Can't leave well enough alone? You must be a blogger.

Did your mom or grandmother ever say, "You can't leave well enough alone?"

Funny expression. When it something "well enough" and why should you leave it alone? Shouldn't it be "well done" or just finished?

Many bloggers I know can't leave well enough alone. Maybe that's what drew them to blogs in the first place. Unlimited space where you can ignore well enough into eternity.

Anyway, some of you followed my serial tale of the Oct. 22 near-miss crash with a drunk driver on I-25. I told the installments on Facebook as sat in my Ford on the way to Pueblo later than day.

I received an "unsafe lane change" ticket which I was going to pay but thought better of it. The young driver who almost killed us was busted for DUI -- drunk at 8:15 a.m. So I decided to write a letter to the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles and copies to various other agencies (see the end of the letter).

Here's the letter:

Oct. 26, 2010

Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles
Department A
Denver, CO 80243

To Whom It May Concern:

I am not a perfect driver.

But I am a pretty good one.

I drive thousands of on-the-job miles around Wyoming each year. That’s in all kinds of weather. I put thousands of personal miles on my own car each year traveling back and forth between Cheyenne and Fort Collins and Denver, which is my home town.

No tickets. No wrecks. Maybe a few close calls, but that’s to be expected in the Rocky Mountain states, where driving conditions can change in the blink of an eye.

That’s how accidents happen – in the blink of an eye. I may have blinked on Friday morning, Oct. 22, near the Harmony Road interchange on I-25 in Larimer County. I looked in my side view mirror, clicked my turn signal, and then eased into the left lane. I was avoiding the heavy morning traffic merging on to the highway.

Next thing I know, I saw a green Subaru on my left. I pulled back to the right lane, slowed and watched as the Subaru kicked up a cloud of dust from the median and then crossed right in front of me and off to the right. In the chaos, I slowed and pulled off to the right shoulder about 100 yards down the road. I got out of the car and made my way back to the Subaru. It was upright facing the wire fence. The car had a few dings and the tries were flat. The driver was out of the car and seemed to be O.K. I apologized, certain that I had caused the accident. The driver was young, maybe mid-20s, with a sparse beard. He was dressed in black. His hands shook from the shock, or at least that’s what I thought at the time.

Thirty minutes later, he wore handcuffs in the back of a Colorado State Patrol car. He was on his way to jail for driving while impaired.

And I got a ticket for unsafe lane change. Or, as the ticket read: “Changed lanes when unsafe.”

Funny how your perception can change almost instantaneously. One moment I’m feeling terrible because I may have made a bad move that led to the wreck of another person’s car. The next minute I’m thinking, “We could all be dead.” “All” meaning my wife of 28 years, my 17-year-old daughter and me. And the driver of the Subaru who was drunk at 8:15 on a Friday morning.

When I was merging left on the highway, I didn’t see the driver of the Subaru because he wasn’t there. My guess is that he was behind me and tried to speed around me on his way to work, which is where he said he was going. My statement to the police said that “I didn’t see the Subaru.” I meant that literally. When he looked in my side view mirror, the Subaru wasn’t there. And then, in the blink on an eye, he was there and spinning out of control in his 4WD Subaru Outback. That’s one safe car, known for its reliability and safety. That the driver emerged unhurt speaks to that.

But you can give an impaired driver the world’s best car and he or she can find ways to do unsafe and dangerous things in it.

I am contesting my ticket. I may end up paying it when I go to court in Ft. Collins on 1/14/11, and that’s something I can live with. But I want the record to show that the unsafe lane-changing driver was not me but the driver of the Subaru. He was unsafe when he got into his car that morning. He was unsafe speeding down the highway. My miscalculation resulted in his unsafe and unsound response that downed a highway light pole, wrecked his car, and could have resulted in death or injuries to my family and any number of other drivers on the road that morning.

