Local Republicans pack 'em in at 2016 presidential caucus

Look for the sign of the blue bison.

On Tuesday, it was SRO at the presidential caucus for the Laramie County Republicans here in Cheyenne.

As of 9:39 a.m. on Wednesday, results still weren't available. Some 778 Repubs stood in line at LCCC to cast their votes for one of the remaining candidates on the national ballot: Trump, Rubio, Cruz, Kasich and Carson.

Four years ago,  when Mitt Romney appeared to have the nomination in the bag, some 170 Republicans made it out to caucus. Next step is the county convention on March 12 and then the state convention in April.

Those talking heads who say that Donald Trump is increasing voter turnout may be right. It's a pitched battle this year among establishment Republicans and maverick Republicans. Trump, the billionaire and TV star, is a maverick and leads the pack. Cruz may be wackier than The Donald, but not as eager to bloviate in the presence of the media. Rubio's Cuban heritage may help him when Florida votes on The Ides of March. Florida conservatives include those who fled Castro, the oldest commie in existence. But Miami is a hip place these days. Hipsters are not as likely to vote for Republicans as their Baby Boomer parents and grandparents. Florida is much more urban than when I was growing up there in the 1960s and 1970s, Tampa/St. Pete, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee. Florida has plenty of rural left, although it doesn't seem like it as you blast down I-4 with thousands of your closest friends eager to get away from it all on the World's Most Famous Beach. The Panhandle has much more in common with East Jesus, Alabama, than Orlando. The crackpot legislation that flows out of the Florida capitol building in Tally is akin to the crazy, ultra-conservative claptrap that issues forth from legislatures in Wyoming, Oklahoma and Mississippi

How did our local Republicans increase their caucus participation six-fold? With no incumbent, it's a wide-open field. At one point, 13 Repuibs were in the race. Debates started last fall, which helped to get people's attention. The media's nightly parade of Trumpisms never lets us forget who's in the driver's seat. In 2012, Mitt Romney often complained he was being ignored by the media. Meanwhile, Press. Obama was on the news every day and every night. This was especially true in the campaign's waning days, when Pres. Obama was constantly shown looking presidential (with Chris Christie's help) in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Christie looked gubernatorial; Obama looked presidential. Some Repubs are still sore at Christie for colluding with Democrats.

The 2016 Democratic caucus will be held on Saturday, April 9. Since Chris and I will be out-of-state that weekend, we will vote beforehand.  Both of us are liberal Democrats. This makes for a peaceful home most of the time. But in 2008, I worked for the Obama campaign while Chris worked for Hillary. You know that election years can be tough on those mixed marriages that pairs a D with an R. Try being in the same party working for basically the same goals but feelings strongly that your candidate can save the world and the other will lead us to Perdition, which is located somewhere between Devils Tower and Colter's Hell..

Chris and I caucused with other Dems on March 8, 2008. We voted to switch our caucus site from the VFW basement on Nationway to the downtown Civic Center. Turnout was going to be huge, said our Dem leaders. So huge that we needed one of the largest venues in Cheyenne for a caucus? You betcha.

At my first-ever Democratic caucus in 2004, barely 100 people came out to vote. John Kerry won the most delegates. I traveled alone to Sheridan to represent the left-wing contingent as a Dennis Kucinich delegate.  We held our state convention at the Sheridan Holiday Inn. Although we argued and voted and speechified in the ballroom, I've seen bigger crowds in that room. Me and my Fellow Travelers arranged for Kucinich to call in from Cleveland, his hometown. He did. Not a packed house for his call. I huddled with other Kucinich delegates. We hooted and hollered when necessary. We applauded his best lines. In case your memory of 2004 is faulty, Kucinich was a Catholic anti-war candidate and got a lot of attention in 2004. At the convention, my leftie colleagues and I proposed a series of anti-war planks to the platform. They were all voted down. Too radical. Too far out of the mainstream of our moderately conservative state party.

I was a 53-year-old voter who cast his first presidential vote at 21 for wild-eyed anti-war radical George McGovern of neighboring South Dakota. This war-hero bomber-pilot wanted to bring our troops home from Vietnam right now. Peace now -- not peace in our time, as Nixon wanted. We now know that Tricky Dick was working behind the scenes to make sure that North Vietnam did not treat U.S. peace overtures seriously.

I learned a lot at the 2004 Sheridan convention. I won't bore you here with the details. There was one big lesson: Get involved in the process earlier. This is important because those who are active in the party get to go to the state convention and -- more importantly -- the national convention which, in 2004, was held in Boston. So, I got involved in the county party and was elected as secretary -- the person who keeps the minutes. Chris and I became precinct man and woman. At the tail end of 2007, we were poised to wrest control of the presidency from Dubya. I was for Kucinich -- again -- and Chris worked for Hillary. Chris was a member of NOW during the tussle over the Equal Rights Amendment. She also worked on Patricia Schroeder's campaign for the U.S. House seat from Denver. Pat won.

We often were sidetracked by the daily necessities of life., by the challenges of raising two special needs kids. Not to mention -- work. We attended meetings and rallies and walked neighborhoods for candidates. When we attended the caucus on March 8, 2008, we stood in line with everyone else, making sure we were there in plenty of time to register for the caucus. There was some discontent when people arrived midway through the process, wanted to vote and couldn't. This time we're giving people fair warning. Be registered to vote as a Democrat by March 25 and show up at the caucus before 11 a.m. on April 9. .

During Memorial Day weekend 2008, we drove to the state convention in Jackson. Our daughter Annie rode with us. She swam in Snow King's heated outdoor pool while the snow fell. Chris and I spent the day in the convention center, caucusing with our peers. Obama received the lion's share of delegates. Hillary was a close second. We all looked forward to traveling to Denver for the national convention .

In 2016, it will be to close to call between Sanders and Clinton. I am closer to Sanders' politics than I am to Hillary's. Butt I am going to be practical and vote for Hillary so she can beat the bejesus out of Trump or whomever takes the prize on the Repub side.

Here's the lowdown on the county caucus:

Where: Plains Hotel, 1600 Central Ave, Cheyenne, WY 82001

When: Saturday April 9, 11 a.m.

