county is named for Jacques La Ramee, a French-Canadian fur trapper who frequented these parts. His name is attached to a Wyoming county, city, river and peak, among others.  

In Colorado, the name of Col. Chivington has been wiped from the map for his role in leading the Colorado militia that slaughtered Indians, many of them women and children, at the Sand Creek Massacre. The Sand Creek Massacre Trail now criss-crosses Wyoming and Colorado, its path marked by commemorative signs. Here's some info about it from the Miniscule Guide to Cheyenne blog:

The Sand Creek Massacre Trail in Wyoming follows the paths of the Northern Arapaho and Cheyenne in the years after the massacre. It traces them to their supposed wintering on the Wind River Indian Reservation near Riverton in central Wyoming, where the Arapaho remain today. The trail passes through Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper, and Riverton en route to Ethete in Fremont County on the reservation. In recent years, Arapaho youth have taken to running the length of the trail as endurance tests to bring healing to their nation. Alexa Roberts, superintendent of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, has said that the trail represents a living portion of the history of the two tribes.

The Wind River Reservation butts up against Fremont County, Wyoming, and is named for John C. Fremont, celebrated in history books as "Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains." He also was incredibly ambitious, passive-aggressive and impulsive. He was the Republican Party's first presidential nominee but lost in a three-way race against the Democrats and the Know Nothing Party, which accused Fremont of being a Catholic. This incited horrors in the Know Nothing's immigrant-hating followers. You see the same reaction in Tea Party members today. When the Civil War erupted, Lincoln appointed Fremont as general of the armies of the West. Lincoln fired Fremont for issuing his own Emancipation Proclamation, although two years later, Lincoln issued a similar one. 

Wyoming's Fremont Peak, Fremont Canyon and Pathfinder Reservoir all are named after John C. Fremont. The Pathfinder's expeditions certainly opened up the West for the exploitation of its native inhabitants. But if we changed all of the places in the West named for impulsive explorers and money-grubbers and Indian traders and Indian killers and land-grabbers, well, we'd have to change a lot of names.

UW Prof Jeff Lockwood previews new book, "Living Behind the Carbon Curtain"

Jeff Lockwood

Who lives behind the carbon curtain?

I do. You do too if you're in Wyoming.

University of Wyoming prof and author Jeff Lockwood will preview his new book on the subject Saturday evening in Sheridan at the Powder River Basin Resource Council annual gathering.

Lockwood's book is Behind the Carbon Curtain: The Energy Industry, Political Censorship and Free Speech. The book won't be out for another year -- Lockwood's Saturday talk is but a teaser.

See Dustin Bleizeffer's article about this in Friday's Wyofile. Here's an excerpt:

On one level, the book is about a series of cases in which the energy industry has colluded with government in Wyoming to censor art and education. But in a larger sense, said Lockwood, Behind the Carbon Curtain is about something even more worrisome; it’s about how corporatocracy is rooted in the Equality State and throughout many levels of government nationwide. Corporatocracy is a term used to describe governments that are designed to serve the interests of corporations, and not necessarily citizens. A couple of examples of corporatocracy at work in Wyoming are the removal of Carbon Sink (the sculpture that offended coal industry interests) and the unofficially dubbed “Teeters Amendment” — a last-minute measure tagged onto the state budget bill that prohibited even the discussion of Next Generation Science Standards for its acknowledgment of man’s role in climate change. 

Read the rest at http://wyofile.com/dustin/uw-professor-previews-book-critical-energy-influence/#sthash.fhTLvQNs.dpuf

Day two of touristing on the high plains

At Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site: Mike Shay and Brian and Eileen Casey. Thousands of wagons passed this way during the heyday of the trails that cut through Wyoming. 

Why all of the sheriff’s cars at Hawk Springs Reservoir?

A Sunday drowning. But on Tuesday morning, I didn’t know that. We stopped at Hawk Springs to take in the reservoir and the bluffs beyond. We were touristing so stopped at almost every site we came across. When I travel Wyoming, I’m usually zipping to or from a destination and I need to be there at a certain time. Not just work trips but personal ones, too.

I used to be the guy who stopped at all in interesting things. What’s that marker? Where does that road go? Somewhere along the line, I lost that sense of adventure that drove my family crazy.

We stopped at Hawk Springs State Recreation Area because we were escorting my sister Eileen and her husband Brian on a Wyoming adventure. Can’t have an adventure unless you take the road less traveled. Our goal was Fort Laramie but we had all day, so why not stop?

