On Aug. 14, you can hear a rewrite of "This Land" on "Woody at Home"

From a July 14 New York Times article by pop music critic Jon Pareles comes some of the "This Land is Your Land" lyrics from the Guthrie estate and Shamus Music. On Aug. 14, they will release songs from home recordings recently recovered from simple recording equipment Woody used at home. Look for "Woody at Home, Vol, 1 & 2." Some  of the draft lyrics for "This Land:"

Wikipedia lists "This Land is Your Land" under "Songs of Socialist Movements." It includes these notes: "Guthrie wrote the song as a critical response to Irving Berlin's God Bless America. The stanza condemning private property is often omitted."

"This Land is Your Land" -- almost all the lyrics

This is from the official Woody Guthrie web site. I wanted the whole thing due to an ignorance in some quarters as to what the song is about. My plan is to give credit to where credit due. I also was curious about the copyright info below: "Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc., & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)." I will tell you what I found in a separate post.

This Land Is Your Land

Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
Contact Publisher - TRO-Essex Music Group

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway;
I saw below me that golden valley;
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding;
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

---

© Copyright 1956 (renewed), 1958 (renewed), 1970 and 1972 by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)

"Return to Sender" is more than just an Elvis song

I have got to hand it to Neil at LiquidLawn.com. He is persistent. I do not require his services at this time but there will come a time when I may. This is the fourth flyer I have received from Liquid Lawn and, really, the rare piece of mail I have personally received from anyone, human, company, or provider of services important to the Florida homeowner. My daughter receives disability and got mail from Social Security. It was sent to our Melogold address although it was spelled Mellogold but I wish they had written Mellowgold just to stop me from editing in my head JR Horton street names. On the envelope was handwritten "FWD" which means forward but why it would request forwarding when it was already destined for the right address with a slight misspelling? 

Yesterday I received a call from my former employer of 25 years. The caller asked if I had a new address as mail sent to Ocean Shore Drive had come to her, "Return to Sender," you know, like the Elvis song that got to number two on the charts in October 1962 after "Big Girls Don't Cry." The caller asked if I had sent USPS a change of address and I said yes, I dutifully did so. I did neglect to send that information to my trusted former employer, but had to wonder why they got "Return to Sender" when I had filed an official forwarding request to USPS on June 2. She was a bit stumped too but was friendly and polite as are most people in Wyoming. 

I filed an address change last August on my Wyoming address and mail seemed to find its way fine from Townsend Place in Cheyenne, to Ormond Beach but for some reason, USPS can't seem to get mail from Ormond-by-the-Sea to Ormond Station about five miles west as the crow flies. Now that USPS has raised rates on first-class mail, and has cut back on their trucks running from the big mail-gathering places to the little P.O.s on the coast, they can afford some drones to fly out our way. I wouldn't mind a drone mail drop. Really. 

Remember all those great songs about getting a letter, or not getting one?

The Letter

Wait a Minute Mr. Postman 

Return to Sender 

P.S. I Love You

Take a Letter, Maria

A Dear John Letter

Just a few of the pop songs about the good and bad of mail. Youthful memories, from a time when getting a letter meant getting A LETTER. Might be good news such as a letter from an old friend, birthday card from grandpa, or fan mail from some flounder, or not-so-good, say a missive from Selective Service, the IRS, a fed-up girlfriend. 

And yes, this is grousing from a Baby Boomer. Mail has lost its cachet. But mail still gets delivered, or not, depending on who's doing the delivery. Our postal delivery in Ormond Station has been dismal. Mail sent to us in June that was supposed to be forwarded to our new address was never forwarded. I got a call from my former employer in Wyoming that asked for my new address. She said mail sent to our address on Ocean Shore Drive was not forwarded to Melogold Drive but just returned to sender, as in the song. Somehow it missed a step. We put in a forwarding request before we moved. I dialed in my new address to address change sites for credit cards, car payments, payees like Dell and Lowes, and often it responded that there is no address. It was odd, since I was living in this new address and as far as I knew, it existed as did my wife and I. Now, houses in our Groveside neighborhood were still getting their finishing touches and some had yet to sell, but it seems like the P.O., a very large and respected organization, would have the Internet, GPS, drones, even printed maps at its disposal, the combined knowledge of thousands of postpersons, and they could figure this out. But they did not.

I have great memories of the mailman, as that person was known in my youth. They walked routes in those days. They had tales of ferocious dogs and snarling customers. They told of days cold enough to freeze your keisters and hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. 

Our woman delivery person in Cheyenne was the friendliest person I know, always with a greeting and mail that might mean something or might mean nothing. She wore arctic gear in January and plowed through snow-packed roads in those funny little vehicles. My brother Tim delivered the mail in Daytona Beach until a brain tumor took hold. I shared cardiac rehab with a woman younger than me that sometimes arrived at rehab in her uniform. One day, both of us on treadmills, chatting, she had a follow-up heart attack and quick response by rehab nurses brought her back. 

The U.S. Mail meant something. Lots of great songs. The Beatles, of course, and Elvis. 

I was 16 when "The Letter" by the Box Tops climbed the charts to number one. I viewed it on YouTube and I would post a link here but I never know if it will work down the line. Go watch it. The band members look high. A flashback to 1967. Vocalist was the great Alex Chilton. Joe Cocker had a big hit with it too. 

