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I decided to use a swatch of dialogue from one of the stories in my as-yet-unpublished collection, "The Department of Noticing Things."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.

Wish we were memorializing Prince in 2036 instead of 2016

Symbol for the opioid formerly known as Oxycodone.

News of Prince's death rocked music fans. I'm not a big Prince fan, but do admire his creativity. The soundtrack of my life is more Sgt. Pepper's than Purple Rain. I remember well Prince's videos airing on the early days of MTV. Remember music videos on Music TV? Yes, I thought that you would. A new public TV station in Boulder also aired music videos at night. That was Colorado Public Television Channel 12, which now is based in Denver's LoDo. I remember videos by Prince and Pat Benetar and the "Roly Poly Fish Heads" song by Barnes & Barnes and the late great band The Call with its subversive lyrics and sneaky Biblical references. I was thirtysomething then, and music videos were new and quirky. We talked about them at work. Didya see...? Yeah, weird, eh? Yeah. Weird, Weird, and cool. 

The videos have moved to the web. And Prince is gone. The most disturbing aspect of the tragedy are the allegations that he was hooked on opioids for pain. Prince spent his adult life dancing across stages. He jumped from platforms and did the splits, all while wearing his trademark high-heel shoes. When you get to be 57, no matter your physical prowess, gravity takes a toll. Prince had hip replacement surgery and back problems. What does a performer do about chronic pain? Painkillers. And Percocet offers some wonderful painkilling properties. Better living through chemistry, eh? Problem is, that opioid high is addicting and ya wanna keep poppin' those pills.

In the past year, I've undergone two knee replacement surgeries. Both times, my orthopedic doctor prescribed Percocet (Oxycodone + Acetaminophen) for pain. As the weeks passed, the doc weaned me from a higher dose to a smaller one and finally to none at all. A wise man, one who has written many prescriptions for opioids -- and has undoubtedly heard many pleas for more, sir, please, more. Pain sufferers can be a pain -- and very persuasive. No wonder the pills are handed out like candy.

Patient: Doc, I'm in terrible pain.

Doc: You are a terrible pain.

Patient: Trouble right here in Magic City, Doc. I need opioids and it rhymes with hemorrhoids and it stands for pool and...

Doc: Are you high?

Patient: High on life.

Doc: Here's a prescription for a gazillion Percocet.

Patient (kisses Doc's feet, backs slowly out the door):  You won't regret this Doc!

Doc: Yes I will. 

Since I began my personal experience with opioids, I have heard scores of blood-curdling stories about opioid abuse. Fatal overdoses, lost jobs, ruined marriages, etc. Addicts will do anything (and have) to get their hands on Oxy. When they can't, some turn to heroin. Thus the heroin epidemic in the hinterland.

What are our other options when pain haunts us? It would be nice to just say no, but it's not that easy when your body and your brain are working against you. Pain screams for relief. If you are lucky, the pain in only temporary. Knee and hip replacements heal over time and you feel almost as good as new, a return to the days when you only had a bit of knee pain. Aleve can soothe the ache after a Snowy Range hike. Sure, the commercials are annoying but that's a small price to pay for 24-hour pain relief! Caution: Aleve may cause nausea, light-headednesss, heartburn, dizziness, abdominal pain. But still better than Heroin P.M.

Medical marijuana is a hot issue in many states including Wyoming. Marijuana won't kill you. It may lead to harder stuff. But what if you are already taking the harder stuff in the form of opioids? Wouldn't pot be a welcome change from the fever dreams of opioids and the threat of addiction?

We don't yet know Prince's autopsy results.He may have died from a heart attack or an aneurysm. Both can kill quickly, especially if you are alone in an elevator and have no phone to call 911. In those circumstances, you can't always think straight -- or have enough time to dial for help.

Meanwhile, let the tributes roll on. Prince deserves it. I just wish we were giving him a posthumous send-off 20 years in the future.

Grant Farms store in Cheyenne reinvents itself

Yes, it's supposed to snow buckets this weekend. Winter storm Vexo may prove to be vexing here in Cheyenne and all along the Front Range. 

However, gardening season is still on the horizon -- just delayed by a weekend or two.

