Day two of touristing on the high plains

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tragedies happen around us while we look the other way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day one of touristing on the high plains

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued….

So you want to write a novel?

My friend Joanne Kennedy over at Joanne Kennedy Books on Facebook is teaming up with two other Cheyenne fiction writers for this:

Have you always wanted to write a novel? Laramie County Library is presenting Novel Writing University every Tuesday night for six weeks, beginning September 23. Classes will cover all elements of fiction writing, from getting started to writing dialogue, from characterization to resonant endings. Submitting to agents and editors will also be covered, along with self-publishing and marketing. Whether you're a beginner or a more experienced writer, these classes will help you improve your craft and understand the steps to publication. The class will be taught by multi-published authors Joanne Kennedy, Amanda Cabot, and Mary Gillgannon. Join us!

Joanne and Mary are my former critique partners at the Cheyenne Area Writers Group (CAWG). They are terrific teachers and know their way around a novel -- short stories, too, as I can testify. I've seen Amanda in action at several writing conferences, including the annual WWInc gathering. They all are kind and meticulous, a winning combination. Get more information at the Laramie County Public Library web site.

Join the "Shatter the Silence" walk Sept. 10 in Cheyenne

Join Stop Suicide Cheyenne, the VA Center, Prevention Management Organization, and Grace for 2 Brothers for the World Suicide Prevention Day Silent Walk on Wednesday September 10th. This event begins at 11:45 a.m. at the Depot Plaza in Cheyenne with keynote speakers to talk about suicide prevention. A silent walk will take place up Capitol Avenue to the Capitol Steps where there will be recognition of those lost to suicide.

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

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

Ernest Hemingway found something in Wyoming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Human Rights Campaign holds reception in Cheyenne

This announcement comes from Wyoming Equality: 

HRC Wyoming: Cheyenne Community Reception 

Sept. 18, 6-8 p.m., at The Suite Bistro, 1901 Central Ave, Cheyenne

We are excited to invite you to an upcoming community reception with the Human Rights Campaign in Wyoming. You are invited to join us in Cheyenne for a community gathering with brief remarks from HRC Director of Programmatic Development, Brad Clark, followed by a reception including complimentary hors d'oeuvres and beverages. 

We hope you can join us and ask that you please RSVP in advance. Go to http://action.hrc.org/site/Calendar/2118893071

Satire is in the eye of the beholder

I love good satire. Problem is, readers don't often get it. Good satire is usually presented as a straightforward news article or opinion piece that can often be mistaken for your run-of-the-mill newspaper story. In satire, the subject is taken to an extreme, an exaggeration for what the writer hopes is a comic effect. Since there is so much craziness on the Internet already, it's hard to pick out satire unless it's labeled as such. This is why it is so helpful for Andy Borowitz to label his "The Borowitz Report" pieces in The New Yorker as "news satire." Here's a recent brilliant example:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Across the United States on Wednesday, a heated national debate began on the extremely complex issue of children firing military weapons. 

“Every now and then, the nation debates an issue that is so complicated and tricky it defies easy answers,” says pollster Davis Logsdon. “Letting small children fire automatic weapons is such an issue.”

Logsdon says that the thorny controversy is reminiscent of another ongoing national debate, about whether it is a good idea to load a car with dynamite and drive it into a tree. 

“Many Americans think it’s a terrible idea, but others believe that with the correct supervision, it’s perfectly fine,” he says. “Who’s to say who’s right?” 

Similar, he says, is the national debate about using a flamethrower indoors. “There has been a long and contentious national conversation about this,” he says. “It’s another tough one.” 

Much like the long-running national debates about jumping off a roof, licking electrical sockets, and gargling with thumbtacks, the vexing question of whether children should fire military weapons does not appear headed for a swift resolution. 

“Like the issue of whether you should sneak up behind a bear and jab it with a hot poker, this won’t be settled any time soon,” he says. 

Get news satire from The Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.

If this appeared as a standard news article in the local paper, I can easily see my neighbor, Tea Party Slim, reading it over his morning java and nodding his head in agreement. "Yes, children shooting automatic weapons is an extremely complex issue." Slim also reads loads of stuff on the Internet, as do I, where it is possible to mistake satire for another example of human weirdness -- or vice versa. Each of us carries baggage from our political POVs. I see Borowitz's piece as a terrific satire on our gun nut culture. Slim sees gun ownership and the firing of automatic weapons as a God-given right via the Constitution. He can't laugh at this because he'll be laughing at some of his own deeply-head beliefs.

Are there conservative satirists? P.J. O'Rourke comes to mind. He pokes fun at me and my fellow Liberals and I admit it gets under my skin sometimes but it is funny. Tom Wolfe made hay satirizing the hippie culture, the Black Panthers and the New Left back in the 60s and 70s. Ann Coulter is too heavy-handed to be an effective satirist, but sometimes I've found humor in her Liberal-baiting columns.

There must be some contemporary conservative satirists I haven't read because, frankly, I'd rather poke fun at the other guy. That's my God-given right under the Constitution. However, if a person can't laugh at himself, well.... that's really absurd.

Maybe Gov's new science panel may negate some of the damage done by the legislature

Democratic Party Gubernatorial candidate Pete Gosar was bemused by Gov. Mead's announcement of the selection of a panel to improve science education at our only four-year public university. This from Gosar's Facebook post:

The current administration appoints a panel to upgrade science at the University of Wyoming, but just a few months ago censored science for Wyoming students in K-12. Let's hope this panel puts in a full complement of remedial science courses at UW to ensure that our students can learn after graduation what they were denied before graduation.

It's difficult to live down the embarrassment of the legislation from last legislative session that banned schools from adopting national science standards. Gov. Mead signed off on the legislation offered by Rep. Matt Teeters (R-Lingle) who, thankfully, lost his primary challenge and will no longer darken the halls of the legislature with his Dark Ages approach to book larnin'. 

How many science panels and commissions does it take to negate one piece of boneheaded legislation?