It was quiet at Hawk Springs. Wind rattled the Cottonwood leaves. Some locals fished. We didn’t know it, but search parties scoured the reservoir for a drowned man. On Sunday, James “Jesse” Nelson of Torrington apparently dove into the reservoir to rescue another person who had fallen overboard. That person was rescued by another boat but Nelson was not.

Tragedies happen around us while we look the other way.

But on this day, we were roaming around southeast Wyoming. We stopped in the town of Hawk Springs to take some goofy photos. We met the proprietor of The Emporium, one of the few eating and drinking establishments along this stretch of state road. On this day was closed for a thorough cleaning after a busy summer catering to tourists and Sturgis-bound bikers. The owner invited us to return on the weekend to dine and watch a UW game.

Ever stopped at the Homesteader Museum along Torrington’s main drag? Me neither. You can’t miss it – it’s in the old train station across from the sugar plant. A big caboose sits adjacent to the museum. On the north side of the museum is an old homesteader cabin that once occupied good bottom land near Hawk Springs. It was moved when the dam was built and before the water rose high enough to drown people in 2014. A couple raised their three children in this windowless log cabin. Imagine. The museum grounds also included a one-room schoolhouse and a two-story rancher’s house, all moved from elsewhere in Goshen County. Settlement history in our part of the world may be recent, but there’s a lot of it.

Did you know that Jackson Hole is not the only hole in the state? This part of of Wyoming was historically referred to as "Goshen Hole?" A valley carved by rivers over thousands of years. You get the sense of "hole" when you top of rise of the highway and look down into the valley all the way to Nebraska. 

We picnicked at the city park in Lingle. Mothers and their pre-K kids trooped into the park, set up some soccer nets and commenced a game. One of the younger kids clambered around on the bandshell that was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1941-42, just as the U.S. was entering WWII and men in those WPA and CCC crews were putting on uniforms. Beautiful red-white-and-blue concrete bandshell that’s probably been the home for many Fourth of July concerts with fireworks to follow. Across the front of it is this: “Small but proud.”

Fort Laramie was our next stop. I’ve written about it before. This National Historic Site was a favorite destination when the kids were young and we were looking for a jaunt into history. This frontier fort along the North Platte and Laramie rivers was a thriving place for much of the 19^th century. It closed when the frontier was declared closed in 1890, which is also the year of the Wounded Knee massacre. The fort’s buildings almost disappeared from disuse and scavenging by citizens from the town of Fort Laramie. But, as often happens, the government stepped in and saved it. Drat that damn gubment. Now southeast Wyoming has a beautiful historic site to add to many others and an economic generator. Lots of cars and campers in the parking lot on this Sept. 16 afternoon. A big bus, too, filled with tourists anxious to explore history and plug some Euros into the Wyoming economy.

Chris and I has never been to the historic sites celebrating the wagon ruts and Register Cliff. The Oregon Trails Ruts State Historic Site marks the place where thousands of wagons and handcarts cut a swath through the side of a hill on the Oregon/Mormon/California trails. When you stand in the ruts, you can imagine the hard slog that these pioneers experienced. The major traffic would have been in June as they planned to reach Independence Rock near Casper by the Fourth of July. They already had glimpsed Laramie Peak shimmering in the distance and wondered, “How are we going to get over that?” But the trail turned northwest from here, following the path of the river through the relatively flat county on the way to Fort Caspar.

There’s a marker at the wagon ruts that celebrates the site in language a bit flowery for my tastes. A photo of it is included. I wanted to rewrite it in simple language, something a little more Hemingwayesque. Maybe you’d like to take a crack at it.

The marker at Register Cliff was a bit more to my liking, as it actually mentions the natives of this area, who also happened to etch petroglyphs into this site. Their signatures were destroyed by a sea of immigrants, a metaphor for what happened to their tribes as the wagons rolled West.   

"Wagon wheels cut solid rock, carving a memorial to Empire Builders." Not sure when this sign was installed but it could use a few updates.

Day one of touristing on the high plains

Hanging out at Esther Hobart Morris's statue at the Wyoming State Capitol with Brian and Eileen Casey.

My sister Eileen and her husband, Brian Casey, visited us this week in Cheyenne. They live in Orlando, Florida, and had never been to Wyoming. Eileen is a history buff and Brian likes trains. I told them, “You’ve come to the right place.”

Visitors from distant climes help me focus on the clime I’m in. I’ve lived in Cheyenne 23 years but have not seen everything there is to see. A human trait, to take for granted the place where you live.