In the midst of winter -- not to be confused with the winter that visits in springtime -- I attended the topping off ceremony of the new building at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. So cool to watch the building's progress on my walks around the lake. Check it out at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens web site. 

Another boost to gardening in the area is news from Grant Farms on Lincolnway to reopen and reinvent itself. This comes from the Botanic Gardens:

Long-time Cheyenne garden center Grant Farms is set to reopen on April 23 selling plants, seeds and supplies for your garden.

On May 1, it is becoming a source for local fresh food like eggs, fruits and vegetables (mostly organically grown). In addition, they will provide fresh-baked bread, pastries, Jackie’s Java fresh coffee, local cheeses and milk.

On Memorial Day weekend, Grant Farms will open a new Garden Patio Bistro where you can sit and enjoy a fresh coffee drinks, ice cream and fresh smoothies. In addition, they will have live music on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Show your Botanic Gardens membership card prior to them ringing up your sale and get 10% off!

Looking forward to sitting around sipping an iced latte while inhaling the fresh scents of growing things -- and enjoying live music. Grant Farms is based outside Wellington in Larimer County, Colorado. We consider Wellington a suburb of Cheyenne, although Fort Collins usually claims it. Some people prefer the more accommodating attitudes of CO to WY where crazy people run our legislature. 

Find more info for the Grant Farms store in Cheyenne. 

What I learned in graduate school, part one

It seems as if I've read hundreds of critiques about M.F.A. writing programs over the years. They usually fall into two camps.
No. 1: I spent three years and tens of thousands of dollars on an M.F.A. program and all I got was this lousy diploma.
No. 2: Grad school was worth it -- I learned more than I thought I would.

Alas, I've read more of the former than the latter. They usually are written by young people who have joined the system without much life experience which, of course, is what it means to be young. Does this 65-year-old retiree remember how it was to be 19 or 21 and flummoxed by a university system -- any university system? I was an overachiever, a scholarship student, who crashed and burned after two years at a major American university. The fault was my own, although I spent many years blaming the university and the government and my parents and the phases of the moon. I am an ex-newspaper reporter and satirist who loves it when people take on any system. Doesn't mean the writer is correct in his/her critique. It's fun to be pissed off in print and get attention. 

I'm going to say some nice things about my M.F.A. program. Stop here if you prefer to read the negative over the positive. You may learn something but no guarantee, just as there is no guarantee that an M.F.A. program will make you a stellar writer and a denizen of the Literary World. 

Before I begin, let me thank writer Marian Palaia who wrote a recent essay, "The Real World vs. the M.F.A." for Literary Hub at http://lithub.com/the-real-world-vs-the-mfa/. If fact, you can skip this blog and go read Palaia's piece, as it covers most of the same ground that I do. She's close to my age (pushing 60) and earned her M.F.A. as an older student, older even than I was at 41. Such a wonderful essay that I'm ordering her novel and reading it. The least I can do for a fellow writer.

I liked these lines from her essay:

I do not advise waiting as long as I did to get an MFA, if you are sure that what you want to do is to write. What I do advise is gaining some awareness of the world, and of the people in it who are not like you, before you go into a program.

At 37, I had met a lot of people not like me. Gang-bangers, corporate CEOs, jocks, cabbies, political activists, druggies, yuppies, loonies, etc. I had held tons of jobs, some temporary gigs as hospital orderly and warehouse worker, to full-time jobs as corporate editor and newspaper reporter. When I began to look around for creative writing programs, I had one goal in mind: become a better writer. I had written articles on teen-age swimming phenoms to automotive fan belts. I'd written a novel, which earned me an agent but not a publisher.  My agent advised me to quit my job, go down to my basement and write full-time. I knew that hunkering down in my basement with my typewriter was a bad idea. I could see myself typing, the clatter of the keys clanging off of the basement walls. But I could also see myself wandering the basement rooms, haunted look on my face. Not good for an introvert depressive to be alone all day in his basement. Visions of Emily Dickinson, tormented in her attic. Ernest Hemingway and shotgun at his writing desk in remote Idaho.