"A Dear John Letter" was a hit in 1953 by Ferlin Husky and Jean Shepard. In it, a young woman writes to her boyfriend under fire in Korea that she is dumping him for his brother. I'd like to think the song spawned the term we use now, but I've heard World War 2 soldiers talk about Dear John letters. Maybe it goes back even farther than that. What say, history buffs?

"In My Room:" Brian Wilson spent most of his time looking out his bedroom window

Rob Tannenbaum wrote June 12 in the New York Times:

In songs like “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations,” Wilson did as much as anyone to depict Los Angeles and California as a land of bikinis and warm, honey-colored sunsets. The songs he wrote about the West Coast, he said in “I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir,” were “more about the idea of going in the ocean than they were about actually going in the ocean.” Wilson didn’t like waves, but realized how they could serve as a metaphor for life.

Wilson tried surfing once and his board conked him on the head. He liked looking out windows at other people surfing and driving hot rods. Tannenbaum went on:

The songs, he added, tell stories about teenagers. 'We base them on activities of healthy California kids who like to surf, hot rod, and engage in other outdoor fun.' He saw these activities the same way he saw the ocean — through a window.

This caught my attention because it says a lot of what writers do: watching activities through their window of imagination and not actually taking part in that activity. As Wilson wrote ("In My Room") he spent a lot of time in his room imagining what was happening outside.

I grew up surfing in Daytona Beach, Florida. I surfed for five years, 13-18-years-old. I gave it up the summer of 1969. My surfboard, a Greg Noll Bug, was stolen out of my family's garage. It was the last board I owned and the only short board. I also sold my beat-up old car that summer as freshmen weren't allowed to have cars on campus. Our house burned down, destroying the kitchen, my school clothes, and my father's Barracuda, 'Cuda as the cool kids called it. My eight brothers and sisters and my parents survived and we moved to cramped motel rooms. The End Times were coming, or so it seemed. I began to have dark thoughts, imagined a black ball rotating in my chest. My girlfriend was pretty and nice but she was going off to the state school and I was going to another state's school 400 miles away. I was slated to be a NROTC midshipman and I had no idea why except the Navy agreed to pay my way if I agreed to get ship-shape and squared-away which I failed at miserably.

Depression came to call. I returned home to my beach town, lied in bed, listening to surf sounds drifting up from the beach and rolling through my jalousie windows.

Brian Wilson suffered with crippling depression. I know how that feels. Wilson laid in bed and looked through windows and saw different lives. His head was populated with beaches and endless streets to race cars and meet girls. His head and heart were also populated with monsters and he didn't really write about them. He looked out windows and saw himself. 

When he was 20, Canadian Steven Page wrote the song "Brian Wilson" which was later recorded by his band, Barenaked Ladies. When he heard it, Wilson wrote his own version. But lyrics in the original go like this:

So I’m lyin’ here 

Just starin’ at the ceiling tiles

And I’m thinkin’ about

What to think about

Just listenin’ and relistenin’

To smiley smile

And I’m wonderin’ if this is

Some kind of creative drought because

I’m lyin’ in bed

Just like Brian Wilson did

Well I’m

I’m lyin’ in bed, just like Brian Wilson did, oh

So,

If everybody had an ocean

Across the USA

Everybody'd be surfin'

In Cal-if-or-ni-a

Or lyin' in bed, just like Brian Wilson did.

 R.I.P. Brian.

"Writers Who Play" features words & music & fun March 28 in L.A.

This comes from traveling troubadour and poet Ken Waldman:

In Los Angeles the end of this month, my NOMAD co-editor, Rachel White, and I will be getting our new NOMAD literary journal out in the world, and I'm producing a Friday, March 28, show at the fabulous 1642 Bar at https://www.facebook.com/1642beerandwine/ .

Here's the poster:

The event is being held off-campus you might say from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference at Los Angeles Convention Center this week. Consider it a break from AWP sessions and the magnificent bookfair where you can buy books and have books thrust upon you. Also a good time to schmooze with editors and publishers. I haven't attended AWP in a number of years but it always was fun and where I recruited writers to come to Wyoming. And always brought an extra bag to haul books home.

A snowless Christmas season ain't all bad

The most beautiful song about missing snow at Christmas is one written by Steve Goodman and performed by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The song’s narrator looks out the window of his Hollywood Hotel on Christmas Eve and sees billboards, neon, traffic, and palm trees, and notes it’s 84 degrees.

He yearns for Colorado. The song’s refrain goes like this: “The  closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere/is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow.”

Nothing gets me as nostalgic for Colorado. John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High,” maybe, a 1972 song that planted the seeds for Colorado’s marijuana boom.

The state is not always snowbound at Christmas. I do remember a time when it was, Christmas of 1982, the year of the Great Christmas Eve Blizzard. Two feet of snow fell in one day. I watched it outside my walkup apartment window in City Park South, where we could hear the zoo’s peacocks almost every day.

Chris, alas, was trying to figure out a way to get home from her downtown job. Buses weren’t running as businesses and government shut down. A coworker herded Chris and four others into his 10-year-old compact car and raced up Colfax (“The Fax”) to drop everyone off. He hoped for the best, as did they. After maneuvering through a maze of stuck cars and two-foot drifts, Chris was released on Cook Street. As she said later, “He just slowed down and I jumped out.” A bit later, I saw her maneuvering the drifts, her diminutive figure whipped by the winds and flurries. She was shrouded in snow and ice by the time she reached the apartment. We unwrapped her carefully, fed her coffee and soup, and soon she was able to tell her tale.