Contact: info@wyodems.org to be put in touch with a local organizer

Register at the web site at http://www.wyodems.org/find-my-county-caucus

For info on the May 28 state convention in Cheyenne, go to http://www.wyodems.org/state-convention

Reading "In Country" in the aftermath of another set of wars

It only took me 31 years to get around to reading "In Country" by Bobbie Ann Mason.

Published in 1985, the book explores post-Vietnam War America, specifically the South of rural Kentucky. The struggles of local veterans are seen through the eyes of 18-year-old  Sam (Samantha) Hughes, whose father Dwayne was killed in the war before she was born. Sam lives with her Viet vet uncle, Emmett, and might go to school at the University of Kentucky or she might get a job and marry her boyfriend, Lonnie. She's rooted in a specific place but rootless, too, as are most 18-year-olds. She keeps asking questions about the war but nobody, especially the vets who meet with Emmett every morning for coffee, want to give her any answers.

In one passage, Sam ponders a photo of her "soldier boy" daddy who was about her age when he died:

She stared at the picture, squinting her eyes, as if she expected it to come to life. But Dwayne had died with his secrets. Emmett was walking around with his. Anyone who survived Vietnam seemed to regard it as something personal and embarrassing. Granddad had said they were embarrassed that they were still alive. "I guess  you're not embarrassed," she said to the picture.

In the mid-1980s, the war years were fresh memories. Mason's epigraph is from Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," possibly one of the most misunderstood rock songs in American history.

I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to run

Springsteen's lyrics are sprinkled throughout the book, as are songs by the Beatles, Stones, Creedence -- all the oldies from the era. The soundtrack of the Vietnam War, as one author recently called those tunes. Pop culture references abound, as do mentions of Americana: Wal-Mart, strip malls, muscle cars, Budweiser, and so on. Writing teachers sometimes tell their charges to be sparing with contemporary references, as it might date their work. Bobbie Ann Mason uses these references in order to date her work from the mid-80s, when veterans and non-veterans alike were trying to make sense of a lost crusade that nearly ripped this country apart.   This style was sometimes referred to as K-Mart Realism. This style was at its zenith when I attended grad school 1988-1991. It was shorthand for all of those white folks who once populated rural Kentucky and wide-open-spaces Wyoming. Whether draftees or volunteers, these men went to "a foreign land to kill the yellow man." They returned hoping to marry their high school sweethearts and get a job in the mines or in the factories that powered the 1970s economy. Many disappointments awaited them. Their girlfriends and high school pals had moved on. They didn't want to hear about Vietnam. Neither did older vets, the Greatest Generation, fathers of the whiners and complainers who came back from Vietnam. "Get over it," So they only talked about it with other veterans oif they just dropped out, as did Emmett, who doesn't work and spends his time watching M*A*S*H and recycling cast-off goods, much as the VC used to re-purpose all of the material the GIs threw away.

By 1985, this economy had begun to disappear,  Mines and textile mills and factories were shuttered or moved overseas for cheaper labor. To Mexico, Indonesia and, ironically, a newly energized Vietnam. Reaganomics worked to destroy unions, the foundation of blue-collar America. Vietnam veterans tended to blame liberal elites for this reversal of fortune. They were the spoiled hippie college kids who caused us to lose the war. Their love for the spotted owl and pristine wilderness killed the logging and mining industries. Their political correctness have us everything from women's lib to gay rights to Barack Obama in 2008 to -- yes -- The Donald in 2016.

Mason's characters are wonderful. The book begins with Sam, Mamaw and Emmett driving from Kentucky to Washington, D.C., in a beat-up VW bug Sam just bought from Vietnam vet Tom. We then are transported back to Hopewell in the months leading up to the trip. The book ends at The Wall, no surprise since its presence looms large throughout the book, even though it's off-stage most of the time. This a a fitting remembrance to the Vietnam War. Remember that the memorial was referred to by one opponent as a "black gash of shame." It now is almost a sacred site for Vietnam vets, home to motorcycle rallies for wounded vets and pilgrimages by vets and their families, such as the Hughes clan of Kentucky.

I'm not spoiling "In Country" to tell my readers than it ends at The Wall. The reflective surface of The Wall often leads to eerie juxtapositions, as when Sam looks at her father's name and realizes that it's her name too and she can see his face in hers. Or in veteran writer Yusef Komunyakaa's 1988 poem "Facing It:"

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.

The Wyoming wind (finally) blows itself out

It's as if I went to sleep in winter and awoke in spring.

For the past two days, hurricane-force gusts have toppled semis on the interstate and ripped roofs off of businesses. In Laramie County, we had gusts measured at 73 mph, just shy of the 75 mph that makes a hurricane. Big Horn Basin monitors measured a 91 mph gust. A weather station on the crest of Colorado's Monarch Pass, recorded a wind speed of 148 mph. Now that's a gust that could knock you down or send you flying, depending on your BMI.

Last night, for the second night in the row, wind rattled my window frames. The metal frames were installed with the house in 1960 and are not energy efficient, even with the storm windows in place. The cold greets the window and radiates inside my house, causing my furnace to kick into gear more often than it should. We replaced our 25-year-old gas furnace last winter. It went kaput. The new machine is as energy-efficient as I could afford. I looked at some fancy systems, some more than $10,000. Gas condensing furnaces, geothermal heat pumps, high-efficiency boilers, radiant floor heating, You could go totally solar, or combine wind and solar. Once you open to door to new energy, the sky's the limit.

This morning, spruce tree branches wave lazily in the breeze. The sun shines. When I turned on the TV this morning, a gardening show was on. The personalities on the Weather Channel spoke of a phenomenon called spring. Apparently, in some parts of the country, flowers and trees bloom in March. That's an odd concept at 6,200 feet in the Rocky Mountains. The arrival of spring here just means more snow and wind and cold. We get some blossoms in May, and usually delay planting until Memorial Day weekend. On the plus side, summers are glorious and often extend into October. Warm, dry days and cool, clear nights.

It takes its time getting here. But summer is worth the wait.

