What does it mean to be Irish in America?

One version of Irish-American reality -- from Flogging Molly

Condolences to Keith Olbermann and family -- with a shout out to James Thurber

From Keith Olbermann's blog on Saturday:

My father died, in the city of his birth, New York, at 3:50 EST this afternoon.

Though the financial constraints of his youth made college infeasible, he accomplished the near-impossible, becoming an architect licensed in 40 states. Much of his work was commercial, for a series of shoe store chains and department stores. There was a time in the 1970's when nearly all of the Baskin-Robbins outlets in the country had been built to his design, and under his direction. Through much of my youth and my early adult life, it was almost impossible to be anywhere in this country and not be a short drive to one of "his" stores.

My Dad was predeceased last year by my mother, Marie, his wife of nearly 60 years. He died peacefully after a long fight against the complications that ensued after successful colon surgery last September at the New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center. My sister Jenna and I were at his side, and I was reading him his favorite James Thurber short stories, as he left us.

My condolences to Keith and his family. My father, too, was a fan of James Thurber's short stories. Thurber was a fine writer, funny and irreverent. He wrote for The New Yorker, but his stories were made to be read aloud, unlike most contemporary stories featured in that magazine.

Here's the beginning to "The Night the Bed Fell" from the July 8, 1933, New Yorker:

I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father. It makes a better recitation (unless, as some friends of mine have said, one has heard it five or six times) than it does a piece of writing, for it is almost necessary to throw furniture around, shake doors, and bark like a dog, to lend the proper atmosphere and verisimilitude to what is admittedly a somewhat incredible tale. Still, it did take place.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1933/07/08/1933_07_08_011_TNY_CARDS_000228579#ixzz0iINK1E1r

Read it, and remember the power of good writing.

So many good stories so close to home

I entered the creative writing program at Colorado State University just a few weeks after Raymond Carver died Aug. 2, 1988, in Port Angeles, Wash.

As a late-blooming M.F.A. student, I knew very little about Carver. Other writers spoke of him in hushed tones. I wanted to be be able to utter similar hushed literary tones. So I read "Cathedral." Such a story! I read everything of Carver's I could get my hands on. "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please." "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" "So Much Water So Close to Home." I was fortunate that Gordon Lish had discovered Carver and guided him through the publication of several collections.

One day I came across a different version of "So Much Water So Close to Home." I brought this up in one of my classes. The only answer I got was that Carver rewrote his stories because, like many writers, he wasn't pleased with the published version. I could forgive that -- and moved on. Carver's powerful minimalist stories played a part in my switchover from budding novelist to short story writer.

Twenty-some years later, I read the March 13 The New Republic article Mr. Coffee And Mr. Fixit by Christopher Benley.

It raises a big problem concerning Carver. Lish shortened most of the stories, eliminating Carver's wordier story-telling style. Religious references were curtailed as were hints of a happy ending.

These edits may have illuminated Carver's themes of honor/dishonor and conflicted human relationships. But maybe not. At the heart of every Carver story is the mysterious element that makes me feel that I have been punched in the gut -- and punched hard. Hundreds of us writers influenced by Carver's straightforward style tried to recreate the story's feel. We failed. We didn't live Carver's life and our aesthetic and instincts were all wrong. Stories were technically sound but heartless. We had to find other ways to tell our stories.

Were students at writing programs all over the country betrayed by Gordon Lish and Raymond Carver? Were we pushed in the wrong direction by Carverite writing profs?

Possibly. It is a strong-willed young writer who knows his/her style and is willing to defend it in the face of withering workshop critiques.

According to TNR article, the Library of America's Carver collection features conflicting versions of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love' (Carver's story was called "Beginners" and was a longer and much different story the the Lish-edited version). I look forward to reading them and again trying to discover what made him tick. I'm interested in seeing if they have the same sort of gut-punch impact they had on first readings.

Meanwhile, I write like Mike. With just a touch of Carver.

Remembering a spring break trip to Willa Cather's Red Cloud, Nebraska

Intro: Eight years ago in March 2002, my wife Chris (shown above at left) and I bundled up our two kids and set out for a spring break trip to Nebraska. First stop: pick up our friends in Lincoln. Second stop: drive to Red Cloud for a literary sojourn. Spending an early spring day in a dusty prairie town may not be every family's idea of a good time. It's mine. Welcome to a Bookie's Spring Break. 

Chris wants a Cather board. 

She can choose from two big piles of generations-old boards ripped from Willa Cather's family home in Red Cloud, Nebraska. She picks gingerly through the pile on the winter-brown lawn, careful of the many jagged nails that once fastened the two-story front porch to the historic house which rises in front of us. The rest of us watch her progress. Two boys toss trashed boards into a big dumpster. A carpenter, who may be the father of the boys, saws two-by-eights for new porch decking. 

