Finn Murphy’s “Rocky Mountain High” may give you a “Hemp Space” buzz

“Rocky Mountain High” reminds us of how we sat around a campfire everybody getting high on Colorado in the summer of ’72. John Denver’s melodic version of Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley. Longhairs from all over stoned on this beautiful slice of paradise. I was there, a traveler from flat, muggy Florida. The air was sweet. So were the sights. The Rainbow Family gathered a few mountain ranges over. Longhairs clogged interstate on-ramps. Meanwhile, our parents’ generation was all in a dither, nervous about drugs and sex and rock’n’roll, nervous about the fate of their offspring.

We got jobs, married, and had kids that don’t listen to us. The marijuana that was such forbidden fruit then is now available at your corner dispensary in Colorado and many other states that aren’t Wyoming. The other cannabis sativa, hemp, grew into a commodity akin to oil, gas, and coal, subject to the same boom-and-bust cycles. Guys who looked like hedge-fund managers (they were) began showing up at farms along the Front Range asking where all the hemp was and did the farmers have any for sale?

If the present situation seems ripe for dark comedy, Finn Murphy spells it out in “Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West.” Murphy’s a Boomer, an enterprising capitalist and Ivy League grad from Connecticut. He sees hemp as they new big thing and moves to Boulder County, buys a 36-acre spread, and strolls out in his Wall Street suit to greet his rural neighbors.

It didn’t go well. There are some high times to celebrate but, as the reader knows from the subtitle, both boom and bust await Mr. Murphy and his colleagues in “The Hemp Space,” the countercultural term for this new business.

First, the boom. Hemp is a cannabis product that cannot register more than 0.3% of THC, so says the Colorado Department of Agriculture (and the one in Wyoming). The CDA inspects your crops, makes sure that you are not growing smokeable marijuana because that’s a whole other thing. That’s being grown a few fields over. Hemp is made into CBD among other products. CBD was a thing in the 2010s, the cure for every Boomer’s aching joints. CBD stores popped up on every corner. Many of us bought the overpriced oils, put drops under our tongues, rubbed it on aging body parts, and eagerly awaited the cure.

Murphy saw the promise of legal hemp. Over the decades, he had birthed and sold many businesses, some in areas he knew little about. In the book, he leads us through his decision-making process and into the growing, harvesting, and selling of the product. He thought the harvesting end would be the most lucrative. He told his neighbors (he calls them the “Weedwhackers” – and they shall remain nameless) he would harvest their crop and since nobody knew the costs of such a venture, agreed to settle up when the work was done.

Murphy spends way too much time telling us about the costs of this enterprise. But it is instructional. Farmers need farm implements to harvest fields of five-foot hemp trees. Murphy buys three big hoophouses in which to dry the hemp. They are $10,000 each. He later has to buy thousands of dollars of tools and equipment to erect the hoophouses. He spends more than the $150,000 he budgeted for equipment on bucking and trimming machines, fans, generators, and humidifiers. He hired a band of trimmigrants to do the tough and sticky work.

But it’s the author’s self-effacing humor and eye for life’s strange contradictions that kept me reading. He also knows how to keep the reader turning the page. He concludes the “Start Me Up” chapter this way:

We’d all be rich and happy. We agreed then and there on handshakes to go forward, and the room was awash with good fellowship and excitement.

My thought: This is really going to be bad, isn’t it?

And it was. Nobody died but the “fellowship” didn’t last.

Murphy’s first book is “The Long Haul,” also by Norton. It’s about his foray into the long-haul trucking business.

For information on the Wyoming “Hemp Space,” go to the Wyoming Hemp Association.

420 Day in Wyoming feels a lot like Wednesday

Happy 420 Day. 

Stoners in Boulder, Colo., used to treat this day as a smoke-filled holiday, known for one of the biggest 420 fests in the U.S. Legalization arrived via the voters in 2012. There now are hundreds of  marijuana dispensaries in the first state to start selling legal recreational weed. 

Wyoming, on the other hand, well, Wyoming is Wyoming. It will be the last state to approve it. Meanwhile, liquor rules the land. Prohibition (1920-1933) was a joke in this state while the temperance types in Colorado got an early start by prohibiting booze in 1916. Ah, Colorado, our sober southern neighbor.

Bootleggers abounded in WYO border towns for thirsty Coloradoans, Utahans, Nebraskans, Dakotans, Montanans, and Idahoans. Moonshine was an export commodity long before fireworks and fresh-faced UW grads. You can visit museums around the state that feature well-preserved stills from the 1930s. Museum volunteers lecture school groups on the bad old days when everyone was stewed to the gills with illicit hooch. Look how far we’ve come! Wyoming has a huge alcohol abuse problem. It also had the second-highest number of teen drug arrests in 2016, topped only by neighbor South Dakota and a bit more than neighbor Nebraska. Here’s a recent headline from the Cowboy State Daily: “Fentanyl Deaths in Wyoming Increasing; Federal, State Officials Worried.” 

My drugs of choice these days tend to be heavy on the Zs: Prozac, Zyrtec, Mirtazapine, Zestril. This is what happens when you have depression, get carted away with a heart attack, and sneeze your head off from May through October. These meds are prescribed liberally by physicians and pharmacists. Drug company reps hand out free samples. They need to be used with care as they carry a list of side effects (some alarming) listed on the three-page printout you get with each prescription. Oxycontin and Fentanyl carry similar warnings which nobody reads.

I’m pleased that the medical establishment gives us info so we can make decisions about what to take and what to jettison. No such lists were issued with the recreation drugs of the 60s and 70s. Our parents knew nothing nor did any adult we depended on for advice which we readily ignored. I was thinking about this the other day. KUWR’s Wyoming Sounds’ Throwback Thursday featured Grady Kirkpatrick playing songs on the forbidden list issued by an Illinois state law enforcement agency in 1971. The songs allegedly encouraged the use of illegal drugs. They included PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON (Peter, Paul, and Mary), HI-DE-HO (Blood, Sweat, and Tears) AND LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS (Beatles). 

The list was probably inspired by Nixon’s War on Drugs. "Puff" was targeted due to the fact that marijuana cigarettes needed to be puffed in 1971 (no edibles or ganja-infused beer). Too many puffs and you saw magic dragons. Lucy was obviously an abbreviation for LSD which, if you had the good stuff, you would definitely see magic dragons, sea nymphs, and Jesus. I have it on good authority that some frat boys saw our savior after imbibing too much Purple Jesus punch, a once-popular grain alcohol/Hawaiian Punch mixture.

