One presidential candidate has a mental health care plan, and one does not

"I believe that together we can make sure that the next generation gets quality mental health care—without shame, without stigma, without barriers. And that we can do so much more to help people right here and now." 

Two weeks ago, with that statement, Hillary Clinton released her comprehensive mental health care agenda. She's not kidding -- it's comprehensive. If you don't believe me, go read it. Short version here. Fact sheet here. I read both. They include many of the elements that I have experienced while seeking care for our mentally ill daughter.

Does Donald Trump have a plan to help the mentally ill? Here's all that I found on his web site under "health care reform:"

Finally, we need to reform our mental health programs and institutions in this country. Families, without the ability to get the information needed to help those who are ailing, are too often not given the tools to help their loved ones. There are promising reforms being developed in Congress that should receive bi-partisan support.

It's something, right? I agree with former Rep. Patrick Kennedy that we all should stop calling Trump crazy as it demeans the mentally ill and furthers the stigma they bear. You won't see me referring to Trump as crazy on these pages.

This comes from the Oct. 3 Huffington Post:

Trump spoke at a veterans’ rally in Virginia on Monday, during which he addressed the high rates of veteran PTSD and suicide.  

“They see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over and you’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it,” he says in the video above. 

Trump’s comments were part of a call for more focus and resources on veteran mental health. It’s a worthy call, of course, but his statement betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding about mental health. 

In other words, if you are a veteran with PTSD or one who commits suicide, you are not mentally ill -- you are weak. At least according to Mr. Trump. He's down at the Budweiser Event Center in northern Colorado this evening. Take a ride down there and ask him about this.

How to sum up the so-called mental health system in the U.S.? Inadequate, to be kind. Abysmal, the be more accurate. Chris and I have a decade of experience trying to get help for our daughter Annie, now 23. Annie has been treated in her home state of Wyoming as well as facilities in four other states: California, Colorado, Utah and Illinois. These are fine states, all with their own benefits and problems. But why, you may ask, did you have to send your offspring to the sunny shores of southern California and the bustling metropolis of Chi-town to get help?

She couldn't get the correct treatment in Wyoming. She tried, and we tried to help her. A 10-year odyssey, one that continues much to her pain and our chagrin and pain. One of its more frightening aspects is that Annie does better when institutionalized than when free to make her own decisions. That's opposite of the goal of mental health treatment, which is to de-institutionalize the mentally ill and instead rely on our own communities for treatment. It's often pointed out that we've failed miserably at this. Mental health treatment in rural areas does not exist. Wyoming features treatment centers in all of its 23 counties with emphasis on population centers, such as they are. Laramie County, the largest county in the state and home of its capital, is the site of CRMC Behavioral Health and Peak Wellness. CRMC BH used to feature inpatient treatment for adolescents. That no longer exists. The CRMC ER has four psychiatric crisis rooms and is usually at capacity as patients wait for beds locally, regionally or at the State Hospital in Evanston. Many mentally ill in crisis end up in jail, which has become a holding tank for the mentally ill without means.

Is this any way to run a railroad?

In fact, if we ran a railroad like this, one train in twenty would jump the tracks and two in ten would run late or not at all.

Other political candidates have talked about mental health reform. This time it's Hillary Clinton and she actually has a plan. Go read it and decide if it's for you and those you love. Then go vote for hope and change.

The Wyoming Association of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Centers features a list of its members with contact info. Go here.

Autumn a good time of year for Wyoming literary events

Did you know that Wyoming has a variety of gatherings devoted to writing and the book?

Maybe you did. In case you did not, here is some illuminating info.

First, you still have some time to see the book that gave us Shakespeare -- the First Folio at the State Museum in Cheyenne. Wyoming is on the tour of the book from the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C. It's exhibited under glass on the museum's second floor where you can read passages written in Early Middle Englifh [sic]. "To be or not to be..." Etc. On exhibit through Friday, Sept. 30. Get more info: 307-777-7021. For more on Shakespeare in Cheyenne, see my earlier blog at http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-broncos-vs-bard.html

On Saturday, Oct. 1, the Literary Connection returns to Laramie County Community College. A local book club launched the conference more than 10 years ago after attending the excellent Literary Sojourn put on by the public library in Steamboat Springs. I have attended some amazing presentations at LitConn. Talks and readings by Tim O'Brien ("The Things They Carried"); Annie Proulx, whose stunning short fiction collection "Close Range" gave us "Brokeback Mountain;" mystery writer and WYO native C.J. Box; Poe Ballantine, whose true-crime book "Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere" explores a mysterious death in Chadron, Neb.; and Pam ("Cowboys are My Weakness") Houston. This weekend, you can hear from Alexandra Fuller and Craig Childs. Not sure if Alexandra still lives in Jackson Hole but she is a fine writer, author of a chilling nonfiction account about her time in the bush during the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Craig lives in western Colorado off the grid and writes about human interaction with the landscape. His latest book is "Apocalyptic Planet." A $30 admission buys you presentations from the authors, lunch and a book-signing. FMI: Lisa Trimble, LCCC, 307-778-1285, or go to https://www.lccc.wy.edu/about/foundation/LiteraryConnection.aspx

I just returned from the 30th annual Casper College Literary Conference. I am especially fond of this conference because I've been attending on-and-off for 25 years as the literary arts coordinator for the Wyoming Arts Council. That time, Terry Tempest Williams stunned the crowd with a reading from her masterpiece "Refuge." Terry's reading addressed the incidences of cancer in her Utah family that was caused by fallout from nuclear tests. This year, another westerner, Doug Peacock, talked about his experiences with grizzly bears in Montana and Wyoming. Doug sought healing from tours in Vietnam as a Green Beret medic by venturing alone into the wilderness. "I needed something more dangerous that fishing and camping," he said during a Friday talk at Casper College. He found it. Read about it in "Grizzly Years."

I picked up two of his books at the conference: "Walking it Off: A Veteran's Chronicle of War and Wilderness" and "In the Shadow of the Sabertooth." Doug has intriguing things to say about "war sickness" (a.k.a. PTSD) and left us by noting that "a recovering vet in the wilderness" isn't looking for data but for stories. It's great to know the causes and possible cures for PTSD. It's the stories that heal.

Thanks to Casper College for featuring so many stories by Peacock and Linda Hogan and Mark Spragg. It takes a village to put on one of these events. In this village are Terry Rasmussen, Joseph Campbell, Julia Whyde and others at CC and Carolyn Deuel of ARTCORE, Casper's very active arts council. As a retired government arts worker, I know how much work this takes. As a an elder of the clan, I urge all of you to support your local arts council through time or money or through messages of support to your local legislator. It all helps.

One complaint ("you kids get off my lawn!"). I miss the Equality State Book Festival, which used to be held in tandem with the literary conference during even years. The bookfest began in 2004, planned by the same committee that put together the conference (plus me down in Cheyenne). It was our only statewide bookfest where we once had two, the other one in Cheyenne during odd years through 2007. It's possible that the events have outlived their usefulness in the age of e-books and self-publishing and mega-bestsellers by celebs. But I was in the Black Hills earlier in the week and saw ads for the South Dakota Book Festival, held at three sites -- Sioux Falls, Brookings and Rapid City. And Montana has at least two bookfests. I admit that I did no volunteering for the cause during my first year as a retiree. Perhaps that will change once I get a handle on this novel. My focus now is on my own community. Perhaps the bookfest can return to Cheyenne, site of the first statewide version in October 2001. Attendance could have been better. It followed on the heels of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks and Cheyenne's first casualty in Afghanistan. But a replay is not out of the question.

The Jackson Hole Writers' Conference is held each June in Jackson. It's one of the best of its kind in the U.S. The JHWC features prize-winning authors from all over the world and an impressive roster of agents and editors. Local faculty includes comic novelist Tim Sandlin, who also runs the conference with assistant Connie Weineke, who just won a poetry fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council and read her work in Casper. Tim is a dogged organizer. He shows the same inventiveness finding event funding as he did surviving as an aspiring writer in one of the West's most expensive resorts. He washed a lot of dishes while conjuring cool characters and fantastical plots. Get more info about JHWC by going to http://jacksonholewritersconference.com/

Wyoming Writers, Inc., has been putting on annual conferences since Hector was a pup. I've attended many, most of them for the Arts Council. Last year's conference at the Wind River Casino in Riverton was my first as a civilian writer. The only gambling I did was during pitch sessions to an editor and an agent ("we don't do short stories!"). I'm a member in good standing and will be at the gathering in Gillette in June 2017. More info at http://www.wyowriters.org/

Other writing events take place all over the state. Writing critique groups aren't for everyone, but most larger communities have one or several. Look to your local library and community college! UW, too.