Difficult to know. Word travels fast in this cyber-age. I read the bios of those appointed to the panel and was impressed. They are supposed to make some recommendations to the Gov by Nov. 1, just four days before the election. One of those recommendations should be: "Repeal the legislature's anti-science footnote and keep Republican legislators as far away from education legislation as humanly possible."

Then maybe we can get back to the business of being a player in the 21st century instead of a bystander.

2014 Equality State Book Festival showcases the art of the book

The Equality State Book Festival marks its fifth anniversary Sept. 11-13 in Casper. It offers a great line-up of authors, as always. Nina McConigley of Casper (now Laramie) will deliver the keynote on Saturday. Nina's book of short stories, Cowboys and East Indians, is getting rave reviews and earned her the 2014 PEN Open Book Award. Other presenters: include best-selling author Joshilyn Jackson (gods in Alabama, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty), flash-fiction writer and social media guru Meg Pokrass, writer and founder/curator of the Handmade/Homemade book exhibit Deborah Poe, Jackson poet Matt Daly and many others. One of the themes of this year's bookfest is book arts. Poe's book arts exhibit will be on display at the Casper College Visual Arts Building and the University of Utah Book Arts group will be conducting a workshop on Saturday. Make your own book! You still have to write the innards, though. Can't get away from that.

This is the fifth statewide book festival (held during even years) and it gets better with age. I'm a bit biased as I serve on the planning committee, the only non-Casperite in the bunch. Kudos to the committee's co-directors: Laurie Lye and Joseph Campbell. Laurie came out of retirement to help out this year when former co-director Holly Wendt decamped to a new teaching job in her home state of Pennsylvania. Thanks to Laurie. Have you ever organized a three-day arts event? It takes time and effort and attention to a dazzling array of details. Think about all of the fairs and festivals held throughout Wyoming each year. Your friends and neighbors do that work, often for no pay but for the joy of putting on a show.

Get more info at http://www.equalitystatebookfest.com/

As I begin my tenth year of blogging liberally and locally and snarkily...

Not sure why, but old friends are finding me via my blog. Maybe my analytics are peaking after nine years on Blogger. My first couple years in the blogosphere were spent trying to figure out what to write about 3-4 times per week. I called it "hummingbirdminds" after a quote in Wired magazine from hypertext pioneer Ted Nelson. Nelson was asked about his severe case of Attention Deficit  Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He said that people with ADHD have "hummingbird minds." That seemed to fit. My wife and I raised a son with ADHD and we got to see a hummingbird mind up close and personal. His attention could flit to more places in five minutes than mine did in a day.

At first, I thought I would blog about ADHD. I was working on a book based on our experiences with our son. I figured that I would put excerpts up on the blog, editors and publishers would discover me, and soon I would be dreaming of ways to spend my five-figure book advance. That didn't happen, mainly because  my own short attention span wandered off-topic and I began writing about writing, politics, life in Wyoming and other fascinating topics. Much to my chagrin, I was not a one-topic blogger like some of my more successful friends on the blogosphere. A romance novelist. A knitter. A diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan. A high-altitude gardener. All were making hay online, especially the gardener. Their blogs engendered readers and comments and numbers. My posts earned a smattering of visits and an occasional comment. 

Leading up to the 2008 elections, I began focusing on politics. As my blog's subhead says: "Blogging Liberally and Locally in Wyoming." The "blogging liberally" term I borrowed from Drinking Liberally, a great idea and a great site. "Locally," of course, I got from the local movement that has been sweeping the country and making a big difference in our politics and in business. I try to act locally and shop locally. 

My political blogging earned me a trip to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, a scholarship to Netroots Nation 2011 in Minneapolis and a mention as Wyoming's top state liberal blog by Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post's "The Fix" blog. Good experiences. Good times. 

What's next? More politics. More wise-ass comments. I plan to self-publish another book of short stories by the end of the year -- beware of marketing posts about my book as self-publishing means self-promotion and lots of it. When I first began to blog, I heard that shameless self-promotion on your blog was gauche. It just wasn't done. Then along came social media and self-promotion became the rule rather than the exception. It's as American as apple pie. So I will post snippets of my work and even stage a book giveaway or two. 

But I won't totally leave off of politics. I'd be afraid that my old conservative friends wouldn't find me online. There is nothing like old friends....

Who out-crazied who -- or whom -- in last night's Wyoming gubernatorial debate?

I was pleased to see 40-some people last night at Music & Poetry at Metro Coffee Company in downtown Casper. They had so many other choices: Sharknado II reruns, bicycling, drinking, canoodlling, riding the rapids on the North Platte, napping, The Internet, etc. Perhaps the biggest conflict took place last night in Riverton, where the three Republican gubernatorial candidates were duking it out. The debate was aired on Wyoming Public Radio.

I listened to none of the debate.  I was preparing my work to be read aloud in public. And we had a fine time right there at Metro, with Chad Lore performing his own humorous songs and then cutting loose with with some Dylan and a rollicking version of "St. James Infirmary Blues."

According to WyPols, two of the three Repub Gub candidates did their best to out-crazy one another. Who won?  

So who out-crazied who in this debate? It’s tough to call a winner, because both Haynes and Hill both worked so hard for the title. But our money is on the superintendent, if only for this nonsensical answer she gave about whether she would ever support same-sex marriage: 

“Marriage is between a man and a woman, period. We have sisters and brothers, moms and dads, and aunts and uncles, and sons and daughters, and we all have to work together and live together, and it’s critical. Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Huh?

See you at the Music & Poetry Series in Casper Monday night

Each summer, ARTCORE in Casper sponsors the Music & Poetry Series. It features a performance by a musician or music group and a reading/performance by a poet or prose writer. On Monday, Aug. 11, at 7:30 p.m., at Metro Coffee Company, 241 S. David, the series features Chad Lore on guitar and vocals and me as the prose writer. Usually, the musician takes turns with the writer -- 20 minutes of deathless prose followed by 20 minutes of fine music. Intermission for caffeinated beverages. Then 20 more minutes or prose and the warm summer night wraps up with music, as it should.

