When you see glowing footprints on the night beach, it means I was there

When I moved away from Daytona Beach, Florida, the beachside still had sand dunes and you could drive the entire World's Most Famous Beach. I drove the packed sand many times. At night, I drove and then parked between high-tide-line and dunes to discuss the state of the world and Catholic doctrine with my girlfriend. Sometimes, the whitewater was lit up with a bioluminescence provided by nature. Sometimes I was the one who was lit up.

The Florida I loved has become joke fodder for late-night comedians. I will give you this: the governor is a joke as are his right-wing minions in the legislature. 

I've been reading interviews with people who have moved to Florida from other places. They are asked whether they are fine with the decision or regret the choice. Some love the Florida they discovered during a family vacation and vowed to return for some old people fun in retirement. Some have had it up to here with the likes of killer hurricanes, retiree-chomping alligators, and nitwit politicians. They are decamping to other warm-weather beachside communities in the Redneck Riviera, Texas, or the Carolinas, both the North one and the real one in the South. 

I just read an online article on Max My Money with this header: “Boomers – Florida Doesn’t Want You” 10 Places In Florida Where You Won’t Survive On Social Security. Gosh, it’s tough the be unwanted. These 10 snobbish Florida locales include Miami, Naples, Palm Beach, and Sarasota, none of which have surf. I grew up surfing in Florida and that's how we graded the livability of any place. Key West is on the list. It also has no surf but it does have Hemingway’s house and Tom McGuane used to hang out there when writing “92 in the Shade.” In 1982, Christine and I honeymooned in the Conch Republic following our May wedding at St. Brendan the Navigator Catholic Church and the Ormond Beach Knights of Columbus Hall. In Key West, we drank at Sloppy Joe’s, counted the toes on Hem’s cats, snorkeled offshore. Tourists! 

My Florida is a large triangle from Daytona to Gainesville to Orlando and back to Daytona. That’s the Florida I know best. When this Baby Boomer retired from my 25-year career with the Wyoming Arts Council, Chris and I looked at retiring in Florida. Too expensive. Not enough choice in dwellings. Crackpot governor. We stayed put and watched from afar Florida’s human comedy.

My youthful encounters with Florida retirees were from a distance. We surfers gathered at Hartford Approach and watch them walk the beach. You could tell the long-termers by their leathery skin and hip bathing suits. Many were daily walkers, on the beach early like surfers. Better rested than most surfers, up until 2 a.m. and jolted out of bed at 6 a.m. by friends shouting through the window to get your ass up. We knew a lot of these old-timers, men and women both. New Yorkers under Yankee caps, Canadian accents. 

Then there were the sojourners in town for a weekend of a week or maybe the entire winter. They were in couples or groups, mostly kept to themselves. They yelled at us when we drifted out of the surfing area. 

Those seniors of the 1960s and 1970s are all gone now, every single one. Their footprints live on. You can see them glowing late at night on the beach. Their memories of what lured them to Florida.

The Summer of Love; the Winter of Our Discontent

I laughed when I saw the cover of the Aug./Sept. issue of AARP: The Magazine. Over a Peter Max original illustration was the header: "Celebrate the Summer of Love, 50th anniversary, 1967-2017."

I was almost as far away from San Francisco as a 16-year-old could get in the summer of 1967. In the waning days of summer, I was about to become a junior at Father Lopez Catholic High School in Daytona Beach, Florida.

That summer, my classmates thought that I was moving to a new life in Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was already in Cincy, crunching numbers at the General Electric Works. He moved as did so many others -- Florida's aerospace industry had come to a grinding halt.

But what about the moon landing, the one that was still two years in the future? Much of the prep work was finished. NASA and its many subcontractors (GE among them) didn't need all the engineers and statisticians and accountants that they had brought to Central Florida for the task. An engineer friend of my Dad was pumping gas. Others found tourist-industry jobs so they could continue to enjoy the splendors of The Sunshine State.

Two of my friends, Rob and Ann, had already decamped with their families to Schenectady, N.Y., another big base for GE, the one where Kurt Vonnegut once toiled in PR ("Deer in the Works"). Classmates had thrown us a going-away party. Good-bye and good luck!

I was registered to attend another Catholic high school, this one an all-boys school in Cincy that I was certain to hate. I was not a kid who made friends easily. I would not make the basketball team, as the new school was big and had a hot-shot varsity already in place. If I ever met any girls, Catholic or otherwise, they would ignore me. My good grades were due to take a nose dive and I was destined for failure. This was my dark side speaking, teen angst on overdrive. If I wrote poetry then -- and kept it -- it would be something to read. But I was a jock and a surfer and my type didn't write emo poems or any kind of poems. Or so I thought.

My mother worked at a local hospital and still had a two-year-old at home, along with eight other kids. We couldn't sell our house. All the buyers were on their way back north. Prices plummeted. My father said that he missed his wife Anna and his nine kids. Dad left me his 1960 Renault Dauphine so I could take my siblings to school and basketball practice and anywhere else they had to go. I was delighted to have a car and a license to go on the many dates I imagined that I would have.