The Broncos vs. The Bard

A writer, dead for 400 years, caused me to miss the first half of the Denver Broncos season opener.

I know, where are my priorities? William Shakespeare vs. two NFL teams that battled it out in Super Bowl 50?  Denver, our southern neighbor, was at a fever pitch for weeks leading up to the game. My Colorado hometown may no longer be a cow town but it still bleeds orange and blue every fall. Three Super Bowl championships, multiple Super Bowl appearances (we don't talk much about the first three or the one in February 2014), many league championships and wins over the dreaded Raiders. I was a jock in high school and a sports reporter as a young man. Sports are in my blood.

But so is Shakespeare. My accountant father's library still had his college Shakespeare texts but nothing on finance and economics. I was more interested in reading first-hand accounts of World War II. Dad seemed happy that his eldest child loved reading and books. I think he was a frustrated academic, one who would have been more comfortable surrounded by books than IRS rules and regs. Not a teacher but /probably a researcher, as he wasn't all that good with people.

Shakespeare's First Folio is touring the U.S., courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Actually, six of the first folios are touring and one landed at the State Museum in Cheyenne. Published in 1623, it is kept under lock and key in a climate-controlled glass case watched over by a security guard. The pages are open to Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech. The text is small and difficult to read, not only because of its size but because the language -- Early Modern English -- is arcane to us. Here's a sample:

A bad quarto was basically a bootlegged copy of the script, written hurriedly by an audience member or recalled later by actors. Think of a bootlegged copy of, say, a Grateful Dead concert in the 1970s. The good quarto was a copy of the play taken from the source. The first folio is the 1623 version that featured 36 plays, 18 of which had never before appeared in print.

I didn't have to read the fine print to know the value of what I saw. The first folio saved 16 of Shakespeare's plays from oblivion. They include Macbeth, The Tempest, Henry VIII and Twelfth Night. Forsooth, what would Hollywood have done without the three witches or Prospero's island? I would never had been treated to a nude version of Macbeth's witches at Gainesville's original Hippodrome Theatre. My life would be leff without it. 

If you want to talk monetary value, a first folio was sold at auction in 2001 for $6.1 million. I'll take two! When it was hot off the presses, a first folio went for about a pound. In today's money, that's somewhere between $150-$250.

But it's not the money really now is it? As the State Museum exhibit points out, Shakespeare and his plays have given us phrases that we use every day and countless hours of entertainment at the movies. I believe that I first heard lines from Romeo and Juliet in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Every state boasts a Shakespeare company, usually one that tours performances every summer. In Wyoming, that's the Wyoming Shakespeare Company out of Lander. I recall a memorable version of King Lear on the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens lawn. Nature provided its own thunder and lightning for the famous storm scene with King Lear and The Fool. Here's Lear: 

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulfurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,
Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!

Now that's a storm. 

Last night was rounded out with a presentation by UW Prof Peter Parolin: "From the Fringes to the Folio: Crossing Borders with Shakespeare in Life, on Stage, and in the Globalized World." Fascinating talk, and I was surprised on how many stayed after the food and wine and entertainment to hear an academic speak. I had not thought about "migration as one of Shakespeare's principal themes." But Parolin has, at length. He accompanied it with  a PowerPoint presentation, his first, which acted as a helpful assistant to the talk. 

I had not thought of migration and immigration as big Shakespeare topics. But crossing borders happens a lot. The Merchant of Venice and Othello are good examples, with their "foreigners" as key characters. Parolin even quoted a brief snippet from Shylock's speech: "In Aleppo once..." The Syrian city has been in the news lately as it suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune -- and the forgetfulness of presidential candidates. 

Thanks to everyone at Wyoming Cultural Resources for bringing the folio to Cheyenne and staging the event. The First Folio will be in town through the end of September. 

I made it back to my Smart TV to watch the second half, in which the Broncos staged a comeback. With 9 seconds left, the Carolina Panthers kicker nailed a field goal but it was negated by a Broncos timeout. The second kick went wide to the left. That kicker was feeling some slings and arrows last night on Twitter. In Denver, they were partying like Falstaff and Prince Hal in 1402. 

"George Running Poles" finds a home in new Wyoming anthology

I've been working on a novel since the spring. I got tired of agents and editors asking me, a short-story writer, if I had a novel. This longer piece grew out of a short story that wanted to go long. So now it is. I won't say what it's about because it's supposed to be bad luck. I will say that it's set in Colorado in 1919-1920. An intriguing era, this post-war period. The Great War altered how people viewed the world. Women got the vote and Prohibition became law which led to lawlessness, even in rural Colorado. The Klan was on the rise, attacking Irish- and Italian-Catholics -- and Hispanics -- when they couldn't find any black people to torment (the alt-Right is nothing new). Americans were spooked by the Russian Revolution (the U.S. had 8,000 troops in Russia in 1918-1920 fighting the Bolsheviks) and blamed commie troublemakers for everything from labor unrest to avant-garde art. That gives me a few subjects to use for conflict in my story. Then there's the usual problems caused by the human heart in conflict with itself.

On the short story front, I heard two weeks ago that my story "George Running Poles" has been accepted for the new book, Blood, Wind, Water, and Stone: An Anthology of Wyoming Writers. It will be published in the fall by Sastrugi Press of Jackson. Lori Howe, a fine poet, is the editor. Look for it at an indie near you. Support your Wyoming writers! Just to whet your appetite, here is the story's opening paragraph:

Two teen boys walk along the asphalt bikeway in Riverton, Wyoming. George Jumping Bull pushes a shopping cart he found abandoned in the winter-brown grass. He’s wearing black sweatpants bunched over white running shoes and a red bandanna tied around his close-cropped hair. Jimmy Jones wears his black Oakland Raiders cap sideways, its bill pointing east. He milks a pint bottle of vodka as he walks. George reaches for it.

Lynn Carlson has asked me to write a short piece for the blog she co-authors/edits with Susan Mark. The blog, Writing Wyoming: Words, wind and everything else Wyoming, features great posts about writing and marketing your work. I've pulled a number of publishing leads off of this blog. Lynn's latest post on Aug. 16 is about the Storycatcher Workshop she attended in Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Go read it. Lynn asked me to write a composite post by Sept. 9 on the subject of reading your work at open mic sessions. I readily agreed, as it took me awhile to read my work in public, period. I was 39 or 40 the first time I read in public as a late-blooming grad student at CSU in Fort Collins. Since then, I have embarrassed myself many times in public, from Denver to Cheyenne to Washington, D.C. What experiences do you have as a writer in a public forum? Let me know so I have something to blog about in September. Here's the topic: "A good noise: in praise of the open mic." Lynn took the title from a John Gorka song:

'Cause if you cannot make yourself a good noise
tell me what you're doing here.

My daughter Annie now lives in Chicago. Her northside neighborhood was once Polish and then Hispanic and now, I'm afraid, is in danger of gentrification. A brewpub has opened next to the wig store and funky murals are replacing graffiti. Hipsters have been sighted. She wants us to come visit so is arranging interesting sites to see and tours to go on. The Chicago Mafia Tour sounds intriguing. I may prefer the Chicago Literary Tour which includes stops at sites occupied by such fine writers as Gwendolyn Brooks, Ernest Hemingway, Lorraine Hansberry and Carl Sandburg, and the office of the woman who first published James Joyce in the U.S. Writers with Chicago roots continue to compose great works. I'm talking about you, Larry Heinemann, Dave Eggers and Walter Mosley.

In which I come up short in my race for precinct committeeman

Tuesday's primary election yielded some surprises.

First, and most disappointing, is that I was upset in my pursuit of precinct 2-7 committeeman. As is true with most Laramie County precincts, 2-7 gets to elect a committeeman and woman. Big deal, you might say. Many precincts had no Democrats running. The power and glory attached to these positions consist of voting for county officers in the spring. Every precinct person gets a vote. County officers are charged with running the party, conducting meetings, staging the county convention and basically setting the agenda. During non-presidential election cycles, a county chair may not have much to do. But presidential election years up the ante, especially this time out with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders vying for the nomination. It was a bit contentious at times, especially during the county caucus when the Bernie supporters were being a bit frisky. Laramie County also held the state convention, which is a big responsibility.