I conclude by commending the Colorado State Patrol, the Larimer County Sheriff and the ambulance EMTs who were at the scene. Professionals all. One patrolman even jumped my car, dead on the side of the road from extended use of emergency blinkers. Thanks to him, we quickly resumed our trip to Pueblo. We were late, but intact.

Sincerely,



Michael Shay

Cc: Colorado State Patrol
Larimer County Court
Farmers Insurance

Art blossoms all over Georgia -- and in airports all over U.S.

"Dogwood," a sculpture by John Portman in downtown Atlanta. I think this a dogwood blossom in bronze I(although I couldn't determine the medium). These blossoms light up the Georgia spring which usually occurs in late March. In Wyoming, the calendar may say spring but the landscape cries snow and cold. The Atlanta airport has a fantastic public art program. Walking the concourse like walking the corridors of a museum. Art, history and science displays.

Here's another airport that really values art:

What hath Coke wrought?

Ol' Doc Pemberton offers up a serving of CoCola (Southern pronunciation) at the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta. I was taking a walk in the sun during a break in the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health conference. One of the discussion topics has been the high incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among youth with mental health issues. Way back when, patent medicine was laced with coca and laudanum. Parents gave it too their kids for all kinds of reasons. Our heritage of abuse? My understanding is that the coke in Coke was replaced early on with caffeine, which is the drug of choice for most of us now.

'To Learning'

The entrance of the old Carnegie Library in Atlanta is now a monument or public work of art, depending on how you look at it. New central library not so new. One of those dreadful square concrete mid-sixties buildings. Art inside helps warm the space.

In U.S., opportunity is not universal

Wes Moore, author of "The Other Wes Moore," today at the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health conference in Atlanta: "In the U.S., potential is universal but opportunity is not."

Looking forward to reading the book.

More Atlanta public art

"The Rites of Spring" by Eliot Weinberg. Cold day in Atlanta. It is warmer (I hear) back in Cheyenne. Wes Moore speaking at Mental Health conference luncheon.

Big statues, big themes, big vision

"Ballet Olympia" (1991-92), conceived and designed by John Portman from Paul Manship's "Maenad" (1953), a three-foot bronze figurine. Created in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics.

Harvey Deselms talking about a bronze on every Cheyenne corner. How about this one in Atlanta across from my downtown convention hotel? Within a block of the hotel are at least seven original sculptures. I don't like them all but none are horses or cowboys, which is a vast improvement.

Real Wyoming suicide problem trumps imaginary one

From Fox News:

U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis said Friday that some of her Wyoming constituents are so worried about the reinstatement of federal estate taxes that they plan to discontinue dialysis and other life-extending medical treatments so they can die before Dec. 31.

Instead of worrying about some imaginary suicide problem in Wyoming, Lummis could be doing something about a real suicide problem (from an article by Baylie Evans in the 8/28/10 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle):

Since 1999, Wyoming has had one of highest suicide rates in the nation. In 2002, 2003 and 2006, Wyoming had the highest rate of any state.
It's a statistic that many say is unacceptable, but is largely ignored or avoided by the general public.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Wyoming youth, said Keith Hotle, the suicide prevention team leader with the Wyoming Department of Health. Only car crashes kill more teens.

If a new disease was the second-leading cause of death for youth, "that would be front page news all over the state," he said.

Instead, the topic makes people cringe.

People such as Rep. Lummis, no doubt.

Has she shown similar outrage about this real problem?

Read the rest of WTE's disturbing article at http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2010/08/29/news/01top_08-29-10.txt

Election Day 2010 Cheyenne

Mike and Mike in the morning -- electioneering for House District 8 candidate Ken McCauley. Lots of waves, honks and thumps-ups at the corner of Dell Range and Yellowstone. Hot chocolate helped too.