Democrats hold legislative reception Feb. 19 in Cheyenne

The Laramie County Democrats holds its annual legislative reception on Friday, Feb. 19, at The Suite Bistro, 1901 Central Ave., Cheyenne, from 6 p.m.-whenever.

Here's more info from the LarCoDems web site:

It's time for our favorite tradition: our annual Legislative Reception! All our Laramie County Legislators have been invited and the event is a fun and informative annual tradition. $15 get you in the door, your first drink and light appetizers. Hear important updates about the legislative session, meet our local legislators and have a great time catching up with your fellow Democrats on the 2016 legislative session. Could there be some announcements about who's running for the House and Senate? Don't miss this amazing tradition. 

No better way to get the inside scoop on the legislature by attending this reception and hearing from eyewitness Democrats. Some of what they report will amaze you, possibly make you feel a little queasy.

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

St. Patrick's Day parade in Montreal. 

The Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition (LCDGC) is the FUNdraising arm for the Dems in Wyoming's most populous county. Our goal is to raise money for our candidates and have some fun in the process. Since  the unofficial launch of the 2016 election season last summer, we've held a Flag Day celebration, which raised funds for LCDGC and the Healing Waters program for veterans; a tailgate party, which (we firmly believe) helped propel the Broncos to their Super Bowl victory; a chili/salsa/dessert cook-off; and a Jan. 31 mid-winter POTluck bash to chase the blues away (and bring in some green). At this latest event, we heard updates from our state legislators about what will be another crazy session, this one being held off-campus as the Capitol Complex undergoes a three-year, $300 million renovation.  We also heard from Scott Sidman of Wyoming NORML about the revamped medical marijuana initiative.

Now we look ahead to springtime in the Rockies. Thoughts of St. Patrick's Day and the green of growing things fills our heads. Alas, we still have to navigate several more months of snow and wind and cold. But, to celebrate dreams of spring, the LCDGC will be holding a "Get Your Green On" FUNdraiser on Sunday, March 13, 5-8 p.m., at the Cheyenne Family YMCA, 1626 E. Lincolnway. Tickets are $15 at the door. Crackerjack LCDGC cooks of Irish descent will supply the corned beef and cabbage and soda bread. Cupcakes may be purchased, entering you into the "Pot of Gold" drawing for fabulous prizes. The night will feature Irish entertainment and a legislative session post-mortem from our Laramie County delegation. 

"Get Your Green On!" We invite you to wear a costume on the green theme. It could have something to do with St. Patrick's Day or an outfit that celebrates the greening of Wyoming when it comes to our environment.  Think wind turbine or solar array or geothermal or peddle power or the much-dreamed-about greening of coal. There will be prizes for the best and/or funkiest costumes. 

Get more info at http://www.laramiecountydemocrats.org/ or find event updates on the LCDGC Facebook page. 

Nurses are needed now!

From 

National Women's History Museum

#OnThisDay in 1901, the United States Army Nurse Corps was established by Congress as a permanent organization. Passed as part of the Medical Department under the Army Reorganization Act it allowed nurses to be appointed to the Army for a three year period, however, they were not commissioned as officers. The Act did allow for nurses to renew their appointment as long as they had a "satisfactory record for efficiency, conduct and health." Dita Kinney was appointed the first Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corp in 1901 and held the position until 1909. (Photo Credit: Library of Congress) #womenshistory. Read our grandmother's World War I diary -- start here. 

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.

Never too late for a wellness class

Chris and I are attending a wellness class at the YMCA.

The class uses a text entitled "Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions." It outlines self-management tools based on "an ongoing series of studies conducted at Stanford University School of Medicine." Stanford, founded by robber baron Leland Stanford, is known for many things. It helped spawn the computer revolution, trained numerous NFL players and sponsors a kooky marching band (go you Cardinal!). And I have nothing against robber barons -- with them we wouldn't have Stanford's Wallace Stenger poetry fellowships, the many Carnegie libraries that taught generation to love books, and Grand Teton National Park (thanks Rockefeller family). Our current crop of high-tech billionaires seem to be trying to follow in the footsteps of their elders, although our grandkids will have to judge their legacies.

I'd be lying if I said the book's Stanford connection didn't impress me. There are some elitist bones in my body. But the book is a good and helpful and logical. We all need self-management skills when it comes to our health. Too often, we don't sail our own ship, health-wise, and that leads to many problems down the line -- heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, asthma and, as the book notes, "other physical and mental health conditions." Notice that latter term -- mental health conditions. The book stresses links between physical and mental health. Very important. You really can't have one without the other.

Pages 8-9 lists the management skills recommended for an array of chronic conditions. Categories include pain management, fatigue management, breathing techniques, relaxation and managing emotions, nutrition, exercise and medications. Notice that "medications" is last? I did. I take a boatload of meds for my heart disease, but also pay attention to the other categories, especially exercise and nutrition. I would like to wean myself off some heart meds. This is a challenge, as the drug lobby is adamant we use its products and never get off of them. Out docs are complicit in this strategy. They may also need this wellness class.

The series of six classes are led by two women who were trained in the process. Each class involves note-taking and brainstorming and action plans. We often choose partners to work on action plans. Our workshop leaders call during the week to check up on our progress, or lack of it.

Is the class worth it? Not sure, as I'm only halfway through. I probably will miss the last two sessions, as I'm getting a new knee Feb. 3. Takes a good month to get back in the action. But wellness is important and I wish that I'd taking it seriously sooner. At 65, I have several chronic conditions: heart disease, arthritis, depression. A better lifestyle would have spared me the heart condition. Arthritis and bad knees show the wear-and-tear of time, and many years of basketball and running. Depression runs in the family.

I'd like to sum up by saying something memorable about living life to the fullest. Must be a gazillion quotes and thousands of memes on the subject.

Here's one: "Be here now," coined by writer/philosopher Ram Dass for his book of the same name..

Here's another: "One day at a time," something I heard once or twice at Twelve-Step meetings.

"So it goes" from Kurt Vonnegut.

So what else was going on 100 years ago?