Where was I? Oh yeah, committeeman. I lost in a tight race to Ed Waddell, my neighbor who also ran  the local Sanders campaign. He also is running for city council, a good job for an urban planner. Ed beat me fair and square, earning eight more votes than I did. On the distaff side, my wife Christine earned 127 votes, swamping the two write-in candidates. So Christine and Ed will serve our precinct during the coming year.

I must mention that there was only one other contested precinct race. In that one, Heather Muth lost to Mary Throne. Credit name recognition, as Mary is the House Minority Leader and gets mentioned in the newspapers and TV quite a lot. Heather is my colleague on the Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition events committee which plans all of the fund-raisers, most of which involve food and, occasionally, alcoholic beverages. We raised $15,000 for legislative candidates during this cycle.

In big cities, precinct spots are always fought over. You are in charge of getting out the vote for your area. That includes knocking on doors, holding potlucks, distributing flyers and signs, and generally making a nuisance of yourself. Grassroots stuff. We are just not used to that around here, Democrats especially. We are outgunned and outnumbered. Disappointed and disgruntled.

But an infusion of new blood to the most populous county in the state had energized us. I also have to give credit to the Bernie surge. Some of those folks have decided to get involved with the party. Not easy to do for some, who viewed Hillary and the party as inseparable, Clinton was seen as the establishment candidate, while Bernie was the outrider -- and an Independent. Independents don't exist on Wyoming ballots. You are either a D or R or U -- Unaffiliated.

It didn't help that caucus-goers voted 56% for Bernie but received the same number of delegates (not counting Superdelegates) to the state convention. Ill will still exists over this. I'm no genius, but 56% is more than 44%.

So some Berniecrats, such as Ed Waddell, have chosen to be more involved or to stay involved. I wish them the best as they work to GOTV. The numbers are on the side of the Republicans. But we have some fine candidates running. In our HD8, Linda Burt is running against Bob Nicholas, the Repub. She is an active Dem and once headed up the Wyoming ACLU. We all will be working hard to get her elected. The Republican majority in the Legislature is bad for the state. Short-sighted and selfish. The Know Nothing Right-Wing Fringe gained two more candidates in primary upsets. We must get rid of those people. When I saw get rid of, I mean to vote against them, not the other thing, the one that Trump means when he sends out coded messages about the second amendment.

Meanwhile, I wish my precinct leaders the best. When looking for volunteers, you know where to find me.

U.S. going to hell in a handbasket: an update

I can "pass" as a Trump supporter.

I am a gray-haired retiree living in the very red state of Wyoming. I check "white" or "Caucasian" on surveys and government documents. Sometimes I write in "Celtic" or "Irish-American" due to my roots and my freckled exterior and general wise-ass attitude. I have been married for eighty gazillion years (give or take) and have 2.0 children who no longer live in Wyoming. I own my own house and keep the lawn green and cut, for the most part. I pay my taxes and, like the majority of Americans, no longer go to church on a regular basis yet I still call myself a Christian.

For those reasons alone, I would be welcomed with open arms at a Trump rally. However, should the Trump capos dig deeper into my background, they would find that I am hopelessly progressive and should be interned on the second day of the Trump presidency. On the first day, Trump will be busy building his wall.

Progressive, as you probably know, is another word for Liberal or Democrat. According to evangelist Franklin Graham, who visited our fair city yesterday for a fundie hootenanny on the Wyoming Supreme Court lawn for 2,400 true believers, progressive is "just a code word for being an atheist." And as he went on to say, according to today's WTE, "there's no difference between secularism and communism -- they're both godless."

The now-gray-haired offspring of the Rev. Billy Graham, Tricky Dick's bff, looks and sounds like Trump when he says that there is too darned much political correctness (PC) in the USA. Trump loves that term and drags it out every time he wants to criticize those who are criticizing his racism and sexism. Doggone it, if I want to use that term for black people that my grandpappy did, it's my God-given right to do so. God told me that. To not do his bidding would be a sin. So to hell with you PC people.

Political correctness has been a favorite right-wing catchphrase for several decades now, ever since White America has sensed that they are being overtaken by the ethnic tribes of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Those fears are borne out by simple demographics. Numbers of foreign-born and ethnic populations have increased. However, the U.S. is still majority white at 77% or 62 percent if you remove those who call themselves both Hispanic and white. But that's just not white enough for some who feel that the U.S. began to go to hell in a handbasket beginning in the sixties and culminating in the presidency of that black guy who was probably born in Kenya.

Anecdotal evidence abides. My Irish-American parents spawned nine children. To keep up traditions, all of us should have bred nine children each and they all should be busy breeding too, allowing the freckled white race to forever thrive in these United States. Fortunately for the planet, my siblings and I produced no more than 0-3 children each, which opened the door for swarthy immigrants and Donald Trump.

Blame us.

My children and nieces and nephews all seem too busy making a living and hanging out at brewpubs to procreate. I salute their choices. We may be doomed, but at least they all get to appreciate a good IPA along the way.

One more thing... I received a mailing from Judicial Watch this week. I don't know how Phyllis Schlafly got my address but there she was, glowering at me from the gray foolscap. The first paragraph of her missive said it all:

Dear Fellow American:

Obama's illegal EXECUTIVE AMNESTY for untold millions of illegal aliens who have invaded America in an audacious scheme for winning future elections for the Left.

That's the beginning, but you know what's coming. These millions of illegal aliens will vote "in large numbers, for liberal politicians" and will receive "generous welfare benefits" such as food stamps, Medicaid, Social Security benefits and "Obamaphones." Obamaphones? I Googled that term as I had never heard of it. Turns out, needy Americans can get help with free cell phones and free minutes by applying on obamaphone.com. In case you're curious about the name, this info from the web site should help:

To clear up any possible confusion, it is important to state up front that the Obama Phone is the popular, unofficial name of the Lifeline Assistance program. It matters little, however, what the official name is, because the Obama Phone is the name people know, what they talk about, what they remember. 

Now I shall remember it too.

Ms. Schlafly is right to be alarmed. The first thing those millions of illegal aliens (known to PC progressives as undocumented immigrants) will do when they get their cell phone is get online and donate their millions in disposable income to The Left. You might have thought that these people would be wiring their millions to their impoverished villages in Mexico or Syria. But you'd be wrong. Phyllis says so.

Anyway, if you want to send a Nastygram to Judicial Watch, find them here. If you want to send a Candygram to Ms. Schlafly, go to the Eagle Forum web site.

Dems garden party on Aug. 28 features Keith Blaney in concert

As a member of the event planning committee for the Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition in Cheyenne, I share this bit of news (and an appropriate video from the way-back machine) with music-loving liberals:

The Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition (LCDGC) is sponsoring a Garden Concert Fundraiser featuring singer/artist Keith "Boxcar" Blaney on Sunday, August 28. The Garden Party will be from 2-5 p.m. at 3626 Dover Road where Keith will entertain with his acoustic guitar. Suggested donation is $15.00 at the door. There will be appetizers and a 50/50 card sale. Please BYOB, a lawn chair and an appetizer to share. Come enjoy an afternoon in a beautiful garden with awesome music and great conversation with like minded individuals. For further information, contact Kathleen at 421-4496.

On Donald Trump's five draft deferments

Men of a certain age should read this in Monday's New York Times article: "Donald Trump's Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet."

Spoiler Alert: Trump didn't get drafted during Vietnam. A shame, really, since he could have advised Gen. Westmoreland and his brain trust on the proper way to conduct and win a war. Of course, the "best and the brightest" were already advising Lyndon Johnson and later, the dynamic duo of Nixon/Kissinger on "How the world's number one superpower can defeat tiny pajama-clad guys hiding in holes in the jungle." The addition of another brainiac from the Ivy League (Wharton School) might have tipped the balance in our favor.

But Trump took his 1-Y deferment (bone spurs in his feet) into the real estate business and made a bundle, facing many sacrifices along the way. The bone spurs eventually cleared up, allowing The Donald to jump up on stages and cut the fool from Flint to Fort Lauderdale.

Full disclosure: I also had five draft deferments. Two for education, one for ROTC, one the coveted 1-A and, finally, I was told by Selective Service that my presence wouldn't be needed except in times of national emergency. That day never arrived.

Trump didn't go to Vietnam. Neither did I. He had bone spurs and a high draft number. My number from the December 1969 Selective Service Lottery was 128. In 1970, the Selective Service called eligible men with numbers all of the way up to 300.