I don’t get why “Hi-De-Ho” is on the banned list. Some lyrics:

Hi de ho

Hi de hi

Gonna get me a piece of the sky

Gonna get me some of that old sweet roll

Singing hi de hi de hi de hi de hooooo.

I looked up the song, originally sung by Dusty Springfield. I don’t see the drug references. Sure, some druggies may be reaching for a piece of sky. And stoners might satisfy a craving with sweet rolls such as the frisbee-sized concoctions served at Johnson’s Corner truck stop in Colorado. But it’s a stretch.

Hi-De-Ho was a phrase used liberally by Cab Calloway. He may have smoked weed as musicians seemed to like their drugs in the Roaring 20s and the Pretty Exciting but Impoverished 30s. The police noted that hip musicians tended to be African-American and their music was enjoyed mostly by jitterbugging minorities. Go to YouTube and watch jitterbugging clips. You could be stoned making those moves but I have my doubts. The fast-paced dance featured jittery music and lots of throwing around partners’ bodies. One false move and your date could end up a bleeding and broken thing on the bandstand.

The dances I remember from high school were not complicated but needed a bit of sobriety to carry off. The dances I remember from 1970s rock concerts were as groovy and free-flowing as a 20-minute Grateful Dead jam.

Hi-De-Ho.

Remembering The Great 1972 Rainbow Family Scare in Colorado

The Colorado Sun reposted this piece by Jason Blevins in the Outsider newsletter:

The Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes plans to return to Colorado this summer to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The weeks-long confab that draws tens of thousands of hippie campers to public lands announced this week that the national gathering of possibly 30,000 would be returning to Colorado. 

The group’s national bacchanal was last in Colorado in 2006, with about 10,000 people camping on Forest Service land in north Routt County outside Steamboat Springs. Before that, they were 19,000-strong outside Paonia in 1992. The first national gathering was near Granby in 1972. 

My girlfriend Sharon and I hitched through Colorado during the summer of ’72. We weren’t card-carrying members of the Rainbow Family but your average observer couldn’t tell. My hair was long, my jeans scruffy. Sharon wore braids, a halter top, and jeans that were definitely not scruffy.

We wondered why we got flipped off as we stood with our thumbs out on the side of the road. We were both just good-natured college dropouts on a spree. Why don’t people like us?

You dirty hippies!

I took a shower yesterday.

Me too.

Can’t please some people.

When we arrived in Denver, we found out about the Rainbow Family Gathering of Tribes soon to descend on Colorado. The citizenry was up in arms about hordes of longhairs in scruffy jeans invading their mountains. The interlopers allegedly were going to smoke lots of illegal weed the quality of which would pale in comparison with the mind-blowing cannabis now grown all over Colorado and sold legally at your corner dispensary. Colorado newspapers raised the alarm that Rainbow Family members were going to trip on LSD, now the favorite micro-dosing drug of the techie who built your VR headset. The citizenry feared that Rainbowites on magic mushrooms might swarm their city, recruiting Colorado young people to psilocybin. Thing is, in the last CO election cycle, psilocybin was decriminalized by your grandmother’s pickleball group in Longmont.

My, my.

Colorado was a different place in 1972. My Uncle Bill sold insurance and Aunt Mary played bridge with her pals every week. They voted for Republicans and cursed hippies. Thing is, when Sharon and I turned up on their front porch in Denver, they took us in, fed us, and housed us -- in separate rooms, of course. We hung out with my cousins. Uncle Bill wouldn’t let them go full-hippie but they smoked pot with us anyway. Went with the cousins to Elitch’s Amusement Park, the old one in West Denver. We played miniature golf and drank a lot of 3.2 Coors. Went to a Red Rocks concert. Their friends didn’t care that we were dirty hippies as we were all young together, having fun. On the Fourth of July, we traveled up to Estes Park to watch fireworks from a friend’s lofty cabin.

Sharon and I eventually hit the road for points west. Many adventures along the way. Saw the sights. Swam in the Pacific Ocean. Went to some concerts. Met a lot of cool people. Visited a high school pal at Berkeley. At summer’s end, we hitched to Boston where we lived and worked for awhile. The relationship ended and I headed back to Florida, worked and went back to school.

Never really got close that summer to Strawberry Lake near Granby where the Rainbow Family was rocking out. They were doing their thing. Now their kids and grandkids are coming back to Colorado to rile the populace. I’m old enough now to curse the damn hippies but I know better. Besides, I live in Wyoming, the live-and-let-live-state. The Rainbow Family has gathered three times in Wyoming. Not sure about any casualties. It’s 2022 but all the good drugs are still illegal in The Equality State. While here, you will have to buy your weed from some shady guy on the street corner. Bring your own is the best bet. WYO is flanked by pot-friendly states Colorado and Montana.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project:

Wyoming is one of just a few states that continues to criminalize adults and patients for possessing and using cannabis.

My guess is that the Rainbow Family will choose any one of the weed-friendly states for future get-togethers. Besides the two already mentioned: California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona. Millions of acres of forestland await you. Be careful with fires, though, as it doesn’t take much to start a conflagration. Edibles are a better choice.

Happy trails.

State Legislature's Judiciary Committee advances pot bill

The state legislature continues its in-person, maskless session at the Capitol Building. As a group, they are a tempting target for criticism because most of them are GOP knuckleheads of the Trump and QAnon variety. If given half a chance, they would storm their own capitol just because they could. Many bill themselves as Libertarians, some even represent the Libertarian Party. That causes some unusual behavior. They voted a marijuana bill out of committee so the entire chamber can get into the fray. Both Dems and Repubs and Tarians have been known to smoke pot. But they too are growing tired of driving all of the way to Fort Collins to stock up on supplies. They also know that Colorado and other legal states are raking in the dough via steep reefer taxes and they think they might want to horn in on the action. Early estimates for a 30 percent pot tax show that the state could get $47 million in income the first year. That could take a chunk out of the current $500-million plus deficit caused by the decline of coal and the energy severance taxes it provides. If toking coal could have the same impact on the budget as it does heating up the atmosphere, the lege would approve its immediate use. 