The house's current owner, a petite 40-something woman standing on the street next to her SUV, tells Chris that she could take all the boards if she wants them. 

"Should have brought my truck," I say, kidding around. Unlike many of my fellow Wyomingites, I do not own a truck. A Yuppie minivan is my conveyance of choice. Still, a good number of historic Cather boards could go into my van's cargo space. 

"I just want one," says Chris, surveying the pile as she might a stack of apples at the megamart. She is my wife of 20 years. While she grew up in a home devoid of books, she now is a voracious reader. Yet, she never has read any of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's books. She only cares about Cather because I do. The same goes for our friends Kate and Stephen, who accompany us to Red Cloud on this spring break day in 2002 for a dose of literary tourism. A few blocks away, our kids play in the town playground, not really interested in strolling around this old burg looking at old houses. We keep in touch via walkie-talkies. 

"Everybody still alive over there?" I say into the tiny speaker. 

"No," replies my teen son Kevin, a writer but not (yet) a literary tourist.

"We won't hurry then," I say. I hear kids screaming in the background. They are either ecstatic with happiness. Or being torn to pieces by a wolf pack from one of Cather's pioneer stories. Maybe a herd of cattle stampedes through this town of a thousand souls. Or the kids have stepped into a nest of prairie rattlers, the kind Cather's grandmother used to kill with a silver-tipped cane. Or the kids might be spooked by the ghosts of Cather and Antonia or Neighbor Rozicky flitting around the town square. 

It is all about imagination. But if anybody is going to see a ghost today it's me. I have read My Antonia, many of Cather's stories, and seen the TV version of O Pioneers. My favorite story is The Sculptor's Funeral. It not only brings to life the chilled winter landscape of a town much like Red Cloud (but set across the border in Kansas). It also is a spooky reminder of the fate of the artist who grows up an oddball in a small town and will never be totally accepted for his/her quirky ways and intelligence. Paradoxically, this artist may deeply love the town and its people. 

This must have been Cather's fate. It's hard to know from the official literature of the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Education Foundation. The pamphlet for the walking tour carries many references to the generosity of Cather and her family. The author donated two stained-glass windows and a walnut altar rail to the Grace Episcopal Church. Willa's father Charles and uncle-in-law helped build the town library, which opened in 1918, the same year as the end of WWI and the publication of My Antonia. Charles Cather's real estate office is the third stop on the tour. It is located on the west side of the town's main drag and across the street from the bank building that now houses the Cather archives and is owned by the Nebraska State Historical Society. We are in familiar "historic tour" mode here. 

But the brochure also refers to some quirkier traits of the young Cather. While her father "made farm loans, wrote abstracts, and sold insurance" from his downtown office, the young author "had her laboratory for dissecting cats and dogs." The office must have been a curious mix of loan paperwork and cat gut pickled in formaldehyde. During high school, Willa worked at Dr. Cook's City Pharmacy, north on Webster Street on the next block. She took her pay "in books, a magic lantern, and the rose wallpaper for her home at Third and Cedar." According to the pamphlet, she installed the wallpaper herself and it's still on the walls in her room in this house. She learned about French novels from her family's Jewish neighbors, the Weiners, who spoke both German and French. 

She loved the downtown opera house, now under renovation, which helped spark a lifetime interest in opera. According to the brochure, "one can still read the name of Willa's brother, Douglas, and others scrawled on the stage walls." 

What it doesn't talk about is the young Cather's first job delivering mail to county farms. That she was a tomboy who, like the "hired girl" Antonia, was proud of her muscles and liked to show them off. That she sliced open dead animals, hoping to learn how to be a veterinarian. That she showed up for freshman year at University of Nebraska dressed as her twin brother. That she probably was gay. 

As a writer with urban sensibilities, I try to be kind to small towns. I want to avoid stereotypes: rural people are slack-jawed yokels, born-again zealots, Timothy McVeighs waiting to explode. There are others who try to dredge up the bucolic nature of Middle American small towns: Such a quaint little town with the most gorgeous antique shops! I picked up a great little butter churn for a song! And they had the cutest little restaurant! 

Where I might give small-town residents the benefit of the doubt, Cather did not. Her novels and stories honestly show the vagaries of life in the small towns of the American prairie. The themes are universal: murder, rape, love, betrayal, and bigotry, to name some biggies. This is probably why her work still resonates 55 years after her death. Antonia is abused by a pillar of society. In death, the sculptor comes home to rest only to face the taunts of the townspeople. She’s pretty tough on city people too. Snooty artists get their comeuppance in Flavia and Her Artists. Opera snobs are skewered in The Song of the Lark. Wonder what she would have thought of us 21st century literary tourists? 