Join David Wendt and his "Lummis Left Us Behind Tour"

Last-minute pitch from Democrat David Wendt for Wyoming's lone Congressional seat:

Candidate for Congress David Wendt concluded his “Lummis Left Us Behind Tour” on Sunday in Green River. Wendt addressed a number of issues on the tour, including Lummis’ record of voting against student loan reform, against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and of failing to fully support our Veterans.
In Green River, Wendt spoke on those issues, and called special attention to the Wyoming Range. Lummis voted “NO” on a bill that protects the Wyoming Range from oil and gas drilling.

Here are his prepared remarks:

“Hello, thank you all for joining me today. I have had the great honor, over the past seven months, of traveling the state of Wyoming as a candidate for the United States House of Representatives. I am currently on the last leg of my final campaign road trip and I am very excited to bring the ‘Lummis Left Us Behind Tour’ to Sweetwater County. It’s always a pleasure to visit with the hard-working people here in this wonderful part of the state.

“I believed, when I began this campaign, that it was my duty to step up and run. I believed then and believe now that Wyoming does not have the representation that it deserves. Too many have been left behind by my opponent, Rep. Cynthia Lummis.

"In Laramie, I spoke with students left behind when my opponent sided with Wall Street on a bill on student loan reform. I met with veterans in Cheyenne and spoke about small businesses in Casper and discussed the fact that my opponent, in her first vote in Congress, opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which provides protection to women, who too often do not receive the same pay as their male colleagues when they perform the same job.

“But it isn’t simply this group or that group that has been left behind. Wyoming has been left behind. There is no better example than the Wyoming Range – just a short distance from where we stand right now. Opening the beautiful Wyoming Range to oil and gas drilling is absolutely wrong – and it’s not a partisan issue.

“Protecting the Wyoming Range was a signature issue of the late Republican Senator Craig Thomas. It is an issue that has won support from Senators Barrasso and Enzi. This is an issue that the citizens of Wyoming, from all political beliefs, can unite around. My opponent chose another route.

"It is time that we take some Wyoming values to Washington. We can solve the difficult issues facing this country, but we need to restore civility and a sense that we’re in this together. That’s the Wyoming way and I intend to bring Wyoming’s citizen-legislator style of governance with me to Washington. My opponent and her Tea Party colleagues are committed to a politics of division. That approach is wrong and fails to uphold our great Wyoming traditions.

"Because here in Wyoming, we roll up our sleeves, work together and solve problems. We believe that people should get a fair chance, that students should have opportunities to pursue world-class educations, that we must support our small businesses instead of special interests. We believe that women have a right to equal pay for equal work and that we must support our nation’s Veterans. We cherish our great land and believe we must maintain it for future generations.

"Wyoming has been left behind by Cynthia Lummis, but if voters elect me, I’ll go to Congress and take Wyoming with me.”

Wendt’s “Lummis Left Us Behind Tour” made stops in Laramie, Cheyenne, Casper and Green River.

David Wendt, a Democrat, has more than 30 years of bipartisan public policy experience working with Democrats, Republicans and Independents on issues of international security.

For more information on David Wendt, please visit http://www.wendtforwyoming.com/ or call the campaign headquarters at 307-734-3913.

W.D. Ehrhart's "The Farmer" from Working Words

Poem by W.D. Ehrhart, Vietnam veteran, writer and high school teacher. This is included in "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams" from Coffee House Press.

The Farmer

Each day I go into the fields
to see what is growing
and what remains to be done.
It is always the same thing: nothing
is growing; everything needs to be done.
Plow, harrow, disc, water, pray
till my bones ache and hands rub
blood-raw with honest labor—
all that grows is the slow
intransigent intensity of need.
I have sown my seed on soil
guaranteed by poverty to fail.
But I don't complain—except
to passersby who ask me why
I work such barren earth.
They would not understand me
if I stooped to lift a rock
and hold it like a child, or laughed,
or told them it is their poverty
I labor to relieve. For them,
I complain. A farmer of dreams
knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams
knows what it means to be patient.
Each day I go into the fields.