We went to sleep secure that the snow would wrap up in the night, Santa would arrive, and we would wake up to a winter wonderland.

Chris woke up with a cold, and went back to bed. I ate, grabbed the snow shovel, and wandered out looking for people to help. Our neighborhood was a mix of old brick houses, apartmentized houses such as ours, and small apartment complexes. Most of the neighbors were young but there were some elders in the mix. I sought them out. But they knew better than to venture out. I was able to help a driver dig out his stuck car but that was it. I headed home.

We had other big snows but rarely ones like this. In 1982, we were recently married and were only four years into our Denver adventure. We still remembered snowless Florida Christmases. It snowed once in Daytona and twice one year in Gainesville. Never a blizzard but a sprinkling could shut down the city. And did

I take my Wyoming Public Radio habit down south

I start my day listening to Wyoming Public Radio. Weekdays, it’s the old stand-by, Morning Music. I started hundreds of mornings listening to this show which, in earlier times, was the best way to hear new music and old. David Crosby’s birthday might prod the DJ to program CSNY, the Hollies, and his solo recordings. No better way to begin a cold January day than hearing “Wooden Ships” or “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Yes, I was 18 when CSNY released its first album.

I would never be 18 again, a fact I didn’t dwell on then but do now. There’s more music on WPR, from classical to jazz. They both now have separate channels which is wonderful. There’s the Saturday morning show, “Ranch Breakfast” that features country-western tunes and Old West favorites we used to sing around campfires.

There are cowboy traditions in Florida. In Orlando once, Chris and I skipped Disney and Universal to visit the Osceola County History Museum in Kissimmee. It features dioramas and displays about pre-settlement Florida and the cowboy era which still exists in the annual rodeo. There’s some bragging going on, with the boast that Florida used to be the second-biggest cattle-producing state. There are a lot of Used-to-be’s in Florida.

Cattle Country is now Condo Country. Sprawling senior communities such as The Villages have displaced cows and orange groves and acres of wild forest. I spent my formative years in Central Florida. I was a surfer but my fave pastime was canoeing on the Withlacoochee or Juniper Springs or a dozen other fresh water creeks, most fed by natural springs. You experienced wildlife first-hand as you can in Wyoming. That’s a beautiful thing.

I could decry the changes like the old codger that I am. But time is short. I want to be with my family and experience everything I can. “Be Here Now” as Ram Dass famously wrote. A wise man who probably never met a cowboy or a senior cruising the beach on his trike bike. But I have.

Be here now.

Purple Mountains Majesty, 1919

In my novel manuscript, “Zeppelins over Denver,” three sisters from Ohio travel west in the summer of 1919. Their first goal is to negotiate the rough roads to the Rocky Mountains and drive to the summit of Pikes Peak to see what inspired Professor Katherine Lee Bates to write the poem that became the famous song “America the Beautiful.” This excerpt is from Chapter 10. 

Colleen looked to the west. She was grateful for the hat brim that shaded her face from the afternoon sun. Wispy white clouds had gathered to the west but they didn’t look like the dark storm clouds of her home. Colorado’s July sun was relentless. A different sun than the one she was accustomed to. It came up lazy in Ohio, sometimes shrouded in river mists, and the trees were always a barrier. Here, it erupted from the east, announced itself as a glowing orb that shot out fingers of light to illuminate every living and non-living thing. The air seemed to crackle with the light.

Colleen noted that there was something funny about the clouds. They didn’t move. She sat in her flivver and watched for the landscape to change but it did not. And then she noticed the clouds’ irregular shapes that seemed to be propped up by a horizon which was darker than the sky above.

“The Rocky Mountains,” Colleen said.

“Where?” asked Pegeen.

Colleen pointed.

Ireen got out of the car. She looked west and shaded her eyes with both of her hands. “Those clouds…”

“Are not clouds.”

Pegeen hit the ground. Colleen switched off the motor and got out. “See,” she said as she joined her sisters. She pointed. “Those things that aren’t clouds are patches of snow and ice – glaciers. All the tall mountains have them.”

“In July?”

Colleen laughed. “All year,” she said. “Those mountains will be all-white in January. This whole place will be one big snow field.”

“Blessed be,” said Pegeen. “How do you drive in that? You’d need a sleigh.”

Colleen hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe they plow the roads.”

“Or people just stay home,” Ireen said. She looked over at Colleen. “Can we go up there? Do they have roads?”

“Of course they have roads,” Colleen said. “There are gold and silver mines all over those mountains.”

“Still? Even in these modern times?” Ireen asked.

“Yes. But we want to go up there to see what it’s like. I bet it’s grand.”

“Beautiful.”

“Just like Mrs. Bates' song.”

They stood and watched. Cotton ball clouds drifted overhead. A gentle wind rattled the cottonwood leaves. A hawk screeched.

Look for "Zeppelins over Denver" this fall from Hummingbird Minds Press.