After six months, my father surprised us all when he decided to leave GE and try to get a job in central Florida. My future was saved.

It wasn't easy for my father. He was a quiet man. I can imagine his life as a bookish professor or a secluded monk, a man without a huge family and all the pressures that brings. As a kid, he spent his time going to the library and building crystal radio sets in his basement. He wasn't a striver or a climber, which doomed him from the start in the corporate world. I know, as I spent five years as a corporate man, twenty-five years in government. I am an introvert but learned how to be a public person. I was tasked with supporting my family. I did that. But there always is a cost, and you may not know about it until you are retired.

My Dad returned to Florida late that summer. When school started, he was looking for a job. My mom worked as a nurse at a local hospital. We were together again.

What was life like in August 1967 for the average American big family? My parents never had enough money. Both worked, a rarity in 1967. Still, it was never enough. Most of the people we knew were in the same boat.

The Summer of Love? To us, hippies were an anomaly. I thought they were cool but their antics were foreign to me. Sex was dreamed of but an impossible dream, to take a line from a popular 1960s Broadway musical. We sweated and groped in the back seats of cars. There were public school girls who went all the way, or so the public school boys told us. But that wasn't for us.

Remember that this was pre-Disney Florida. Before the boom that caused the founding of dozens of fantasy worlds and caused everyone in Providence and Newark to relocate to Daytona and Sarasota. If it was a feature at Disney, it would be called "A Whole Different World World."

It's a Whole Different World World
It's a Whole Different World World
Segregated schools, no sex on the beaches
Swamps teeming with gators and leeches
It's a Whole Different World World after all

Don't get me wrong -- we admired those people engaging in unbridled sex and drug-taking in The Haight. We might have followed the lead of our parents and cursed those damn hippies. We were fascinated and jealous at the same time. It just seemed so foreign.

Happy 50th anniversary to all of you who engaged in the Summer of Love and lived to tell the tale.

Summer of '67. We all have our stories....

Is Wyoming in the midst of a "death spiral?"

I get depressed thinking about the new state budget cuts. It's not clinical depression. More like a short-term funk brought on by knucklehead legislators.

The Gov announced a new round of cuts Tuesday at the Joint Appropriations Committee meeting in Cheyenne. Appropriate for the hottest day in four years, one swaddled in smoke from a wildland fire burning on the Colorado/Wyoming border. All the tall grass and timber nurtured during a wet spring is drying out and set afire by careless humans. Might be a fitting analogy here. State Government budgets nurtured by rising mineral royalties during the past 10 years are now undergoing slash-and-burn tactics by the careless Republican-centric legislature. I think I will run with that, even though the comparison is a bit of a stretch. Maybe a hidden meaning lurks within, as in something embedded in a Flannery O'Connor short story.

First, a few words from Gov. Mead. He's the guy in charge. He's the guy who has been saying for the past year (go here) that across-the-board budget cuts are dangerous for Wyoming and cause the state to "lose talent and skill." They will lead us into a "death spiral." Fewer state services and fewer state employees cause losses in the private sector and will send us into a spin we may not recover from. You want state parks with campgrounds and boat docks and bathrooms that work and helpful staff? You want loans and grants to help attract tourists to a revived downtown? You want roads that aren't pock-marked with potholes/ You want a professional highway patrol that comes to your aid when your truck skids off an icy road in January? You want to care for our veterans and elderly and disabled? You want someone to come in and put out that wildland fire that threatens your little house in the forest?

It takes money. "Doh!" says Homer Simpson, surprised that he didn't think of that. Homer's not much of a money manager. When he has to have an RV to keep up with the Flanderses, his request for a loan sets off sirens and red blinking lights at the dealership. Thing is, the state has a rainy day fund of a couple billion dollars. If we dip into that, no sirens go off. We do get wailing and gnashing of teeth from the same legislators who hate Obama enough to scuttle Medicaid expansion that would prevent some of the layoffs in the health care industry that we now are experiencing in Casper and elsewhere. Those same legislators despise gubment and the same gubment workers who plow their roads and clean the toilets at Guernsey and Glendo. "DOH!"

The legislature has dipped into the rainy day fund. It is raining -- hard. Legislators are being conservative (surprise!) and are taking only $180 million from the fund, believing that the energy downturn will last 10-15 years instead of the 3-5 projected by most experts. Coal will never come back, due to global warming. But who knows? A good war may erupt, causing Dick Cheney to replace his usual scowl with something akin to a shit-eating grin. His daughter Liz will be elected to Congress and immediately make coal a mandatory snack at schools and senior centers from coast-to-coast.  Laid-off coal workers can go back to work and legislators can do what they do best, socking away mineral royalties for a rainy day that they pray never will come.

In the interest of full disclosure: I was a Wyoming state employee, an arts worker, for 25 years. I now am a Wyoming state retiree. 

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.

What is on my plate for 2016

What I'm looking forward to in 2016....