This poem is currently published in Beautiful Wreckage, New & Selected Poems, Adastra Press, 1999 Copyright © 1984 by W. D. Ehrhart, The Outer Banks, Adastra Press, 1984

You can still volunteer for Wyoming Democrats

From Linda Stowers, Laranmie County Democrats:

We still have much todo tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday. We are asking for volunteers to do some phone calls tomorrow and Monday. If you can make any calls for the Get out the Vote campaign, please stop by the headquarters at 408 W. 23rd St. in Cheyenne tomorrow (Monday) between 12-2:30 p.m. I will be at the office to give you some calls. These will be Democrat calls to remind people to vote.

In addition, if you don't have anything to do on Monday we are going to do some walking for Mike Massie. Please come to the headquarters office anytime you have free on Monday to receive some walking areas. Thanks for your help.

Cheyenne statue project should include all those people (and creatures) who influenced Cheyenne

Interesting front page article in today's Halloween edition of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.

Local gallery owner Harvey Deselms is promoting a project to put bronze statues on every corner of Capitol Avenue between the Historic Depot and the Capitol Building. That's eight blocks times four corners equals 32 statues.

A cowboy is next up, which is no surprise. There are no shortage of cowboy and/or cowboy with bucking bronco statues in Cheyenne. Sure, I guess there's room for a few more cowboys along the street. But this represents only a small part of Cheyenne's heritage.

I like the two new statues proposed for Depot Square. A young woman "dressed in 19th-century garb" leaving the train station and a cowboy on his way into the train station. The titles are, respectively, "A New Beginning" and "Hard to Leave."

But why cowboy-era cowboy and woman? Why not have a World War II G.I. emerging from the station to be greeted by his family? Wonder how many soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen traveled in and out of the depot during the war? Our entire region, from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne and up to Casper, were hugely influenced by war industries. It's often said that many young men who trained in Denver and Cheyenne and Colorado Springs returned here to live after the war. They were drawn by the wide-open spaces and mountains and climate. The Tenth Mountain Division soldiers returned from the war to create the modern ski industry.

I'd love to see oilfield roughnecks and miners and Basque sheepherders represented on the streets of Cheyenne. Native Americans, of course. It is pleasing to note that the renovation plan for the Capitol Building complex will include Esther Hobart Morris and Chief Washakie flanking each other in front of the historic building. We have a Buffalo Soldier in the pocket park outside of F.E. Warren AFB. But we need one on the city's downtown main street.

This is suggested only partly in jest -- what about a guy in a suit carrying a briefcase? Cheyenne is a government town, after all, and government employees outnumber agricultural workers (a.k.a. cowboys) any day of the week. Wyoming soon will add a statue of Governor Stan Hathaway next month to the front of the Hathaway Building. A governor is a bureaucrat -- probably the state's chief bureaucrat -- so it would be appropriate for the Gov statue to be surrounded by his aides and assistants and all the people who make the state work. This is not myth. This is reality.

We should consult the Cheyenne and Arapaho and Lakota tribes who used to inhabit the region before the railroad and horse soldiers arrived. While Wyoming's Chief Washakie is a great addition to the Capitol Complex, he was a Shoshone, a mountain tribe. As far as I know, we have no representation of the many Native American horsemen who inhabited these lands. 

Speaking of the railroads... Irishmen? Scotsmen? Chinese? Local visionary (and fine writer) Lou Madison has proposed a number of sculptures for the city. I especially like his idea of a monumental sculpture for the Cheyenne rail yards which would show workers building the rails that led to the founding of Cheyenne. The city would just be a bump in the road if not for the railroad.