I also wanted to meet interesting people. I guess you can do that anywhere. But writers, even in academia, should be interesting, right?

Thee first interesting person I met was writer and faculty member John Clark Pratt. My wife, son and I were in Fort Collins looking for a rental. I decided to drop into the CSU English Department. Dr. Pratt (I could call him John but he'll always be Dr. Pratt to me) was the lone M.F.A. faculty member hanging out in the Eddy Building on a July afternoon. He welcomed me, told me a bit about the program, which only began the year before. Only later did I learn that Dr. Pratt was the author of "The Laotian Fragments," a pilot in Vietnam, and one of the country's experts on the literature of the Vietnam War. He helped establish the CSU library's special collection on Vietnam. In the late 1980s, it featured unpublished manuscripts by veterans, published works by some well-known writers and an assortment of notes and research and ephemera. You can visit it still. Might even be online now.

When school began in late August, I met the rest of the faculty and my fellow students. For the most part, the faculty was closer in age to me than the students, but I had expected that. John Calderazzo was the creative non-fiction guru, A world traveler, he wrote mostly on environmental issues and wrote an excellent book on volcanoes. He'd been a free-lance writer for years, writing articles for corporate, real estate and automotive mags to make extra cash. We free-lanced a real estate piece together, since I also was on the lookout for extra cash.

David Milofsky was a novelist and short-story writer. He'd just left a position with Denver University to take the job at CSU, and commuted from Denver. Milofsky had been an investigative reporter in Milwaukee and still had that hard-bitten city reporter attitude. He was my adviser as I liked his fiction and he liked the fact that I was a bit older than the other students and not so naive and wide-eyed. Poet Bill Tremblay was from Jack Keroauc's hometown and played football before turning to poetry. He was more coach than academic. Mentor to many poets and the faculty member that you knew would turn up for every student reading. I worked for him as student editor of the campus literary magazine, the Colorado Review.

Mary Crow was the other poetry prof. She may have been the most academic of the bunch. She traveled widely, was bilingual and made sure that students got a taste of writers from all over the world through the visiting writers program. Receptions were always held at her house, potlucks where us budding writers got a chance to gnosh and chat with writers such as Paul Monette, Linda Hogan, Tomaz Salamun, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Mary talked me into being the M.F.A. student rep to the university's Fine Arts Program, which led to my career in arts administration -- more about that later. Leslee Becker was a fine short story writer and quirky human. She mentored us short story writers and also LGBT students in the English department.

One of my four semester-long workshops was with short story writer Steve Schwartz. I learned a lot in the workshop, but possibly the best info I got from Steve was about the Colorado Council on the Arts' Arts Education program. I applied, was accepted, and next thing I know, I'm signed up to spent a month in Peetz on the prairie as a paid visiting writer. The goal was to mentor high school students for half the day and write the other half. I never made it to Peetz as a writer/teacher, The students never knew what they missed, and neither did I. My job in Wyoming would place me in charge of a visiting writers program called Tumblewords, brainchild of the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), then located in Santa Fe, now in Denver.

Most of these writers who also were teachers are now retired, as I am. A new crew took over, which is the way of things. I learned so much from them, and I was able to work with them in new and interesting ways when I found my calling.

In my next installment, I'll talk about all the good stuff I learned during my three years in the M.F.A. program. Stay tuned...

Meet some quirky North Koreans in Adam Jonson's fiction

Know anyone from North Korea?

I don't. But I feel that I do now, after reading Adam Johnson';s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Orphan Master's Son."

Johnson is not from either Korea, as evidenced by his name. Nothing in his book jacket bio mentions that he lived in Korea or taught there or even briefly sojourned there. I am sure I can find more info on the Internet. But right now I am content to let a fiction writer weave his magic spell.

Johnson acquaints me with North Koreans, those benighted folks who live in the most backward and isolated country on the planet. Jun Do is the orphan master's son who, at the orphanage, is given the toughest jobs in the place by his father and, in turn, assigns the actual orphans even grimmer tasks. As a teen, Jun Do is spirited away by the government and learns how to be a night fighter in North Korea's many tunnels. Because he has an orphan name, others refer to him that way. His usual response, "I'm not an orphan." Nobody seems to believe him. His response becomes predictable and funny. In fact, This novel is filled with humor, a pleasant surprise since Westerners are supposed to feel nothing but sorrow and pity about North Korea.