In the good ol' summertime, we hear about The Great War and Scott Joplin ragtime

Last time I was in Casper, I could walk on my own. August 21, 2017, the total solar eclipse cut across a swath of Wyoming that ran from Jackson, across Casper, and on to Torrington and a slice of Nebraska and into Kansas and beyond. My first total eclipse and maybe my last as they rarely take the same path. On April 8, 2024, you’ll have to travel to Dallas for totality. In 2033, a slice of Alaska will have totality, and in 2044, it’s northern Montana. On Aug. 12, 2045, your best bet will be Colorado Springs or somewhere in central Utah. In 2045 I will be 94. I may not see it in person although my spirit will be floating around the Rocky Mountains.  

Casper staged a big downtown party with vendors, food trucks, and live music. My wife Chris and I drove up to `stay with our friend Lori. We watched the eclipse from Lori’s backyard, looking through special glasses you could buy anywhere that summer. It was magnificent. I blogged about it here. 

Monday night, my daughter Annie and I traveled to Casper for Poetry & Music, a summer series sponsored by Artcore that features music interspersed with a writer’s reading. I was the writer that night. Music and writing share some commonalities but some obvious differences. Both stir our souls, when done well, and that’s always the case.

The setting is the Bluebird Café at the Historic Cheese Barrel. The brick building dates from post-World War 1 with first the Bluebird Mercantile and then the Bluebird Grocery. The latter served as one of Casper’s corner groceries, of which there were many but only one remains as a grocer. The Cheese Barrel was a restaurant serving fantastic breakfasts and lunches. I ate there many times. The breakfasts, when you could get a seat, were divine. Catered lunches made their way to many Casper College events such as the annual literary conference that I helped organize. 

Owner Jacquie Anderson has rehabbed the place to look like the grocery store of the 1940s and it is charming. Tables are scattered through the main room. For the Artcore series, Jacquie and her staff line up 50-some chairs facing a small stage. There’s a lights-and-sound tech on hand to make it cozy. This was especially important Monday. On my way in, I noticed the Primrose Retirement Center van. “My people,” I joked with Annie. Sure enough, the place was packed with people my age. This is a challenge for me – acting my age. I can’t quite get that I’m 72 and disabled. My spiffy red rollator walker reminds me daily as does my drop left foot and back pain. Neuropathy tingles my hands and feet. My mind is active as ever although I sometimes can’t remember an actor’s name in an old movie and have to dredge the info up from the Internet.

The reading went well. Some acknowledged they also had grandparents from that time, some of them serving overseas during WWI. One was a retired nurse. People our age really seem to like historical fiction maybe because they’ve lived through so much history and it connects to their past. Wasn’t sure how all of these white folks would take to the relationship between Frannie and African-American character Joe Junior or the sex references but they seemed to take them in stride. They laughed in the right places. We took an intermission right before Frannie goes up for her speech, one woman even asking me to give a clue about it but I just said, “Cake first.” Annie says I should read before more people of an advanced age because they connect with it in different ways than some of the younger folks in the room. Carolyn Deuel and Artcore, sponsors of the event, said her grandmother’s card-playing club volunteered on the home front during WWI and even rolled bandages for the soldiers overseas. All these people from previous generations are gone now and people our age may be the last generation that actually knew the grandparents with connections of The Great War.

The night’s bill began with a classical music performance by woodwinds quartet Rara Avis. In then read the first section. Then came the cake break (the chocolate was chocolicious). I then read the second part of the story and took a few questions. Rara Avis closed the night with performances of some American classics such as Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” and “In the Good Ol’ Summertime.”

Keep in mind that all events like this take a lot of time and energy to set up. Funding, too, as writers and performers get paid. Supporting the arts has never been more important. Writing, in particular, has been under fire by the MAGA-inspired Moms for Liberty who attack books and librarians. They are fascists and must be stymied in their bid to transform us into bobblehead dolls.

I will let you know when my book is ready to be read and/or banned.

On stage in Casper: Historical fiction and woodwinds with a Baroque emphasis

So excited to be featured at the Artcore Music & Poetry Series on Monday, Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m., at The Bluebird at the Historic Cheese Barrel, 544 S. Center St., Casper. I'll be on stage with Rara Avis, a quartet of musicians that "explores music for woodwinds with an emphasis on the Baroque." I will be reading a chapter from my newly completed novel, "Zeppelins Over Denver" that explores life in post-World-War-1 Colorado. Here's a bit of a teaser:

Nurse Lee Speaks to the Garden Club

Nurse Frannie Lee clutched the pages of her speech as she sat at a round table with her mother and two sisters at The Old Line State Garden Club in Baltimore. Her mother had talked her into this. As March 1919 stretched into April and then into May, Frannie’s home-bound boredom was showing. As the spring days grew longer, she saw no end in sight for her ennui.  The Army had mustered out its civilian wartime nurses and now she didn’t know what came next. One day her mother suggested a speech to “the girls” at the garden club. This struck Frannie as hilarious since most of the club’s members hadn’t been girls for decades. She and her sisters once referred to them as The Stale Old Ladies Gabbing Club. Now her married sisters both were members.

To be continued...

For info and tickets ($8): https://artcorewy.com/mec-events/music-poetry-rara-avis-michael-shay/

It's true what they say about Nome: The first winter is hard on relationships

It's not often that you get to read a novel set in Alaska by an writer who almost died in an Alaska plane crash but now tours the U.S. performing his music and reading his poetry and prose. One more thing -- the novel was published in India. Even in our interconnected world, working with a publisher on the other side of the world comes with its own set of challenges.  