But the bill has a long way to go before Grandma can get her hands on some Chugwater Kush or North Platte Knockout. But she may be the first one in line at the dispensary. Senior citizens have shown a real yen for pot legalization. Friends who worked on the recent Wyoming medical marijuana campaign said that the age group most eager to sign the petitions were 60-plus. The reasons are obvious. Nostalgia for all of those heady days in their teens and twenties is a part of it. When Colorado legalized weed, pot tourism, especially with Boomers, became a thing in Denver. It may not be as big now as more states have legalized it. But it may.

More importantly, pain relief. Old people such as myself have pains they treat with Aleve, and, in chronic pain situations, opioids. Seniors have traded in their poisonous Percocet prescriptions for a bag of chronic, some mint-flavored gummies, or even six packs of cannabis craft beer. Unlike our twenty-something offspring, we are less likely to get high and into our cars for quests to find the perfect munchies. We are retired and just stocked up on snacks at Albertson's Senior Discount Day on the first Thursday of every month (don't forget those e-coupons). We can settle into our Lift chairs, get high, and ask Alexa to play Dark Side of the Moon over and over and over again. 

The lege might stun us by legalizing marijuana. More than likely, they will defeat the bill and form an interim committee to study hot pot topics: Will legal pot turn our children into liberals? Will it make our athletes kneel for the national anthem? Will it attract hordes of BLM and antifa activists who will invade the capitol and, instead of breaking windows with flags or smearing shit on walls, will get everyone high and try to levitate the building? Important questions that need much mulling over.

Part IV: The Way Mike Worked -- This job stinks!

"This job stinks," I complained to Ronnie.

He looked at me over a pile of dirty laundry. Smoke from a Marlboro wreathed his face. He removed the cigarette and exhaled a big cloud. "Do what I do."

I stared. I was dense. "What?"

He unrolled the pack of cigs from his T-shirt sleeve and popped one out. He walked over to me, stuck the cigarette in my mouth and lit it with his Zippo. "Inhale," he said.

I inhaled. I'd smoked a few cigarettes before, usually late at night at a beer bash when anything seemed like a good idea: smoking cigarettes, skinny dipping in a gator pond, driving on sidewalks. In the summer of '69, I was a latecomer to nicotine. My parents smoked, as did most of their friends. Some of my buddies smoked. But I was a jock in high school and coach commanded that we not smoke. I wanted to do what coach said. 

"Watch me," Ronnie said in his Tennessee drawl. He gripped the end of the rolling container with its mound of laundry. You could almost see the fumes coming from the sheets and towels accumulated in 24 hours at the nursing home. "Let the smoke drift up into your nose -- that knocks out the smell." He pushed his cart out the laundry room doors and down the corridor, smoke trailing behind him. I followed with my load. Smoke rose from my mouth to my nose to my eyes. Within seconds, my eyes watered. I kept close to Ronnie, lest I run over one of the dazed oldsters wandering the halls. I was getting it -- the smoke blocked the smell. It also burned my nose and eyes, but it was a small price to pay for not smelling the smells of incontinent old people. I was 18, Ronnie my elder at 25. We were usually not burdened with inconvenient odors unless we let loose with a fart as we drove to our appointed rounds for the Acme Laundry (not its real name) of Holly Hill, Florida. But that was different. We were not old.

When we finally wheeled our loads up a ramp into the step van, our smokes were burned down to nubs. We tossed the butts on the ground as we returned to the truck cab. My eyes still watered as we continued on our rounds. Ronnie was already on another smoke. "See how easy?" he said. 

I just nodded.

I became Ronnie's assistant one hot Florida July afternoon. I worked in the laundry, loading washers and dryers with towels and sheets from old folks homes, beachside motels, and other businesses. I had left my job as bagboy at the Pantry Pride grocery store because I needed to make more money for my upcoming college expenses. The laundry doubled my salary. The work was tougher and sweatier than hauling housewives' groceries out to their station wagons. I hated the laundry, doubted I could make it to the end of August. One day, after Ronnie delivered a load to us peasants chained to our machines, he came over and introduced himself. He was a big guy with Elvis-style hair and tattoos. He looked like something out of 1955 instead of 1969. I probably did too, with my Howdy Doody face and short haircut. 

"My helper just quit," he said. "Want the job?"

"When do I start?"

"Tomorrow at 6."

"Six in the morning?"

He laughed. "See you then."

What a reprieve! Riding with Ronnie started an hour earlier but I didn't care. We hit the mainland businesses first as the laundry only started piling up in the late morning at the beach motels as the housekeeping staff worked their way through the rooms. Sometimes Ronnie picked me up in his muscle car as I had sold my own car as it was a POS after three years of hard use. We knocked off at 3 just as the world really heated up or burst into an afternoon thunderstorm. 

Ronnie just got out of the Navy the year before. He served a stint on a ship off of Vietnam and had accumulated some tattoos and a dose of the clap in the Philippines. He got a kick out of the fact that I was off to be a Navy ROTC student, someone who one day might be an officer giving orders to the likes of swabs like him. For now, he was the one giving orders. "You ain't no officer yet," he'd say if he caught me loafing. "Yes sir," I'd say. His response: "I ain't no sir -- I work for a living. That's what my chief used to say."

I think about my 18-year-old self. I was excited and scared to be off to college. I was sad to leave my girlfriend behind -- she was attending a school 300 miles from me. I loved her and I said so and she loved me, or so she said. What did we know? Our family home burned down that summer but all 11 of us survived. We lived in a small place while waiting to rebuild. Problem was, all the clothes I'd collected for college burnt up in the fire or were impregnated with smoke. Early in the summer my surfboard had been stolen and, for the first time in four years, I felt left out of the beach scene. 

About a week before I quit the laundry, Ronnie took me to his trailer for lunch. He wanted me to meet somebody. We got out of the step van and walked to the door. A woman answered. Ronnie introduced us.. 

"Hello ma'am," I said. 

The woman wore long gray hair pulled back in a braid, a pleasant face etched with tiny lines around the mouth and eyes. "Don't call me ma'am -- I'm Shirley."

"OK, Shirley." 