Sabino Osuna, "Felicistas in the YMCA," ca. 1910-1914, photograph, courtesy of Sweeney Art Gallery and Special Collections Library, University of California, Riverside. Part of the Mexico at the Hour of Combat: Sabino Osuna’s Photographs of the Mexican Revolution, , now at the UNM Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in Albuquerque.

Chloe Courtney is one of the excellent writers and art historians who write for Adobe Airstream: Art, Music and Film from the West. She penned the following review in A2's Nov./Dec. issue. It caught my attention for several reasons. One, the photo is startling, with its group of gunman by the window of a YMCA in Mexico. Second, my wife works for the local Y, and I spent some time imagining a group of revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries using the Y as a gun emplacement against... who, liberals streaming over the border from Colorado? Third, my grandfather, Raymond Shay, was with Pershing on the Mexican border, allegedly there to keep Pancho Villa and his irregulars on the southern side of the demarcation line (more about this in future posts). Finally, it alerted me to an excellent exhibit in the Rocky Mountain region that I may travel to in my retirement. If I can get there before it closes on Jan. 31.

Here's a snippet of the piece entitled "How to View the Mexican Revolution:"

In the photograph “Felicistas in the YMCA,” snipers crouch near a window in a rubble-strewn room and train their weapons on the street below, and yet, the title informs us, this violent scene takes place in a former community center.

The photograph appears in the exhibition Mexico at the Hour of Combat: Sabino Osuna’s Photographs of the Mexican Revolution, on view at the University of New Mexico’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. It defies an otherwise chronological and thematic structure following the revolution and developments in Osuna’s photography. Located at the entrance of the exhibition, the image reveals a curatorial strategy to make the subject of the Mexican Revolution accessible for a US viewership. Some Americans may not recognize the names of revolutionary leaders Pancho Villa or Emiliano Zapata, but they know the YMCA, and likely experience the shock of seeing a familiar community center occupied by gunmen.

Mexico at the Hour of Combat shows, for the first time, a group of documentary photographs from UC Riverside Libraries Special Collections and Archives. This collection comprises 427 glass negatives of Sabino Osuna’s documentary photographs of the Mexican Revolution, 56 of which have been selected for inclusion in the exhibition.

The show includes compelling portraits of key figures of the Revolution, as well as powerful documentation of the brutal violence of the war, and images constructed to craft a new Mexican identity. As a whole, the exhibition importantly works to combat the under-representation of Mexican arts in U.S. cultural institutions, and seeks to draw attention to the Mexican Revolution as an important player in our understanding of revolution and resistance today. 

An arts administrator retires

I enjoyed my retirement party.

Friends and coworkers gathered to see me off Friday with munchies and cake. My colleague and ace baker Rachel made the cake, a chocolate confection that melted in my mouth as I licked the frosting off of my fingers. I recommend that you look up Laramie's Red Chair Bakery on Facebook. 

It's the people. Always. You work side-by-side with humans for years and then, suddenly, they're gone, or you are, and you cease to see each other every day to compare notes, complain about the state of the world, and seek solace when life goes off the rails. A workplace is a family, with all of it wonderful and dysfunctional attributes. On retirement day (R-Day) you tend to remember the warmth and wonderfulness and forget about the stressful times. Arts workers tend to be a tight-skit subculture, possibly because we work in an arcane field and possibly because the arts draws temperamental people. Am I moody and strange? You betcha. But I am also congenial and collegial. I read recently about a group labeled extroverted introverts. They are introverts who welcome the Great Big World in short bursts, and then have to retreat to marshal their emotional forces. That's me. As a writer and reader, I require plenty of alone time. But, as an arts administrator and communicator, I have to deal with people -- in my case, everyone in the state of Wyoming. As a political animal, I am charged to do the same thing. Now sometimes, I am forced to admit to myself that "I hate the living," the phrase made famous by the woman coroner in "Men in Black." Yes, the living can be a pain. They also are a source of joy. Introverts learn how to strike a balance or we will go crazy (and sometimes do). 

How did I end up working in the arts? Glad you asked. When I attended graduate school at the ripe old age of 37, my intention was to get an M.F.A. in creative writing and teach the subject in the hallowed halls of academe. When I left the corporate PR world for grad school, my coworkers gifted me a bull whip for my students and advised me that my very un-corporate attire of tweed jackets with elbow patches would serve me well. My boss told me that it was too bad as I was leaving, as he had selected me as his next project. My boss, you see, was bored as his most recent "project" had been shown the door a few weeks earlier. Who said there was no dark humor in the corporate world?

In academe, I discovered a wonderful coterie of like-minded people with whom I could share my creative vision. I also learned how to teach in a college classroom. The bullwhip was out – drat. I was challenged by a new generation of students raised on Ronald Reagan and Mario Brothers and anime. As an extroverted introvert, I discovered people skills. I was volunteered for the university's fine arts committee. I liked hanging out with professional writers and arranging their readings and workshops. I assisted Etheridge Knight with a poetry workshop at the county slammer (Etheridge had experience in the joint). I hung out with Larry Heinemann and Gwendolyn Brooks and Joy Harjo and David Lee. I learned how to write grants, although my first attempt was a failure. I discovered that there were such things as state arts agencies and that Colorado had one. I applied for the Colorado Arts Council’s (now called Colorado Creative Industries) roster and received my first assignment, which was a gig in a school in a windswept eastern plains town. Had I remained in my home state, this would have prepared me for life in the high prairie of Wyoming. And that’s where I landed a job as arts administrator with the Wyoming Arts Council. I was unqualified, but was hired anyway, thanks to Joy Thompson, who immediately left for another job. Fortunately, my new colleagues were patient and taught me the ropes. I wrote successful grants to the National Endowment for the Arts. Two years later, I was hired for a two-year gig by the NEA. As assistant director of the literature program, I learned tons about the national arts scene, and carried that back with me to Wyoming.