The difference is, I'm not running for president. I am not boasting that I will send young people to war against Radical Islamic Extremists. I am not buds with Russian oligarchs and Vladimir "Big V" Putin. I do not belittle sacrifices made by Gold Star families.

Trump feels "a little guilty" for not serving. So do I. I guess we have that in common too.

Some politicians float proposals about a return to the draft. Or at least a national service program for 18-25 year olds. Republicans don't like this idea as it would put the educated class in harm's way, the same way it does now for enlistees from Meeteetsee, Wyoming, and Itta Bena, Mississippi. Sacrifices would be made.

The draft wasn't fair. Random in its ways, never more so as when the lottery was in operation.

Trump has his story. I have mine. I will post it in installments over the next month.

Paging Dr. Gonzo

I shouldn't be reading Hunter Thompson this week.

I should be reading something hopeful. Last week, during the Republican National Convention, I read "The Soul of an Octopus" by Sy Montgomery. During a four-day stretch in Cleveland that cast doubt on the future of the human race, I felt lifted up by Montgomery's book. Not so much for humanity but for the Octopoda. Humans may not be smart enough to grok octopus intelligence. Octopus may be sending secret signals to each other, laughing at the coming destruction of the human species and rejoicing about the advent of WaterWorld, when octopus will rule and they will ponder humans on display in undersea terrariums. "I wonder what that human will do if we poke it with a stick?" And the human recoils in pain. "Ouch," says one of my descendants, living his life in a plastic bubble, ogled all day by members of the master race.

See what I mean? Off I go in a dark Thompson-like tangent. Can't seem to stay on task. Unlike Dr. Gonzo, I'm as sober as an American can be. My drug of choice is craft beer, made by Millennials in breweries that look like old Nazi ball-bearing factories. They gradually ratchet up the ABV in brews such as Wyoming's own Melvin 2x4 DIPA (9.9%) to render Baby Boomers docile as lambs and to take over the world or at least parts of the Rocky Mountain West.

If you add to my regimen a slew of heart medications and a few for depression and an ICD that beams my every move to Master Control, you can see that I am a fully compromised human being. A liberal automaton. A Hillbot.

Only writing allows me to occasionally come out of my crustacean-like shell.

Hunter Thompson caused me to look at the world differently. I cannot explain it.

I can duplicate Gonzo but it's not the same as Thompson's. He had a brand. I bet he would hate me saying that. Having a brand these days is all the rage. Hunter's was capital G Gonzo. His brand was so strong that he could become a character in the comics and everybody knew who it was. You can try to duplicate one of the author's famous rants but it wouldn't be the same.

But I do want to point out that Thompson had a gift. I can't explain it. You have to read it. And it was best to read it "as it happened" on the pages of Rolling Stone. You had to be there, as the saying goes. Thompson could put you on the scene. Hell's Angels. Vegas. Caribbean shark hunt, Kentucky Derby, Aspen politics. The spectacle -- marked by wretched excess at every turn -- of American life. As the sixties unfolded, so did a new writing style. He was in the middle of it.

You can detect some of Thompson's dark humor in the writing of Matt Taibbi in RS. Bloggers get into the act but snarky isn't gonzo.

On that note, check out some of my columns from the 2008 DNC by going here and here and even here. It was a grand experiment, embedding bloggers with their DNC delegations in Denver. Not certain how many of my fellow bloggers are still at it. I am haphazard at best, spending as much blogging time with personal issues as I do on politics. I covered politics consistently in '08, including time at the DNC, and won a scholarship to Netroots Nation in Minneapolis in 2011. I was a sporadic contributor to Daily Kos. At the same time, I had a full-time writing/editing job and another passion writing short fiction. And a family. To do it correctly, you need to devote time and energy to the pursuit. Might have been my heart attack of 2012/2013, a jolt to the widowmaker so severe that it spanned two calendar years. Changed my brain-paths and priorities.

And I'm still here.

Flashbacks: Denver 2008 and Fear & Loathing 1972

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flashback: Blogging the 2008 DNC

Eight years after...

In August 2008, I spent a week as an embedded blogger at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  We we all so much older then, I'm younger than that now. I am retired, treating life like a kid who's just discovered summer vacation.

I was one of 55 progressive bloggers embedded with state and territorial delegations. We all received press credentials and a seat with our delegation at the Pepsi Center. Expenses were tight, as my wife worked for a non-profit and I worked for the State of Wyoming. Our daughter was still in high school, so we had the usual teen expenses: cellphone, computer, Internet access, food, fashion, car repairs, bail money. etc. I stayed in my Republican uncle's basement and avoided downtown parking by taking the light rail. We bloggers were selected and sponsored by Howard Dean's Democracy for America organization. I was one of Wyoming's few prog-bloggers at the time, so I was chosen to represent The Equality State at the DNC. I could blog from the bloggers' aerie located above the floor. I could circulate anywhere that Bill O'Reilly could, if I really wanted to.

I blogged with a 2006 laptop and a digital camera. I had a flip phone that took so-so photos. I had ethernet access on the floor but the Pepsi Center had no wireless access due to "security concerns." Not sure what that meant. We now live in an era when smartphones are much smarter than their operators and wireless is available at your neighborhood McDonald's (as is "breakfast all day!").

If I didn't blog from the floor of the convention or the pressroom, I had to find a public computer at the local library or a joint that offered free wireless. Starbuck's was not one of those, BTW. It's hard to believe that we survived such trying times.

So I convened and blogged Aug. 24-28. Leading up to the convention, I did my best to profile all of the state's 18 delegates. Some I interviewed and wrote about at the convention. I wandered downtown on Sunday to cover competing demonstrations. Ron Kovic and Cindy Sheehan spoke on the Capitol steps for the antiwar crowd and the pro-war folks stood across the street from Civic Center Park, glowering at the old hippies and young hipsters. Massed squads of police were there to ensure that tensions did not progress past the glowering stage.

I kick myself for missing the big ani-war march later in the week. Rage Against the Machine performed at the Stockyards Arena and then led a march to the Pepsi Center. According to news reports, tensions flared briefly when the police notified Tom Morello and company that they didn't have a parade permit. Police must have sensed something in the air (not pot -- this was pre-legalization). They decided to escort the peaceniks downtown. Peace and love prevailed. No alleged RATM-inspired riot ensued, as happened in Los Angeles eight years earlier. You can see video of the ruckus on YouTube. It may have fed off some of the anarchist-caused violence during the Battle in Seattle the previous winter. Rage on Stage did not lead to tear gas a rubber bullets in Denver. Interesting to note that the new RATM -- Prophets of Rage -- performed in Cleveland at the RNC. And they headline the Rock Against the TPP concert tonight at Denver's Summit Music Hall. While peace reigned in Cleveland, will it be the same in Philly for the DNC? You might find out more by reading your favorite prog-blogger than the MSM.

I will revisit some of my posts from 2008 in the coming week. Look up August 2008 in the Hummingbirdminds archives (scroll down the right sidebar). It's been instructive to see where I was, both in thoughts and deeds, eight years ago. I've always liked this Flannery O'Connor quote: “I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.”

Political convention season in Cleveland and Philadelphia

Once again, we find ourselves in the midst of political convention season.

Republicans gather in Cleveland this week -- they will wrap it up Thursday night. Democrats convene in Philadelphia next week.

Local news has interviewed some familiar faces. My Cheyenne city councilperson, Dicky Shanor, is a delegate in Cleveland. A member of the Micheli clan was interviewed last weekend on NPR. Sen./Dr. John Barrasso has been interviewed about the ultra-conservative, regressive platform that he's shepherded through the long approval process. I'm certain that network cameras have captured other delegates, especially those wearing cowboy hats or other unique garb. I would have details if I was actually watching the convention instead of conducting other important business, such as enjoying Wyoming's summer evenings. I marvel at lightning unleashed in massive storm clouds. I listen to the birds. Chat with Chris. Mess with my garden. Drink a beer. All preferable to watching Repubs spew their hate and paranoia on national TV. I plan to read the lowlights of the party's platform. All you need to know about Republicans is in that document.

How can you possibly write about a convention that you are not watching?

Good question. The answer is simple: I have a blog and I live in the U.S.A.

Besides, I'm harmless, a 65-year-old retiree located deep in the middle of flyover country. My biggest decision of the day is what to have for lunch.