I'm only a third of the way through the book. It's one of those that you read late into the night, forgetting that the witching hour has come and gone.

One other aspect of Johnson -- he writes terrific short stories. I first read his work in the short fiction collection, "Fortune Smiles." The title story features two North Koreans who have defected to the South. Such magnificent creations. Only one is fitting in to this new land, the other has all the anti-establishment swagger of Kesey's R.P. McMurphy. This is odd and endearing, since he comes from super-authoritarian North Korea. How did he survive there -- and why does he want to go back?

While you're absorbing Johnson's short stories, read "Hurricanes Anonymous." I was dubious about reading yet another story set in post-Katrina New Orleans. As always, the drama and humor is in the characters and how they face up to the situation. We humans are a strange bunch. It's masterful writer who can help us see a small band of them in new and unusual ways.

History comes looking for you.

The Rolling Stones rock Havana today. The Western World's Capitalist Songsters in one of the last bastions of international communism. Unthinkable a year ago. The Leader of the Free World attends a baseball game in Havana. President Obama, the first black president in U.S. history, sits next to Raul Castro; they trade quips about on-base percentages and ERAs. The day before, they were debating Americanism vs. Cubano Communism. That was a course we had in high school in Florida -- Americanism vs. Communism. That usually meant the Soviet variety, but we were only too aware that Red Cuba was a threat just 90 miles from Florida. Mr. Muir taught eighth grade at Our Lady of Lourdes and we played basketball with his son. Mr. Muir, a respected teacher at a private school in Havana, fled Castro in 1959 and now teaching snotty-nosed Catholic Anglos in the same town that his honored former dictator Fulgencio Batista owned a house along the river. My father, who stashed supplies in our Wichita basement for the Apocalypse during the Cuban Missile Crisis three years before, now pointed out Batista's house whenever we drove by in the station wagon overloaded with his Catholic brood.

And a NROTC midshipman, 1970, I spent three weeks in Cuba. Gitmo, now the U.S. terror prison, a confused 19-year-old. We tried to pick up the teen daughters of Gitmo officers at the base pool. Barbed wire barriers threaded the border, guard towers manned by soldiers the only Reds we could actually see. Soviet spies followed in our ship's wake, Russian fishing trawlers the big joke, antennae crowding out the fishing nets on deck. At night at the officer's club, we heard pilots' stories about night raids against the commies of North Vietnam, of buddies lost to SAMs. "You'll be there soon enough," they said, "that war not ending anytime soon."

My vas pokhoronim! -- "We will bury you!"  said Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow during the height of the Cold War. Fall 1956 -- I was five. My father buried nuclear missiles deep beneath the Colorado prairie.

Said Obama to the Cubans: “I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas.”

History comes looking for you.

Flashback: Will 2016 Wyoming Democratic Party caucus crowds be as large as they were in 2008?

I have a decade-long history on Blogger. This can be a bad thing, as I can still see some of my more embarrassing writing and photographic moments. It's also a good thing, as I can trace my political happenings going all the way back to 2006.

The Wyoming Democratic Party held its 2008 caucus on March 8. Sen. Obama and Sen. and former Pres. Clinton both visited the state in the days before the caucus. People were excited. People were motivated. More than 1,500 Laramie County Democrats came out to caucus at the Civic Center in Cheyenne. That's approximately 1,300 more than came out to caucus in 2004. It was a banner year for Democrats, and it got attention outside the state. I'm a party member and I was on-hand to cast my vote, lobby for a spot at the state convention and volunteer to assist the madding crowds. Youi can read my report on the day at http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2008/03/historic-day-for-wyoming-democrats.html.

Turnout for the 2012 caucuses was anemic. This year, Dems again expect big crowds, one of the reasons that the caucus venue has been changed from downtown's Historic Plains Hotel to the gym at Central High School. Local Bernie Sanders supporters have been very active for about six months thanks to efforts by my neighbor Ed Waddell and his fellow Berniecrats. I expect many Sanders supporters will turn up to vote. Hillary Clinton supporters are equally active, canvassing and calling and talking up the former Secretary of State and First Lady.