And the highways that bisect our city limits. They are works of art unto themselves. Downtown Cheyenne offers some historic markers dedicated to the Lincoln Highway, and we have a huge Lincoln head at the top of the pass that marks the thoroughfare. But thousands of trucks and cars travel down I-80 and I-25 every day. How about a monument to a trucker on one of the downtown corners? How much money do truckers spend each day at the county's truck stops and restaurants and motels? Perhaps we could commemorate a trucker stopped by a blizzard that closes the Summit? Trucker sits in a booth at a truckstop while waitress serves him coffee and a slice of apple pie. Could call the sculpture: "Long haul trucker parks his ass." Something like that. Maybe "Night owls at the diner?" I think that's already been used.

My father built ICBM missile silos from Kansas to Colorado to Washington State. We should have a representation of that bit of history along Capitol Avenue. In many ways, nukes made Cheyenne. We could have a statue of a missileer at his/her station, or a down-sized version of an MX.

We can't forget our geological history. Cheyenne was once on the fringe of an inland sea. Wouldn't it be great to have a huge ancient crocodile rising from the concrete, trying to snatch its prey? The tourists would love that. Lots of photo opportunities. You could actually put a dinosaur bronze or one of a prehistoric mammal (woolly mammoths, sloths, etc.) on each downtown corner. 

Cowboys are wonderful. That's apart of Cheyenne's heritage. But that's not all there is. Delve into the history and let's come up with a sequence of statues that speak to Cheyenne's interesting and sometimes strange history.

You can't stomp on 75,000 fired-up Democrats

Slightly-doctored photo of me at the 2008 Democratic National Convention wrap-up at Mile High Stadium/Invesco Field in Denver. We were unstompable on this night. And so we shall remain. Go to http://www.moveon.org/ to add your "Don't Stomp on Me (Us)" photo to the mix. And while you're at it -- VOTE!

Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens

From Alternet on those damn gubment employees welfare queens: Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens

UPLIFT holds 20th anniversary reception Nov. 16

It's been my privilege to serve on the board of UPLIFT since 1998. UPLIFT is the Wyoming affiliate of the National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health. I'll be representing the board at the National Federation's 21st annual conference in Atlanta next week.

UPLIFT's mission:

Encouraging success and stability for children and youth with or at risk of emotional, behavioral, learning, developmental, or physical disorders at home, school, and in the community.

UPLIFT staffers accompany families to school I.E.P. meetings and guide them through the mazes of state paperwork for extended treatment for mental health issues.

As a board member, I invite you to the 20th anniversary reception on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 5-7 p.m., at the Cole Elementary School Gym, 615 W. 9th St., Cheyenne. Enjoy food and beverages and learn about UPLIFT's services. This event is free and open to the public. It's a chance for us to thank those who have supported the organization since its inception in 1990.

As is the case with so many non-profit social services agencies, the UPLIFT budget is tight these days. Most of the funding comes from federal and state sources. Private funding, or unrestricted government funds, are hard to come by. So UPLIFT is embarking on a campaign to raise its profile and raise money -- all at the same time.

Go to the spiffy updated UPLIFT web site for more info.

And join us on Nov. 16.

Washington Monthly: On the edge of the next real estate boom -- and Utah shows the way

So many things to like in this Washington Monthly piece about the The Next Real Estate Boom. Western cities such as Salt Lake City, Denver and Portland are leading the way towards close-in walkable communities. But it's not about big chunks of federal money dropped on big projects. It's about private-sector funding and streetcars and affordable houses and zoning law changes and energy-saving construction. Local collaborative efforts. Democrats and Republicans and Independents and Libertarians and Greenies and Tea Partiers working together for the common good.

Dogs and cats, living together...

Just go read it.

Attention America: RepubliCorp will own you!

The B.A. degree divide in the West

Interesting story and graphics about education levels across the U.S., as featured in Daily Yonder.

Top ten rural counties in the U.S. with highest B.A. degree levels are all in the Intermountain West, with two in Wyoming. Those two counties, Teton and Laramie, are blue on the map and also more blue as far as number of Democratic Party voters. Teton County (Jackson, Wilson, etc.) has also been rated by the Western States Arts Federation Creative Vitality Index (CVI) as one of the top arts counties in the U.S.