 The Tour

On this gorgeous spring day, we opt not to pay the five dollars that the Cather Society charges for the guided tour. This means we can’t actually get into most of the buildings in the Cather Historic District. We can't see the rose wallpaper in Willa's old bedroom. The churches and the archives are closed to us. We can't see the Willa Cather Animal Dissecting Room or go backstage at the opera house. We can pick up historic boards from the lawn of Cather's Retreat Bed & Breakfast. We can tour the courthouse, site of the World War I trial of German immigrants in One of Ours, the book that won the author the Pulitzer in 1923. 

We can also tour the library that the Cathers' endowed. We're lucky that it is afternoon, since the Auld Public Library on Webster Street is only open from 2-5 p.m. It is a neat old brick building and appropriately small for a small-town library. It loans books, videos, and cake pans. According to the librarian, the cake-pan idea came out of a need for a central place that provided residents with pans for special occasions. Star-shaped pans for Fourth of July cakes; heart-shaped ones for Valentine's day; huge pans for big events; and tiny ones for modest events. The library gets the occasional donated pan. Sometimes they get a bumper crop of pans with the passing of one of the town's leading bakers, an old woman who still took seriously the eating traditions of her German or Bohemian or Scandinavian roots. 

This is Catherland, after all, whose rich ethnic heritage was celebrated in the author's many books. In turn, Nebraska celebrates her with what may be the largest historic district dedicated to an American writer. There are 17 stops on the Red Cloud historic tour. The 10-mile-long Willa Cather Roadway leads you into town. Overall, the Willa Cather Thematic District includes 190 sites in Webster County, including a 610-acre tract of native grassland owned by the Nature Conservancy and dedicated to Cather's memory. 

All this might seem boring to those whose vacations center on DisneyWorld and Six Flags Over Anytown USA. Readers of all stripes, though, would have to admit that its a darn fine thing to have a town dedicated to a writer. We don't have many of them. And when we do, there may be some controversy involved. 

As we walk around Red Cloud, our friend Kate brings up her old stomping grounds of Salinas, California. Now home to the massive National Steinbeck Center, some Salinas old-timers are still smarting over their treatment in Grapes of Wrath and Tortilla Flats. Some people in Salinas still hate his guts, Kate says, noting that they are a little less likely to dislike Steinbeck if they own a restaurant or motel or one of the many small businesses that benefit from the library and its events, especially some of the big events happening in 2002, the centennial of the author's birth. Over the hills in Monterey, some people still consider Steinbeck a nogoodnik and commie sympathizer, an anti-business and pro-union rabble-rouser who wrote the acerbic Cannery Row and the passionate East of Eden. That tradition sometimes lines their wallets. 

It's tough to say if Cather's presence has the same effect on Red Cloud. Steinbeck and Cather are contemporaries. Both wrote of their hometowns and both won major literary prizes: Cather the Pulitzer, Steinbeck the Nobel. Both sometimes are disparagingly called regional writers and their work is sometimes seen as too sentimental and not obtuse enough for the deconstructionists who hold sway on campus these days. Strangely, their staying power in academia is due to factors other than their writing. Cather had lesbian affairs but never wrote openly about homosexuality. She is read as often in Women's Studies or LGBTQ tracks as she is in English Departments. Oddly enough, while Steinbeck's lack of literary finesse gets short shrift in English departments, his leftist politics get him lots of attention in disciplines such as American Studies, Political Science, and Labor Studies departments at some urban eastern universities. 

This first week of April 2002, the Center for Great Plains Studies and the Cather Project at University of Nebraska in Lincoln is hosting "Great Passions and Great Aspirations: A Willa Cather Symposium on Literature and Opera." Conferees can sit in windowless rooms and hear about Cather and opera, Cather and WWI, and other subjects. They can attend a performance of The Bohemian Girl at the Kimball Recital Hall in the evening. Cather saw this popular 19th century opera in 1888 in the Red Cloud Opera House. The conference wraps up with a bus tour to Red Cloud and surroundings. This should put a little economic development into Red Cloud which, like most small towns on the Great Plains, is in dire need of it. Those that don't get it are likely to dry up and blow away. 

We do our best to help. I buy hard-to-find Cather audiobooks at the Cather gift shop downtown. I also buy postcards and some cool notecards. I want to send a card and a memento to my ailing father in Florida, who let me freely browse his library once I learned to read. On our way out of town, we drop by Sugar & Spice for ice cream cones plus a massive cheeseburger for my growing son. I would love to browse the used-book store on the main drag but it is closed because the owner winters in Arizona. 