On Monday, their first day in town, Eileen, Brian, my wife Chris and I toured Cheyenne. We exploited the state capitol building, which is in the beginning of a $250 million renovation. I saw Leslie in the Governor’s office and went in to say hi. She asked if we wanted to see the inner office, the place where Gov. Mead signs bills, and we said yes. She let Eileen and Brian sit in the Gov’s chair and I took photos. We wondered if we could walk into the Florida governor’s office, sit in his chair and take photos. Probably not. We toured the legislative chambers and viewed the art. I took time to actually view the art on the walls instead of just passing by. On the House side, the portrait of the 1913 group had a tear in the middle. The tear is about the width of a human head, which is due to the fact that one disgruntled legislator plucked the portrait off the wall and bashed it over the head of a colleague. Those are the kind of details that make history come alive.

We next toured the state museum. I’ve been in there a hundred times. But on this, the 101^st visit, I saw things I didn’t know were there. It is a gift to have fresh eyes alight on a thing and say “I didn’t know that.” That’s what museums are all about, right? We ate lunch at the historic Albany and then toured the Depot Museum. Trains created Cheyenne. The magnificent depot was created in view of the State Capitol to remind legislators to not forget what side their bread was buttered on. These days, legislators don’t have a view of the Powder River Basin coal fields, but that lesson has a prominent place in their memory.

You can see the coal trains from the second-floor museum viewing room. It’s a busy rail yard, which delighted Brian almost as much as the big model train in the next room. You’re in choo-choo country, pardner!

Time flies when you’re touristing. We walked around the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, a place that I love. The flowers are in their last gasp of beauty before the frosts arrive and the snow falls. The folks at the gardens did a great job of resurrecting the flower beds after our June and July hailstorms. I showed off the architectural plans of the new building. I’m very proud of it, as I was one of the forward-thinking voters who approved it during the election of 2012. Without Chris and I and thousands of others, we wouldn’t be creating a city for our children and grandchildren. Take a bow, ya’ll.

We wrapped up the day with a barbecue at our house. A fitting end to a fine, late-summer day in the high prairie.

To be continued….

Hemingway found a clean, well-lighted place to write in Wyoming

Me sitting at Hemingway's writing desk at Spear-O-Wigwam in the Big Horn Mountains.

Ernest Hemingway found something in Wyoming.

A book, or a way to finish a book. He wrote portions of A Farewell to Arms in Arkansas and Kansas and Sheridan, Wyo., eventually finishing it in a log cabin in Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains. Hemingway was a globetrotter back when it took a long time to get anywhere. You crossed oceans by ship and continents by rail. Travel was measured in days and weeks rather than hours. The author sojourned in Paris, Spain, Cuba, Africa, Canada and all over the U.S.: Chicago, Kansas City, Key West, Sheridan, Wyo. and Sun Valley, Idaho, to name a few. He hauled his typewriter and manuscripts along with him. After he became a successful author, he travelled with 26 suitcases, according to Valerie Hemingway, who served as Hemingway's secretary in the 1950s.

It's odd to think of a peripatetic author and war correspondent traveling with 26 suitcases. That's just one of the odd Hemingway facts you discover when hanging out at the Spear-O-Wigwam Mountain Campus near Sheridan with Val and other Hemingway fans. We were there to start the planning process for a 2018 Hemingway celebration. Why 2018? Since much of a A Farewell to Arms was written in Sheridan and the Big Horns, a 90th anniversary celebration is in order. The idea was hatched by Sheridan College's Susan Bigelow. Our August planning session coincided with the Spear-O-Wigwam presentation by Ms. Hemingway. More than 100 people traversed the rugged Red Grade Road for her afternoon talk.

A Farewell to Arms is based on Hemingway's experience as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I. If you didn't read the novel during one of your college survey courses, you may have caught up with it as an adult. Perhaps you saw one of A Farewell to Arms movies. Gary Cooper as Frederic Henry in 1932 pursuing Nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes). In 1957, Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones were the ill-fated couple. There were stage plays and radio plays as well.

After A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929, Hemingway was a success. He wrote one best-seller after another. He accumulated residences and books and suitcases. Other writers began to copy his spare style, which Gore Vidal called "the careful, artful, immaculate idiocy of tone that has marked Hemingway's prose." "Idiocy of tone?" What's Vidal mean by that? Is the accent on "idiocy" or on "tone?" Not only has the author been copied -- badly -- but satirized, too, by Alan Coren and Woody Allen. There is the annual Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, with winners announced at the annual Hemingway Days in Key West, which also holds a Hemingway Look-Alike Contest and marlin fishing tournament. There are Write like Hemingway and the Six-Word Hemingway Story competitions.