What does one say about a career? It included triumphs and terrible failures. When I set off for grad school, family in tow, my one-and-only literary agent, Ray Powers, advised me to just stay at home and write. I didn’t listen. I knew myself enough to know that I would not thrive as a lonely writer tapping away at home. I struggle with depression, and life in my basement office was a recipe for disaster. I lacked confidence in my ability to make a living as a fiction writer. How would I support my family? My memories were haunted by my father and his problems as a bread-winner. Yes, he had nine children to support but he also had a wife with her own career as a nurse and hospital administrator. She always yearned to write a book about her “damn hospital,” which was part “Peyton Place” soap opera, part Paddy Chayevsky’s lunatic asylum of “The Hospital.” She died too young and never got the chance to write that book.

Did I make the right career choices? I was a newspaper reporter and editor, a PR guy, a freelance writer and an arts administrator. I remain a fiction writer. People are complicated beasts and I am no less so. I am dubious when people say they have no regrets. How can you live a long life in a complicated world and not have regrets? In the end, all fuel for the creative fire.

Dems hold POTluck FUNdraiser Jan. 31 in Cheyenne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Great War in publishing

I spent the past couple months immersed in World War I.

My first task was to reformat my paternal grandmother's World War I diary for Blogger. For those of you unfamiliar with blogging platforms, Blogger is the grizzled old man of the Blogosphere. Me, in other words, a member in good standing of Seniors Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything (SWINE). To this, I give a tip of the hat to Al Capp, who first coined the term in his L'il Abner comic strip, although the original SWINE was about "Students" and not "Seniors." Of course, the students of that era are now the retired cohort. See how things work out?

WordPress is the corporate middle manager of the web. Anyone who is anyone uses WordPress because it is so damn good, flexible yet complicated. There may be an up-and-coming (hipster) platform of the blogging world but what do I know -- I'm 65 and ready to step away from the workaday world.

My grandmother's WWI diary was first transferred to MS Word by my sister Eileen Shay Casey in Winter Park, Fla. In its original form, the diary was a tiny, battered notebook, held together by a strip of duct tape. Eileen was challenged to read the tiny handwriting, but did a wonderful getting it into e-shape.

From there, I broke it into nine sections, and then cut-and-pasted it into Blogger. To make sure that it appeared with the proper formatting, I had to lay in the copy in the html protocol, and then go back to the editing controls and reformat. This became important later on when I uploaded the blog posts to the Shared Book site (also known as blog2print) and created a print book of the diary entries. This is a publishing platform for bloggers, one I've used on several occasions. It's not the best way to publish your deathless prose (or poetry). But it is a way to print things such as diaries, family histories, memorials, etc. In my day job as Literary Guru for the State of Wyoming, I'm often asked, "Hey Mike, how do I publish my book?" I reply, "Have you written it yet?" The answer often is "No, but...." There's the rub. Wannabe writers often jump right to publishing before they actually write the book. This is putting the cart before the horse, as my Iowa grandfather might have said.,

There are many publishing platforms these days. Your challenge (and mine) is to find the right one.

But back to World War I. While formatting Grandma's (we called her Mudder) diary, I researched the history of medical units, army bands, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and a score of other topics. I have read widely on the war. But I keep going back to its creative writing. The war itself lasted four years and a few months. The U.S. was involved about a year and a half, but wasn't engaged in combat until the war's last year -- 1918.

As a writer, I can only grasp the global span of the war through the eyes of those who were there. And what a group of writers were engaged in the struggle. Ernest Hemingway, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Erich Marie Remarque, Jaroslav Hasek, Vera Mary Brittain. Their influence can be traced to the writers of all subsequent wars, all the way up to the current troubles in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some historians have belittled the experiences of the war's tormented poets and writers. Not everyone saw combat in the trenches -- and told the tale in gruesome realism. To base your view of the war on Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est" is understandable but unrealistic.

But war is a human story. Regular folks are cast into big events. Their experiences are those events as experienced in the heart and mind of one person. How else can we understand? Some poets celebrated the heroics of The Great War: Jessie Pope (from a distance), Rupert Brooke, Joyce Kilmer. Some of them also died (Brooke and Kilmer). What were they thinking as death's icy fingers gripped their hearts?

We don't know. But we do know what other hearts experienced. Those people included my paternal grandmother, Florence Green Shay of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. To read her diary, start at http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2015/11/part-i-mudders-world-war-i-diary.html.

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.

Afterword: Mudder's World War I diary

Florence Green (a.k.a Mudder) celebrated her 26th birthday in France in 1918.

Normally, being in your twenties in France and celebrating a birthday would be cause for joy. And perhaps it was. But there was a war on, which complicated things. She was a nurse on the front lines of one of the most destructive wars in history.

Have you ever been young and in a war zone far away from home? I haven't, but I have been young and far away from home, missing my parents and siblings and yearning for a lost love. That's all you need to know, really, about Florence Green's nine months overseas in 1918-1919. She was young and lonely -- but also engaged in a great adventure that was part of a larger misadventure.

I am no historian. But I am a blogger and, as such, I have no shortage of opinions. However, the more I learn about World War I, the more I know -- and don't know. That pretty much sums up the aging process. The more I learn, the more I find that I don't know.

This is as true of world events as it is of family history. I first knew Florence Green Shay in the 1950s growing up in Denver. We called her Mudder because that was my toddler-style mispronouncing of Grandmother or Grandma or whatever other name I was trying to spit out of my young mouth. She was stuck with it the rest of her life. Mudder was a bridge-playing Denver matron She drove around town in an Edsel. She and my grandfather, Raymond Shay, lived in the Park Hill neighborhood which, over the years, has become one of Denver's swankier addresses. Grandpa was known as Big Danny, another one of my inventions, giving him the title of Danny Senior because my brother was little Danny. It all begins to make sense if you look at it through the imagination of a young child with delusions of becoming a writer.

It wasn't until later that I knew about my grandparents' war experiences. Both products of The Great War, or the First World War. Much was made of Big Danny's experience. He was a cavalry officer with the Iowa National Guard, mobilized to fight Pancho Villa on the Mexican border and then sent to France with the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F). His basement held many trophies of the war. Guns and bayonets, battle flags and medals.