We also have our Willa Cather Memorial Board. Or Chris does. She finds just the right one. It's a very old one-by-four, rough on one side, gray paint peeling on the other. It has a lone nail jutting from one end. She and her board pose for several photos along our tour. We have fun with the board, calling it "The Willa" or just-plain "Plank," just as that kid does in the cartoon show Ed, Edd, and Eddie. 

I ask Chris what she will do with the board when we get home to Cheyenne. 

She shrugs. "I just wanted it," she says with a smile. 

She has her memento. I have mine. As we leave Red Cloud in mid-afternoon, I turn on The Troll Garden and fast forward to The Sculptor's Funeral. I can’t hear very well, because the girls are a bit raucous in the back seat. But at least I catch the opening as we head back north to the interstate:

"A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a little Kansas town, awaiting the coming of the night train, which was already twenty minutes overdue."

This is why I have come: the author's words, the magic they make when they are knitted together with precision and anger and compassion.

"Social Justice Christians" out themselves

Sojourners invites "Social Justice Christians" to send a letter to Glenn Beck. The message is designed to "out" the letter writer in the eyes of his/her chosen church, and in the clouded vision of Mr. Beck. To write your own customized response, go to http://go.sojo.net/campaign/glennbeck_socialjustice.

Here's my letter:

I'm a Christian who believes in the biblical call to social justice. I learned this lesson from my parents and at thousands of Catholic masses and during many Catholic school classes.

I learned my lessons well. When my Catholic Church abandoned social justice to make pacts with the unjust of the Christian Right, I stopped going to church.

I stand in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets and the teachings of Jesus that demonstrate God's will for justice in every aspect of our individual, social, and economic lives.

I hereby "report" myself to you. If I still attended church, I would report myself to the appropriate authorities. They now have no authority over me.

Keep your head down, Kowalski -- here comes another Dubya-Dubya-Two mini-series

We’d been slogging through this war for almost 70 years – and there was no end in sight.

It had been a hard go at first. Black-and-white versions of reality, filmed in Hollywood backlots. John Wayne on “The Sands of Iwo Jima.” Van Johnson spending “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.” Bogie vs. Vichy and Nazis in “Casablanca.” Valiant starlets hobnobbed with fresh-faced G.I.s at the “Hollywood Canteen.” Brits got into the act with “Mrs. Miniver” and “In Which We Serve.”

Coming home from that phase of the war was no “Best Years of Our Lives.” Later, color arrived at the movie theater of war. The war dragged on. “The Longest Day” returned us to the black-and-white beaches of Normandy. “Das Boot” surfaced from Germany.

The real hard fighting started when Spielberg invaded us with “Saving Private Ryan.” We had to sit through blood and gore, realistic bullets zipping by, coming within a gnat’s eyelash of our giant soda/big bucket-o-popcorn combos at the multiplex. Then everybody wanted to get into the act. Death on cable TV was a lot rougher than the old battles on regular TV’s “Combat,” as HBO followed a “Band of Brothers” from Normandy’s deadly hedgerows to sinister rows of hedges in Germany.

Dirty Harry led a kamikaze charge with both barrels -- “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.” This was the first time that we knew our enemies had it as hard as we did – both films opened in wide release in Japan.

Last year, just when it seemed that the war was finally drawing to a close, bullets and bombs and Zeros came at us in high definition on the History Channel. We lost a few buddies in the skirmish. It was every man for himself.

Now comes “The Pacific.” Super-realistic battles and high-def to boot. We may not survive. Guadalcanal and Iwo without John Wayne and 1940s cliches. The platoon ain’t gonna make it, Sarge. Tell ma I love her. Keep your head down, Kowalski. But Sarge, I don’t think I can live through another Dubya-Dubya-Two mini-series.

Me neither, Kowalski. This is the longest slog I ever did see.

--to be continued--

Retracing footsteps of Kerouac in Cheyenne

"On the Trail: Jack Kerouac in Cheyenne" is Alan O'Hashi's entry into the Cheyenne Short Film Festival. You can view it http://www.wyomingshortfilmcontest.com/entries/38239

Some background from Alan:

Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” is a classic American literature work. Kerouac writes about his experiences in Cheyenne, Wyoming during “Wild West Days” on his way to Denver via Longmont.

“The stars seemed to get brighter the more we climbed the High Plains. We were in Wyoming now … As the truck reached the outskirts of Cheyenne we saw the high red lights of the local radio station, and suddenly we were bucking through a great crowd of people that poured along both sidewalks. ‘Hell’s bells, it’s Wild West Week,’ said Slim.”

That’s how Kerouac described the outskirts of Cheyenne in July 1947 from the back of a pick up truck traveling from Nebraska, probably on the Lincoln Highway.