"Now Entering Alaska Time" by Ken Waldman recounts the adventures (and misadventures) of a poet and fiddler named Zan. Raised in The Lower 48, Zan travels to Alaska and immerses himself in the folk music scene. He totes his fiddle wherever he goes. He eventually decides to get his graduate degree in creative writing and then embarks on a Nome teaching job where he teaches online classes to students around the state, from the Arctic Circle to softer climes in small towns near Juneau.

The book sometimes reads like a travelogue, so much so that I had to keep a map of Alaska close at hand. As is the case with most U.S. writers schooled in the West, place is crucial. You could say the same thing about writers from the South or the Midwest. But for writers in the West (Alaska included), sometimes we're more concerned with the spaces between than the places themselves. You can assume that those spaces represent the gaping chasms people experience in their relationships. 

That's the thing about Waldman's novel. His characters come together and tear asunder with stunning frequency. About as often as the next plane to Nome. That's how humans get around in Alaska, mainly by plane. Each of these locales (Nome, Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks) have distinctive personalities, illuminating to someone like me who's never been to Alaska. But as a writer in Wyoming, I am familiar with the wide open spaces. As literature coordinator for 25 years with the Wyoming Arts Council, I brought in writers from all over to judge our fellowship competitions. More than one of them asked me if writers had to write about the state's landscapes, you know, the mountains, the high desert, cottonwoods, the incessant wind. No, I would say, but all of those are facts of life here, ones you can't ignore. Landscape is a character.

Waldman prose doesn't have to remind the reader that it is cold and dreary during Nome winters. When Zan lands at the Nome airport to start his job, he remembers "the story of the young woman who had originally beat him for the position, flown here, and then turned right around." Later, when he wanders into downtown's Anchor Bar, he chats over drinks with jaded city manager Press Atwater. He warns Zan that Nome's first winter is hard on relationships. Months later, when he and Melinda see Press at his usual perch at the bar, he says: "Say, you two are still talking and it's been, what, two or three months already." He laughs. What else could he do? 

The novel's second half focuses on the relationship between Zan and Melinda. What a wild ride it is. Waldman does a fine job delineating their personalities and the stresses that sabotage relationships. The author paints a more complete portrait of Zan because, well, the novel is based on his own Alaska experience. We sometimes wonder about Melinda's motives, especially as she strays later in the relationship. I won't go any deeper than that because it's a powder keg of a relationship and I don't want to spoil anything. 

Waldman and I met several decades ago at what was then called the AWP Conference. We've worked together several times since. He's on the road most of the time now that Covid is winding down (we hope). The book tells me the roots of the author's itinerant lifestyle. He's still roaming the wide open spaces. It's in his blood. 

"Now Entering Alaska Time" will be available for $18 USD at cyberwit.net after June 1. Waldman has launched a book tour with Alaska dates in Skagway, Haines, Juneau, Talkeetna, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Homer, and Denali Park. After that, he's in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Texas. He performed at the first outdoor Anchorage Folk Festival this past weekend and returns June 5 for a folk festival fundraiser. 

Nukes in the news -- again

Not enough people have seen "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

It's satire, sure, with a concept that a loony nuke base commander could trigger a nuclear war. General Jack D. Ripper is obsessed with Commies poisoning "our precious bodily fluids." His executive officer, a British captain, comes close to derailing the general's plans but, as we all know, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and mega-kiloton atomic warheads.

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day."

Dr. Strangelove's closing lines, sung by Vera Lynn as the Russians' Doomsday Machine causes bombs to go off all over the world.

That's all, folks!

The movie's over. We laugh. Shake our heads. Punch the remote to "Bridgerton."

The premise seemed ridiculous to moviegoers in 1964. It seems ridiculous again. But not quite so. There is an unhinged megalomaniac in Russia threatening to use nukes if the West doesn't stop arming Ukraine. 

"Dr. Strangelove" got its start with a novel, "Red Alert," by Peter George. It's a thriller. I read it as a teen, that and "Fail-Safe," co-written by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. Also, Nevil Shute's "On the Beach." I read about nuclear Armageddon. It seemed so far-fetched. At the same time, I was reading the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift series. They sparked my imagination, turning me into a lifelong fan of fiction. Tom Swift's dirigible/biplane hybrid ("Tom Swift and His Airship, or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud") seemed as real to me as nuke bombers and missiles that could incinerate the planet. I was lost in a fantastic world that I never really grew out of.

At the same time, my father worked on installing Atlas missiles in hardened silos from Washington state to Kansas (Wyoming too). He was a contract specialist, an accountant with Martin Co. (Martin-Marietta). He was charged with making sure that the missiles and their underground homes were built correctly and within budget. We moved around with Dad and his work. I never really thought about how his job might lead to a cataclysm. But he did. He recommended that I watch Strangelove and read World War III novels. He didn't talk much about his work but I know he wanted me to be a reader and an informed citizen. 

Our family got a lot out of the Cold War. It never was a hot war, as some predicted, but it shaped me. 