Ronnie planted a kiss on her lips and I suddenly realized this was his wife. I'd called her ma'am because I thought she was his mother. I was surprised and a bit embarrassed for me and for Ronnie. Shirley served us tomato and mayo sandwiches and lemonade. She as nice and had a good sense of humor. She wasn't really that old, maybe in her late 30s or 40s. Old enough to be my mother but not Ronnie's. As we ate at the trailer's tiny table, she asked about me, what I liked to do, my plans for the fall. 

"You got a girl?" She smiled.

"Yes ma'am..."

"Shirley."

"Shirley, I have a girlfriend."

"She's pretty, too," Ronnie said as he chewed. "Drives a Firebird."

"It's her dad's," I said.

"Your girl going to the same college?"

"No. We plan to see each other for football games, and during school breaks.,"

"That's good, hon," she said. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."  She explained that she and Ronnie met at a Daytona bar after she left Georgia after a bad divorce.They hit it off and married after a few weeks. "Newlyweds," she said.

Earlier I had caught a glimpse of an unmade bed at the far end of the trailer. I imagined the two of them in that bed. I didn't want to but I couldn't help it. The trailer began to close in around me and I was relieved when Ronnie said it was time to get back to work. We said our farewells and that was the last time I saw Shirley. 

As we returned to our route, Ronnie, as if divining my thoughts, said, "She makes me happy." 

I just nodded. He drove the rest of the way in silence.

On my last day at work, Ronnie and I sat in the step van in a motel lot watching the waves break. A half-dozen surfers bobbed in the line-up.

"Those good waves?" he asked.

"Pretty good."

"We could have brought your surfboard with us on some of our runs. You could have done some surfing."

I told him that my board had been stolen. 

He nodded. Handed me his Zippo. On its side was a U.S. Navy emblem. "Going-away present."

"Thanks," I said. "I may try to give up smoking."

"No matter. You can light some of your marijuana cigarettes with it."

I laughed. "They're called joints, Ronnie."

"No matter. All you kids smoke it. My shipmates did. A lot of the guys in Vietnam. I tried it a few times. Just made me tired. I'll stick with beer and whiskey."

I thanked him again.That afternoon, I said my farewells to Ronnie and the laundry. My girlfriend picked me up. A week ;later, we said our own forlorn farewells during a last walk on the beach. 

Somewhere along the line, I lost the lighter and I lost my way. Shall I pin the blame on marijuana cigarettes? It's more complicated than that. 

Blogger's Note: I changed the names of the characters in this piece and the name of the laundry. I had to reconstruct the dialogue because it was 49 years ago and I wasn't taking notes. Most of the rest of the story is true. 

Another blogger's note: The Laramie County Public Library kicks off the fall season with the Smithsonian exhibit, "The Way We Worked." Sponsored by Wyoming Humanities, the exhibit "engages viewers with a history of work." It opens Sept. 22 and runs through Nov. 13. Grand opening is a "Hands-on History Expo" on Sept. 28 where you can "dial a rotary phone, draw water with a hand pump, enjoy old-fashioned refreshments (make your own ice cream!) and much more." You can see antique tractors, a wheat-washing machine and an old-fashioned library card catalog. I viewed the exhibit-in-progress yesterday. Great display of tools used to mine, log, and build railroads and dwellings in the West. I finally understood the difference between a dugout and a sod house or "soddie." One thing I know -- I would have gone stark-raving mad living in either one. 

Flashbacks: Denver 2008 and Fear & Loathing 1972

It's not Flashback Friday or Throwback Thursday, but we are venturing back eight years to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. What was happening eight years ago? Well, the convention hadn't started yet as it was late in August, bumping up against football season, which is feverish in the Mile High City during any year but high expectations should be keen this year for the Super Bowl champs as they decide who will fill Manning's XXXL shoes and ego.

To read about first-day happenings at Denver DNC, go here. Other posts are in the archives for August 2008.

Strange as it seems, Hillary Clinton figured prominently in Denver. She relinquished the stage to Barack Obama in '08 but has no intention of giving up the prime spot in Philly. Tim Kaine as Veep? Not my first choice. Elizabeth Warren would have been a dazzling pick. Even craft brewer and Colorado governor John Hickenlooper held more appeal, although he did oppose marijuana legalization. If he had prevailed on this issue, Denver's hipster invasion may have been avoided. I liked the idea of Newark's Cory Booker on the ticket, or Julian or Joaquin Castro of San Antonio. It may be too soon to have Clinton/Castro on lawn signs in Miami or even in Cheyenne. Wait a few decades, when a dead-and-buried Fidel is as ubiquitous on T-shirts as Che, and Havana is a hotspot for Sandalistas in search of quaint bistros, brewpubs and boutique hotels.

Speaking of flashbacks... I'm reading "Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson." I was searching the library for "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," but found this newer volume instead. I skipped through Thompson's report of running for Aspen sheriff on the Freak Power ticket and his run-in with the Hell's Angels. This may be hard to believe, children of the West, but in the early 1970s, the Roaring Fork Valley was much more like present-day Wyoming than the Colorado of today. Longhairs were not welcome in Aspen or Denver ("get out of Denver, baby, go!) or even Boulder. Hitchhikers were more likely to get a finger-o-gram than a ride. The stoned, half-naked hippies of the Rainbow Tribe were not welcomed to Colorado in the summer of '72. And wild-man Hunter Thompson was not elected sheriff of Aspen in 1970 with his promise of free drugs for all.

Here's Thompson's description of Aspen in 1969, when registered GOPers outnumbered Dems 2-1 -- and both were outnumbered by independents:

"They are a jangled mix of Left/Crazies and Birchers: cheap bigots, dope dealers, Nazi ski instructors, and spaced-out "psychedelic farmers" with no politics at all beyond self-preservation."=

DNC 1968 host Mayor Richard Daley unleashed the city's cops on hippies and Yippies on the streets of Chicago. In 1972 in Miami, activists remembered and were having nothing of Hubert Humphrey. Youngsters and disillusioned older Dems selected South Dakota anti-war war hero George McGovern as their standard-bearer against Nixon. It was a "doomed campaign" from the start, says Thompson. He preferred McGovern over "party hacks" Humphrey and Muskie and "Scoop" Jackson. But he knew that McGovern didn't have a chance against Tricky Dick's tactics. That included the now-infamous Southern Strategy which transformed the Dems of the South into fire-breathing Republicans who were deathly afraid (and resentful) of hippies, women's libbers, school integration, the threat of Ho's legions invading Memphis and Atlanta, and modern life in general. Sound familiar? Trump's people are stoking similar sentiments, especially angst about present and future America.