Mudder was a nurse in the same war. But it was decades before we knew of her experiences. She spoke little of her time in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She spoke in general terms of her shipboard trip to England and then to France. She dated a slew of officers, as American women were in short supply, and made fudge during her downtime as evacuation hospitals near the front. Nothing as exciting as my grandfather riding a horse into battle, flag waving, bullets zipping over his head. As far as I know, he actually never rode a horse into battle due to German machine guns, a new invention that made cavalry charges extinct.

Mudder had a diary. When I first read passages from it decades ago, I was disappointed. No chronicles of treating the dead and dying. A few notes about air raids, but no pyrotechnics, no sights and sounds and details. As a writer, I looked for those details. I was raised on World War II novels and memoirs. First-hand chronicles of the Vietnam War were appearing in bookstores. Mudder's calm chronicles paled in comparison.

Now that I'm 65, I can look back at her diary in wonder. I've kept a journal since I was 21. It's no mean feat to write daily, even a bigger challenge in a war zone, I suspect. Mudder worked long shifts in the hospital wards. Artillery fire lit up the nights. German planes dropped bombs. The wounded arrived with regularity. Over in the trenches, a horseless Big Danny fought the Huns. The two hadn't met yet but both were in the war zone. It would be the cavalry man's experiences we knew best.

Until now. My sister Eileen Shay Casey got her hands on our grandmother's lone surviving diary. Eileen has always loved history, which is why she got a nursing degree from University of Central Florida (LOL). She was urged into nursing by our mother, the nurse. After working a few years in hospitals and the death of our mother from cancer at 59, Eileen quit the medical field for a career in the non-profit world of foundations and grant-writing and fund-raising.

That love of history never deserted her. She transcribed Mudder's diary. She put out the word about her work and heard from an historian at the University of Maryland, Dr, Marian Moser Jones. Dr. Jones was intrigued by Mudder's diary since she was working on a book about WWI nurses trained in the University of Maryland system. With Microsoft Word versions of the diary and Dr. Jones' research notes, I posted Mudder's diary entries on this blog from Nov. 25 to Dec. 20, 2015. I now am working on a print version of the diary for family members and other interested parties. Once it's formatted, I will share the link on these pages.

Mudder's fudge recipe survives. As does her beat-up old diary which we hope will find a permanent home in the University of Maryland archives. Her memories will live forever that way, much as her DNA lives on in us.

We all make our tiny footprints on this big world.

Part IX: Mudder's World War I diary

December 26 
Happier today than I have been for some time, got a letter from Peany and such a sweet one too, also one from E with a handkerchief in it. Goldie is sick in bed Ward #2, hope she will be well by the 2nd.

December 27 
Met a man from Evac #3, invited me to a dance at #79. Got two more letters from P, he is dear all right, to bed early.

December 28 
Mail today, just a Xmas card. Went to a dance, had a fairly good time.

December 29 
Some of our officers are going back to the States, leave tomorrow, they sure are lucky. Rained all day for a change.

December 30
Another disappointment today. Leah can’t go on leave.

December 31 
Went to the New Year’s Eve dance, had a real good time. Orders came that 42 would be replaced; suppose that means we will all go home. I wonder if I am going to get to go on my leave.

January 1, 1919 
Got my orders to go on leave, thank goodness I am safe then. Off for Toul on the train. Only 2 hours late, got in Toul, stayed all night at the Red Cross, made some fudge to take along.

January 2 
Trains supposed to leave for Paris at 800am but left 1030. Met some officers that came over on the ship with us. Took Miss Saxelby and I to dinner. We arrived at Paris at 600pm. Had the dickens of a time to get a taxi, finally did, went to the Continental and thought rooms had been engaged but they had not, but while standing there, in walked Peany, bless his heart, he made us take his room, he met a colonel he knew so he went in with him. We had a wonderful dinner.

January 3 
Had breakfast in bed, then we started out, we went to different shops, had lunch at the Marlborough tearoom. Met P at 2pm, but in the meantime, met Miss Hines, chatted a while with her. Got on the train for Nice at 6pm, started about 8. I had a seat but poor P only had a small seat until 5am, such a dirty tiresome trip.

January 4 
Landed in Nice at 6pm, cleaned and had dinner, who should I meet, the first thing but LHM Went to bed early that night and such a storm.

January 5 
Took a walk, went to the station to make reservations to leave next Saturday, we finally did. The Mediterranean was quite rough this day; the storm had done a lot of damage.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 
Went to dances, took long walks, did some shopping. Found the best place to eat breakfast, could get the best waffles. Walked up a very steep hill, could see the Alps which were with snow. The last of the week the Mediterranean was very calm and just as warm as could be. Sure hated to come back to Bazoilles. Saturday Left for Paris, arrived Sunday 10am, went to the Continental. Sure was sick, had dinner, went to bed and got up for supper and then went to bed, got up at 630am.

Monday 
Train left for Chaumont, arrived 315, got in Neuf. At 715, waited there 2 hours for a train to B, dead tired, such a trip. P stayed in Neuf.

Tuesday 
Had the whole day off, went to Neuf, met P, we had lunch, then he came out to the base with me, had tea, he left 5pm. All alone again and such news when I came back. We are attached to Evac 21, all the men of 42 are going home, can you beat it. I am homesick, I want to go home. Got 72 letters today.

Wednesday 
On duty in #17, mumps ward, such a life, sure want to go home.

Thursday 
Made P some fudge today and sent it to him, hope he gets it.

Friday 
Went to the dance, had a real nice time but came home early.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday 
Nothing exciting happen, same old mud hole.

Tuesday January 21 
Had the whole day off, went to Neuf today, bought wool to make a sweater, and took a walk with Steve, no news about going home, expect to be here this time next year.

Wednesday January 22 
On duty most of day

Thursday January 23 
Little excitement today. The nurses who wish to remain in France had to sign up, looks like we are going home. Who should walk into our hospital today, no one but Peany. Was making fudge for Steve and Leah but Peany got most of it, he is being transferred near Dijon. We went to Neuf for dinner, I sure did miss a good dance.

Friday, January 24 
Am real glad I did not go to the dance, an accident, 2 nurses with fractured ribs, suppose I would have been the unfortunate one if I had went to our dance at night.