Retirement. On Jan. 15, I will work my last day at the Wyoming Arts Council in Cheyenne. I was among the fortunate to have a job that I loved. I depart the WAC on the eve of its 50th birthday, which comes up in 2017. It has nurtured the arts throughout the state. Sure, I'm a liberal artsmonger, but Wyoming's cultural world would not be what it is today without all of us working toward the same goals. It took me awhile to shut up and listen when I went into communities, to find out what their residents wanted instead of telling them what was best. This is a good strategy for all of us. In fact, if I were asked for my hard-earned advice on the matter, I would reply, "Just listen."

Publishing. I have a roomful of written work awaiting publishing. To date, I have published one book of short stories and numerous stories and essays in magazines and journals. But there remains a lot of work that's yet to see the light of day and the eyeballs of readers. Suire, I've been sending stuff out. But the act of writing is comprised of several full-time jobs. First, the creation. Second, the publishing. Third, the promotion. During my career as a professional writer/editor/bureaucrat, I've been able to do the creation part. But those other two parts? Not so much. It was fascinating to hear Kent Nelson's publishing strategy at last summer's Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference in Cheyenne. Kent, a one-time squash champion and lapsed attorney, keeps his stories circulating, up to 20 at a time. When one is rejected, he sends it back out into the world. In this way, he's managed to publish many books and scores of stories. But it takes time, and attention, and that's what I plan to do with my new-found time and my lagging attention span.

Presidential elections. Yes, I also cringe when I think about it. Republican bloviators such a Trump make me fear for the future of our republic. "Make America Hate Again" is not a winning slogan. As one who has blogged frequently about the paranoid excesses of U.S. conservatives, I am not surprised that Trump has found a footing among them. Scared Old White People (SOWP) make up his base. As an Old White Person (OWP) myself, I am glad to report that I am not among the scaredy-cats.

Traveling. I have traveled extensively in the U.S., at least traipsing through all of the states in the lower 48. But I've only been overseas twice. I plan to remedy that in retirement, with trips planned to Italy and Mexico with more to come. Chris and I are curious travelers. Maybe I should say that, as travelers, we value curiosity. When we find ourselves in a new place, we like to roam around and check it out. Never know what you'll find.

Wave good-bye as the Boomer train leaves the station

We staged a farewell lunch for a work colleague today. She's moving on to greener pastures, and by that I mean another job. That's what young people do, move on. It's the circle of life.

Ten of us dined at the Albany which, as you locals know, is right across the street from the UP train station, now known as the Cheyenne Historic Depot. Twentieth-century passengers used to eat at the Albany before their trains departed for Chicago and San Francisco. There also was a Burlington Northern Depot, which has been torn down.

I rode trains as a kid growing up in the fifties. By the time I was in my teens, I had switched to air travel, as did most Americans. At 16, I was driving a car and have been ever since. Train travel was passe. Slow and annoying. Kind of like us Baby Boomers, now reaching retirement in alarming numbers.

I thought about this at lunch. Half of us were new employees from several different departments. They all had moved on from other jobs, as young people do. I was the oldest one at the long table. We conversed, had fun, teased the departing one. As the only one with a camera, I shot photos. Not to say nobody else could take pictures. I probably was the only one there lacking a smartphone equipped with the usual snazzy camera. I have a dumb phone. "They won't trust me with a smartphone," I sometimes joke. My colleagues have heard it more than once.

Pretty soon, I will head out the door of my workplace for the last time. Retired at 65, wondering where all the time went. I'll walk on down to the Historic Depot and climb aboard the train that takes Boomers to wherever we go when we retire.

All aboard!

Sunday morning round-up: Yummy Gore-tex for seniors, Wyoming Medicaid expansion and "The Poor Are Always With Us"

As we draw closer to the next Wyoming legislative session, we eagerly anticipate having fun with oddball bills promulgated by Republican legislators. State employees may see attempts to change the pension plan from an almost-fully-funded defined benefit plan to something crafted by the Koch Brothers and their minions at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Fellow prog-blogger Rodger McDaniel wrote yesterday about the Wyoming Liberty Group which is working overtime against the current retirement system, calling it a "gold-plated pension plan." The money behind the WLG is right-winger Susan Gore of Texas, who has nothing better to do with her billions than to ensure that hundreds of retirees eat cast-off Gore-tex plucked from dumpsters instead of living -- and eating -- comfortably in retirement. Wonder if Gore-tex tastes better than three-day-old pizza crusts or half-eaten Big Macs? We may all find out if Gore and her outside agitators have their way with the legislature.

Dem gubernatorial candidate Pete Gosar pressed Gov. Mead on this issue for months during the campaign. Now it appears that Medicaid expansion is coming to Wyoming. This excerpt comes from Talking Points Memo:

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead's administration is officially recommending that the state expand Medicaid under Obamacare, making the Republican governor the latest conservative to embrace a key pillar of the health care reform law. 

The state department of health released a modified plan to expand the low-income insurance plan, the Casper Star-Tribune reported, which pulls from the alternative expansion plans pursued by some other states. 

If you are among Wyoming's 17,000-some uninsured, get more info at the Wyoming Department of Health.