Get a preview of Chad's music by going here and here. You can preview my writing by reading many years worth of blogging on this site. That consists mainly of snatches of memoir and humor interspersed with liberal political musings. I rarely include fiction on my blog because I still am skittish about publishing my work online before it is published in book form. I published my first book of short stories with a small publisher and, for the past two years, I have been pitching my second book to small and medium-sized publishers with no success. Short stories are not always welcome fare at the offices of publishers. I sit down to chat with industry professionals at writing conferences to discuss my work. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Me: "I write short stories."

Publisher gives me a look usually reserved for poets, English majors and plague victims -- a combination of pity and boredom. Their response usually is this: "We don't do short stories" or "Short short collections don't sell."

Me: "Oh."

Publisher: "Do you have a novel?"

Me (lying): "Yes."

Publisher smiles: "Send me a synopsis and a couple of chapters."

I don't. I could, I suppose, as I have several novel manuscripts propping open doors and serving as foot rests. But they are ancient history, written when I was learning how to write and then abandoned for other projects. I don't even have electronic versions, as they were written on ancient mechanical devices, such as the Smith-Corona portable typewriter and the first of many electronic typewriter/word processors. I could scan them and then proof them with my eagle-eyed editing. But I'd rather write.

What will I bee reading Monday night? Come to Metro Coffee and find out. It will be short, as in short story. If you see me carrying in a huge manuscript, don't worry -- I like to prop up my feet while listening to music.

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.

WYOPEP: Wyoming slips from first to forty-first in the nation in care of its disabled

The Forgotten People of Wyoming - From 1st to 41st in the Nation in Care of Its Disabled from WYOPEP on Vimeo.

Watch this video and wonder why Wyoming, with funding galore, can't take care of its disabled citizens.

Wyoming Democrats respond

The Wyoming Democratic Party is fighting back in a timely manner, which I appreciate.

We are outnumbered by Republicans. That is true and will remain true in the foreseeable future. But that doesn't mean we should be relegated to a position of Repub Lite.

Dem Party Chief Robin Van Ausdall was on the front of Friday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle urging Dems not to cross over in the Aug. 19 primary and vote for one-time moderate Gov. Matt Mead in his race vs. Tea Party loony Taylor Haynes and partially dismissed Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill.

How did crossing over work for us in 2010?

NOT!

WyoDems' communications director Javier Gamboa (right) with fellow Dems at Cheyenne Day house party (from left): Rep. Mary Throne, Senate District 9 candidate Dameione Cameron and activist Chris Shay. A good time was had by all, Dems, Repubs, Indies and even those who don't give a damn and just want to stomp and holler.

Taylor Haynes was all over social media on Friday slamming the Dream Act and Obama's immigration policy. Haynes doesn't like those nogoodnik immigrants. So Wyoming Democratic Party Communications Director Javier Gamboa wrote a response which I would share with you here except that my cut-and-paste tool is not working. This always saves me a lot of work actually writing my own stuff. But go to this link and read Javier's response: http://www.wyodems.org/media

It's not easy being a Democrat in this very red state. But it begins to lose all meaning when, lacking our own candidates, we throw our weight (what there is of it) behind the most moderate Republican. Problem is, a so-called moderate Republican governor has to deal with a legislature increasingly composed of extremist conservatives. Lots of reasons for this, including decades of gerrymandering by Republicans. But the moderates, such as Cale Case from Fremont County, are leaving. Those who remain are being pulled further to the right. At least two rural social-issue moderates have died in the past year: Rep. Sue Wallis of Campbell County and Sen John Schiffer of Johnson County. Wallis was replaced by a right-winger who once wrote that people with AIDS should be rounded up and put in concentration camps.

I've never crossed over. It can be a useful tool but what's the point? I already know a number of Democrats who register as Republicans just so they have someone to vote for in the primary. That skews the number of registered Democrats. And those people tend to not get involved in progressive politics, some because they're afraid of losing their jobs and others because they have their own businesses and fear that being a visible D in an R world would kill the bottom line. We have to live in the real world. Wyoming, for the most part, may be a tolerant place, but that tolerance only goes so far. I've never been shot at or beat up walking neighborhoods for Dem candidates. But if looks could kill? I'd be dead a thousand times over.

I'm glad that the Democratic Party continues to speak up long and loud. Being visible is a form of resistance against the status quo. It's sad to think that we live in a place where just registering and voting as a Democrat can be a radical act.

James M. Cain: "The world's great literature is peopled by thorough-going heels"

James M. Cain was a member of the California school of hard-boiled fiction in the 1930s and 1940s. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were his contemporaries. But while Hammett and Chandler explored the world through private eyes, Cain looked at it from the P.O.V. of a working class woman called Mildred Pierce with a viper for a daughter, and a bored roadhouse wife who lures a poor sap into killing her husband. Cain found drama in the lives of regular folks.

Maybe that's why he likes short stories. He wrote the intro to For Men Only, a book of stories by (mostly) men and for men fighting in World War II. This is part of World Publishing's "Books in Wartime" series, thinner and smaller books in service to the war effort. The 70-year-old volume did its job admirably, only now coming aparts at the seams. It has a handwritten inscription on the inside cover: "Bill -- Xmas Greetings 1945 -- Peg-o." Peg-o had nice handwriting. Wonder where she and Bill are now? Did they get hitched, or was this just a literary wartime fling?

In the intro to the anthology, Cain praised the short story.

In one respect, not usually noted, it is greatly superior to the novel, or at any rate the American novel. It is one type of fiction that need not, to please the American taste, deal with heroes.Our national curse, if so perfect a land can have such a thing, is the "sympathetic" character.

Cain's main characters were not sympathetic. And when I think of memorable short stories, it's not "sympathetic" characters that stand out but ones rife with human foibles. Think of the misfit and the grandmother in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Raymond Carver's stories are populated with an assortment of deluded humans, such as the fishing buddies in "So Much Water so Close to Home." Annie Proulx's Wyoming stories are filled with the most arresting array of barflies and cowboys and real estate speculators. You don't want to hug a one. In my story "Roadkill," a World War II veteran is faced with a moral choice that may change his life for the good -- or it may not.

Cain concludes his intro:

The world's great literature is peopled by thorough-going heels, and in this book you will find a beautiful bevy of them, with scarce a character among them you would let in the front door. I hope you like them. I think they are swell.