I don't run away from social justice churches, I run toward them

The latest hubbub surrounding Fox's Glenn Beck is about religion.

What does Glenn Beck know about religion? A lot, it seems. And I'm not being facetious.

"I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words."

Glenn Beck is an oddball. But he knows a simple fact: the more liberal-minded the Christian congregation, the more it addresses social justice and economic justice and even peace & justice.

But not always.

During the Civil Rights struggle, many of the strongest advocates for social justice attended conservative black churches such as Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist. Their members turned to Old Testament scripture as inspiration for hymns, employing metaphor to sing about votings rights and human rights and workplace justice.

Across town, many of the most virulent racists attended white Baptist churches where they dug deep into the Bible to justify their prejudices. It's amazing what you can find in the Bible if you look really, really hard. Glenn Beck knows all about this.

I was raised Catholic. Catholicism, for the most part, finds its inspiration in the New Testament. Not surprising. The New Testament focuses on Jesus Christ's short life. His death and resurrection led to the founding of "The One True Church," a term you don't hear any more.

The mass was in Latin. The priests were the keepers of the Latin. During mass, the priest's back was turned to the congregation. Sometimes he turned around to share a stray "Agnus Dei, Qui tolis peccata mundi, misere nobis" with the dozing churchgoers. The altar boys mumbled along with him, ringing bells and fidgeting in their black-and-white cassocks. In the pews, nuns kept their eyes peeled for chatting kids and dozing parents.

I can't imagine a more conservative setting. The priest's homily was in English and focused on moral lessons. In Catholic School, amidst the Madrasah-like setting, the Christ-centered message was woven into every class. Do the right thing. Treat others as you want to be treated. Feed the poor. Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comfortable.

Just kidding about that last one. But that is a lesson I learned in Catholic School. And one I continue to practice.

I never heard anything about social justice or economic justice. Those terms came later (a Jesuit priest is credited with the first description of social justice). I did learn that everyone had the right to vote and freedom to earn a living.

I don't go to church now. If I did, I would go to a social justice church, an economic justice church, a peace and justice church. I wouldn't attend a "healthcare is a privilege not a human right" church, a "get a job you stinkin' ______________ (fill in the name of your favorite despised minority)" church, a "bomb 'em all, let God sort 'em out" church.

Learn more and listen to Glenn Beck at http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/08/glenn-beck-urges-listeners-to-leave-churches-that-preach-social/

Tom Brokaw fails to define Boomers

I suffered through 10 cloying minutes of "Boomer$" (note the annoying dollar sign) on CNBC before Tom Brokaw broke in with a paean to the Boomers' parents "whom I call the Greatest Generation." Yes, Tom, we know that your "Greatest Generation" suffered through the Depression and beat the bad guys in "the Good War" and faced down the Soviets during "40 years of The Cold War." And we know that, in comparison, we Baby Boomers were a bunch of sniveling whiny brats who smoked pot at Woodstock and protested at swell land-grant universities such as University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Brokaw can't help it that he despises the Boomers. He was born in 1940, too late to be a member of the Greatest Generation and too early to go to Woodstock and/or Vietnam. Besides, Brokaw has made a living out of praising my parents' generation. They were pretty fine people. In that Tom and I agree.

But he isn't up to the task of defining the the contributions and idiocies of 74 million Americans born between 1946-1964. I made it through 20 total minutes of the show and I had enough.

To understand the Boomers -- and the last 60-some years of American history -- you had to be paying attention. Living your life, for one thing, and contributing to society in some sort of constructive way. The Boomers I know are big on volunteering. It could be the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure or the rodeo at Cheyenne Frontier Days. Takes a lot of volunteers to run a political campaign. Those I met during Gary Trauner's unsuccessful race for the U.S. House in 2008 ranged in age from Greatest Generation to Gen-X-Y-Z. In between, of course, were the Baby Boomers. We worked together, not necessarily in perfect harmony but pretty close.

I meet some nice Repub Boomers when I volunteer at the polls. We don't have a single thing in common except that we love our country and think working at the polls is a damn fine way to give back.

It's not only volunteering. It's working at something you like and raising decent kids and keeping in shape and making some dough and buying a house and 101 other things that people do.

It's nice to see Tom Brokaw interviewing aging jocks and Woodstock survivors and P.J. O'Rourke and Bill Clinton and an unemployed 50-something woman and potbellied guys who once twirled hula-hoops. But what did we learn from "Boomer$?" Not much, but I only watched 20 minutes. Perhaps if I watched the whole hour I'd be a smarter Boomer, almost as smart (and smarmy) as Tom Brokaw.