Love this quote by a writer I admire, Walter Mosley (from Vintage Shorts):

“A good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can’t be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything.”

Earlier today, I dug out the 1985 Tobias Wolff story anthology, Back in the World. I was talking about Wolff yesterday after I found out that he's one of the presenters at the 2015 Jackson Hole Writers Conference. I was talking to a writer friend about one of Wolff's stories. I thought it was called "The Rich Are Always With Us." I was in the ballpark -- the story's called "The Poor Are Always With Us."  I first read the story a couple decades ago and it stayed with me. It has to do with conflicts between generations in Silicon Valley. Now that I found it, I had to read the story again. I suggest you do the same. I didn't even have to look out the window to realize the effect Wolff's story had on me then and now.

Wyoming Liberty Group threatens state retirement plans

A big thanks to Patrick Crank for his fiery op-ed in Saturday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, "Liberty Group threatens state retirement plans."

Crank, a local attorney and former attorney general of Wyoming, attended the Wyoming Liberty Group's "Pension Reform Summit" Oct. 6 in Cheyenne. In case you don't know, the Liberty Group is a right-wing fringe organization funded by ultra-conservative Texas gazillionaire Susan Gore. Its sole purpose, it seems, is to destroy the state's excellent retirement system to further marginalize the state's workers.

About 25 firefighters covered by the state retirement plan showed up at this so-called summit. They were denied entrance. Crank and one other retired firefighter finally were allowed to observe the meeting. Keynote speaker was State Rep. Donald Burkhart (R-Rawlins). Rep. Burkhart has a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and was selected by the speaker of the house to serve as liaison to the Wyoming Retirement Board.

He was joined at the summit by a batch of Republican lawmakers. Two of them are legislative liaisons to the Retirement Board: Sen. Curt Meier (R-LaGrange) and Rep. Mike Madden (R-Buffalo), The others were Republican representatives Sue Wilson of Cheyenne and Marti Halverson of Etna and Republican senator Cale Case of Lander. Not sure where the Democrats were, especially those from Laramie County, home to a majority of state workers. Perhaps their invitations were lost in the mail.

Who else was at the meeting?

Other than these legislators, virtually everyone else at the meeting appeared to be either Liberty Group staff and members and paid out-of-state lobbyists.

This is a key element of the Liberty Group -- its funded by out-of-state money, run by out-of-staters and it employs out-of-state lobbyists in an attempt to destroy Wyoming's excellent retirement system. One has to wonder why all of these people from Texas and Colorado and elsewhere don't have something else to do, such as foreclosing on widows and gaming the stock market. They're doing that too. I'm just surprised that they have time for little ol' Wyoming retirees.

Patrick Crank wonders about that too:

Why are ultra-rich right-wing groups, financed by multi-billionaires, attacking our ability to have a reasonable income during our golden years? 

Why are they attacking our children's ability to obtain a reasonable retirement plan for their years of work yet to come?

We also have to wonder why so many of our Republican legislators are eager to sign on to the Liberty Group/Susan Gore agenda? Yes, they hate gubment and think state employees such as myself are bums. These right-wingers are angry as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. Just why they are angry when they seem to have it all is another question entirely.

Republican-dominated and sparsely-populated Wyoming must seem like a juicy test case for these out-of-state interests. They may look at us as some sort of backwater that can be turned into a colony for oligarchs served by an army of compliant serfs who get paid peanuts and go into their golden years without a farthing. We are, after all, the state with the highest number of billionaires per capita. Hey, it's only six, but all of their pals are looking to the future to see how subservient they can make the population, how compliant they can make our Republican-dominated legislature.

Crank wrapped up his op-ed succinctly:

It is wrong that ultra-right-wing millionaires, with the assistance of elected representatives like Mr. Burkhart, have chose to attack this benefit of work life that has served the United States well for the last century.

It is wrong.

Time to talk to your legislator about this issue. BTW, Rep. Burkhart's e-mail is Donald.Burkhart@wyoleg.gov. You can find more e-mails and phone numbers of legislators at Wyoming LegisWeb.

The rich are different --- they want to destroy Wyoming's public pension plan

Thanks to fellow prog-blogger Rodger McDaniel for his excellent column yesterday in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle and later reprinted on his Blowing in the Wyoming Wind blog. The newspaper's op-ed editor paraphrased a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald for the headline: "The rich think differently." Fitzgerald's quote comes from his short story "The Rich Boy" published in 1926 in Redbook Magazine:

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and kcynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ”

The esteemed author had already artfully described how the rich are different in his 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald also had a bad case of wealth-envy. Maybe that's a trait we all possess, thinking that we shouldn't criticize the wealthy too harshly lest we hit it big on the Powerball or strike oil in our backyard.

Most of us are content to labor hard and retire comfortably. That's my philosophy, passed down to me from my father the accountant and my mother the nurse and scores of immigrant ancestors who worked on the railroad and in the factory or on the farm.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I am a state employee of 23 years and expect to retire some time in the next decade.