Here's a strange little quote from Thompson about his experiences in Aspen's 1969 mayoral race and his own race for sheriff in '70. See if it has any bearing on Trump's run this year:

"This is what some people call 'the Aspen technique' in politics: neither opting out of the system, nor working within it... but calling its bluff, by using its strength to turn it back on itself... and by always assuming that the people in power are not smart."

I have noticed everyone from former hippies to right-wing doomsdayers coming out for Trump. They all want to say "fuck you" to the establishment, as Michael Moore pointed out so well in his recent "Five Reasons Why Trump Will Win" article. Maybe Trump has resurrected the Aspen technique for the 21st century? Freak Power, Trump style. Unknown Colorado state rep (later Gov) Dick Lamm used a similar tactic when he urged Coloradans to say "fuck you" to the International Olympic Committee. And they did. The IOC told themselves that nobody ever votes against the Olympics. Lamm and his minions assumed that the IOC didn't know what the hell is what doing -- and they were correct. Behold the Brazil and Russia olympiads.

It is also possible that the people in power in the Democratic Party are not as smart as they think they are. Hunter Thompson and the ancient philosophers knew that hubris can be an Achilles' Heel. Cliches, too -- they knew all about those.

On March 13, Laramie County Dems will get their green on

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. 

Boomers and Millennials lead charge on medical marijuana

What are you going to do when you retire, Mike?

Go south of the border and get stoned all the time.

Really?

Really.

Not really. I've been retired almost two weeks and I have yet to get in my car and drive the 45 miles to Marijuanaville (a.k.a. Fort Collins). Greeley is just as close. I hear they're setting up a dispensary in Wellington, which is even closer. Thing is, once you get into Colorado, marijuana abounds. But I had to ask myself an important question. Once I was stoned, what next? As a 20-year-old stoner, my options were unlimited.  I could hang out with friends, sit around listening to music, go to a concert (if anyone was lucid enough to drive), eat a bag of Fritos, get laid, nap. As a 65-year-old stoner, only the last one is realistic. I have Cheech-and-Chong-style visions of me, wrapped in a pot cloud, driving my old guy car at 10 mph down a Colorado highway, getting busted by The Man. I'd get thrown in the clink, and then have to call to the wife.

It's a bummer, man.

Who is this?

Your old man, man.

Why you calling me man, old man?

I got busted down here in Colorado. Driving under the influence of Purple People Eater. Stoned. Immaculate, as Jim used to say.

Call Jim -- maybe he'll bail you out.

Bummer.

Recreational marijuana -- not for us geezers.

Medical marijuana is another story. We oldsters suffer from many maladies. To name them all would take too long. Some of them, however, could be eased by the THC in ganja. When my father in Florida was dying from cancer and not eating, my brothers and I joked that we should get him high so he'd get the munchies. Problem is, we were adults then and didn't want to break the law. And all of our sources had grown up too and were getting high on real estate and not pot. I just heard this morning that Florida has enough signatures to get medical marijuana on its ballot. Rejoice all you old surfers who can no longer paddle out to the line-up. Help is on the way for aching joints.

Any Wyomingite interested in signing our own medical marijuana petition should come out the the Democratic Party POTluck FUNdraiser this Sunday, Jan. 31, 5-8 p.m., at Joe's house in Cheyenne at 3626 Dover Road. Some amazing brownies will be supplied by yours truly and my Dem cohorts. Bring a dish to share, if you are so inclined. We'll also talk about House Bill 3, Rep. Jim Byrd's effort to begin the decriminalization process. It's doomed in this legislative session. But as Kerry Drake wrote in his Tuesday WyoFile column:

It’s not legal to toke up in Wyoming yet, but the day is coming sooner than many might think. 

Read more at http://www.wyofile.com/column/wyoming-will-eventually-benefit-from-medical-marijuana/

I don't have any stats, but anecdotal evidence shows that the over-65 crowd of Baby Boomers and those in the Millennials cohort are most likely to support medical marijuana. The old and the young -- finding common cause at last.

See you Sunday at Joe's house.

Dems hold POTluck FUNdraiser Jan. 31 in Cheyenne

This invitation comes from Kathleen Petersen, president of the Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition: 

The Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition is sponsoring a POTluck FUNdraiser to kick off the election year of 2016. It will be on Sunday, January 31, from 5-8 p.m. at 3626 Dover Road, Cheyenne.  

Bring your signature food dish to enter into a contest to win GREAT prizes, which include three months membership at the YMCA, a free haircut by Joe Corrigan or a bottle of wine. The winners will be decided by attendees buying tickets to vote on their favorite dish. There will also be a 50/50 raffle.  

Our local legislators will bring us current legislative information, and a representative from NORML Wyoming will do a presentation about the petition initiative for medical marijuana (the petition will be available for signing).  

Grassroots Executive Board members will provide the desserts, which include their own special brownies. Also, if you haven't joined the Grassroots Coalition for this year, bring your membership money.

If you need a ride to the event, or need further information, contact Kathleen, 307-421-4496. Plan to come out and start our new year off right. 

See you Sunday, Jan. 31, It promises to be a fun and fact filled evening.

My future as a Wyoming dandelion wrangler

The last Saturday in April. Windows thrown open. Breeze riffling curtains.

I hear a lawnmower.

This is transition season between the sounds of snowblowers and those of lawnmowers. There's no clear-cut demarcation line in Wyoming. On April 17, the snowblowers were out, shooting a foot of heavy wet snow into The Big Sky. On April 25, it's lawnmower time, at least for one neighbor. I took a gander at my backyard and it could use a trim. It's unruly. Nice crop of dandelions add a yellow splash to the yard. The common dandelion, taraxacum officinale. As is true with most owners of lawns, I shout out, "Death to all dandelions."

Foolish homo sapiens. Dandelions preceded us and will no doubt outlive us. While clever humans have one way to propagate, dandelions have many. On the About Home web site, writer David Beaulieu opens his article on "how to control dandelions" with this caveat:

What makes dandelion removal from lawns so difficult? Well, dandelions enjoy the best of both worlds. Above-ground, their seeds ride the wind currents, poised to drop into the slightest opening in your lawn to propagate the species. Meanwhile, below-ground, they strike down a taproot up to 10 inches long. Pulling the taproot as a means of removal is problematic. Thick but brittle, the taproot easily fractures -- and any fraction of the taproot that remains in the ground will regenerate.