I do. And they are.

Music and melodrama and politics mix during Cheyenne Frontier Days

We are up to our eyeballs in Cheyenne Frontier Days.

CFD is a 10-day extravaganza of parades, rodeo and nighttime concerts by big-names such as Lady Antebellum, John Mellencamp and up-and-comers Florida-Georgia Line. I read yesterday that attendance for concerts now surpasses that of the rodeo, and that the CFD folks are expanding the size of the stage and updating the electronics. In the 1970s, Johnny Cash pulled up to CFD with a pickup towing a trailer filled with mikes, amps and speakers. These days, Brad Paisley hauls his gear and people around in a caravan of buses and semis. That’s what these big arenas shows require.

Chris and I don’t plan of going to any concerts. As is the case with most Cheyennites, we do our share of volunteering during the week. Tonight we’re at the Cheyenne Old-Fashioned Melodrama, now in its 58th year at downtown’s Historic Atlas Theatre. I manage the house while Chris manages the box office. All the barkeeps and waitrons are volunteers, although they do get a few tips in the course of the night. All the players are volunteers, too, as is the backstage crew. It takes a lot of people to put on a show. But it’s fun, and it’s a tradition that brings in the crowds to see a totally locally written and produced event. The melodrama also is a major fund-raiser for the Cheyenne Little Theatre Players, our community theatre which puts on a dozen productions annually.  Come on out and see the melodrama tonight, “The Merchant of Vengeance.” Another classic tale written by Rory Mack and Brooks Reeves.

Amidst all the revelry, political campaigns are raging. Primaries are Aug. 19, just a month away. Chris and I walking neighborhoods for Senate District 9 candidate Dameione Cameron. Dameione is uncontested in the primary but has a Republican challenger in the general election. The incumbent has dropped out, leaving the field wide open. We’ve had some interesting conversations, including one with a Dem who was pissed off that Pres. Obama is not taking a stronger stance with Vladimir Putin. It’s rare that anyone won’t talk at all, although we have been excused quickly by some when they learn that DC is a Democrat. DC is a local attorney and businessman --- he and his partner Troy Rumpf run the Morris House Bistro – and his support comes from an alliance of Dems, Repubs and Indies. His district is mostly urban, or as urban as we get around here, so his support is younger, more non-partisan and more ethnically diverse than one usually sees in Wyoming. His campaign manager is Jordan, a young African-American from DC’s home state of South Carolina.

Will this be a good year for Dem candidates? Could be, as we have a record number of Dems running for the legislature and two solid challengers in the statewide offices of Governor and Superintendent of Public Instruction. The past few years have not been good for education in Wyoming. The legislature and Gov. Mead vs. Cindy Hill. Hill is not running again for superintendent. Instead, she has chosen to go after Mead in the Gov’s race. She sat out the recent debate, which is smart, considering she tends to say dumb things in public. The third Repub candidate, Tea Party fave Taylor Haynes, also says dumb things in public. In the debate, he said we should open Yellowstone National Park to oil and gas drilling. He later walked back those comments, but those of us paying attention know he gears most of his public utterances for the “Don’t Tread on Me” crowd. Wyoming’s economy would almost disappear if the three million summer tourists took their money to Rocky Mountain National Park or Yosemite. Casper and Cody and Lander and Evanston all bill themselves as stops along the way to Yellowstone. So does Cheyenne.

So, when Dems go to the polls on Aug. 19, we won’t find much in the way of contested races. We can check a number of D boxes and then walk away, knowing we’ve done our duty. Four years ago, Dems talked about switching party affiliation on election day and voting for a moderate such as Mead instead of wind-eyed ultra-rightists such as Ron Micheli. It was a close contest. Political pundits said that Mead owed his office to Ds in the state, as he went on to handily beat the Democratic challenger. We didn’t get much for our efforts. So no switching this time. And we really mean it. 

Death may come for the archbishop, but old books live on

Just finished reading Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. For some reason, I have a hardcover copy of the book's 23rd printing in 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf. I must have picked it up at a garage sale or possibly the annual library book sale. I have it stashed in my old book shelf with my other old books, such as For Men Only, a "Books in Wartime" collection of short stories from 1944 with an introduction by James M. Cain; a 1930 Nancy Drew novel, The Mystery at the Lilac Inn; and Marching Through Georgia, an 1895 account of Sherman's March through the South during the Civil War. None of them are collectible, as far as I know. Most are missing their jackets, and some appear to have been gnawed on my the family dog or maybe a bibliophile with a taste for old book glue.

Death Comes for the Archbishop smells like an old book. 80-year-old paper has a distinctive smell. Musty, earthy, blessed. The book's in good shape. It's lived in the Rocky Mountain West for most of its life. In 1943, it was owned by Besse Abbott Houghton. Her name in very nice script is written on the inside front cover. On the bottom left of that page, is a sticker for Stationery Books & Gifts, J.F. Collins, Inc., Santa Fe, N.M. Santa Fe, of course, is the site of most of the action in Archbishop. 

The book has a note at the end about the history of the typeface: "Old Style No. 31 composed on a page gives a subdued color and even texture which makes it easily and comfortably read." The typeface originated in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1870s. The book was written by a U.S. author, born in Virginia but is best known for her Nebraska roots. The book was manufactured in the U.S., "set up, electrotyped, printed and bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass. Paper made by W.C. Hamilton & Sons, Miquon, Penn."

And the book's innards? Fine writing by Willa Cather. Not sure why she turned to the Catholic history of New Mexico after spending most of her professional life writing about the Scandinavian Protestants of western Nebraska. She respects her subjects and writes with heart and soul, which is what I expect from a Cather book. The author traveled often to Santa Fe, visiting fellow authors Witter Bynner and D.H. Lawrence and exploring area history. These days, this book by Red Cloud, Nebraska's favorite daughter, is one of the best known novels about Santa Fe. There's even a Willa Cather Room at the city's Inn of the Turquoise Bear. I'd like to stay in that room. I'm a literary tourist. Show me a hotel room named for an author and I'd like to stay in it.