In Wyoming, rich out-of-staters want to dismantle our state employee pension plan because, well, just because they can -- or think they can. Canadian Maureen "The Hater" Bader of the Wyoming Liberty Group recently wrote a venomous op-ed describing the state retirement plan as "the gold-plated promise of retirement security." Our pension plan is the envy of many, not because it is "gold-plated" but because it has been managed so efficiently that "30-year projections show that the plan is on a trajectory leading to assets totalling 114.7 percent of benefit costs," writes Rodger.

The Liberty Group was founded by Susan Gore, wealthy Texas heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune. This group is a member of the State Policy Network which is a driver of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, the organization that hands canned right-wing legislation to Wyoming legislators so they can sabotage the state's workers.

So...

Wyoming Liberty Group's attack on Wyoming's pension plan is nothing more than a cookie cutter provided to them by ALEC and the Policy Network. 

The rich indeed are different. They're out to destroy the middle class. They're doing a fine job. The elimination of the state's pension plan would go a long way to making us lackeys of the oligarchs represented by ALEC, the State Policy Network and the Wyoming Liberty Group.

Sunday round-up: Retirements, departures and Sturgis season

Rita Basom, my colleague for the past 23 years, retired on Friday. We enjoyed a gala week of farewell lunches, a smashing retirement party and an art gallery reception. I will miss her. Funny how well you get to know someone when you work and travel with them 40 hours a week over the course of two-plus decades. Enjoy your retirement, Rita. See you at the theatre.

Javier Gamboa, communications guy for the Wyoming Democratic Party, is leaving Cheyenne for Austin, Texas. He's the new social media guru for the Texas Democrats. Javier's been a dynamo for the WyoDems and we wish him well in at his new job. A farewell party for Javier is being held on Friday, Aug. 8. Go here for more details.

As I write this evening, I hear Harleys roaring north to Sturgis. The sounds if Harleys remind me of my late brother Dan, who had a lifetime love of motorcycles. My only trip to Sturgis was six years ago when I drove up to meet Dan and our old friend Blake. They drove from Florida to South Dakota in a camper hauling their bikes. Dan invited me to ride as his bitch on the back of his bike, which I readily accepted, knowing that I may not be a bitch but I was pretty bitchin', even in my advancing state of aging. We rode around Sturgis, gawked at motorcycles and motorcyclists. I came out of a vendor's tent to find myself walking behind a young woman whose very tanned behind was visible out of a pair of backless leather chaps. It was hot out, so I'm sure she was thankful for the breeze. We drank a bit of beer that day. Dan paced himself as the designated driver. I witnessed my first belly shot at One-Eyed Jacks Saloon. It gave new meaning to "belly up to the bar." I miss you, Dan! You can read my posts from Sturgis 2008 here and here.

Florida and Wyoming duke it out as retirement destinations

Headline in today's Casper Star-Tribune: Forget Florida, Wyoming is number one for retirees

It's funny for a lot of different reasons.Wyoming is not the first state that comes to mind when retirement is mentioned. Florida and Arizona are obvious codger destinations. Florida is warm most of the time and it is filled with nifty little retirement communities where you commute in golf carts and play golf all of the live-long day. Ditto Arizona, although it's a dry heat and it doesn't have as many bugs.

But Wyoming? A recent study ranked Wyoming high on the list of job opportunities for retirees, with its 4 percent unemployment rate. It also ranked high on economic security and the lack of state income tax. Weather was not ranked, nor was the scenery.

Fact is, retirement ain't what it used to be. When I was growing up in Florida in the '60s and '70s, the place was lousy with old people. They migrated south from Massachusetts and Michigan to warm their old bones and play shuffleboard out in the January sun. They clogged the roads, their little old grey heads popping up from behind their big Caddy or Lincoln steering wheels. You often got behind them in grocery store checkout lines as they counted out their pennies, nickels and dimes to make exact change. Here you were, young and in a hurry to be somewhere, while someone your grandma's age was counting out change and asking the clerk if she wanted to see photos of her grandchildren.

Now retirees my age are cruising the great rivers of Europe, climbing Macchu Picchu and surfing Costa Rica's bitchin' waves. It's enough to make you veg out on a recliner watching Charlie's Angels reruns. But your friends will make fun of you. What are you, some kind of 21-year-old slacker sitting in front of a screen all day? Get out and do something!

Wyoming offers 98,000 square miles of outdoors. The summers are so nice that I feel guilty when I'm indoors. You can ski or snowboard in winter if your 60-something knees are better than mine. Snowmobiling is a better alternative, as long as you don't get stuck in a snowbank or -- God forbid -- an avalanche. The sun shines on winter days, more often than not, but the wind blows a mean streak. More than one spindly senior citizen has been blown to Nebraska in near-hurricane-force March winds. I have much too much meat on my bones to go airborne during a chinook.

There's another factor at work for retirement destinations. If they have kids, retirees want to be close to them and their grandkids or other family members. Our son lives in Tucson and his sister is thinking about joining him there. My wife Chris and I grew up in Florida and all of our surviving siblings and their kids live there. We have good reasons for living in FL or AZ. Most of our friends are on the CO-WY Front Range. And there is so much to do in Colorado. Chris and I plan to be busy with the arts and volunteering and travel.