Before you get out the weed killer, you might want to contemplate some of the culinary and medicinal benefits of dandelions. From Wikipedia:

Dandelions are harvested from the wild or grown on a small scale as a leaf vegetable. The leaves (called dandelion greens) can be eaten cooked or raw. They are probably closest in character to mustard greens. Usually the young leaves and unopened buds are eaten raw in salads, while older leaves are cooked. The leaves are high in vitamin A, vitamin C and iron, carrying more iron and calcium than spinach. 

Dandelion flowers can be used to make dandelion wine, for which there are many recipes. Most of these are more accurately described as "dandelion-flavored wine," as some other sort of fermented juice or extract serves as the main ingredient. It has also been used in a saison ale called Pissenlit (the French word for dandelion, literally meaning "wet the bed") made by Brasserie Fantôme in Belgium. Dandelion and burdock is a soft drink that has long been popular in the United Kingdom. 

In Poland, dandelion flowers are used to make a honey substitute syrup with added lemon (so-called May-honey). This "honey" is believed to have a medicinal value, in particular against liver problems. Ground roasted dandelion root can be used as a non-caffeinated coffee substitute. 

Historically, dandelion was prized for a variety of medicinal properties, and it contains a wide number of pharmacologically active compounds. Dandelion is used as a herbal remedy in Europe, North America and China. "Empiric traditional application in humans of dandelion, in particular to treat digestive disorders, is supported by pharmacological investigations. It has been used in herbal medicine to treat infections, bile and liver problems, and as a diuretic. Dandelion root is a registered drug in Canada, sold principally as a diuretic. Dandelion is used in herbal medicine as a mild laxative, for increasing appetite, and for improving digestion. 

The milky latex has been used as a mosquito repellent and as a folk remedy to treat warts. A recent experiment shows that đandelion leaf extract can reduce the spread of tumor cells. Although these researches are still on beginning stages, but many scientists believe that it can be used as an effective treatment in many types of cancer. With very low or even no toxicity at all, taraxacum can be used as a drink like tea on a daily basis. 

Contrast this with the many uses of the ornamental lawn. This is my own list, compiled with the assistance of a growler of home-brewed Pissenlit:

1. Pretty to look at it.
2. Playing field for softball, croquet, volleyball, etc.
3. Good place to lie down on a summer day and stare up at the clouds.
4. Cool grass feels good between the toes.
5. Bathroom for dog.

The most dangerous trait of dandelions may be the fights they cause with neighbors. If I decide to do nothing about my crop of taraxacum officinale, you may view this as a threat to your bluegrass lawn. You would be correct, of course, and you might ask your neighbor: "What are you doing with a bluegrass lawn in the middle of the high desert of Wyoming?"

But you, of course, also have one of these lawns. I've been tempted to kill off my lawn since I inherited it when I bought my house in 2005. But if you kill off a lawn, what do you replace it with? Xeriscaping? Rock gardens? Pavement? Weeds? Vast vegetable gardens? Overflow parking lot for Cheyenne Frontier Days?

Current trends favor veggie or rock gardens over lawns. Entire urban neighborhoods from Boston to L.A. have been converted to tomatoes and cucumbers. In Denver, where I once protected my garden from invading slugs with a minefield of Miller Lite, front yards have been given over to berry thickets and twisted clumps of zucchini plants. My old Platt Park neighbors have opened farm-to-table stands on their front porches. Chickens lay eggs in the garage and Bessie the cow yields gallons of raw milk which is shipped to Wyoming along with fresh buds of Boulder's Best. All that's needed is a couple dozen cookies. Homemade, of course.

Dandelion cookies anyone?

Revisiting one of the red-letter days in pot protest history

I found this bit of history on the web site for the NYC Cannabis Parade: Founding Chapter of the Global Marijuana March. Why wasn't I notified about this Global Marijuana March? Been going on for awhile, it seems, ever since marijuana started showing up a Dead concerts and Yippie rallies in the 1960s. In 1970, the action moved to D.C.:

What brought them to Washington, D.C. on July 4, 1970 was an event called “Honor America Day,” with comedian and military favorite Bob Hope and the Rev. Billy Graham as co-hosts to be held outdoors on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, and so thousands of Yippies and Hippies gathered at the Washington Monument, smoking copious amounts of marijuana, and then marched on the stage, with Yippie! and Viet Cong/NLF/NVA flags flying. When cops blocked them in the aisles, they waded through the Reflecting Pool, some people stripping down for a skinny-dip. Tear gas grenades flew through the air, affecting protesters and “pro-Americans” both. The event degenerated into chaos as arrests were made, fistfights broke out and gas wafted through the night.

This ROTC midshipman was at "Honor America Day" with his college friend, Pat, and his family, including his grandmother. We were curious about the smoke-in going on at the monument. We and our dorm buddies had a few of our own smoke-ins since gravitating to each other freshman year at the University of South Carolina. We'd travelled to the Kent State protest in D.C. that spring. And for the Fourth, I'd hitched to D.C. with my ROTC pal Paul. We wore our uniforms, thinking that it was more likely for us short-haired, clean-cut fellows to get rides from Norfolk Naval Base to D.C. with "Honor America Day" people than it would be from hippies or yippies.

We were right. Paul got off in Alexandria to see his girlfriend and I went to the Maryland burbs, where Pat picked me up. Pat was the second son in a large Catholic family. His older brother was Mike, of course. Sister Maureen, Kathleen, etc. Pat's dad was a fed and his mom stayed home with the younger kids. Pat and Mike were both attended military schools and, in college, wanted nothing more to do with uniforms and saluting and Vietnam. Especially Vietnam.

So we all went off to "Honor America Day" and the fireworks, which I was told were "bitchin'." But the fireworks happened much earlier than expected when the D.C. cops let loose with a barrage of tear gas to stem the hippie tide. We had to flee, Pat and I hauling his grandma down monument hill to the parking lot. No word on whether Billy Graham got gassed along with a lot of grandmas and kids and midshipmen. Now, all these years later, it's intriguing to note than I attended one of the red-letter days in pot protest history. Now recreational pot is legal 10 miles away in Colorado. If I lit up in a public park in Cheyenne, I might get arrested. If I lit up in public in Colorado, I might get fined. But probably not tear-gassed. To avoid the trouble, I could just go down to the nearest marijuana market and purchase an infused brownie.