I like Cleveland even though I've never been there. It's home to the trail-blazing Cleveland Clinic and an excellent poetry series at Cleveland State University. It's the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When I was a lad, the Cleveland Indians were one of my favorite teams. As an adult, I delighted in John Elway's rally against the Browns during "The Drive." I was a delegate for former Cleveland Boy-Mayor Dennis Kucinich at the 2004 Wyoming state convention. He wasn't the nominee that year but the Dems got thrashed by Dubya just the same.

I did a little research a found that Cleveland, the former industrial powerhouse whose polluted river once infamously burst into flames, is now undergoing a renaissance. Millennials and Boomer empty-nesters are moving into the city's core. Both populations seek a more urban lifestyle that includes small apartments/condos and closeness to arts, culture, bistros and brewpubs. They are lying low this week, due to swarms of outlander Repubs in funny hats invading their territory. But they will be able to return to their hip urban lifestyles next week.

Cheyenne's Jason Bloomberg, a Hillary Clinton delegate, departs Friday for the cross-country trek to Philly in the Trumpbusters' Tesla. 

On Monday, the Democrats launch their confab in Philly.  Eighteen of my fellow Wyoming Democrats will be on hand for the proceedings. Two of the delegates will drive to Cleveland in Jason Bloomberg's Tesla, stopping at charging stations along the way. Jason, a Hillary delegate, is traveling with a Bernie delegate. They will have many enlightening discussions along the way. The convention will be a bit of deja vu for Dr. Bloomberg, who was a committed Hillary delegate to the 2008 county, state and national conventions. He remembers what happened in 2008 and tells me that he is excited, at last, to be able to cast his vote for Ms. Clinton as our party's candidate for prez. In Denver in 2008, Hillary bowed out gracefully when it was certain that Barack Obama had the votes. I witnessed that convention as an embedded blogger from Wyoming. I will revisit some of my convention posts during the next week, a bit of a flashback to those heady days in Denver. Be forewarned...

For more on Bloomberg's Trumpbusters' campaign, go here. To read about his experiences as a 2016 delegate, go here.

Reunion time Down South

Traveled to Florida for Chris's high school reunion. Not exactly her reunion but her sister Ellen's, who was just one year behind Chris as a member in good standing of the Seabreeze High School Fighting Sandcrabs. Sandcrabs can be particularly feisty when males fight each other during mating season and when attacked by predators. Humans feel the crab's pinch when they step on gnarly crustaceans while strolling through the surf.

We met mostly congenial Crabs at the reunion at the Hilton, the convention hotel directly across from the Daytona Beach Ocean Center. The convention center and hotel are new additions since these 18-year-olds graduated in 1976. Their name badges featured their photo in the bicentennial annual. The guys were longhairs, many of them surfers. Seabreeze sits a half block from the beach. If the surf was up, well, attendance was down. The school district built a fence to pen in surfing youth, especially since a McDonald's was en route to salt water. Fences are made to be climbed or, on occasion, dismantled. Coaches served as border guards. One of Ellen's classmates told us how he and his pals handcuffed an unsuspecting football coach to the fence. They had to run laps the rest of the year, but the surf was worth it.

At reunions, people tell stories. Almost all are true, although they get reimagined over the years. While the classmates shared, I listened. Some of the guys knew my brother Pat, surfer and football player, class of '74. My sister Eileen was in the '76 class. And many of Chris's friends. They partied together in high school and shared a beachside house while attending the local community college. Even though Chris attended school with a bunch of heathens, she sang in Daybreak, a Catholic singing group. Her questionable singing skills led her to a spot in the back row jangling on the tambourine. 

Seems funny, but they were of a different generation. I was class of '69 at Father Lopez Catholic High School six miles from the beach. School named after the priest who accompanied Ponce De Leon to Florida. Our mascot -- the Fighting Green Waves. I wore a uniform to school. Green Wave coat and tie. Attended weekly mass. You skipped school at your peril. Sister Bernandita would be in your face the next day. Not your face, really, as she was four-foot-ten and barely reached my chest. She roared like a lion, Punishment could be severe. The nuns hit and punched us. The priests took out the paddles. Just a look from Sister Norbert could freeze a linebacker in his tracks. 

The Crabs had a different experience. Principal a drunk. Teachers lackadaisical -- and some dated students. Every night a party night. Students allegedly engaged in s-e-x, unlike their Catholic brethren and sistren.  

As the current Pope might say: Who am I to judge? Chris's sister and friends are amazing. Remember how confusing it was to be 16? Remember how important friends were? High school can be the best of times and/or the worst of times. The first half of the 1970s meant sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll. In the South, it also meant integration. The school had a riot, or at least va major disturbance. Blacks and whites treated each other with suspicion. Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and slightly thereafter) Daytona was a sundowner town. African-Americans weren't allowed on the beachside after sundown without a work permit. To be there otherwise, you risked arrest or a beating or worse. Blacks lived on the other side of the bridge in the Second Avenue neighborhood adjacent to Bethune-Cookman College, a traditional African-American college founded by noted educator Mary McLeod Bethune.

Daytona has a lively history. The baseball stadium on City Island is called Jackie Robinson Ballpark or "The Jack." In 1946, Daytona Beach defied segregation laws and was the first Florida city to allow Robinson to play in public with his Brooklyn Dodgers farm team. Noted African-American author Zora Neale Hurston from nearby Eatonville wrote on her houseboat in Daytona. Stephen Crane spent a night in Daytona after he was shipwrecked while on his way to cover the Cuban dust-up in 1897. This was the genesis for Crane's much-anthologized story "The Open Boat." The now unknown Robert Wilder (only one of his books still in print) wrote a Hemingwayesque book about Daytona's early days entitled "God Has a Long Face." Walter M. Miller, Jr., the tormented and reclusive World War II veteran and author of "A Canticle for Leibowitz," committed suicide in Daytona. He announced his death in advance with a call to the police, telling them that there was a dead man in his front yard (thanks to Denny Bowden and his excellent blog Volusia History for this info). Fireball Roberts (see comments) and Dale Earnhardt both died in wrecks at Daytona International Speedway. NASCAR started with races on the hard-packed sand of the beach. Early stock-car racers refined their skills by outrunning "revenooers" in the Appalachian hills.

It's all about stories and relationships. Can't have one without the other.

Stymie stereotypes! Attend a Democratic Party event today!!

Welcome to July.

Fourth of July fireworks. Camping in the Rockies. Lazing around thinking about what to write.

It's also primary season. Absentee voting begins today for the Aug. 16 primary. Half the population of Laramie County is running for office. Or so it seems. This is a good thing, as it shows civic engagement. It also shows stamina for candidates walking neighborhoods and chatting with the electorate. It's doubly difficult for Democrats, as first you have to tell people what a Democrat is. A foreign term in this Republican-dominated state. Most Fox News viewers think that Democrats are free-spending, gun-hating, LGBT-loving wastrels. MSNBC-watching Democrats, on the other hand, believe that Republicans are stingy, gun-loving, LGBT-hating rednecks.

We're both wrong.

Most of us, except Ted Nugent, defy stereotypes. If you're a Democrat, don't you like to astonish argumentative types by admitting you're a hunter and can quote Bible passages like the most diehard Baptist? If you're a conservative, isn't it fun to flummox flaming liberals by admitting that you are a gay military veteran who is also a union member who supports a living wage? Surprise!

Some interesting conversation can come from these encounters. We all learn something, mainly tolerance for each other's POV. A little, anyway.

Where can I meet some of these people called Democrats? They may be right next door or in your own family. But if you truly want to talk to a Dem in a friendly setting, check out one of the following events. Most are fund-raisers, so you risk giving your hard-earned pay to a liberal. But that means you can donate more to your candidate of choice as you have plenty of money (favorite bumper sticker: "Republicans -- we work so you don't have to"). Info is incomplete as of this writing. Put your questions in the comments and I will try to answer them for you. It may take awhile -- you know how shiftless we Dems are.

Here's the schedule:

Saturday, July 16: Wine & cheese fund-raiser for county delegates going to Dems convention in Philly. Lori Millin's house. Not sure of time or cost. 

Sunday, July 17, 2-5 p.m.: Dems garden party and cake walk, Joe Corrigan's house. Bring a cake and/or win someone else's cake. Admission: $15. Family friendly. 

Sunday, Aug. 7, (time TBA), Laramie Co. Dems barbecue and fund-raiser, AB Camping & BBQ on College Drive -- we've had it there several times. Family friendly. 