So now, when Putin mouths off about nukes, I hear General Jack D. Ripper. I should take the guy more seriously as I live in the crosshairs of Nuclear Alley here in southeast Wyoming. If MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) arrives, I will have precious little time to worry about it. I never really stopped worrying nor did I learn to love the bomb. 

I revel in its absurdity.

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day."

Vera Lynn's singing takes us back to World War II. When Vera sang, British soldiers listened. They were in the fight of their lives around the globe. At home too, as Hitler waged a saturation bombing of a civilian population. Putin now saturates Ukraine with rockets and terror tactics. 

My father, a World War II G.I., liked Vera Lynn. Later, when I had a chance to think about it, I wondered if he minded that Vera Lynn's song had been used for a fiery conflagration that ended the world. He was especially fond of "The White Cliffs of Dover" which he must have heard many times in England as he trained for the Normandy invasion.

This:

There'll be bluebirds over/the White Cliffs of Dover/tomorrow,/just you wait and see

And this:

There'll be love and laughter/and peace there after,/tomorrow,/when the world is free

There may be a song like this for Ukraine. There should be.  

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.     

In Trump Sonnets, poet Ken Waldman tracks how America lost its mind

I just received a copy of Ken Waldman's "Trump Sonnets, Volume 8: The Final Four Months."

This is good news/good news. Another book of Trump sonnets to read. And, as the title says, "final" four months of the Trump scourge. A traumatic four months. A traumatic four years. Poet M.L. Liebler, who published the book at his Ridgeway Press in Michigan, writes in the foreword:

Ken has successfully brought form to the most unformable and unformidable, mean-spirited, fly-by-the-seat-of-his pants scoundrel who did his damndest to take this country down.

Waldman takes us through the final four months through sonnets in the POV of Americans: a dog walker in Brooklyn, a prison guard in Lexington, Kentucky, and a house painter in Hilo, Hawaii. Closer to home are the words of a baker in Cheyenne and a locksmith in Casper. The baker rhapsodizes about the two Q Girls who are "both up for war against Democrats." The locksmith is more thoughtful. He (I think it's a he) says that a civil war may be on the horizon but is wary of "citizens desperate or angry enough" to assassinate a Supreme Court elder or "wayward" senator. There is also an architect in Fort Collins who blasts the "toxic idiocy" of those who believe that Trump won the election. The Brooklyn dog walker sums it up this way: "Put them behind bars -- him, Jared, the kids. Or send them to Mars."

We hear many voices. I've been reading the selections in a more lighthearted mood than I did the first seven "Trump Sonnets." That is because T has disappeared from public view and is no longer on Twitter to rattle my world. He also is gone from the White House which he treated like his own Scarface villa (he already has one of those in Mar-a-Lago).

As evident during Waldman's 35-year career as an itinerant poet and fiddler, he has a keen wit and is always busy creating. He's published 19 poetry and prose books and nine CDs that "mix Appalachian-style string band music with original poetry." As a touring artist whose home base is in Alaska, most of his gigs since March 2020 were cancelled or postponed. He's been featured at the Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey, the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia, and the Word of South Festival this weekend in Tallahassee, Fla. He's also conducted residencies in more than 200 schools, including ones in Casper and Cheyenne. He's also served as a judge for Wyoming Arts Council literary fellowships.

Front Range dwellers can see him on stage on May 22, 7 p.m., at the Lakewood Cultural Center in Lakewood, Colo. He will appear with Willi Carlisle and special guests Ben Guzman and Colin Gould. Tickets are $27 and you can get them here. 

I will file volume eight with Waldman's one through seven in my presidential library. My grandkids, if I ever have any, might like to read them and see how America lost its mind in the 21st century. 

You can't actually buy the book until September 1. Get more info at the Trump Sonnets site or Waldman's home page. The book will be distributed by nonprofit literary book distributor Small Press Distribution at orders@spdbooks.org. 

La Petite Fadette: the novel by George Sand and the silent movie with Mary Pickford

"La Petite Fadette" is a novel by George Sand published in 1849. I'm reading it now after watching a 1915 silent film, "Fanchon, the Cricket," loosely based on the book. I'm a fan of the silents shown on TCM on Sunday night. In "Fanchon," Mary Pickford plays the lead. She was a darling of Hollywood at the time and in 1919 formed United Artists with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin. She plays Cricket, named for her small stature and hyperactive nature. Some people in the village consider her a witch because that's how the villagers saw her grandmother. Fadette and her little brother Grasshopper live with her in a tumbledown cottage out in the woods.

The cinematic Fanchon falls in love with the local hottie named Landry and scandal erupts because he is from a "good" family and she is not. Common plot line for many books and films. In the end, romance prevails and the two are married. The end.

As the credits rolled, I noticed that it was based on Sand's book. Wonder what the book is like? Despite my time as an English major, I never read any of Sand's numerous works. She's not really a part of the canon, at least when I was in grad school. Women authors were a few in the 1980s version of the big list. An oversight, as she was a woman author when that was very rare, author of many novels (one of my grad school mentors had the 28-volume English language set in his library). Sand was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin and called Aurore by friends and family. She lived the bohemian life in Paris, wore men's clothing, smoked, and had numerous affairs with the literati and some musicians, Chopin, for one. Victor Hugo liked her work. Sand spent time on the barricades during the 1849 revolution. 