You say Unobtanium, I say Molybdenum

Does the Unobtanium in James Cameron's "Avatar" have anything to do with the struggle over Molybdenum minining in Crested Butte, Colo. during the 1970s? Unobtanium=Molybdenum? Interesting report tonight on Denver's Channel 7. Go to http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/22770743/detail.html

You chemistry and/or sci-fi geeks can get your Unobtanium T-shirts at http://www.bustedtees.com/unobtanium

The week in publishing...

Odd week in publishing. Two anthologies that I sent work to four years ago now have found publishers. One focuses on working class writing and will include my short story, "The Problem with Mrs. P" (the story is in my 2006 collection, "The Weight of a Body"). Coffee House Press will release it in the the fall. An essay about rock climbing with my ADHD son will be in another anthology about families and outdoor sports. Writers have to be almost masochistic in their persistence.

I also heard from Liz Jackson at Laramie County Community College that my short-short story, "Flying Nurse," was accepted for publishing in the 2010 High Plains Register. There will be a reading by contributors in late April. I'll keep you posted.

I sent out two new pieces this week. One was another ADHD essay, which I sent to a proposed anthology on the subject by CRT Press. ADHD is such an interesting topic. Researchers are still arguing whether it exists or not. And parents experiencing glorious adventures with their attention-deficit children are left hanging.

The second piece I sent out this week was a short story set in Denver. The city crops up a lot in my fiction. I'm a native and spent the first nine years of my life there. I also lived there 10 years as an adult. Formative years.

If you'd like to read samples of my work, go to my web site at http://www.hummingbirdminds.com/. I'm also happy to sell you a book. Just leave a comment below. Or go to Ghost Road Press.

One more reason to like Calexico

Wow! Arizona and France and Mexico on stage in London. Hummingbirdminds craves Calexico.

Book launch party of the week: "Cowboy Trouble" by Joanne Kennedy

Here's my writing group pal Joanne Kennedy as she got ready to sign books March 2 at the launch party for her first novel, "Cowboy Trouble." The Cheyenne Barnes & Noble sold lots of books (five to the Shay family) and Joanne signed them all. A good time was had by, especially when we bugged out of B&N to Uncle Charlie's where we drank beer and ate wings and listened to music by Todd Dereemer and his band. Get "Cowboy Trouble" at your local bookstore. Get more info about Joanne and her work at http://kennedysmyth.com

Dave Freudenthal will not seek a third term

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal announced today that he will not run for a third term.

I was at the Capitol Building this morning when the news broke. The last few days of legislative business is filled with salutes to our troops and performances by drum groups -- along with some last-minute votes and bill signings. This morning, Wyoming Poet Laureate David Romtvedt read his poetry in each chamber. Both were about his daughter, who's now 21 and attending college out-of-state. This is the sixth year that David's read to the legislators. They always seem interested in his words. Maybe it's because his words are a welcome break from the avalanche of legalese they face each session. It's also because David tells stories they can relate to. Riding horses across the prairie or fixing fence in Johnson County. Kayaking with his teen daughter on a Wyoming lake. Love and fear and relationships and all the things people care about, whether they be legislators or poets or even bloggers.

While I waited for the reading, I ran into one of my fellow Dems from Laramie County. She's a lobbyist, and once upon a time staged a losing race for a legislative seat. We jawed about gubernatorial possibilities with the Democratic Party. Milward Simpson had declared several weeks ago that he wasn't running. He's a Democrat in a family full of Repubs, including his cousin Colin Simpson, son of Big Al. Colin is running for governor, but must first get through a phalanx of other Repub candidates, including Matt Mead, grandson of a former Wyoming U.S. senator, and Ron Micheli from the southwest corner of the state. Also, State Auditor Rita Meyer. There will be more, making for a lively primary.

Meanwhile, crickets are chirping on the Dem side of the aisle. Tumbleweeds roll unmolested through party headquarters.

My lobbyist friend today wondered if candidates could emerge from the ranks of county commissioners or city councils or the legislature. I wasn't sure. The name of Sen. Mike Massie from Albany County has been bandied about. But conventional wisdom has him running for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Conventional wisdom can be woefully incorrect. But he's also from the university town of Laramie, known for pointy-headed intellectuals, even in Wyoming. We even have special pointy-headed intellectual cowboy hats for them to wear to summer rodeos.

Someone will emerge from the shadows. It's possible. But this year's governor's race looks as if it belongs to the Repubs.