Saturday January 25 
Not much news but I really do think we are going home, our trunks were marked today.

Sunday January 26 
Al last the news has arrived. We leave Tuesday morning, am so excited. Leah was to have her leave Tuesday, she is disappointed. Lots of mail today.

Monday January 27 
Went to Neuf today, bought a few things to take home and some lunch. Goldie bought a beautiful ring. Made a lot of fudge to take on our trip. The nurses remaining are about 38, gave BH 42 nurses a farewell dinner, the music was great. I had Dr. Wood over from 46. He invited me over to a chicken supper and dance Tuesday night. I am out of luck, but so much nicer to go home.

Tuesday January 28 
Gotten up mighty early, trunks carryalls, and suitcases have gone. 6am train did not come in till late. Went to tea in the afternoon, had some music, got on the train 11pm and did not pull out till 4am, such a mess,. 3rd class compartments, no heat, old hard wood benches, and they tell me we have a three day trip before us.

Wednesday January 29 
Sitting on the sidetrack most of the day, the rate we are going I think we will be about 10 days. I am so tired; all we ate is sardines, bread.

Thursday January 30 
I think an American engine has been put on, we have been speeding, just a little. I sure feel punk.

Tuesday January 31 
We have gone about 2/3 of the way, we probably reach St. Nazaire Sunday, such a life, no water, no heat, no nothing.

Wednesday February 1, 1919 
Arrived at St. Nazaire 2pm, went over to the Red Cross for sandwiches and cocoa and then were carried about 8 miles in trucks to La Baule. A beautiful hotel, but no heat, I had a great bath and a good dinner and to bed.

Sunday February 2 
Took a long walk along the Atlantic beach, had tea in a clean little place and got warm at the Red Cross.

Monday 
Today we got orders to pack, we leave in the morning for Brest, wonder if we will ever sail. Did some shopping today. Gee, I’ll be glad when I get home.

Tuesday 
An all day trip in the train but great deal better than our last trip. Arrived at Base 65 at 11pm, we were put in a large barracks, no sheets, pillowcases or anything.

Wednesday 
Not allowed off the grounds. Had tea at 3pm in the hut

Thursday 
Play cards or knit. That’s all we have to do.

Friday 
No orders yet, have finished my sweater.

Saturday 
Learning to play bridge, rather interesting. Went AWOL to the nearby village, bought the cutest wooden shoes.

Sunday 
Went to church, nothing exciting. Is happening. Rumors but no real news.

Monday 
Moved to another barracks today, much more comfortable.

Tuesday 
Took a walk in the village today.

Wednesday 
Went across the river in a rowboat, real nice time. Had a dandy minstrel show here at night.

Thursday, Friday 
Played bridge mostly all day.

Sailing………

Meanwhile, back in the States. This information is from research by Dr. Marian Moser Jones of the University of Maryland:

On March 10, 1919, Green arrived back in New York with many other nurses from her unit.

She returned to Baltimore, greeted by hundreds, on March 16, 1919.  

She was discharged from Army Nurse Corps on April 9, 1919 (from Service Record).

On April 10, 1919, she gave a talk to a Women's club in Irvington, Maryland, about her experiences "Over There."

1920, June 4 -- the Army Reorganization Act authorized relative rank for nurses. Prior to this point, nurses did not have rank and were not recognized as officers. Following the passage of this law, they were given officers' ranks, from 2nd Lieutenant through Major. They were not, however, given commissions or base pay equal to that of other officers of the same grade. Such equal treatment would have to wait until 1947. (Mary Sarnecky, The History of the US Army Nurse Corps).

Green was re-inducted into Army Nurse Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant only 8 days after the passage of this law, on June 12, 1920. She served at General Hospital No. 21, in Denver, Colorado, (renamed Fitzsimons General Hospital July 1, 1920) until January 24, 1922 (Shipley,The Officers and Nurses of Evacuation Hospital No. 8) As a postwar nurse officer, she belonged to a small elite: By June 30, 1921 there were only 851 nurses, including 1 major, 4 captains, 74 first lieutenants, and 772 second lieutenants (Office of Military History, US Army)

Green Shay's gravestone indicates that she was a first lieutenant. She might have been promoted some time between 1920 and 1922. Even though Shipley's book lists her as a 2nd Lieutenant, he readily admitted in the preface that it included numerous errors (her maiden name was also misspelled).

If she was promoted to First Lieutenant, as her gravestone indicates, she was among the top 100 women serving in the US Army during the postwar period. Additional material may be available at the Army Nurse Corps historical collection in Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, which I plan to visit for my research. 

As for her personal life.... 

She met Raymond Shay, also a veteran, a cavalry officer who served in the A.E.F. with the Iowa National Guard, who was recovering from tuberculosis at Fitzsimons. 

They married on June 28, 1922.  They had two children, Thomas (our father) and Patricia. Florence died August 17, 1980, at the age of 88. She and Raymond are buried together at Fort Logan National Military Cemetery in Denver. 

To her nine grandchildren, Florence Green Shay was known as "Mudder." And that's how we remember her.

Raymond Shay, Cavalry officer with the Iowa National Guard in the A.E.F. His grandchildren called him "Big Danny."

Florence Green's Foreign Service Certificate.

From the History Colorado Center web site: One of the 48 original 1918 buildings at the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colo., the Red Cross Building offered patient entertainment, which was especially meaningful for long-term patients usually suffering from tuberculosis. During WWI and WWII, the building put on vaudeville shows, movies, and concerts. Today, it is significant for its role in nursing soldiers, as well as for its architectural design as a standard cross-plan military building with stucco walls and shaped parapets. FMI: http://www.historycoloradocenter.org

Fort Logan National Military Cemetery in Denver after a snowfall. FMI: http://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/ftlogan.asp

Part VIII: Mudder's World War I diary

November 16, 1918 
Got up at 6am breakfast in our room, got a taxi and made our train 6K, arrived at Chaumont 3pm. Found on arriving, P had been here, out of luck again tried to get him on the phone but no success. Went to the dance in the hut at night. 