Here are the details for the upcoming April 9 caucus:

The caucus and presidential preference vote will be held at the Cheyenne Central High School Field House Gymnasium, 5500 Education Drive on April 9, 11 a.m. Immediately following the morning’s caucus, convention activities will resume at the Plains Hotel, 1600 Central Avenue. We will be discussing the changes and volunteer opportunities for the convention. Check out the Laramie County Democratic Party’s frequently asked caucus questions at http://www.wyodems.org/frequently-asked-questions  

Get more info by attending the LCD’s monthly meeting on Monday, March 21, 6:30 p.m., at the IBEW Hall, 810 Fremont Ave., Cheyenne.

If 2008 provides any lessons for 2016, I urge you to arrive early. In 2008, I arrived at 7:30 a.m. and 100 voters already were in line. Some 1,400 folks lined up behind me, with the line snaking around the Civic Center. Great to see so many Wyoming Democrats all in one place. Let's do it again!

The Great 2016 American Political Spectacle is running at full throttle

Some of you may be wondering what hummingbirdminds thinks of the current election cycle.

OK, maybe you don't, but hummingbirdminds is going to tell you anyway.

I'm here in Wyoming watching the primary season and wondering how Hillary Clinton won all five states on the most recent Super Tuesday. Bernie Sanders came close in Missouri but, still, Clinton edged him out. Clinton claimed a wipe-out in Florida. Trump too. I ask my family and friends in Florida: Wazzup with that?

On Tuesday in Florida, GOP voter turnout was up but Democratic Party turnout was down. Sanders knew he would have to get lots of voters out to even get close to Clinton. In Missouri, voter turnout out paced 2008 turnout 39 to 36 percent. Less than 1,600 votes separated Sanders and Clinton. If several thousand of those college-age Sanders' supporters ("Feel the Bern!") had voted, well, the results would be different.

Whom do I support? My politics are more aligned with Democratic Socialist Sanders than with Democratic Moderate Clinton. But in November I just want to win, baby. Trump is dangerous, Cruz is creepy, and Kasich is a moderate but he keeps saying crazy stuff to get attention amongst all the Trump hoopla. What about the new effort to draft Paul Ryan should the Repub convention deadlock in Cleveland? Sounds far-fetched to me. Trump contends that there will be riots in Cleveland if that happens. Local police are stockpiling riot gear just in case. Interesting that the Repubs are going to the hometown of Democrat Dennis Kucinich, the anti-war liberal I supported in 2004 and 2008. He's the reason I got involved in local Democratic Party politics in 2004. The Iraq War was the issue then. And the Bush/Cheney axis of evil. Wonder what Mr. Kucinich thinks of all of this? I went to my first state party convention in 2004. Kucinich called in to our gathering although John Kerry was already the candidate-in-waiting. I didn't realize then that most of the decisions happen well before the ballots are cast. I think that we came out of that convention with one delegate pledged to Kucinich when the national convention got underway in Boston. I have some empathy for those Sanders supporters who haven't been involved in party politics. They have to be prepped for the April 9 caucus and for the state convention on May 28. Do your homework, Berniecrats! I stand ready to answer your questions.

So I'm an old hand. I've been to local caucuses and state and national conventions. I'm not jaded -- I still go to meetings and raise funds for Democratic candidates. I always vote, as do all the codgers in my district. But I no longer wonder why people are disappointed in the two political parties. If I had a chance to join and vote for the Democratic Socialists, I would do so. My neighbor Tea Party Slim would gather with the Tea Party Party or the Libertarians or the Guns for Everyone Party. My wife might be part of the Feminist Party. I could see my daughter Annie in the Green Party. My son? He's a candidate for the Transcendentalists or possibly the Gamer Party.

But now, two sizes fit all, which is ridiculous. Our choices are limited now by choices made when most of us were not paying attention. Will people start paying attention now that we're in the Age of Trump?

I have no answers. But, to us writers and bloggers, the Great 2016 American Political Spectacle is amazing.