Some of these tourism-themed events may seem excessive. But think about it? How many writers are celebrities these days?   Not just those celebrities who are famous for fame's sake, but those who actually have been engaged with the world and pioneered a new writing style in the process? I can't think of any contemporary writer who's done what Hemingway did. Wyoming's own Mark Jenkins is a globe-trotting, mountain-climbing adventurer and a fine writer. As far as I know, the only people calling him "Papa" are his two daughters. Sebastian Junger has written of adventure on the high seas and in the Afghan battlefields, and he's considered a hunk, but he's not Hemingway. Montana's Jim Harrrison and Tom McGuane can be considered celebrities in the writing world, but I'm not sure if your average person on the street would recognize those names.

Hemingway was bigger than life and he liked it that way. He made a fine living as a writer and it enabled him to travel the world. Alas, he did have to find time and a place to write. In 1928, he tried sequestering himself at the Sheridan Inn before it was the Historic Sheridan Inn and just a hot, noisy, and crowded hotel. So he rode up the mountains to Spear-O-Wigwam, sat down at a desk in a rustic cabin and finished the book that would make a splash over the next decade.

Hemingway killed himself -- did I mention that? He was bigger than life but in the end was felled by depression and a family trait. When Margaux Hemingway killed herself in 1996 in Santa Monica, she became the fifth generation of Hemingways to do so. We talk a lot about suicide but still it continues, by gun and rope and pills.

I sat at that desk in Hemingway's cabin. He wrote in longhand before breaking out the manual typewriter to do the finished draft. He'd do the revising on paper before getting down to the QWERTY keyboard. Wonder if the other guests at the ranch heard Hem's tap-tap-tap on the keys. Sounds like that writer fella -- says he's working on a novel about the war.

That was a small act by a big man. Left a lasting impression on the world. I think it's only right that the folks of Sheridan County want to celebrate it.

But how? There's the rub. And we have four years to figure out how to do it.

From beach boy to beach cowboy

I'm not a Florida beach guy. Not anymore.

Salt water once ran in my veins. The sun freckled my skin on a daily basis. All summer long, I lived in my baggies and toughened my feet by walking barefoot on scalding asphalt on my way to the beach's hard-packed sand. My car wore surf racks and patches of rust. By the time I graduated from high school, it was almost ready for the scrap heap, although a neighbor forked over $100 so he could turn it into a dune buggy.

Nights and evenings, we worked so we could surf during the day. I was a busboy at a combination Kentucky Fried Chicken joint and a pancake house. We busboys spent a lot of time flirting with the waitresses, trying to get them into our cars for an after-work beachside rendezvous. When that didn't work, we'd drive down to the Daytona pier and see if any tourist girls were interested in canoodling with busboys. We lonely guys often ended up parked on the beach (you could drive on it back then) talking about our plans for the future.

I had plans. I didn't know what they were, but I had them. Life was waiting for me and I had no desire to remain a beach boy or, worse, a beach bum. The world was tough on me and I did return to the beach after being booted out of college. I surfed and worked, waited for the Army to pluck me from the waves and send me to Vietnam. But the call never came and I had to figure out the next steps. Traveled, returned to school, worked, returned to the beach again although spent less and less time actually on the beach. Guess I always thought it was something to grow out of.

My brother Dan found that the beach was something you could grow into. He surfed until he was almost 60, until leukemia claimed him late last year. His 50- and 60-something buddies all surfed. They formed a church called the Salty Church that is a block from the beach.

Meanwhile, I made my home in the Rocky Mountain West and only rarely looked back. Until recently. When retirement raised its head. Now I'm spending time at funerals and weddings of my loved ones in The Sunshine State. It's not the place I left in 1978. Scads more people, traffic, developments. I was surprised during my recent trip that you can still walk with your best girl on the beach -- and be the only two out there. It has to be windy and 45 degrees, but it can be done.

But as I said in a previous post, the beach is nice but I can't see basing a retirement on that one thing alone. I can't surf until I get my knees fixed and/or replaced. I don't fish, like some of the codgers I came across on my beach walks. My Celtic skin won't tolerate sunbathing. I don't own a boat.

The warm weather is nice. Lots of cultural offerings. My family members are there, as are old friends. I care deeply about my old Florida schools -- they shaped me.