Of the top ten rural counties with the fewest B.A. degree-holders, only two are in the West (Alaska and S.D.), one in the Midwest (Ill.) and the rest are in the South.

Read more at The B.A. Divide on Daily Yonder

Montana and Wyoming fiction writers give freaks a pass

“Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana. And you, my friend, are a blue-ribbon, bull-goose freak.”

That’s a line from Thomas McGuane’s new novel, “Driving on the Rim,” Maile Meloy reviewed the novel (mostly favorably) and referred to those lines as her favorites. I like them too.

I haven’t read a McGuane novel since “92 in the Shade.” And that was decades ago. More recently I’ve read McGuane’s essay collection, “A Sporting Chance.” Practically everything I know about cutting horses I know from this fine book. McGuane raises and trains cutting horses in Montana. As a youth, I was chronically allergic to horse hair and hay and weeds and almost everything else you can find on a ranch. Fortunately, I was a city boy and not a farmer’s son out on the prairie.

I have since been on horseback five or six times without collapsing with an asthma attack. But my sensibilities are totally non-horse and horses know it.

Maybe that’s why I’m so taken with McGuane’s facility with horses. Horses and language. As Meloy points out in the NYT review, McGuane’s novels are a little baggy while his essays are succinct works of art. She also points out some factual inconsistencies regarding some of the book’s characters.

But she’s willing to give McGuane a pass on this. Just as the attorney in the book in willing to give a Montana-style pass to the main character. Meloy gives McGuane a pass because he’s such a damn fine writer and he’s written a good book.

I sometimes get a bit suspicious when a fictional character’s freakishness is called out. It’s almost as if the author, who’s spent thousands of words portraying his character’s quirkiness, must now actually say the word “freak!” Just in case you missed all the clues.

But there’s something a bit deeper here. Have the quirky characters of the Rocky Mountain West become a bit of a stereotype? Quirky people live here, denizens of the Great Wide Open. They often have fled the more settled places of the East and South and Coastal West. They are tough individualists drawn to the live-and-let-live Code of the West. It’s not a code, exactly, more like guidelines. But you know what I mean.

Used to be all the freaky characters came from the minds of writers of the South – William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Larry Brown, Kaye Gibbons, Barry Hannah, Harry Crews, etc. Along came Annie Proulx, Lee K. Abbott, John Nichols, Rick DeMaranis, Ron Carlson, Alyson Hagy, etc. These writers of the West wrote great stories and novels about freakish people driven by a search for solitude or personal freedom or some undefined crucial core value. Southern characters, on he other hand, were driven more by ghosts of the so-called glorious past and the constraints of their old-time religion.

I love freaky characters. I often try to invent some for my stories. But just because you live in a freakish place, such as Montana or Wyoming, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook when it comes to creating believable characters.

Name the freakiest place you know. If you’re a button-down Midwesterner, Boulder, Colorado’s Pearl Street Mall might test your sensibilities. If you’re a hipster from Boulder, a trip to Sun City, Ariz., might cause you to come unglued.

Wyoming is pretty freaky, I must admit. Bill Sniffin’s Sunday newspaper column was devoted to the antics of the former Miss Wyoming-World, Joyce McKinney. McKinney is the focus of Errol Morris’s latest documentary, “Tabloid.” In 1977 in London, she kidnapped a former boyfriend, a young LDS missionary, and forced him to have sex for three days. The British tabloids had a field day with this woman who committed rape on a man. That’s the focus of Morris’s film.

Sniffin of Lander also recalled that McKinney surfaced a few years in Tennessee, paying a man to burglarize a house “to pay for an artificial leg for a three-legged horse.”

As Playlist says about Morris’s story: “Intoxicatingly entertaining and outrageously wild, Hollywood’s top writers could never have dreamed this up.”

Hollywood writers? No. But Mountain West writers – of course.