Election season heats up -- and goes green -- in Laramie County

House Minority Leader Mary Throne addresses the "Get Your Green On" Democrats about some of  the Republican craziness that transpired during the most recent legislative session. 

Pat Lauber leads the food line as committee member Ken Trowbridge points out the goodies. 

Ryan Greene's campaign express from Rock Springs stopped at the Laramie County event to do some politicking. and eating. Greene, center, is the only Democrat running for Wyoming's lone U.S. House seat.  

Had a terrific time last night at the Laramie County Democrats’ “Get Your Green On” fund-raiser. Lots of funds raised for 2016 Dem candidates in Laramie County – stay tuned for numbers. This Irish-American never knew that corned beef and cabbage could be so popular. Only leftovers were a few leaves of cabbage and remnants of carrots and potatoes. C’mon Dems, eat your veggies! I noticed you had no problem paying $5 for Katherine Van Dell’s gourmet pina colada cupcakes. Cupcakes are vegetables, right? Each cupcake bought entered an attendee in a 50/50 raffle, won by Phyllis Bloomberg. All for the cause!

The big treat last night was seeing so many new faces ready to sign up and defeat these whackadoodle Republicans embarrassing the state in every legislative session. We also heard from the lone Democrat running for Wyoming’s lone U.S. Houser seat. Ryan Greene is a Rock Springs native and he brought his entourage with him to promote his 23-county get-acquainted tour around the state. Next stop after Cheyenne – a meeting in Lusk with Niobrara County’s flour Democrats. Plenty of room for growth! Greene works in the state’s energy industry and concerned, as we all are, about the downturn in the coal and natural gas industries. Greene is a father of two and a certified pipe welder and promoter of unions, which is fitting for someone from Wyoming’s union stronghold of Sweetwater County. As the candidate notes in his flyer, it’s been 40 years since Wyoming sent a Democrat to Washington, D.C. That was another Sweetwater County favorite son – Tino Roncalio. I met Rep. Roncalio while working on an oral history of the state’s World War II veterans. I also interviewed the very colorful politician for a 30^th anniversary booklet for the Wyoming Arts Council. Get more info about Ryan Greene’s campaign at www.ryaangreene16.com.

A few words about the plight of Democrats in Wyoming. As union jobs have been driven from this “Right to Work” state, Democratic Party numbers have dropped precipitously and so has our ability to elect Dems to the legislature. Gerrymandering hasn’t helped either. Our 11 Dems in the legislature are a feisty bunch. Notable is minority leader Rep. Mary Throne. The Gillette native (now Cheyenne resident) brings the same kind of fight to law-making as she did with her recent breast cancer battle. Such passion! She has to run again this year, as our reps have to mix it up on the campaign trail every two years. I’ll be writing more about the campaigns as the political scene begins to heat up this spring and summer.

The Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition does some amazing work. Our six-member fund-raising committee has put together some great events this past year. This group raised $10,000 for county candidates in 2012. Our goal this year is $15,000. We are two-thirds of the way there. If you wish to be part of the effort without the bother of eating cupcakes, donate at http://www.laramiecountydemocrats.org/. If you want to do your bit by eating and making merry at a FUNdraiser, pencil in May 7 on your calendar. This is Dem Derby Day in Wyoming. We expect a big crowd of concerned citizens to gamble and drink mint juleps for a good cause. We also hope for nice weather, but a little bit of spring snow and wind has never stopped us before. To keep up to date, read this blog and visit the keen Laramie County Democrats web site. The site is maintained by Hawai'i native Shayna Lonoaea Alexander.  She brought her considerable skills to Cheyenne when she heard that the surf in Cheyenne is bitchin’ and there are more Democrats in Laramie County than on Maui. OK, so she was misinformed. But we love it that she made it to the Equality State.

And start getting your outfit ready for Derby Day. Big, floppy hats! Fancy dresses! Warm and fuzzy feelings all over!

When AFib comes to town

The Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Telemetry Lab staffer called me Friday. She wanted to know how I was doing. I said "fine" but knew that this wasn't a courtesy call. The Telemetry Lab monitors my Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) remotely. I have a home transmitter at the side of my bed. It picks up my heart signals and transmits them to the lab, which then takes a look to see if I am in sinus rhythm, which is what we want, or in atrial fibrillation (AFib), which we don't want.