No surprise but "La Petite Fadette" is quite different from the Pickford film. In the novel, Fadette is small and describes herself as ugly, obviously no Mary Pickford, although Fadette is not always reliable in describing herself. She is dirty and wears tattered clothes. Still, she exerts a strong presence. Landry protects her during the village's feast day and even dances the bouree with her, which scandalizes the bourgeoisie. I was taken with the character. She's more outspoken than I expected, less a victim than a young woman trying to find her way in the world. Like her grandmother, she is endowed with mysterious healing powers, which she utilizes late in the novel with Landry's twin brother, Sylvinet. 

The prose is a overwrought, keeping with the style of the era. Long passages of dialogue and description. The author inserts her own opinions. She obviously wrote at a brisk pace which left little time for editing. Chapter 20 seemed to go on forever as Fadette and Landry critiqued each other. By that point, I was attached to the main characters and into the story.  

I am a strong advocate of editing and revising. But sometimes we lose some of the sloppy humanity that's a part of all good books. Think about Dickens and Tolstoy. Dickens was paid by the installment as his work appeared serially over weeks and months. Tolstoy, well, if you've read "War and Peace," you are familiar with endless descriptions of formal balls, philosophical discussions, and Napoleon's very, very long siege of Moscow. It also was first published serially in The Russian Messenger. W&P is wordy and unwieldy. Tolstoy didn't even call it a novel, saying that "Anna Karenina" was his first novel. What can I say -- I see it as a novel.  

George Sand wrote 59 novels and 13 plays. The Russians, especially Dostoevsky, were crazy about Sand's work during her lifetime. She's been featured in at least four Hollywood movies. "A Song to Remember" with Merle Oberon as Sand and Cornel Wilde as Chopin. I can't say I'll read more of her books, although not all are available in English. I have read one, which should please my English professors. It pleases me, too. Oh, and I saw the movie.

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

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

No road trip for me

I decided to cancel my Aug. 3 appearance at ARTCORE'S Music & Poetry Series in Casper. I was on a double bill with musician Lauren Podjun. Writer Gayle Irwin will replace me. I met Gayle through Wyoming Writers, Inc, our statewide writing group.

Why did I cancel? Covid-19. Knowing ARTCORE Director Carolyn Deuel as I do, I am sure that the Bourgeois Pig venue would be as virus-safe as possible. ARTCORE is one of the first local arts agencies in Wyoming. Carolyn has been at its helm for most of that time.

That said, there is one overriding problem. I am a high-risk human during this pandemic. I am 69 and a cardiac patient since 2013. I experienced a widowmaker heart attack and, because I delayed getting help, now walk around with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator or ICD in my chest. This makes me a prime target for the coronavirus. From the beginning, the top three riskiest groups are the elderly, cardiac patients and diabetics. I'm in the first two categories and Chris is one and three. Young, healthy people have caught the virus and died. Often, they also have pre-existing conditions. Any complication can be a deadly one. Young people like to gather and when they do, they pass along COVID-19 and being it home to older parents and other family members.

This doesn't have to be. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing and, if possible, stay home. And wash your hands. Sanitize kitchen and bathroom surfaces.

Wyoming Governor Gordon conducts COVID-19 briefings and has issued a series of orders. Those policies never included a mandatory mask policy which puts us in the company of such Coronavirus success stories as Florida and Texas. In March, the Governor did issue some strict policies that closed many businesses, performing venues, restaurants and coffee shops. He has gradually loosened the restrictions although he had to extend the latest one from July 31 to Aug. 15 due to a spike in infections that put us on the New York Times and Johns Hopkins COVID site hot zone charts. Today, Idaho is on the list due to rising cases. Tomorrow, it may be your state.

When I do get out of my bunker to the grocery store, I note that many people do not wear masks. I do. Employees do. Others don't. We've all seen mask-shaming and no-mask-shaming incidents online. I don't tell people what to do and that's the prevailing attitude in Wyoming. But the science is clear -- masks help protect you and those around you. Social-distancing does too, and that has been suggested to businesses around the state but not required. Grocery stores guide you with floor signs which keep us separated in line. Arrows point out directions for carts to travel, although that's violated regularly. No head-on casualties thus far, as far as I know.

No travel for me. No reading from my new book. That means I have to stay home to rewrite and revise, a major part of any writing enterprise.

So, in a time when getting out of the house is a blessing, I am not getting out of the house. I have lots of books and know where to get more without leaving home.

P.S.: U.S. COVID-19 death toll passed 150,000 today.

Hunkered down at the pop-up drive-in on a May Wyoming evening

Our first public outing of the COVID-19 era was to a combination drive-in concert and movie. It was held in a pasture on the Terry Bison Ranch south of Cheyenne. It had a gentle slope so cars could park and most of us could see the inflatable screen and the covered bandstand. 

When we arrived about 7:15 p.m., a line of cars, trucks and SUVs stretched out of the ranch onto the I-25 service road. Chris said it was a sign that everyone is just aching to get out and do something normal and fun. I agreed. A great idea that entertains and keeps us safe. Kudos to the ranch and Blue Pig Productions. They planned for everything including the rain squall that swept through just as the headliner band started playing. We had seen the storm front assembling as we drove to the event along Terry Ranch Road. A typical one for late May. A black swatch against the sun lowering over the Rocky Mountains. Pretty and ominous. But these storms are hit or miss. Sometimes you get missed and sometimes you get hit. 