Time to find another book. Old or new, it doesn't matter.

Dems hold a cakewalk fund-raiser today in Cheyenne

When is the last time you participated in a cakewalk? Not the metaphorical kind, such as "Iraq will be a cakewalk," but the actual kind, in which you walk around in a circle while music plays and when the music stops and you land on the right number, you win a cake. Today's cakewalk is a fund-raiser for the Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition. It will be held amongst all the beautiful growing things in Joe's Amazing Garden at 3626 Dover Road in Cheyenne. Be there between 2-4 p.m. this afternoon and wear your cakewalking shoes. The event also features a 50/50 raffle. 

Welcome to the West's wet years

This is one of those wet years that our great-grandfathers told us about. You know, "rain follows the plow" so why not plow up 320 acres of high plains prairie and just sit back and watch the heavens unleash its nourishing rain.

It's foggy when I awake this morning. Cool. Dew on the grass and on the car window. Reminds me of a central Florida July morning. Air so filled with moisture it's like walking through a cloud. Can still smell last night's rain. My plants, shredded in a June hailstorm, are roaring back. They're sucking in that moisture like there's no tomorrow because there may not be.

One-hundred years ago, settlers to the semi-arid West found awoke to similar mornings. "Dang, ol' Charles Dana Wilber sure was right about rain following the plow. Bumper crop this year!

And maybe the following year and the one after that. But, inevitably, nature's reality came calling in the form of the Dirty Thirties. The episode was beautifully told by Jonathan Raban in his book, Bad Land: An American Romance. Abandoned farms and ranches can still be found throughout the eastern expanses of MT, WY and CO. Ruined dreams live on in bitter memories that link giant corporations (railroads) and government with broken promises.

WY Gov. Matt Mead recently used the old excuse in blocking Medicaid expansion. We can't trust the federal government to pick up its share of the bill. Can't trust the gubment! Scientists say that global warming will increase the severity of droughts and of seasonal storms -- more blizzards and worse droughts. But 100 years ago, didn't scientists say that rain would follow the plow? Climatologists and meteorologists did say that very thing. So why should we trust them now?

History's a bitch. In 1914, German and Brit and French 18-year-olds were told that honor required them to confront barbed wire and poison gas and machine guns. Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori. The lost generation -- literally and metaphorically. My generation is still haunted by Vietnam. Our government wanted to kill us all pursuing a doomed policy. The "big lie" lived on during the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

How do you overcome perceptions lodged in our DNA?

Meanwhile, the rain falls and the fog rolls in. That semi-arid prairie is as green as the Irish countryside.

Sunday morning round-up

Half-awake on a January morning, I hear a lawnmower and think of summer. Then I'm fully awake and realize that my neighbor is clearing the ten inches of overnight snow with his snowblower.  The warmth of summer stays with me until I throw off the covers and begin the process of going to work on a winter morning. Certain sounds can recreate a July day. The whine of a lawnmower. The rumble as my neighbor Mike starts up his Harley. The hum of traffic from I-25 when a west wind blows. The shrieks of children playing. The drone of a small plane as it takes off from our neighbor, the airport. Dogs bark, doves coo. Late at night, I can hear that lonesome train whistle blow. The windows are wide open (no air conditioning) and the world comes in.

Javier Gamboa, Wyoming Democratic Party communications manager, wrote a thoughtful Fourth of July essay about his undocumented status and why immigration reform is crucial. It's one thing to stand on a Murrieta, California, road and yell epithets at Salvadoran children. It's yet another to actually know and work with someone who travelled the same hard road. Javier was 11 when he came to Wyoming from Mexico. He learned the language, graduated from high school and UW and now criss-crosses the state on behalf of Dem candidates. Read Javier's essay here. And then e-mail Rep. Cynthia Lummis and demand that she and her fellow Know Nothings get their butts in gear on immigration.   

So glad that I had a chance to see 1776 the movie on TCM Friday afternoon. I sat down with a turkey sandwich and switched on the tube, wondering if there wasn't some quirky, melodramatic 1940s film to pass the time between bites. Instead I got 1776, which I'd never seen, not on the stage nor on the screen. The film was released in 1972, when I was 21. Those hot and argumentative days of 1776 in Philly seemed a long way from those hot and argumentative days of summer 1972. Forty-some years later, the heat and the arguments only seem to be getting worse. But that's American history. Heat and light, substance and folly -- it's all there, if you only know where to look. Don't bother with school textbooks. All the life has been squeezed out of the stories you read about in fourth grade. Right-wing zeolots want to turn our founding fathers into cardboard saints. We lefties treat them as dysfunctional parents. In 1776, we see Franklin and Adams and Jefferson as humans. That was refreshing in its day and still is. Here's a Popwatch columnist writing about ten reasons to watch 1776 in 2014.

A final Fourth of July weekend note.... my garden, decimated by hail two weeks ago, is showing signs of recovery. My Homeslice tomato plant was sliced up by marbles of ice. One lone stem with one lone leaf  remained, but now another is growing out below. My Early Girl tomato is blooming and has at least one tiny green tomato showing. The season has been delayed but with a little TLC and a lot less hail, I will have veggies yet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Fourth, wherever you are.

How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Portland?

Thoughtful column by Adbay's Shawn Houck on today's wyofile. He argues that Wyoming needs to change its economic and social policies to attract and keep young workers, especially those graduating from UW and our state's community colleges. Bright young people in Houck's line of work -- marketing -- look to Denver and Chicago and L.A. for opportunities that don't exist in their home state.

But it's more than just jobs. As Houck points out, people 18-29 are much more accepting than their elders of progressive ideas such as marriage equality. They advocate for alternative energy, smart cars, lively downtowns, local foods and the arts. Sure, they sometimes seem like a horde of craft-beer-swilling, kale-chomping, smartphone-wielding ingrates, but you can't impugn their passion and imagination. They push hard for their ideas and sometimes we just have to get out of their way -- or see how we can help.