So which destination is it? AZ, CO, FL or WY?

Whale of a tale

We ran into the whale watchers at the beach today. An elderly couple about my age, already retired, on the beat to record the right whales lurking off Ormond Beach. Chris and I were sitting at the beach approach, decompressing after a long walk in the sand. Actually, Chris took a long walk as I tried to coax my knees into overdrive without much success.

The couple is on the lookout for whales every Thursday, 8 a.m.-noon. They hit five stations during that time, recording any right whales they happen to spy. The Atlantic is home to some 500 of these whales, not many when you look out and ponder the size of the ocean. The man in the duo said that he's seen three humpback whales off of this coast. I replied that I didn't know that humpback whales came to this part of the world. He said that humpbacks are easier to see that others because they have a dorsal fin and white marking that help them stand out against the blue-green waters. They also move fast. Right Whales are slow movers. Humpbacks are more like linebackers while the right whales are no-neck linemen. I have football on the mind.

I took it all in, wondering about the different whales and why some are endangered and others are not. We must have had whales in Wyoming when our state was drenched by the inland seas. Forty million years ago, give or take. My property and that of my neighbors was under tons of water, home to prowling plesiosaurs, but not sure about whales. But it's pretty clear that the demise of the dinosaurs opened the door for all of the mammals, including whales. About 55 million years ago, 10 million years after a giant asteroid and/or a swarm of erupting megavolcanoes put an end to the dinosaurs, even-toed ungulates started branching off from pigs and deer to become the whales glimpsed off the coast of Florida. Cool -- whales are related to barnyard pigs in Arkansas and foraging mule deer in Wyoming. I also have science on my mind.

I liked the fact that these two retirees were scouting the sea for whales even on their volunteer day off. They must be very dedicated to the cause. During this trip to Florida, I've been reading a lot about the shifting sands of tourism, about the fact that tourists are not just coming to Florida for the beaches but for trips along inland waterways, bird-watching tours, wildlife watching and explorations of Florida's many cultures. We plan a side trip to St. Augustine to explore its 500 years of settlement by Europeans preceded by many generations of Indian settlement. We won't be going to the beach, although St. Augustine has a fine one. I like beaches. I like warmth. But many people have left the freezing north for the warmth and the beaches and have found heartache instead. They leave friends and family and the life they know for slick online ads or glossy brochures It's warm here! Friendly, too! Come on down to paradise!

It's never that simple. When my dying father in Ormond Beach was being attended by Hospice personnel, I talked to them. One nurse said that it was a nice thing that my father had many visitors and that we all seemed to care so much. I replied that this must be the case with many of her charges. She shook her head. Sadly, no, she said. Most of her patients died alone. The spouse had already passed and the children and grandchildren and friends all lived in Michigan or New York or even Wyoming. There was an occasional visit from a new acquaintance or a pastor, but a lonely departure was the rule rather than the exception. Made me think. Why are so many retirees willing to give it up for life in paradise? I know what it's like to be cold and old. I know what it's like to be braced against a 20-below wind chill imagining a warm walk on a beach.

But a beach is not enough. I could imagine living here. I can imagine whale-watching. We would go to many events and explore the historic sites and museums. We have passions and pastimes to keep us involved and alert.

But I think this mantra will be on my mind: The beach is not enough. Repeat after me: The beach is not enough.

Or, as a cynical, bleary-eyed bartender in Key Largo once said to me and my new bride on a brilliant May evening in 1982, the setting sun coloring the sky, "Just another day in paradise."

Joan McCarter on DKos: 'Greatest retirement crisis' in history looms large

As is often the case, Joan McCarter is one step ahead the rest of us on timely topics. Today it's the retirement crisis facing American Baby Boomers. And I'm not just saying this because I am one of those Boomers on the verge of retirement. Check out Joan's Daily Kos column here and the daily schedule for our fellow Kossacks posting about the topic this week.

Dear Mr. President: Don't capitulate on "fiscal cliff" negotiations

Kos on Daily Kos posted tonight about President Obama's capitulation on the so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations. There's an e-mail petition to sign if you've a mind to. I did. This is what I said, which is part DK boilerplate and part me:

Mr. President: As of today, I am three years away from retirement. I expect to find my investment in Social Security intact when that day comes.

Please don't cave in to Republican blackmail. Stop proposing cuts to Social Security.

Social Security does not contribute even $1 to the deficit, and is 100% solvent for over 20 years according to even the most pessimistic projections. It should not be a part of the fiscal showdown negotiations.

Please live up to your campaign promise of not balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class. 

Note to Wyoming Sens. Enzi and Barrasso and Rep. Lummis: NO CUTS!

Overpass Light Brigade posted this: From the San Diego Labor Council's candlelight event outside Sen. Dianne Feinstein's downtown office to avoid cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs; instead to pressure Congress to raise taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Americans. NO CUTS!