This one hit us just as we got settled into our space. The sounds of the warm-up band came over the car radio at 90.7 FM. Raindrops speckled the windshield as Sean Curtis and the Divide took the stage. As the band played the rain fell harder, swamping our windshield and the band. But they performed uninterrupted until the lead guitarist's amp shorted out and he had to flee. The rest of the band members played on, wet and cold. "I can't feel my fingers" said the bass guitarist after one of the songs. But they played on. Good stuff, too. A C/W band with a touch of alt-country and Americana, a sound a bit like Drive-By Truckers or Turnpike Troubadours. 

The emcee, Dominic Syracuse, had prompted us to applaud by honking our horns. We did. By the time the band wrapped up their last song, the sky was clearing and the sun colored pink the retreating clouds. 

We picnicked in the car. Daughter Annie joined Chris in a preemptive strike at the port-a-potties. Annie returned with some chicken nuggets and fries from the snack stand. I ate ham and cheese and crunched chips. Cookies for desert. I drank sparingly because I didn't want to face the trip to the johns with my walker. I would have felt silly, all those people staring at the poor cripple poking along on the prairie. I don't know why I should care but I do. More my problem than anyone else. 

Everyone returned to the car and the movie started after some of the staff adjusted the screen that kept tilting in the post-storm wind. Wyoming not the place for anything inflatable. We're seen inflatable Halloween and Christmas decorations flying down our street. Unanchored bounce castles have gone airborne in summer gusts. A brisk wind came through the annual Superday event a few years back and blew tent awnings and brochures and hot-dog wrappers to Nebraska. 

But "Back to the Future" came on with the darkness. There was only a brief period when the wind tilted the screen and the actors' heads disappeared. I forgot how much fun the movie was as I hadn't seen it for decades. I didn't think of COVID-19 for two hours. That's what it's about, right? We want it like the old days when people could venture out safely and go to concerts and drive-ins. We want to be closer to people that a car-length away but that's still in the future. 

The ranch staff cleared us out quickly. They had some cleaning-up to do and we had the trek home via the interstate. I hope the ranch does it again. This high-risk guy wants to stay safe but I also want to be back out in America again. Summertime America. It's a short season here in the High Plains. Short and glorious.

See you next time. 

Coronavirus impacts the West's writers, artists and performers

Millions of Americans await federal stimulus checks or unemployment benefits during the current crisis. Artists are entrepreneurs (artrepreneurs if you prefer) and have been hit hard by social distancing and stay-at-home orders or, in Wyoming, stay-at-home-pretty-please-why-don't-ya. Galleries and museums are closed. Touring musicians are at home. Literary events (readings, book signings, spoken-word performances) don't have venues. Some artists have transitioned to an Internet presence by hosting online concerts, drawing classes and poetry workshops. But, as with most online efforts, it's sometimes difficult to make them pay. For writers, libraries and bookstores are shuttered. On the plus side, online book sales are up. Amazon is an OK resource -- it started with books -- but best to order from one of the indie stores such as Powell's in Portland or Tattered Cover in Denver. 

For writers, resources are available:

The Wyoming Arts Council is sensitive to the inherent economic challenges that are rising in relation to the CDC recommendations for social distancing. In the midst of this ever evolving situation, we will be processing grants to eligible individual artists who have lost significant income due to COVID-19. The Wyoming Arts Council believes that artists must be able to maintain their livelihood during this time in order to continue to create and contribute to the creative economy in our state. To apply visit: https://forms.gle/CPjpEif4adh7jsaY9 or contact Taylor Craig at taylor.craig@wyo.gov or 307-274-6673.

PEN America is supporting writers affected by the crisis through the Writers’ Emergency Fund, with grants of “$500 to $1,000 based on applications that demonstrate an inability to meet an acute financial need, especially one resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.” They expect to take 10 days to review and respond to applications.

Summer is an incredibly busy time for writing conferences. For obvious reasons, locales in the West are popular sites. Some, especially those scheduled for early in the summer, have been cancelled, postponed or shifted online.

The Wyoming Writers Conference, originally planned for Lander June 5-7 has been canceled. Visit the conference’s website for additional information. WWI President Kathy Bjornstad said this: "We are tentatively hoping to travel to Lander in 2021 and shift as much of our programming to that conference as possible."

The Jackson Hole Writers Conference, originally planned for June 2020, has been canceled. In response to the cancellation, starting in late April 2020, select components of the originally scheduled programming will be offered online, including workshops, panels, and manuscript critiques. Visit the conference’s website for additional information on the cancellation and on alternative online programming. 

The Squaw Valley Writers Workshops, July 6-13, have been postponed. Workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and memoir have been canceled; the 2020 summer workshop in poetry will be offered online as the “Virtual Valley” from June 20-27. Visit the conference’s website for more info.

Summer Words set for June in Aspen has shifted online. FMI: http://www.aspenwords.org/programs/summer-words/

The Northern Colorado Writers Conference was cancelled and rescheduled for April 29-May 1, 2021, in Fort Collins. FMI: https://www.northerncoloradowriters.com/Conference

Montana's Beargrass Writers Workshop retreat set for May at Ruby Springs has been cancelled. Get updates at https://www.beargrasswriting.com/rubyspringmay