Houck graduated with an English degree from UW. He could be in a happening big city but he founded a biz in his hometown of Casper. He and his Adbay team are now renovating a warehouse in Casper's Old Yellowstone District and will soon move in. According to the Adbay web site, the new space will include "a theatre, pub, basketball court and collaborative studio spaces." A pub! I'm going to float that idea by my boss tomorrow.

Do you know what's going on in Casper? Besides its tendency to elect loons to the state legislature? Downtown is booming. New businesses opening up and people swarming around on weekday nights when they should be home watching soccer from Brazil. It's exciting to see. I wasn't able to get to last weekend's Brazil-themed NicFest sponsored by the fine folks at the Nicolaysen Art Museum. Heard it was great, though. The Nic is a real treasure, one I wish we had in downtown Cheyenne.

Still, I'm an old guy so what do I know? What seems exciting to me may be ho-hum to a 22-year-old college graduate who's seen what's happening in Portland and Miami. Cities are in and the best and brightest are flocking there. And, surprisingly, so are retirees. A lot of my peers are chucking their jobs and the suburbs and moving into urban condos close to museums and bistros and light rail and good medical care. Seems funny that two such different demographic cohorts have the same destination. It's possible that the gray wave may panic the youngsters, causing them to flee back to Wheatland and Meeteetse. But I don't think so. Cities have that heady mix of all ages and ethnicities that makes America such a wonderful place. Sure, you can be afraid of it and lock yourself into a gated golf community in Arizona. But what will that get you? Paranoia and skin cancer and death by golf ball. Fore!

Houck proposes some good ideas on moving Wyoming forward. Go read the column and see. You might see it as pie in the sky dreams. But what is youth without dreams?

That was one super day, Cheyenne

Chris takes a break from work while I take five from walking Superday for Mike Ceballos.

Yesterday was Superday in Cheyenne. At first glance, that name seems grandiose. Can any event be super? Can't you find another title? Cheyenne Day would be a good one but it's already taken. The Wednesday smack in the middle of Cheyenne Frontier Days is Cheyenne Day. It's the day that almost everyone gets off work at noon and is drunk by 12:30. If you think I'm exaggerating, go hang out in downtown Cheyenne on July 23. It can be fun, too, if you bring along some moderation with your enthusiasm. Music on the plaza. melodrama at the Atlas (and on the streets). Art in the galleries. Rodeo in the park.

Superday may just have to do.

Superday 2014 falls in an election year. Booths for gubernatorial and legislative candidates are stuffed among those for the YMCA and Recover Wyoming and the Cheyenne Ski Club. I was there this morning. Lynn Birleffi and I teamed up to hand out leaflets for Mike Ceballos, who's running for superintendent of public instruction. I know Mike as an arts education supporter during his stint as CEO of Qwest. He's a good man with loads of leadership experience, a trait that will be handy at a Department of Education fraught with turmoil during Cindy Hill's reign. If you haven't been keeping up, well, I don't have enough time and fortitude to school you on these pages. Let's just say that Mr. Ceballos will bring some much-needed sanity to the department. He's a Democrat, too, and that will give us at least one statewide elected official we can crow about. 

For some people at SuperDay, such as my wife Chris, this is a working day. For the rest of us, this is a day we volunteer. Cheyenne is known for its volunteerism. We donate thousands of hours during Frontier Days and almost every other time of the year. Why? Tradition! And then there's that empathy gene that calls out to us. There are plenty of causes that need our time and attention. I could make a long list. Fortunately, I don't have to do so as the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle did so today in its "Volunteer Wyoming" insert (check it out). You could sum it up by saying that any nonprofit organization needs volunteers. So that's what we do.

What cause or organization do you volunteer for? Any why?

Chris and I as part of the mudding crew June 21 at the newest Laramie County Habitat for Humanity home-building project in Cheyenne.

Thoughts on gardening in the hail zone

I wrote this on Wednesday morning but didn't get around to posting until today:

Watch a hail barrage shred months of work. It’s merely an inkling of what a farmer must feel. Farmer stands at the edge of his/her field and surveys rows of plants decimated by last night’s hailstorm. That means loss of a livelihood. For me, it’s a major disappointment but I won’t starve. 

One of my friends said, “Forget gardening. This is the third year in a row this has happened.”

I escaped last year’s storms and had a bumper crop of tomatoes. Two years ago, I was too depressed to garden. Three years ago, back-to-back July hailstorms got my garden and roof and car. 

Sucks.

I have other friends who garden in small greenhouses and high tunnels and cold frames. Mini-greenhouses are all the rage for street cafes and backyards. Some limit their gardening to containers and move them into shelter as needed. I do that, too. I moved my containers under shelter on the back porch but the storm came in from the south and attacked my plants. They have protection when a storm comes from the west or north. Not so with those from the east or south. This one came from Colorado. Thanks, Greenies. 

Farmers’ markets are starting up around the region. Wonder how those family farmers made out? 

Lesson for politicians and military leaders: Never talk to poets

On Thursday evening, CNN's "The Sixties" aired its segment on the Vietnam War. In real time in Washington, D.C., Vietnam War veteran and POW John McCain was beating the war drums, this time for our re-involvement in another quagmire, Iraq. All week chickenhawks such as Dick Cheney had been screeching about Pres. Obama losing Iraq. President Obama staged a press conference is which he said he was sending advisers to help the Iraqi army turn back the attacks by ISIS, basically a bunch of zealots dressed in white pajamas fighting an unconventional war in the desert.

Chris and I watched the one-hour history of our involvement in Southeast Asia. Kennedy sent advisers to Vietnam and Johnson, intent on following in the slain president's footsteps, did likewise. Nobody wanted to be accused to being the one who lost Vietnam to the commies. The "domino theory" was first espoused by Ike in a 1954 speech. "The Sixties" showed a black-and-white TV news clip of dominoes set on a big floor map of Southeast Asia. The newscaster tips the first domino and the rest of them fall, one by one. If Vietnam goes, so goes Laos and Thailand and so on. Soon, little guys in black pajamas would be prowling the suburbs of Denver and Dallas and Detroit.

So we sent millions of young men from Denver and Dallas and Detroit to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. And for what?

You tell me.