Sunday, Aug. 28, 2-5 p.m., garden concert at Joe Corrigan's house. Adults.

Sunday, Sept. 18, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., tailgate brunch before Denver Broncos game with Indianapolis Colts, Joe Corrigan's house, $15, lots of goodies to eat including quiches, casseroles, breakfast burritos, fruit, etc. Mimosas to imbibe. Wear team colors, even if you're a Raiders fan. Family friendly.

There are a couple of candidate fund-raisers I know about. Lee Filer is having one on July 9 at AB Camping & BBQ and Joe Corrigan is hosting fund-raiser for U.S. House candidate Ryan Greene on Aug. 21. There obviously will be others. Stay tuned...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Cheyenne Bike Week

Me and my Peugeot, back in the day. Bob Page photo.

Happy Cheyenne Bike Week.

That's "bike" as in bicycle. Bike Week as in Harley Vroom Vroom is a totally different animal (see Sturgis or Daytona).

Bicycle Week celebrates two-wheeled people-powered transportation. Sometimes it can involve three wheels, as you see in recumbent bikes for us oldsters with bad and/or replaced knees. Kids sometimes navigate the greenway on their trikes or on training-wheel-assisted bikes. That actually makes four wheels. But you get my point.

I once was a knowledgeable cyclist, riding all the time and aware of all of the makes and models and gadgets.

No more. Arthritic knees did me in. Waited too long to get them replaced and the orthopedic doc had one heck of a time making me new again. My first new knee is not so new now, replaced in April of 2015. The second knee was replaced in February of this year. For that knee, I just finished rehab. I was supposed to be finished a monthly ago but my doc decided I needed more time with the good and caring people at rehab. Their motto: "It's supposed to hurt."

Enjoyed listening to NPR's "Here and Now" report on Monday on knee replacements. One thing brought up several times was the crucial nature of rehab. You are moving that knee before the anesthesia wears off. Actually, a continuous passive motion (CPM) machine is doing the bending for you. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Mesmerizing to watch. Teaming up with the machine are strolls around the hospital and then around your house, usually with the help of a walker or cane. A week after surgery, you are off to rehab. Someone else drives, as you can't use your right leg and your brain is scrambled with Percocet. Once there, the dedicated therapists get you to bend your knee in uncomfortable ways. You occasionally hear blood-curdling screams. Some of them are yours.

Back to bikes. Thee only bike you rise during your recovery is the recumbent bike in rehab. You may want to get back on the ten-speed or mountain bike and ride to Chugwater. But that would hurt too much. And you are still on drugs, which they don't cotton to in Chug.

I may never ride a bike to work again. First of all, I'm retired. Second, my bike needs some serious work, or I need to replace it with a 21st century super-bike that costs more than my monthly mortgage payment. One bike I looked at online today has the following attributes:

New frame with updated commuter friendly geometry

Carbon fork makes the bike lighter & reduces some of the vibrations for a smoother ride

Shimano Alfine i8 internal gear hub

Shimano hydraulic disc brakes

Gates belt drive

It is beginning to sound a bit like a $20,000 Harley, although the list of goodies would be much longer. Suffice to say, this $1,100 "Raleigh i8 Flat Bar Road Bike is the apex of the Cadent line of bikes." The apex of the Cadent? It must be good. And pretty typical of the type of bike I want.

But there's a third thing that may prevent my return to cycling. Fear. Ever had a bike wreck? I've had several. No broken bones but plenty of lacerations. In my later years, I wore a helmet now and ride mainly on the greenway. My new bike undoubtedly will be street legal and I will obey all laws, which is what retirees pledge to do when presented with their Medicare card. But a spill may wreck my knees and I am not ready to face that pain again. NPR's report said it straight -- the pain is substantial and takes time to heal. Interviewees said they knew people who took their new knees back to the jogging trail and tennis court. The producer they interviewed said it took him a year to get to the almost-pain-free stage. I am not there yet. When I reach that apex, I expect it to be all downhill from there. That used to be my favorite part, flying down hills and mountain passses. But dangers awaited around every bend. Gravel. Slick spots. Animals. Human motorists. 

My bike adventures from now on will take place on stationary conveyances. I can still manage a great workout and, unless I get the vapors, probably will stay aboard until the timer goes off and I can move on to the weight machines. And then to the showers. And then to the brewpub. Ever tried an Apex IPA? Me neither, but I keep searching. 

Old photo recalls 1970s-era campus hijinks

This photo by renowned photog and my college housemate Bob Page shows ritualistic behavior in collegians circa 1975. In the mid-70s, it was all the rage to put hats on dogs. The dogs thought the hats made them look smart so began to apply in droves to major American universities such as University of Florida. Soon, canines pushed not-so-bright humans (example at left in photo) out of popular classes in the English department, such as "Romantic Poets: Proto-Hippies Blake and Coleridge" or "No Man is an Island: John Donne Goes to Vietnam." Problems developed later when scores of Canis familiaris went wild during graduation's cap-tossing ceremony, mistaking the flying caps for frisbees. Chaos ensued, leading directly to Donald Trump.

Baby Boomers want to know: "Wazzup, Millennials?"

As a proud Baby Boomer parent of two Millennials, I am pleased to offer my services as a workplace consultant. According to a report last week on CBS This Morning, consultants can earn up to $20,000 an hour advising companies on what makes Millennials tick. I automatically believe anything on CBSTM because it features mind-blowing news items, most of which I've already seen on Facebook and Twitter: monster gator on golf course, rogue gorilla at Cincinnati Zoo, cats surprised by cucumbers, updates on Trump's hairdo. These breaking news updates are sandwiched between ads for Boomers' preferred meds: boner pills, blood thinners, joint-pain meds, and so on.

Here's my first tip as a consultant, which I offer freely as a good will gesture: Millennials do not watch CBSTM. They are on their way to work in Portland or Denver, or they are sleeping in after the night shift at a trendy urban bistro. Lest you think that all Millennials are slackers, Derek Thompson at the Atlantic Mag Online says that there are 50 million Millennials in the U.S. workforce. I'm just guessing here but I'd say that half of them are in Denver. Last week, while visiting a friend, we ate dinner at a Thai place in Denver's trendy Tennyson Street District. We were by far the oldest people in the place. As we left, Millennials were swarming Tennyson's brewpubs and shops, ogling the new studio apartment buildings that are rising along Tennyson at an alarming rate.

As you can tell, I'm observant despite my fading eyesight. I have other tips based on my years as a parent of Millennials and as someone who worked alongside them during my declining years.

1. Don't ask Millennials technical questions.
Nothing says "I am an old fart" like asking a Millennial co-worker for help with a web site, Facebook, smartphone, etc. Your best approach is to feign helplessness due to an infirmity. An example: "Greetings Millennial co-worker. I just broke my spectacles and can't see a thing. Can you help me Photoshop this photo for our web site?"

They will only be too happy to oblige, as 97 percent of Millennials said they would assist an old lady trying to cross the street. Except on Tennyson. That's our hood, bitches!

2. Don't use the term, "Millennial."
Nothing pegs you as an again BB like the use of this cliched term. Better to say, "Hey there, Mr. Young Person" or "What is happening, Ms. Youth?" And don't ever say "Wazzup?" or "What's the haps, peeps?" You may as well have BEWARE: BABY BOOMER tattooed on your forehead.

3. On the other hand, Millennials like to use ancient expressions.
Using words coined by people long dead can be endearing. Some good words to use in casual conversations are shenanigans, reprobate, canoodling or bindlestiff. The last one refers to a hobo. Most Millennials have never actually seen a real hobo, although some look the part. I caution you here to avoid using terms (old or new) that could be construed as suggestive or sexist. Most Millennials respect other ethnicities and gender identities. I have been told by someone not on Fox News that at some liberal bastions of learning, use of the pronoun "he" could be offensive if that person does not self-identify as a male. The same goes for "she." This may explain why the Webster's Dictionary folks recently decided that "they" and "their" can now be used in the singular form.

Here are some examples:
Incorrect way to use pronouns:
He: Miss Millie, would you like to accompany me to the barn dance this evening?
She: I would be delighted, kind sir. Will our chums, all traditional couples, be at the dance?
He: They will each be driving his or her own automobiles.
She: We shall meet the hims and hers there.