Happy Fourth, wherever you are.

Happy 420 Day to all of my friends and relatives in Colorado

Read the cover story at the Psychedelic Library.

Tomorrow, 04/20/14, is 420 day in Colorado. I only recently became aware that 420 was code for marijuana, pot, weed, ganja, reefer, cannabis, etc. It seems silly that a product with so many nicknames would also need one that was numbers only, but there you have it. The origin of the term is complicated. The answer seems to lie with a group of stoners who attended San Rafael High School in Marin County in 1970. You can read the story at 420 Magazine, the source for all things 420.

This only goes to show my advanced age. I was one of the first 12 million or so who had tried pot by Oct. 31, 1969, if one can believe stats in the esteemed Life Magazine (see above).

Public school kids turned on this Catholic school kid to demon weed (figures, doesn't it?). We all worked together at a combination pancake house and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in Daytona Beach, Fla. They asked me if I wanted to get high and go see a concert. Sure, I said, thinking we were going to get some adults to buy us booze and see one of the local rock groups play.

On our way to the concert, Ronnie took out his marijuana stash. He taught me how to smoke a joint. It was quite a ritual, one that spoke to my Catholic roots. I always enjoyed the ritual more than the high -- maybe that speaks volumes about my life. Once we were suitably stoned, we went to a club and saw a group called the Hour Glass in concert. Only later did I realize that these guys would become the Allman Brothers Band, they of "Live at Fillmore East" and the legend of Duane Allman. The Allmans had grown up in Daytona and attended Seabreeze High School, where my pot-smoking pals all went to school.

So now I was 17 and had tried pot. I thought it was pretty cool. It was a different high than Boone's Farm or beer. I liked it, but not enough to keep smoking. I was a jock, after all, and smoking anything was verboten, as was hanging out with hippies, surfing during basketball season, indulging in premarital sex, taking God's name in vain and coveting my neighbor's ass, which was pretty fine if I remember correctly.

My first two years of college, 1969-1971, are kind of a blur. I was trying to smoke as much pot as possible in order to remain firmly entrenched in the minds of the Life Magazine editorial staff, most of whom were the same age as my parents and equally clueless. And I continued smoking for some reason. By the late 1970s, I had left marijuana behind, realizing that it's tough to engage fully in an adult lifestyle while slackin' with Dr. Ganja. I had moved to Denver by then, the future capital city of the 420 legal pot crowd. Strangely enough, the drug of choice in Denver in 1979 was cocaine. Ah, there's a drug for you. A rush that blows off the top of your head and expensive as hell. One more likely to lead you to the pokey or the poor house than to nirvana. I even recall cheering to J.J. Cale as Red Rocks when he strummed into "Cocaine," which became a big hit for Eric Clapton whose own drug jones almost landed him in the morgue.

On Sunday, Denver celebrates "420 Day." I won't be there. It's Easter. I won't be hiding Easter eggs for the kids as they are all grown up now. Chris and I are cooking some steaks with tea totaling friends, so won't even be imbibing a Colorado craft beer or a California wine. Boring old age.

I have mixed feelings about legal pot. Both of my kids have had problems with drugs and alcohol. Both have been in treatment and are now clean and sober. One lives in Tucson and one in L.A., the latter not the best place for people with an inclination for drugs. But we hear now, this time from Al-Jazeera America, that heroin and other opiates are now a deadly plague in rural areas, notably Vermont, better known as the Portlandia of the east. I've known junkies, and don't care to again. Heroin was around when I was in college. Most of my friends had enough sense to avoid it. Even my friend Rick avoided smack, and he rarely met a drug he didn't like. He's now some sort of backwoods preacher in central Florida with a zillion kids. I was best man at his wedding back in the 1980s.

Wyoming won't legalize pot anytime soon. We like our booze, though. The Legislature just got around to banning open containers in vehicles a few sessions ago. And it wasn't without a huge debate about whether the ban applied just to the driver or all of the passengers. I remember fondly a decade ago pulling into  a liquor store drive-up in Sheridan County and ordering gin-and-tonics all around. We were off to a summer cowboy polo match and gin was the drug of choice. I wasn't driving, so I ordered two to go. That was the most fun I ever had at a cowboy polo match.

Happy 420 Day to all of my friends and relatives in Denver. Enjoy!

If you're interested, the Denver Post Cannabist blog has a list of 420 events. And Time mag has an article about the brouhaha in Denver over lighting up in public.

As new year dawns in Colorado, authorities on the lookout for stoned Wyoming Boomers

An Iraq War veteran with PTSD was the first in line to purchase pot this morning in Colorado, according to a story on NBC News Online.

"I feel amazing. This is a huge step forward for veterans," said Sean Azzariti of Denver, who helped campaign for Amendment 64. "Now I get to use recreational cannabis to alleviate my PTSD."

Meanwhile, the state's “potrepreneurs” are preparing for an onslaught of Cannabis tourists.

From the Colorado Highlife Facebook page

Colorado Highlife Tours promises “fun, affordable and discreet” cannabis-centered excursions on its bus and limo tours. From NBC:

“You’ll be able to buy a little pot here and there, see a commercial grow, visit iconic Colorado landmarks and take lots of pictures,” said company owner Timothy Vee. “It will be like a Napa Valley wine tour.”

--clip--

Unlike Napa Valley wine tours, however, out-of-states tourists to Colorado’s pot retail stores won’t be able to take home most products they purchase. “It remains illegal to take marijuana out of the state,” said Michael Elliott of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group. And because marijuana also remains on the Transportation Security Administration's list of prohibited items, Denver International Airport will enforce a new policy that bans pot throughout the airport.

Prior to Jan. 1, Colorado Highlife Tours has mixed sightseeing with stops at glass-blowing shops, marijuana grow centers and has offered customers “free samples” — because buying pot was not yet legal.

“You live and learn,” said Vee. “On our tours, we’re getting a lot of empty nesters that haven’t smoked pot in 20 years. We’ve also had people who have never smoked pot take our tours and had one couple get high and so paranoid that we had to interrupt the tour and take them back to their hotel.” 