It's a long story, I know. It keeps playing out in myriad ways in our own politics. The war was fought in pitched battles in Vietnam and on the home front. It left lasting scars. We made some attempts at healing in the 1970s but then along came Ronald Reagan and his Cold Warriors. We fought proxy wars with the Soviets all over the globe, rebuilt the military and then the new century arrived and Bush and Cheney launched a whole new wave of foreign misadventures.

We'll soon mark the 100th anniversary of "The Guns of August," those missteps that launched the first global war. Farmers in France and Belgium are still digging up unexploded artillery shells. Trench lines can be seen from space. Historians have spent the last 100 years explaining the slaughter to us. As is often the case, we have to rely on the poets and writers to get at the gut-level experiences if war. This is "Does It Matter" from 1918 by Siegfried Sassoon:

Does it matter? — Losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you needn't show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting,
And gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? — Losing your sight?
There's such splendid work for the blind,
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering,
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? — Those dreams from the Pit?
You can drink, and forget, and be glad,
And no one will say that you're mad,
For they'll know that you fought for your country,
And no one will worry a bit.

And Randall Jarrell's "Death of a Ball Turret Gunner" from 1945;

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Here's "Facing It" from fellow CSU grad and Vietnam vet Yusef Komunyakaa:

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Carolyn Forche wrote a scary and much anthologized prose poem, "The Colonel," about the proxy war in El Salvador. Forche went to El Salvador in the late 1970s as a poet and a fan of Claribel Alegria but ended up being a campaigner for human rights. Members of the military junta thought she was a CIA agent working as a poet, which may have led to her being invited to dinner with high-ranking military officers. It was during one of these dinners that Forche had the following encounter:

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried
a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went
out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the
cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over
the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English.
Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On
the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had
dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of
bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot
said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed
himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries
home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like
dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one
of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water
glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As
for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them-
selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last
of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some
of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the
ears on the floor were pressed to the ground. 

This comes from Forche's interview with Bill Moyers as recounted in the 1995 book, The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets:

Moyers: Had I reported that incident as a journalist, I would have been quite literal: who, what, when, where, and why. What's the relationship between these facts as a journalist would report them and the truth that you're trying to reveal?
Forché: Some writers whom I admire very much say that facts often have little to do with the truth. What I was trying to do with this piece, as I finally allowed it to be in The Country Between Us, was to acknowledge that something important had actually occurred. But the poem also contains a truth about the brutality of that situation which seems to reach deeply into people. When I came back to the United States and began reading the poem, I noticed that some people were very moved by it and others were very angered by it. And some people simply didn't believe it, they said it could not have happened. There was a fierce denial and yet several years later a reporter for The Washington Post interviewed soldiers in El Salvador and they apparently talked about the practice of taking ears and all of that. In fact, one of these soldiers read the news story about his practice of taking ears and was so proud of the story that he actually clipped it out and laminated it and carried it in his wallet. Because now he was famous, you know, for this.
Moyers: That's what can happen to a journalist's account. But the poem is a condemnation.
Forché: It is a condemnation. As a journalist, maybe you wouldn't have been able to use the obscenity, and perhaps you wouldn't have been able to quote him directly. But more than that, I don't think it would've happened to you because I don't think the message was intended for the press. It was intended for a quiet communication back to Washington, and unfortunately they told the wrong person. They told a poet.
Moyers: Lesson for politicians and military leaders: Never talk to poets.
Forché: Never.

The colonel in the poem also had the reputation for warning Catholic priests that were targeted by right-wing death squads. So it goes...

Each war spawns more war poems. The launch of the "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq caused poet Sam Hamill to put out a call for protest poems for a web site and later an anthology called "Poets Against the War" (later "Poets Against War"). I made a modest contribution to the web site collection. I'm not a poet, you see, but poetry does focus the imagination and the anger. 

Now that chickenhawks are squawking about returning to Iraq, it's only fitting that I end with this poem by Iraq War veteran and University of Oregon M.F.A. grad Brian Turner:

The Hurt Locker   

Nothing but hurt left here.

Nothing but bullets and pain

and the bled-out slumping

and all the fucks and goddamns

and Jesus Christs of the wounded.

Nothing left here but the hurt.

Believe it when you see it.

Believe it when a twelve-year-old

rolls a grenade into the room.

Or when a sniper punches a hole

deep into someone’s skull.

Believe it when four men

step from a taxicab in Mosul

to shower the street in brass

and fire. Open the hurt locker

and see what there is of knives

and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn

how rough men come hunting for souls.

Some samples from 100 years of poetry about war. No non-U.S. voices were included, although their numbers are legion. I'll save that for a future post...
 

Visiting a sick friend in the hospital

This afternoon, I visited a sick friend in the hospital.

I picked up a get-well-soon balloon along the way. My friend had knee replacement surgery, so she will get well soon, with the help of good hospital help, rehab, pain meds and some time off from her job. 

It wasn't easy finding my friend. The hospital lobby is under construction. Not-very-helpful signs point out the way to patient rooms. It took me awhile before I figured out "hospital access" with an arrow meant "go this way to find your sick friend." When I finally did, and located the information desk, I found a sign on the desk that read: "Be back in a few minutes."

My balloon and I found a seat. A nice gentleman came over and asked if he could help.

"I'm looking for a sick friend."

"Do you know what room she's in?"

I could have said, "If I knew which room she was in, my balloon and I wouldn't be there." Instead, I said, "No."

"The lady at the desk will be back in a few minutes," he said.

"I guess I'll wait."

I waited. Picked up the newspaper. Read a few lines. I looked up and saw my Syrian cardiologist. I stood, asked him how he was doing. He said fine. He asked me how I was. He had performed implant surgery on me last July. I was feeling fit as a fiddle.

"Fine," I said.

"You look good," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting a sick friend," I replied. Then I added: "Better visiting a patient than being a patient."

"Yes," he said, gradually drawing away from me to resume his spot in the traffic flow. I waved farewell with my right arm, the opposite arm from the side of my implant. I thought I felt the machinery ticking away in its little pouch between my skin's layers.