Correct way to use pronouns:
They: Millie, would you like to accompany me to the barn dance this evening?
They: I would be delighted, kind human. Will our friends of various ethnicities and genders be going?
They: They shall be carpooling or taking their preferred form of wind- or solar-powered public transportation.
They: We will meet them there.

4. Millennials are very keen to find meaningful work.
Nothing bores a Millennial like grunt work. Come to think of it, nothing bores a Baby Boomer like grunt work. If you are the supervisor in charge of doling out grunt work, call it "meaningful" work, a task destined to change the world. Text or IM the details to your younger colleague as you leave work for an afternoon on the golf course or volunteering at the homeless shelter, depending on your political affiliation.

5. Millennials will happily throw you a retirement party.
Nothing brings glee to Millennials such as the statement "I will be retiring Aug. 1." They will throw you a retirement party featuring delicious coffee and treats from Millie's Midtown Cupcakery and Su Yee's Sushi Barn. One of them will direct and product a multimedia show featuring embarrassing photos from when you were young and not-so-young. Most, but not all, of your Millennial co-workers will wait until you've left the building to pilfer items from your desk or to stake a claim on your cubicle space. Don't be offended. As you did when you were young, they are just trying to get a leg up in this dog-eat-dog world. It's the circle of life.

P.S.: That will be $20,000 please. I prefer cash.

Record number of Wyoming Democrats toss hats in the ring for 2016 elections

62 out of 75.

Democrats are running in 62 of the 75 legislative races this year.

This may be the most Dems throwing their hats in the ring since the 1970s, when Democrats were not as rare around the state as they are in 2016. Unions were stronger. The state party was robust. We had a Dem from Sweetwater County in Congress! Republicans had not been driven insane by the existence of President Barack Obama. I heard one candidate say that he can't believe all of the bad blood directed at Dems in the many cozy corners of Wyo. I guess he hasn't been on Facebook much.

I spent Friday and Saturday volunteering for the Wyoming State Democratic Convention, held in our fair city for the first time in quite awhile. Some 300 delegates gathered at Little America on Saturday for the actual convention which went on and on and on... The Nellie Tayloe Ross annual dinner followed, along with the live and silent auctions. I helped haul and display the 307 auction items, which included outstanding works of art, many donated by Barry Mercer, and at least one Donald Trump pinata, this one donated by Jason Bloomberg. A good time was had by all, even though dinner was three hours late due to the lengthy business portion of the convention. We raised a lot of funds for the state party. Best of all, I got to hang out with the best bunch of volunteers in creation or, since evolution began, depending on your POV and/or prejudices. The Jane Robinette Quartet provided the music -- catch them this Saturday at the Suite Bistro, as you will be glad you did.

I can't speak about any of the convention proceedings. I was not a delegate this year. I was in 2004, 2008 and 2012. In 2004, I walked in as a newbie to the county convention, said I was a Dennis Kucinich delegate, and the volunteer at the desk said, "Congratulations -- you're a delegate to the state convention." I wandered up to Sheridan that May and had a great time although was pretty clueless as to the proceedings. I was an antiwar activist and kept pitching peacenik planks that were voted down. My fellow Kucinich supporters, all 20 of them, voted in the affirmative. But times were weird and Dems didn't want to look too peacenicky even though we would have an excellent candidate in John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who got Swift-Boated into oblivion in the general election.

In 2008, I was an Obama delegate to the county and state convention and an embedded blogger at the DNC in Denver. In 2012, I attended the county convention but missed the state convention. In 2014, I attended the state convention in Rock Springs, gnoshed on pierogis and heard an excellent talk by activist Dolores Huerta -- that alone was worth the drive.

This time I donated my time to the cause. It's good to volunteer -- people on both sides of the aisle agree on that. I also helped assemble the opening reception at Cheyenne's Historic Depot. Several hundred people attended. The liquor held out but we ran out of food until a relief unit arrived with a supply of pizza. Chris and I supervised one of the fund-raising games that were scattered across the floor. Again, a good time was had by all. Clean-up was a breeze, but that's what you expect from Democrats -- a neat and tidy bunch. A few heated arguments broke out between Bernie and Hillary delegates. They were resolved with firearms, as is the Wyoming custom.

The Dems now have delegates to send to the DNC in Philadelphia. Also a platform. Some ill will too, I guess, although I'm pretty sure that will cool off the more we see of Republican Candidate Trump. Keep your fingers crossed.

Now it's time for the Grassroots organization to plan the next fund-raiser. It will be held on Sunday, June 12 at Joe's house -- I have that address somewhere (stay tuned). Candidates will make short yet pithy speeches and we shall eat red, white and blue desserts for Flag Day. Raise funds, too. See you then.

A competitive state convention is an interesting state convention

All Democratic Party gatherings tend to draw bigger crowds during presidential election years. That is especially true when the race is a hot tamale, as it is this year.

Cheyenne expects a good turn-out for this weekend's Democratic State Convention at Little America. Bernie Sanders won April's Wyoming caucus but ended up with the same number of delegates as Hillary Clinton. And Clinton snagged the super-delegates, giving her an 11-7 edge while finishing with less than 50 percent of the caucus vote. You may have seen this mentioned during Saturday Night Live's opening skit over the weekend. It's also been a topic of conversation online and on CBS and ABC. Some commentators have posited that Wyoming's Democratic Convention may have the same uproar as experienced in Nevada. You may recall that Sanders' supporters disrupted the proceedings at that state's Dem convention.

A bit of dissension is good for the health of the party. A lot off dissension say, the kind the GOP is experiencing this year, may not be so good for the Repubs (pause here for laughter). Some Sanders supporters are new to party politics. These newbies register high on the enthusiasm scale but very low on  knowledge about how things work. You can't really call yourself a Democrat until you get involved in the party and attend years worth of boring meetings just to get your teeth kicked during every election. You also need to get out there and support Dems running for legislative seats, city council, school board, etc. I have yet to run for office but have worked for many worthy candidates, many of whom lost to not-so-worthy Repubs in the general election. Lee Filer lost his House seat in 2014 to right-wing kook Harlan Edmonds -- Lee is back to run again this year. Ken McCauley lost in my district in 2012, and you'd have to look high and low for someone more qualified.  Same goes for Kathleen Petersen in 2014. I've also walked neighborhoods for Mary Throne and Jim Byrd and Ken Esquibel. They won, and continue to do so. Ken is running for the senate this year and has his work cut out for him.

Chris and I will spend our Friday night date night volunteering at Friday night's welcoming reception. Come to think of it, we'll be volunteering Saturday night as well. Yes, we lead boring lives. But it's great to be around people energized by the political system, no matter its flaws.

Come on out tomorrow night and see what's up with Democrats across the state. You may get to meet a Democrat from Niobrara County, where Dems are seldom seen and are in danger of becoming endangered species much like the sage grouse and the jackalope.

Here's the party invitation, filled with exclamation marks to show you how damn enthusiastic we all are:

Laramie County Democrats are thrilled to welcome ALL Wyoming Democrats to the state capital as we host the Friday night welcome reception for our state convention! We are honored to host and we've got an amazing reception planned for your Friday night arrival! Join us at Cheyenne's Historic Depot Museum as we celebrate Wyoming Democratic values! The reception is from 6:30-10 p.m. Your $20 admission includes hors d'oeuvres, your first drink, music, unlimited fun, and so much more! You'll have a chance to meet elected officials, new candidates, national delegate hopefuls, and folks who are excited to turn Wyoming Blue! National Delegate Candidates, this is your opportunity to campaign!  Come, bring your swag, mingle, network, meet Democrats from all over the state. This event is open to the public so please invite your friends! All proceeds benefit Democrats running for office!

To get more info on the Laramie County Dems, go to our Facebook page. Go here for the Laramie County Democrats  Grassroots Coalition, the FUN-draising arm of the county Dems. Also check out the Wyoming Dems web site.

A lesson in guest-posting

Funny things happen when you're asked to write about writing. You learn stuff about your own work.

Lynn Carlson at Writing Wyoming asked that I write a guest post about realistic dialogue. Sure, why not? Piece of cake. I dredged up an old quote from one of my writing profs at Colorado State U. Problem was, I couldn't find the original. I looked and looked.

I decided to use a swatch of dialogue from one of the stories in my as-yet-unpublished collection, "The Department of Noticing Things." Swatches of dialogue are not like swatches of fabric or paint chips. It's tough to lift a conversation that not only can stand on its own but represent the rest of the story. It's doubly hard not to revise it. In fact, writing about dialogue makes it almost mandatory to revise, especially when you quoting writers such as Alice Munro, Ernest Hemingway and Elmore Leonard.