WyoDems' Chair issues statement on health care reform

From a Wyoming Democratic Party press release:

Wyoming Democratic Party Chair Leslie Petersen issued the following statement after President Obama today called on Congress to finish the job and take a final up-or-down vote on health insurance reform legislation:

“After a long and rigorous debate, it’s time for Congress to act and provide their constituents a final up or down vote on reform. Patients who are being denied care when they need it most, small businesses that are struggling to provide insurance for their employees, and state budgets that are being crushed by the cost of treating the uninsured can no longer wait for reform. President Obama and Congressional Democrats have had an open dialogue with Republicans, and President Obama has announced his support for additional Republican ideas that may be included in the final bill. Now it’s time for Congress to act, and act soon. We are on our final march for reform—Wyoming residents can no longer wait while Republicans play political
games on the issue. It’s time for Congress to finish the job and take simple up or down votes on this critical legislation.”

Democrats and Republicans have extensively discussed how to repair our broken health care system, and it’s clear that everyone agrees the status quo isn’t working.
Insurance companies are denying coverage to people when they need it most and
rising costs are crushing families and businesses as well as state and federal budgets. And if we don’t act now, things will only get worse – it will send more families into bankruptcy, prevent businesses from being able to hire workers and drive up the deficit.

President Obama and Congressional Democrats believe we need to put more control in the hands of consumers. The heath care legislation, which has already passed initial votes in both the House and the Senate, does just that with three critical reforms:

1. It ends the worst practices of insurance companies – they will no longer be able to deny coverage because of a pre-existing conditions, drop coverage when you get sick, charge unlimited amounts for out of pocket expenses, or arbitrarily raise
premiums;
2. It gives all Americans the same options that Members of Congress have by creating a new health insurance marketplace, including tax credits based on income for those who still can’t afford insurance in this new system;
3. It brings down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the government by reducing fraud, waste and abuse.

I dispute the claim that all Tea Partiers are Baby Boomers -- and vice versa

A few weeks ago on Keith Olbermann's show, comedian and political commentator Christian Finnegan has a comment about members of the Tea Party Movement. It went something like this: "Teabaggers are a bunch of Baby Boomers scared that the world has passed them by."

I took umbrage with this. Normally umbrage is the last thing I take with the proceedings on Keith's show. I'm yelling at my flat-screen TV: "Yeah, Keith, go baby go!" Sometimes I'm yelling at Keith's guests: "Yeah [guest's name], go baby go."

But I had to chew on Finnegan's comment. As I've said on these pages before -- I'm a Baby Boomer who's a bit scared that the world has passed me by. I'm chewing though my 60th year on Planet Earth. I'm not overly scared about this world-passing-me-by-thingy -- but I do have some suspicions.

I'm a writer and I work in the field of arts administration. I could easily be an accountant like my father or a nurse like my mother or a machinist like one of my brothers or a postal delivery person like another one of my brothers. I'd have a lot more job security if I had chosen a more practical field. But I drifted into my career through stints in print journalism and corporate PR. If I had stayed in any of those fields, I'd probably be unemployed now. I could have fallen into other careers or other jobs. But here I am, an aging English major Baby Boomer who wants nothing to do with the Tea Party.

So note to Christian Finnegan: Baby Boomers come in all shapes and sizes and political persuasions. Just like you and your fellow Gen-Ys or Gen-Xs or Gen-Zs (how old are you anyway?).

Yes, it does appear that Tea Party demonstrators tend to be white and male and rotund. That could easily describe me, although I like to think that I'm not rotund but slightly overweight. I am white, with a Celt's traditional array of freckles. I'm male, and have been for almost 60 years. I'm a member of the Baby Boomer generation, one of the most annoying cohorts in U.S. history.

But not a member of the Tea Party.

I drink coffee.

Reading the Sunday paper -- food co-ops, neglected houses and news about upcoming governor's race

I read today's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle almost cover-to-cover. I spend more time reading news online these days than I do in the paper. But the Sunday paper is still a ritual. Something about the tradition -- the rustle of the pages and the smell of the coffee and not having to go to work. Local stories, too. These are tough to find online, especially since the WTE has such a lousy web site.

One local news headline got my attention: "Alternative grocery store might replace old Safeway." News came a few weeks ago that the State of Wyoming bought the downtown Safeway property. The store will shut down this week. The wrecking ball will follow.

On Saturday, about 30 people met at the library to discuss forming a food co-op downtown. I wouldn't actually call a food co-op an "alternative grocery store." It's a membership organization that usually stocks food not available in chain grocery stores. Twenty years ago, I belonged to the food co-op in Fort Collins. I bought granola in bulk, and organic rolled oats and local honey and veggies in season. Thing is, you can get most of this stuff at Safeway or King Soopers, even Albertson's. My local Albertson's stocks a great selection of mixes from Bob's Red Mill, including Buckwheat Pancake Mix, my favorite.

But it's not about discounts or replacing a chain store in the downtown area. It's about community. It's about growing and eating and purchasing locally. It's about making downtown a thriving livable place. So many empty buildings in our downtown. So few residents, especially in the city's core area. A food co-op would be a great addition. Hope the organizers are certain of their goals. If you're interested, the next meeting will be on Saturday, March 6, 2 p.m. at the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne.