I sat. The info desk woman returned. She asked if she could help me. I gave her the name of my sick friend. "Oh," she said with a nod, as if I was the umpteenth person to visit this person. She read off the room number. She told me to follow her to the elevators. I did. When I reached the fourth floor, I looked around for signs with the proper numbers, but they were all wrong. I must have looked confused because a nice middle-aged woman wearing a badge came to my rescue. I told her the room number. "Follow me," she said.

She led me to the opposite side of the fourth floor. She pointed at the room in the corner. "That's it," she said. I adjusted my balloon and made a beeline for the room. I was on the same floor where I rehabbed from my heart attack, the follow-up stent and, later, the implant. After my heart attack, I walked these halls with help from a nurse or from my wife Chris. I was weak as a kitten. Scared too. In the beginning, we walked one circuit. Later, I was able to do two or three. Now I could walk dozens, I suppose, if I felt like it. I'm a bit winded sometimes, and not running any marathons, but I do feel good. People sometimes comment that I look good. When they say this, I think that I must have looked horrid back in 2013. Sickly. Pale. Weak.

"You look good Mike."

"Thanks. You look good too."

I remember the looks on visitors' face that said, "Gosh, Mike, you look like shit."

I was too sick to argue.

I am closing in on my sick friend's room, balloon bobbing in my wake. A nurse precedes me into the room. She carries knee rehab equipment. I can see my friend's husband on the couch. I can see the foot of my friend's bed. I see the bedside table with its water bottle and high hopes. My balloon and I are inside the door and I say "Anybody home?"

She looks at me. Her look is slightly unfocused, but she looks good, she really does. And that's what I tell her, my sick friend in the hospital.

You look good.

St. Michael may just be the angel that downtown Cheyenne needs

On Saturday morning, I toured the new Creeque Alley Gallery in the Majestic Building right across from the Depot Plaza. It's on the second floor of the 107-year-old Majestic, a place you can reach by stairs or by one of the few manually-operated elevators remaining west of the Mississippi. A decade ago, when the Majestic was filled with offices of insurance agents, accountants and dentists, the elevator featured its own operator, a guy who may have been as old as the building. Now you're on your own figuring out the controls.

Cliff Brown is the proprietor of Creeque Alley. He's a well-traveled artist who now makes his home in Cheyenne. He wears a kilt on this Celtic Musical Arts Festival weekend. He points out his south-facing office window.

"Look at this view," he says.

It's impressive, I have to admit. Even with the window closed, you can hear the skirl of pipes and the pounding of drums and Harley engines and the train racket out beyond the depot. This is action central when it comes to downtown Cheyenne. The Corner Co-op Gallery soon plans to move next door to Creeque Alley. Brown says that the Majestic is filling up with funky new tenants -- just down the hallway is Cassidy's Message Therapy and a psychic's office. The Majestic connects with the building next door which is getting a makeover. New windows have already been installed and a construction crew is tearing up decades-old carpets and hauling away old desks and filing cabinets and phone books from the 1970s.

The Cheyenne DDA/Main Street organizations has moved into the building's ground floor corner office. The space used to be home to a hookah bar with a dicey reputation. On warm days, you probably can still smell the hookah fumes.

Michael the Archangel looks over Cliff Brown's shoulder in the Creeque Alley offices in the Majestic Building.

Cliff grew up in New Jersey and has lived all over the U.S., and in Canada and Northern Ireland. He lived in Northern Ireland long enough to develop an accent strong enough to befuddle American tourists. During "The Troubles," he conducted art classes that put Protestant and Catholic youth in the same room.

Kick-starting Cheyenne's downtown may represent a similar challenge. Downtown has tons of potential and artists are seizing the day. Camellia El-Antably and Mark Vinich will open their new Clay Paper Scissors Gallery and Studio on the 1500 block of Carey Avenue in August. A new studio/gallery will go into their old space in the renovated warehouse at 15th and Thomes. Another new art center recently opened east on Lincolnway. It's called FlyDragon Design Art Studio and offers classes such as "Hot Topics" on June 20, a date night class where couples come in to paint a masterpiece together. Sounds like a good way to see if you and your potential spouse are simpatico when it comes to the arts.

The ArtSpace Cheyenne project is gaining momentum. Downtown's infamous "The Hole" will soon be filled by the Cheyenne Children's Museum. The city council will vote on the project at Monday evening's meeting. Those of you anxious to fill The Hole with an arts-oriented business might want to drop a line to their city council rep.This summer, the Hynds Building will be the site of an exhibit of larger-than-life portraits taken by Wyoming Tribune-Eagle photographer Michael Smith in his bid to capture the images of 1 percent of the county's population. The exhibit will be open daily in July and Smith will be taking portraits in the building's main floor throughout the month.

Creeque Alley's offices feature a gallery where you can sit in overstuffed sofas and contemplate the paintings on the wall. Some are by Cliff and his fellow artists; others are by unknown artists, the paintings left behind in the building's storage area, retrieved and repaired by Cliff. It's a good place to hang out, maybe bring your coffee up from the Paramount Cafe for for a few moments and introspection and art appreciation.

Next to Cliff's desk hangs a big black-and-white print of a traditional painting showing Michael the Archangel driving Lucifer from heaven. Cliff calls this his good luck charm, noting that since it was hung on the wall, he's been to assemble all the furniture, computer equipment and some of the paintings for free. All he needs now is $700 in monthly rent to keep the place open. Cliff is counting on art sales, fees for art classes and income from his graphic design business to make the payments. He's meeting with the DDA on Monday to see what it has to offer.

The St. Michael print strikes a chord. I had a similar painting over my crib. My name's Michael, you see, and my parents thought that a portrait of a lanky, long-haired angel poking a trident at a prostrate, grimacing Lucifer is just what a young Catholic lad should see as his synapses formed lasting memories. Maybe they were right.

St. Michael may be a fitting patron saint for downtown Cheyenne. Devils galore stand in the way of progress: outmoded rules and regs, absentee landlords, niggling naysayers and that old demon, status quo. In Christian tradition, St. Michael led a band of angels against the forces of darkness. This time, he may be leading the charge of a band of local artrepreneurs.