So I spent about 110 percent more time on the piece that I thought. But I earned some revision along the way. Read some cool quotes about dialogue. Read three new stories. Reread Hemingway's "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" for the hundredth time.

Thanks to Lynn for the request. I'll do it again. I urge my readers to read Writing Wyoming. You don't have to be from WY, but it helps.

You can read the guest post at http://www.writingwyoming.com/2016/05/writing-realistic-dialogue.html. I appreciate comments.

Cheyenne Comic Con leads to jam-up at Little America parking lot

You'd think that the sprawling parking lot at the Little America Conference Center would be spacious enough for all of the comic book geeks and gamers and cosplayers in Cheyenne.

Think again.

About noon on a gray May Saturday, Little America's lots were overflowing. As Chris and I left for lunch, a Cheyenne traffic cop blocked the entrance, sending Comic Con fans to the overflow lot at the events center on Lincolnway. As we drove away, we saw people parking at the old pancake house on the east side of I-25. Ghostbusters and star troopers and anime girls trudged through the rain for their date with destiny or at least their date with stars in the sci-fi/fantasy universe.

I'm a newbie (noob) to comic cons of all stripes. So, when I use a term such as "cosplay" or "anime," I may not know what I'm talking about. My kids do, but they're away in their own universes. But one thing was clear to me -- the first Cheyenne Comic Con was off to a good start. And I had to wonder -- how come we've never had this kind of parking crush at a poetry reading?

Chris, a long-time Star Trek fan, bought tickets for Cheyenne Comic Con (hereafter known as C3) when news first broke about the event. In the ensuing months, I had retired, collected Social Security, used my Medicare card several times and went under the knife for knee replacement surgery. Not your usual geek pastimes. However, it gave me a leg up (so to speak) at a Comic Con as I was one of the few attendees who was part robot. Not only do I have bionic knees but also an implantable cardioverter device (ICD) that beams signals about my heart condition to a telemetry lab and can shock me back to life should I descend into a fatal arrhythmia. Fatal Arrhythmia -- sounds like a comic book character's name, a villain, I would think.

Fatal Arrhythmia: Die, Captain Cardiac!

Captain Cardiac: Fie on you, Fatal Arrhythmia. I live many lives thanks to modern medical marvels.

F.A.: But I am a super-villain.

C.C.: And I am on Medicare!

Look for more adventures coming soon from You Kids Get Off My Lawn Comics.

At the Comic Con vendor fair, I bought a number of comics. I was curious about this industry which is gobbling up shelf space at all of my local bookstores. We also have several comic book stores in downtown Cheyenne. One of them, The Loft, was the impetus behind C3.

It's no news that comics are big. But I usually read books, such as the kind you find at the library. They are printed (usually without illustrations), bound and finished off with a nice cover. Some of them are several hundred thousand words long, which seems big unless you've read War and Peace.

But writers still write the stories featured in comics and graphic novels. Bob Salley is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh M.F.A. program and studied with a novelist I admire, Lewis "Buddy" Nordan. He was a fan of comic books and entered that world in an attempt to make a living as a creative person, much as other MFAers such as yours truly got into  the world of arts administration, while others enter education, cab driving and the lucrative food service industry.

Salley writes a series called The Salvagers. His is a collaborative process, unlike the act of writing your average literary novel. Illustrator at his Think Alike Productions is George Acevedo, colourist is DeSike and HdE does the lettering. They even designed a special giveaway comic for C3 which features The Salvagers in "The Wreck Raiders." If you bought one of the press's graphic novels, you received a signed copy of the comic. So that's what I did after a lively conversation with Salley. He saw my composition book and pulled his notebook out of a backpack. It was filled with ideas for new stories. I showed him some pages from my journal. They included everything from rough drafts of stories to to-do lists to notes from meetings and events such as C3. This is the kind of geeky stuff that writers do.

Salley and I talked about trading stories and staying in touch. I am fascinated by graphic novels. To belittle them is to negate the life experiences of a big chunk of America. Million read comics. Millions more watch sci-fi/fantasy.superhero movies. Others like to dress and act like Sailor Moon or Iron Man. Creative writing. Filmmaking. Theatre. All creative pursuits being practiced by the people attending any comic con.

I bring this up because the arts funding world has been slow to recognize what's happening all around us. All of these creatives are selling their wares and attempting to make a living. To that end, they travel the Comic Con circuit like bands of gypsies. Do any of them make a living? Some vendor booths are more crowded than others. Some, such as Cheyenne's Warehouse 21 and Winged Brew ("We make tea cool") sell products and services. Others, such as actors on popular cable shows and films, get paid to hobnob with the hoi polloi and charge for autographs and photos. Chris and I paid $60 for an autograph and photo with Ernie Hudson, best known as Winston Zeddimore in the first two "Ghostbusters" movies. He's a nice guy. We like him in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" where he plays Frankie's (Lily Tomlin's) love interest. They may have to kill him off as he's slated to be in a new futuristic cop drama called "APB." Hudson let slip later in a Q&A that he attended Yale Drama School with Sigourney Weaver and played boxer Jack Johnson on stage in "The Great White Hope." I was impressed. I am also impressed that Hudson was a Ghostbuster and has a cameo in the upcoming "Ghostbusters" sequel.

Mike and Chris at Cheyenne Comic Con with Ernie Hudson. 

What impressed me most at C3? The size of the crowds. "This is better than the Fort Collins Con," said one vendor. This is especially impressive because Cheytown has an inferiority complex when it comes to out neighbor FoCo across the border, where everything is bigger and better and hipper. Except for Comic Con, it seems -- lots of those cars parked higgledy-piggledy in the parking lot bore Colorado plates.

Also, people had fun. Think about that next time you're at an arts event or a poetry reading or even one of my prose readings. Are you enjoying yourself? If the answer is "no," you may want to plan for C3 Part Deux set for May 2017. Or you can check out a con near you. Find out what floats your boat (or steers your starship) and get after it.

Sunday morning round-up: Unforgettable cancer stories, Gonzo Derby Day, and snow, lots and lots of snow

Happy May Day!

While many of you bask in May sunshine, we are buried in snow. A moisture-laden three-day snowstorm covered my lawn and garden. It would look like March 1 but for the daffodils and blades of grass poking out of the white blanket. It's not that winter is too long, but spring is too cold and snowy. But without it we get the wildland fires of August.

Since my Jan. 18 retirement, I write every morning. I write journal entries, short stories, and a novel. I write what matters to me. I haven't been blogging as often as I find myself preoccupied by imaginary stories and memoir. It's not as if there is a lack of blogging topics, especially in this wacky election year. I so miss the gonzo journalism of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. If this isn't a "fear and loathing" year, I don't know what is. As is true with most writers of my generation, Thompson influenced me. I don't/can't write like him, but his style infected all of us.

Fellow blogger Ronny Allan featured my sister Mary's cancer journey last week. Mary works at Big Bend Hospice in Tallahassee and, a few years back, was selected as a bone marrow donor for my brother Dan, struggling with leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Mary was undergoing pre-op tests when the doctors discovered a spot on her lung which turned out to be a carcinoid tumor. She was successfully operated on. That also ruled her out as a bone marrow donor. My sister Molly was the eventual donor, leaving her nursing job in Italy for several months to come back to the states. How did this family drama turn out? Click here to find out.

On Saturday, May 7, 2-5 p.m., the Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition (LCDGC) holds its annual Derby Day and Wild Hat party/fund-raiser in Cheyenne. Admission is $15 and you can buy one of the Derby horses as well as bet on side races managed by your fellow Democrats. Prizes also given to the wildest hat. The Kentucky Derby is known for swanky attire and wild hats. Swanky attire in Cheyenne usually is rodeo duds. Wild hats are usually not big and floppy as the incessant wind will send them off to Nebraska. Cowboy hats? Well, if you get one that fits right, it should stymie most wind gusts. You can probably "wild up" any cowboy hat, although you may get some weird looks at Frontier Days. For all the details of the event, click here.

BTW, DYKT Hunter Thompson's magazine article on the 1970 Kentucky Derby became the first of his pieces to be labeled gonzo as in "gonzo journalism?" 'Tis true. You can read "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" in Thompson's 1979 collection, The Great Shark Hunt. Will Cheyenne's Derby Day be decadent and depraved? One must attend to find out.