Wyoming among top ten states in scholarships lawmakers receive to attend ALEC meetings

From Joan Barron's article in the Sunday Casper Star-Tribune:

Late last month, 17 newly elected Wyoming legislators attended a three-day meeting at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. The event was sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

On Dec. 3, the nonprofit citizen-lobbyist organization Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy released a report that said Wyoming is among the top 10 states in the amount of corporate “scholarships” lawmakers receive to attend ALEC meetings.

Read the entire article here.

Read my earlier post about one of the ALEC model bills geared toward eliminating Wyoming state employees' defined-benefit retirement plan.

Message to Wyoming Republican legislators: LOWRSTFA!

LOWRSTFA!

Last year, Republican legislators tried to change the Wyoming Retirement System from a defined-benefit program to one that was based on a defined-contribution model. Because there is no logical reason to change a system that is solvent and well-managed, one must look elsewhere for explanations, musn't one? Blame the Tea Party -- that's what I usually do. True, the Tea Party hates government and government employees. But there are more insidious forces at work.

No, not Agenda 21.

A batch of Republican legislators are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC. The organization, heavily-funded by right-wing gazillionaires the Koch Brothers, drafts model legislation at national gatherings for its stooges to take home to their state legislatures. A series of these bills attempt to end defined-benefit retirement plans and replace them with IRA-style plans funded entirely with employee contributions and managed by an outside party which will rake in millions in fees from the pension fund. ALEC Exposed carries a model bill similar to the one we saw during the 2012 Wyoming Legislature. Go to Public Employees Portable Retirement Option Pro Act Exposed. 

The Wyoming Retirement System recently conducted a poll of its members. The findings were announced today and aren't surprising:

A majority of Wyoming Retirement System members indicated their pensions are an important part of their employment benefits and more than half of active members want to keep the current defined benefit plan, results from WRS’ 2012 Member Survey showed.
 
WRS sent a survey to active members and retirees that asked about demographics, attitudes and beliefs about WRS, customer service, the preferences of a defined benefit versus defined contribution plan and the usefulness of communication resources. The 2012 survey, which was conducted from mid-October through Nov. 20, was the second year WRS surveyed its members.

Regarding their pensions, the survey showed that 82.9 percent of active members indicated their pensions were “very important” or “mostly important” in keeping them in their current employment. The survey also showed that 86.2 percent of retirees indicated their pensions were “very important” or “mostly important” in keeping them in their employment.

The survey also indicated that 58.1 percent of active members said they prefer the current defined benefit plan over a defined contribution plan, and 29.9 percent said they would need more information to decide.

There were 2,338 active members and 582 retirees who responded to the surveys. The following is a summary of the responses.

Active Member Results

• Approximately three quarters of respondents were “Positive” or “Mostly Positive” regarding their attitude toward WRS, belief that WRS operates in their best interest and that WRS is financially strong.
• The customer service rating for WRS was favorable overall with 67.8 percent of respondents rating it “Excellent” or “Good.”

Retiree Survey Results:

• 7.3 percent of respondents reported having been a rehired retiree at some time compared to 11.8 percent last year.
• Retirees reported even more favorably than active members regarding their attitude toward WRS (91.1 percent positive), belief that WRS operates in their best interest (88.6 percent agreement) and that WRS is financially strong (87.7 percent agreement). 
• The customer service response was very positive, with 90.4 percent of respondents rating it “Excellent” or “Good.”

The following infographics show the complete results of the surveys:

• Active Member Survey Infographic
• Retiree Survey Infographic

CONTACT:   Aimee Inama
                      Information Officer
                      Phone: (307) 777-7776
                      Fax: (307) 777-3621; aimee.inama1@wyo.gov 

About WRS: WRS administers retirement plans for roughly 42,000 public employees in Wyoming and 23,000 retirees and has approximately $6.5 billion in assets.

LOWRSTFA?

Leave Our Wyoming Retirement System The Freak Alone. Feel free to use your own expletive in place of "freak."

More info on the battle to save the state retirement plan at the Coalition for a Healthy Retirement web site.

Tea Party Slim's new bumper sticker: "Wyoming: Love it Unquestionably or Leave It"

I let a few weeks pass before bringing up the election.

"I don't want to talk about it," said Tea Party Slim.

"I understand." I finished off my pumpkin scone. "Bad memories."

He sipped his coffee. "Water under the bridge."

We sat at a small table at the downtown Starbuck's. Two weeks after the historic election. Four more years of Barack Hussein Obama probably looked like an eternity to Slim.

"Is your family well?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yours?"

"Just dandy. What you doing for Thanksgiving?"

"Wife cooking up a storm, as always. Having over a few friends. Son coming up from Denver with his family."

"That's nice."

"Yes it is. You?"

"Kids will be home. We're taking everything over a sick friend's house. She's been in the hospital but can't cook."

Slim sipped his coffee. "That's nice."

"Yes it is."

"Good thing she had insurance, and thank goodness for Medicare. There were complications."