The lab said I was in AFib on Thursday morning. "Did you feel anything?"

"Yes," I said. "I was light-headed all morning."

"Anything else?"

I had to think about it. "I just felt weird all morning. Had a hard time at physical therapy, was tired and out of sorts all afternoon."

The Telemetry Lab person (sorry I don't remember her name -- blame it on the irregular heartbeats and lack of oxygen to the brain) told me that I needed to be aware of these symptoms as a long-duration AFib is dangerous. "Next time you're feeling that way, please send me a manual reading from your monitor."

"OK," I said, feeling a bit scared. I tend to ignore my heart difficulties most of the time. I exercise, take my meds, maintain a good attitude, am kind to animals, etc.

She made me an appointment with my cardiologist. She is able to access my MyChart files at CRMC which shows a calendar of my appointments. She puts me down for a March 15 appointment with Dr. Nienaber. As long as I'm dealing with a CRMC physician or group, my records are online and we can carry on these types of conversations. It's a bit spooky, all this electronic data-keeping and accessibility. My fiction-writer self thinks of all the ways that this system can be abused. Let's say a U.S. politician has an ICD with a bedside monitor and someone, say, an ISIS terrorist, wants to murder that politician. He hijacks the signal and causes the ICD to shut down. Even scarier, he causes that ICD to activate its defibrillator. Bam! -- a big shock to the heart to get it back into rhythm even when it doesn't need it. And another shock and another and pretty soon, the heart gives up. Remote-control assassination. Because I am postulating this as sci-fi means that the possibility already exists and the U.S. or the Russians or even ISIS may be preparing an attack.

For me, though, right now, the threat is more from AFib than it is from some shadowy hacker. AFib can cause strokes, blood clots, heart failure. My heart attack of three years ago created the cardiac scar tissue that sometimes misfires as AFib. My pacemaker activates to get me back into rhythm. If catastrophic heart failure threatens, the defibrillator will kick in with a debilitating jolt. This has never happened to me, and I hope it never does.  I could be driving down I-80 at the time. Or I could be napping. Anything is possible.

A big thank you to the CRMC Telemetry Lab. A big shout-out to the researchers and engineers and technicians who put these gizmos together. I freakin' love science.

To watch AFib in action, go to the American Heart Association web site. You can compare an AFib animation to one of a normal heartbeat. My heartbeat was normal for 62 years. Cholesterol and inflammation and stupidity led to my heart attack, which almost killed me. I was pulled back from oblivion by EMTs, cardiologists, surgeons, and nurses. I'm 65 now, retired, someone who knows how blessed he is every day. Or almost every day.

Democrats hold a "Get Your Green On" bash just in time for St. Patrick's Day

A typical St. Patrick's Day celebration in Cheyenne

What do you think of when St. Patrick's Day rolls around?

Toasting your friends with green beer. Wearing green. Toasting your family with a shot of Irish whiskey. Eating corned beef and cabbage. Substituting Irish Coffee for your latte in the a.m. Singing when "Irish Eyes are Crying" and/or "Danny Boy" at the local pub after a few beers and a few shots. Attending a St. Patrick's Day Parade, such as the one in downtown Denver this Saturday. 

If you even do a few of these things on St. Patrick's Day, it can be called a success. That's how Americans celebrate the holiday that honors the patron saint of Ireland. I guess you could also take some time out to drive the snakes out of your town or county, as legend tells us that St. Patrick did for all of Ireland. The tale is a metaphor. Substitute pagans for snakes and you get the idea. St. Patrick, a Christian, drove the pagans out of Ireland. It hasn't been the same since.