Still...

Spend a few decades in a place and you change. I've lived in Wyoming since 1991, with two years off in the mid-90s to work in D.C. As it turns out, I still have salt water in my veins. That's because all humans have salt water in our veins, even those of us who live in the Land of the Ancient Seas. Millions of years ago, my little lot in Cheyenne was underwater. If I excavated my entire backyard instead of just my small garden plot, I would find fossils of sea creatures. When the wind blows from the south, I smell the salt air. It could be from the nearest saltwater patch in the Gulf of Mexico. More likely, it's the moisture by storms. Or it could be my imagination.

Most of the time, the wind brings the scent of the dry prairie or of snow from Gulf of Alaska storms. The landscape reveals no waves, unless I use my imagination and wonder what it would be like to surf a wave as high as the nearest sandstone bluff.

I have to admit that I am more of this place than of the place where I did my growing up. I am no longer a beach guy unless you count the fact that I have walked "the beaches of Cheyenne" that Garth Brooks sings about. No longer the beach boy but a beach cowboy.

History is not a game

We live in the age of miracles and innovations. I walk around with a device that helps my heart correct arrhythmia -- I got rhythm! I just watched an online tutorial (complete with code) by a young man explaining how to hack a drone and take it over for your own purposes. Amazon, beware! 

At work, I supervise print and online communications. I typed my first book manuscript on a portable non-electric typewriter. My younger colleagues have never seen such a device. 

The year I was born, 1950, was closer to the bombing of Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941) by propeller-driven aircraft than to the 1969 launch of the Atlas rocket that carried the astronauts to the moon.

1950 was closer to the Russian Revolution (1917) than it was to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the end of the global Cold War (1991). 

My birth year was closer to the first 1951 airing of "Duck and Cover," a film by the U.S. Civil Defense Administration, than to the dawn of the atomic age (1945). 

My birth year was closer to the founding of Hewlett-Packard in 1939 than it was to the 1976 launch of the Apple-1, a single-board computer for hobbyists, designed by Steve Wozniak, and the founding of Apple Computer by Wozniak and Steve Jobs. 

We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. 1914 was a very big year. An archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo, the machines of war were set in motion, and four years later, millions were dead, the world map was changed and the seeds were planted for the next world war. 

One hundred years ago (1913), members of the United Mine Workers of America at Ludlow, Colorado, went on strike. At Christmas, it's possible that a little girl in the miners' tent colony received the gift of a bisque doll that was made in Germany and purchased from a Sears and Roebucks catalog. The remains of that doll were recovered in the exhumation of the tent colony. Also recovered were the remains of somewhere between 19 and 25 men, women and children slaughtered by Colorado National Guard troops and goons from John D. Rockefeller's Colorado Coal, Fuel and Iron Works on April 20, 1914. Most of them were immigrants, trying to make a living in their adopted country.

The remains of that doll is now part of the collection held by the UMWA. It also is a significant Colorado historical artifact, according to the Center for Colorado and the West at the Auraria Library in Denver. 

How this artifact relates to Colorado history: 

At the turn of the century coal mining was a large part of the labor force in Colorado, and the working conditions were poor, which prompted the miners with the help of UMWA to go on strike. This artifact reflects the families that were directly involved in the violence and turmoil during that time. This coal strike affected Colorado as well as the nation. On April 20, 1914, the death of the women and children at the Ludlow Massacre shocked the nation. This watershed moment spurred stricter labor laws to be enforced, and is considered the breaking point for American labor relations.

The doll's head is chilling to behold, its sightless eyes staring out at us a century later.

You can vote for Colorado’s most significant artifacts by Dec. 31 at https://collectioncare.auraria.edu/content/vote-colorados-most-significant-artifacts

I voted. My duty as a Colorado native and a union member. 

The object also has a connection to Wyoming history. Rockefeller moved much of his iron-ore mining operations to Platte County, Wyoming, in the wake of the bad press he received after Ludlow. Sunrise was a company town, far away (Rockefeller hoped) from trouble-making unions.  

Now Sunrise is a fenced-off ghost town, much like the Ludlow town site. By 1928, the Sunrise mine employed 547 and featured brick housing, modern utilities, a hospital, parks, playgrounds and the state's first YMCA. It closed in 1980. Both Ludlow and Sunrise are National Historic Sites.

Rockefeller learned some lessons from Ludlow. 

A beat-up doll's head helps us remember Ludlow.