Stoned empty nesters. Baby Boomers, high on Bubba Kush, reeling around downtown Denver is search of organic munchies. Busloads of Wyoming retirees rolling down the highway, sweet smoke and Doobie Brothers tunes wafting out the windows.

All hell is breaking loose in my home state of Colorado. Across the border in Cheyenne, we are sober as judges -- most judges, anyway. No legal pot here.

But Wyoming NORML is working on it. It will sponsor a "Walk for Weed" Feb. 10 in Cheyenne. At least two Republican legislators have been discussing marijuana publicly. Sen. Bruce Burns (R-Sheridan) made the news recently when he revealed that 30 years ago he transported illegal ganja to his cancer-stricken uncle (a priest!) back in New York. His momma asked him to do it and he delivered. His uncle started eating better and gained 15 pounds. Burns knows first-hand the benefits of medicinal weed, which is where Wyoming may start. Rep. Sue Wallis (R-Recluse), she of the strong Libertarian streak, has already talked about promoting medicinal marijuana legislation. On most issues, Rep. Wallis is as conservative as most of her neighbors in rural Campbell County. But she is a big promoter of the local food movement, spoke out last year in favor of a civil unions bill and has been very vocal in opposition to anti-women legislation promulgated by the wackos in her own party.

So who knows? Will Legislature focus on pot amongst all of the budgetary items? On day one, 2014 already looks interesting. Don't know about you, but I'm glad to be here.

Will "contact high" be the only thing Wyoming gets out of Colorado's Amendment 64?

Many are wondering if the passage of Amendment 64 in Colorado will have any effect on Wyoming. All of us in the southeast part of the state may get a "contact high" from second-hand smoke blowing in from Fort Collins. The wind has to be blowing just right, of course. And not too hard, lest Scottsbluff and Kimball over in Nebraska have all the fun. But what else?

Meg Lanker-Simons explored the topic on last night's "Cognitive Dissonance" radio show broadcast from Laramie (and now available online). And Westword in Denver opined this week on the tourism impacts of legal marijuana. The lead editorial wondered if it was a coincidence that Visit Denver just launched a massive "Denver Mile High Christmas" advertising campaign. Westword proposed a few other tongue-in-cheek cannabis-based tourism schemes, one of which involved Wyoming:

Denver boosters are missing a bet if they don't light up a few other pot-related tourist attractions. For example...

Put a duty-free exchange station just off I-25 at the border of Colorado and Wyoming, where Coloradans can trade pot for fireworks and vice-versa. It's a smoking deal!

Read more here. Westword asks its readers to send their ideas to 
editorial@westword.com.

Wyoming should find its own unique ways to draw what may become a steady stream of young, pot-friendly tourists. First step might be our own Amendment 64. Face it, enforcing antiquated marijuana laws is a waste of time and resources. Wyoming was one of the first states to criminalize marijuana back before 1917. It could be among the first to decriminalize it. After all, if Colorado Libertarians and Greens and right-winger Tom Tancredo all can agree on Amendment 64, couldn't our Libertarian-leaning Republican Legislature do the same? This morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle carried a front-page story about looming budget cuts and calls by our governor to diversify our economy that's over-dependent on fossil fuels. So let's diversify. Legalize pot and tax it. Let the money flow! And the tourists. We can become Amsterdam (without the prostitutes) on Crow Creek, with pot bars and brewpubs inhabiting all of those empty downtown spaces. Fleets of funky food trucks cruising Lincolnway!

There are downsides. Abuses will occur. People will drive stoned and get in wrecks. They will get high and fall asleep at the table. Convenience stores will report shortages of Cheetos and Goldfish. People will show up late for work. Reefer madness!

Consider what we now get with alcohol-fueled tourism during Cheyenne Frontier Days. People drive drunk and get into wrecks. They get plastered, puke and pass out in the gutter. Convenience stores report shortages of beef jerky and Skoal. People miss a whole week of work. And don't forget the fights. Lots and lots of alcohol-related fights. Stoners aren't known for fisticuffs.

Think about it, Wyoming.

Tea Party vs. Marijuana Party -- high times in front of the Wyoming Capitol Building

On my way to lunch today, I walked into a smackdown between local Tea Party protesters and activists from the Marijuana Party.

Wasn't much of a smackdown. The Marijuana Party had reserved the space in front of the State Capitol Building in Cheyenne. The Tea Partiers arrived out of nowhere to urge Gov. Dave Freudenthal to join in the lawsuit by some state attorneys general to "nullify" health care reform. Gov Dave has already announced that Wyoming will not be a part of such a loony stunt.

"Nullify" is a popular term with the Tea Party crowd. They want to nullify some federal powers except the ones that fund useless foreign wars, huge pointless aircraft carriers, spy satellites, V.A. benefits, police and fire protection, pothole-free highways, the Border Patrol, dozens of anti-commie nukes in their silos outside Cheyenne, Social Security and Medicare. Other than those few things, they don't want gubment intruding into their lives.

The Marijuana Party advocates for access to medical marijuana. Its members were a lot younger than the Tea Party folks. One of them held up a sign that read "Cannabis medicine is a civil right." A few feet away, a Teabagger sported a sign that read "Nullify Healthcare -- Special Session Now." Sign included a swastika, of course. On the sign's other side was a "Ron Micheli for Governor" sticker. Micheli is a right-wing Republican from southwest Wyoming running for Gov.

Tensions rose when Highway Patrolmen (Capitol Security) and Cheyenne cops arrived to confront the Pot Party people about an information table that was blocking Tea party access to the Capitol. A Tea Party protestor was fuming that the Pot Party hippie had called him an "MF." I assumed that meant "Motherf****r." But it could have been "My Friend."

The Channel 13 and Channel 5 cameras were rolling. I expected a melee to break out, or at least a scuffle.

Much to my relief, Joe Hippie broke out a big bong and everyone had a hit of Cheyenne Green. Even the cops. Pretty soon we were all singing Kumbayaa. The teabaggers and the hippies and the cops pulled out their Glocks and fired celebratory rounds, bringing down an errant black helicopter in the process. Motorists honked their horns in celebration. Gov Dave declared Friday a Day of Forgiveness and Reconciliation.

Next week we'll get back to name-calling and nullification.