I could tell Slim wanted to say something, maybe a comment about Medicare running out of money and maybe it should be privatized. Instead, he just said, "I hope she gets well soon."

"She's doing better." I sipped my coffee. "Wonder what the State of Wyoming plans to do about the Affordable Care Act?"

"Obamacare," snorted Slim.

At last! "State doesn't do something, get a health exchange going or something similar, feds will step in and run it."

"Federal government can't run anything."

"Not even the military?" I knew this was a sore spot, him being a veteran and all.

"Don't go picking on the military now," Slim said. "It's one thing we do right."

"I'm just saying..."

"You're not a veteran," he said. "I was protecting the U.S.A. while you were a party boy in college, buying kegs with your student loan."

"I never thought of that, Slim. I was probably too busy working two jobs."

Slim harrumphed. "Just don't pick on the military."

"Let's make a deal, Slim. I won't pick on the military and you lay off Medicare and Social Security and state employee pensions."

"Why should I pay for state employee pensions? And why should you get pensions while private sector employees don't?"

"Let's put the shoe on the other foot, Slim. Why should I pay for military pensions and the V.A.?"

"Because we've put in our time and that's part of the deal -- serve your country and you get benefits."

"I could say the exact same thing about my 20-something years as a state employee. I've put in my time, including many years without a raise, and I've contributed to the defined benefits plan. When I retire, I expect benefits."

"You can't compare serving your country with serving the state."

"Why not?"

"It's different, that's all. People put their lives on the line. You're a paper pusher."

"True. But how often was your life in danger? And how much paper did you push around?"

"It was Vietnam..."

"You were off the coast on a big ship, were you not?"

"True..."

"Were you ever actually in Vietnam?"

"Well...."

"Never?"

"We had to arm the planes that went on bombing runs. Dangerous work."

"I'm sure it was." I finished my coffee. "I don't question that. I am thankful you get a pension and can go to the V.A. when needed. So why do you want me to face retirement without a pension and medical coverage?"

"I didn't say that."

"That's what your Tea Party Republican legislators want to do."

"They just want fairness, that's all."

"Look, employers in the private sector want to pay less than minimum wage and no benefits. They get ticked off when they train people and they go to work for the state. Meanwhile, the state can't hire much-needed staff because Wyoming wages are ridiculously low and our legislature is the embarrassment of the nation."

"If you don't like it, you can always retire and move to blue-state Colorado."

"Love it or leave it?"

"I used to have that on a bumper sticker."

"I don't doubt it. Maybe you need a new one, Slim. How about "'Wyoming: Love It Unquestionably Or Leave it?"

"Not bad."

"I know another slogan that might be better."

"What?"

"Wyoming: You Can't Eat the Scenery."

Wyoming Retirement System holds its next town hall meeting Nov. 28 in Casper

The Wyoming Retirement System will hold its next town hall meeting in Casper on Wednesday, November 28, 7-8:30 p.m. It will be held in Nichols Auditorium, McMurry Career Studies Building, Casper College. The meeting is open to anyone who is concerned about the threat by Republicans to mess with the state retirement system in the name of Tea Party politics. At a town hall meeting on Nov. 8 in Cheyenne, WRS Director Thom Williams sounded a cautionary note about any changes to the state's defined-benefits plan. This is from the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle:

The head of the Wyoming Retirement System says a major overhaul of the state's public pension program is unnecessary and potentially dangerous.

Thom Williams, executive director of the WRS, told a group of state workers and retirees Thursday that the Legislature should resist any efforts to move to a 401(k)-style defined-contribution plan. 

"The problem is (defined-contribution plans) are not a reliable means for providing retirement security," he said. "These defined-contribution plans oftentimes result in people running out of money."

HM urges state employees in Natrona County to attend the meeting. Maybe some of those right-wingers that county residents keep electing to the legislature will show up and learn something.

The town meeting is co-sponsored by the Coalition for a Healthy Retirement and the Equality State Policy Center.  

Call in and ask Sen. Enzi about GOP plans to ensure healthy retirements for Wyomingites

Laramie's Nancy Sindelar is a great source for intriguing political happenings around the state. She just alerted me about this:

Thursday, November 15, 7 p.m., Wyoming PBS presents "Wyoming Perspectives: the Future of Medicare and Social Security." This is a discussion with Republican Sen. Mike Enzi; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokesperson Mike Fierberg; University of Wyoming professor and economist Anne Alexander; AARP Vice President/Financial Security Jean Setzfand; and AARP Wyoming Director Tim Summers. This is a live call-in show, or you can watch archived copy afterwards. FMI: http://www.wyomingpbs.org/seniors. Email jamend@cwc.edu. Ask live on-air questions: 1-800-495-9788 or wyomingperspectives@wyomingpbs.org. Twitter @WyoPBS, #WyoPBSseniors. 

My first question to Sen. Enzi: Now that the Republican plans for privatizing Social Security and turning Medicare into a voucher system are as dead as Paul Ryan's budget, how do you plan to spend your time in D.C.? And then there's that little question about avoiding the fiscal cliff. How does the GOP plan to deal with that little issue, eh?