I was glad to see that the Cheyenne City Council is taking up an ordinance on vacated residences. This fits in with the previous story. The houses on the block adjacent to the downtown Safeway have been abandoned and boarded-up for more than a year. Safeway bought the houses and once had plans to tear down the old store and build a new Super Safeway with a big parking lot such as the one on South Greeley Highway. But the economy turned south, and the neighbors were stuck with a block of abandoned houses. Safeway should have been fined for every day those houses stood abandoned and neglected.

That's what we should due to other negligent slumlords in Cheyenne. Until a few weeks ago, we had an abandoned house in our neighborhood. It was an eyesore. Abandoned along with the house was a beat-up pick-up and a van. They just sit on the street, blocking the road grader which smooths our dirt street each month. I saw today that someone has bought the house and has put up a "for rent" sign. Let's hope this landlord doesn't morph into a slumlord. By the way, I have nothing against renters. I was a renter for more years that I've been a homeowner.

Syndicated columnist Bill Sniffin out of Lander announced that Wyoming U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi will not be running for governor. Huh? Late last year, Mr. Sniffin had teased us about a mystery candidate for the governor's race.

A lot of wild speculation was dished my way as people speculated that I was talking about Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, John Barrasso, Cynthia Lummis, Dave Freudenthal turning Republican, Ray Hunkins, Eli Bebout and even this writer (wow!).

Dick Cheney? Liz Cheney? God forbid that those plagues would be loosed upon the state. Ditto Cynthia Lummis. Gov Dave turning Republican? Guess it could happen. Some of my lefty friends might say that Dave is DINO -- Democrat in Name Only. But this is Wyoming with its one-party system. I guess you could say there are two parties -- Republicans and Republicrats. I belong to the fringe party that nobody pays atention to -- Democrats.

But Enzi isn't running. He's too busy singing in the No Chorus of Senate Republicans. Maybe next time...

Welcome to spring training -- origins of Arizona's Cactus League

Douglas McDaniel writes an intriguing article for the Phoenix Performing Arts Examiner on the origins of the Cactus League. Very timely as Major League Baseball starts spring training in Arizona and Florida. Read the entire article at http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2040-Phoenix-Performing-Arts-Examiner~y2010m2d27-Spring-training-brought-civil-rights-legacy-to-Arizona

When baseball "broke the color barrier," there were all kinds of ripple effects. Arizona hasn't always been the most hospitable place for non-white people. Those migrating across the border aren't always welcome, unless they're mowing golf courses or washing dishes at your favorite Mexican restaurant. Arizona voters turned down a 1990 MLK Day proposal. The NFL yanked the 1990 Super Bowl out of Arizona. In 1992, state voters finally recognized the evil of their ways and okayed the MLK Day holiday. The Super Bowl finally came to Sun Devil stadium in 1996.

In the 1940s, economics and nice weather and a few pushy individuals such as Bill Veeck made the Cactus League happen.

Florida, on the other hand, was definitely a part of the Dixie South. I just finished listening to a PBS series about the very slow dissolution of the color barrier at NASA during the 1960s. Some of the NASA employees interviewed cited Cape Canaveral as the worst place for a black employee. Worse than Huntsville, Alabama? Well, Huntsville had a long-standing federal presence. The military had been integrated since 1948 and many had been stationed in Huntsville. Scientists and researchers had been coming to Huntsville from all over the world. Houston, home to the Johnson Space Center, was at least a big city where blacks and white occasionally mingled.

Brevard County, Florida, was not so enlightened. An African-American town was obliterated to make way to launch facilities. "Separate but equal" was still in effect at schools and restaurants and the workplace.

I grew up one county to the north. Volusia County was home to the Daytona Speedway and the World's Most Famous Beach. Blacks couldn't go to this famous beach. They had to go to Bethune Beach, or N----- Beach as it was known to Crackers. Sundown laws kept blacks off of the beach side at night. Schools were segregated through the 1960s. The KKK was active into the 1970s and may still be.

How did black players on MLB teams fare in Florida? Did they have to stay in separate hotels and eat at separate restaurants? I don't know the answer to those questions. But I plan to find out.

To view a hilarious mockumentary on "The Old Negro Space Program," go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8

HCR Summit clip: "Would your healthcare platform be the same if you made $40K?"

Video clip of the day from Health Care Reform Summit (via a TPM post): POTUS vs. The Colossus of Casper. No contest!

"Science is the Poetry of Reality"

Thanks to Ellie Chamberlain and Kevin Shay of Tucson for referring me to this beautiful vid about "real poetry in the real world."