November 17 
Orders have not arrived yet, took a walk in the afternoon, met several officers that Miss M knew, so we were invited out to dinner, had a very dry time. 

November 18 
Afraid to leave the grounds because I felt sure Peany would come today and he really did, was I glad to see him. I’ll sure say so. Took him over to tea and then brought me to 42 in his car, had a puncture getting here and too late for mess so we went to a villa nearby in a quaint old room you know and enjoyed myself. 

November 19 
Stayed in bed late, didn’t sleep at all, too much excitement. Had lots of mail, sure was good to be home once again. Peany came in the afternoon, just had a short while, came in the evening, a dance near by, so we rode over, had a dandy time, eats were good, fried chicken, sandwiches, doughnuts, cocoa and punch. 

November 20 
Went to Neuf Chateau with Ruth, and then I had a disappointment, met Peany and he has to go away for a few days such luck, as I do have. He came in the afternoon and we went out for dinner, in his motorcycle this time, he leaves in the morning. 

November 21 
Some good news, P doesn’t have to go away at all, I am tickled to death, went over to #79 to a dance, had a wonderful time. 

November 22 
Haven’t been put on duty yet, I don’t really mind, made some fudge for P in the morning, he said it was awfully good. He came about 300pm. Had a dance here with the good old jazz, best music I ever heard but I am afraid I am going to too many dances, this has been some week for me. 

November 23 
We had tea in our recreation room, P came over, he and Colonel, Miss McAfee and I went out to dinner, some good time. 

November 24 
Had a nice long walk with P. He came over in the afternoon we had a great tea party including fudge. We afterwards went over to his mess, some good feed I’ll tell you. Miss Saxelby and the colonel went too. 

November 25 
Am to go on duty tomorrow. I sure had a good rest. Peany was here twice today but for a short while. I certainly missed him tonight. 

November 26 
Was on duty but the ward is very easy. P came at night and we had a dandy walk. 

November 27 
The whole day off today made some fudge for P and had a nice ride in the motorcycle going to a dance tonight. 

November 28 
Had a dandy time at the dance last night, went out to dinner with P, had Thanksgiving dinner here but P first always. 

November 29 
P went up to the front on a wild chore, and of course our big dance is tonight, promised to get back but he didn’t; I went to the dance at 930 and had a good time. 

November 30 
P showed up about 2pm, had trouble with his motorcycle, now it is broken, hard luck again. He and I walked to Neuf Chateau, he bought me the dearest watch. In the evening, Colonel Lyesby, Miss Costello, P and I went to dinner. 

December 1 
Another day for P at the front, landed in here about 7pm, sick as he could be and had to walk home, poor fellow, I sure am sorry about 6 kilos too. 

December 2 
Got a note from P, he is ill. I just thought so but I am going over to see him tomorrow night. Miss Leach has fixed our room up darling, went to Neuf in the morning and did a lot of purchasing. Had a time to get home but we found a friend. 

December 3 
Walked all the way to Frenille, Miss Costello and I, had dinner there. Peany is convalescing. Came home in a Dodge. 

December 4 
Made some fudge for P, he was over in the morning. Afternoon, he came we went out to dinner. 

December 5 
Had a half day off and did not expect it. Goldie and I walked to Frenille, of course P was out but got back about 430p. Captain McDonald, Leah, P and I went on a party to Hareyville, but never again. 

December 6 
Peany left quick today and no wonder, we almost came to blows but we made up. 

December 7 
Sad news. P has to go Hopkins to a dinner and dance, said he simply can not get out of it, he was over in the afternoon and a while in the evening 

December 8 
P came in the afternoon, got me all frustrated, said the car was waiting to take him, but it was not so thank goodness. He had a rotten time at the dance and I am glad of it. We went to H to dinner, had a dandy time. 

December 9 
The 346 gave us a dance at night, I was dressing, Leah ran over to me, and told me P had had an accident and was over in 46H with a fractured arm, you can see me run all excited, did you know it was untrue, he had sent her with that tale. Well anyhow the dance was great. 

December 10 
P arrived at 3pm, said he was to leave tomorrow. We went out to dinner. My, I would be happy if he did not have to go. 

December 11 
Today has been one of the most miserable days I have ever had. Received a note from P at 200p, he left at 100pm, I don’t know what on earth I will do. He wrote the dearest letter, I also got an old letter from him today. I wrote him a long letter tonight and then went to bed. 

December 12 
Still miserable, and expect to be for some time. Got the picture today that P had sent me ages ago, bless his heart, wish he were here. To bed at 830, such a life. 

December 13 
Wrote to P, my I miss that man. Went over to a French dance at night for a while. 

December 14 
Went to Neuf with Leah, coming back the driver was slightly stoned. I did not think we would make it. To bed at 830pm. 

December 15 
Wrote to P. Took a walk at night with Nell. Was talking to Ray for a while. Monday 

December 16 
This life is getting rather monotonous. Wrote P; played cards this afternoon with Goldie and 2 officers, they were both married though. I won all the games too, me and my partner. 

December 17 
Some mail yesterday for a change but none from P. Wrote some letters, went to bed. 

December 18 
Played cards with some of the girls, nothing exciting happened. 

December 19 
To bed early, nothing new. 

December 20 
No mail, no nothing, rather blue, homesick, and tired. 

December 21 
There was a dance here last night, I heard it was a failure. To bed early as usual. 

December 22 
Made Xmas ornaments for the tree, out of silver foil and colored cardboard with red ink, better the day, better the deeds. Leah wanted me to play cards with her but refused. 

December 23 
Lt. Wood came over and invited me to their Xmas eve dance. I accepted. Made fudge the entire day for the boys for Xmas. Got my package and some letters, rather pleased. 

December 24 
Trimmed our tree which looked rather nice and the ward looked great, decorated with greens and things made out of absolutely nothing. Went to the dance at night, had an awfully good time. 

December 25 
Got up at 12noon, blue as could be. Had a good Xmas dinner, went on the ward at 2pm, the patients sure had a good day; I wanted to dance but relaxed instead. Got several sweet handkerchiefs, perfume, etc.