Before I get too far along, I want to let my readers know about this:

The Laramie Coiunty Democrats Grassroots Coalition (LCDGC) is holding a "Get Your Green On" celebration on Sunday, March 13, 5-8 p.m., in the community room at the Cheyenne Family YMCA. The Grassroots Coalition will provide corned beef and cabbage with soda bread. Gourmet cupcakes will be available for purchase with a chance to win a "Pot of Gold." Enjoy the entertainment, which may consist of local legend Michael O'Shea playing ditties on his Irish flute. Hear horror stories about the recently completed Wyoming Legislature, as witnessed by some of our local representatives (Charles Scott: "We don't need no stinkin' Medicaid expansion!"). Be sure to wear green. Prizes awarded for the best costumes. Bring a friend and your greenbacks. Suggested donation $15. Proceeds go to Democrats in Laramie County running for office in 2016.

So, wear green if you are Irish. Wear green if you aren't Irish. Green can also stand in for the greenies among us, and I'm not stalking about those people from Colorado, although you too are welcome. We have amongst us those who are going green in a big way, replacing coal with solar, wind, and geothermal. Some of us are trading in our gas guzzlers for electric vehicles that we plug in and recharge overnight. So, your costume may be a wind turbine, or possibly a Nissan Leaf auto body. Earth Day is right around the corner and it's the Democrats who are showing the way to clean energy. Green also can stand for those "Mr. Greenjeans" gardeners we have in Cheyenne. If you can grow a garden at 6,200 feet in Cheyenne or 7,200 feet in Laramie, you can grow a garden anywhere. Hats off to all of you, who may come dressed as a broccoli, green bean, zucchini or any other green growing thing.

BTW, the Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition is the FUNdraising arm of the Laramie County Democrats. We had a blast, and raised more than $1,000 at the January POTluck FUNdraiser at Joe's house in Cheyenne. We hope to keep the money rolling in for Democrats, as we have seen the damage that can be done by a veto-proof Republican legislature. It ain't pretty. Our Dem friends in the House and Senate need some allies.

See you on March 13. Get your green on!

Directions to the YMCA: The YMCA is not accessible via Lincolnway. To reach the Y's parking lot, you have to approach from Logan Avenue via 18th Street -- it's on your left. Or you can come via 19th Street (one-way) and take a right on Alexander or via 20th Street (one-way) and take a left on Alexander. The Community Room is at the south end of the Y parking lot. If you have a GPS, use it.

Writer Pat Conroy delved deep into his own life for some unforgettable books

My mother loved Pat Conroy's novel "The Great Santini."

"Why can't you write like that?" she asked, a challenge more than a taunt.

"I'm not Pat Conroy," I said.

She patted me on the hand. "I know dear. You have your own books to write."

What my mother didn't know -- and I didn't tell her -- is that I had already read "The Great Santini." A marvelous novel, funny and horrific. A family story from Beaufort, S.C., a town not unlike Daytona Beach, Fla., where I grew up. At the time, I was a college grad working two part-time jobs and looking for something a bit more permanent.

I suspect that many of you have seen "The Great Santini" the movie but have not read the book. Not a sin, especially now that we have movies on our smartphones. Books, too, but they take time, you know, and it's more likely that I can free up two hours to see a movie rather than the 40 hours it takes to read a book. Imagine spending 40 hours reading rather than going to work? That's what I'm doing now in retirement. Reading, and writing a second book based on incidents, real or imagined, from Wyoming and Colorado.

I envied Conroy for his dynamic writing style. And his ability to delve into the intimate dynamics of a family and portray it for all the world to see. He paid a price for that. Family members, pissed off at Conroy's fictional counterparts,shunned him and said bad things about him in the press. They still bought the books. Wouldn't you, faced with the fact that your brother or cousin had written something salacious about you? Conroy had a big Southern family, too -- those book sales add numbers to the best-seller stats.

Pat Conroy died this week from a fast-moving case of pancreatic cancer. He was 70. Lived the life of a best-selling author and, judging from recent Facebook quotes, was a good friend and father. His family gathered around him as he passed. He was a writer who captured family life in a new way. And he was a writer who never let readers forget where they were. Usually that was coastal Carolina (S.C. -- not the northern neighbor). Sometimers his characters were at the beach or on the inland waterway or walking the storied streets of Charleston or were college students in Columbia, as I was from 1969-71.

Several unforgettable chapters in "The Prince of Tides" were set in New York City where Conroy's main character, Tom Wingo, went to assist his sister after yet another suicide attempt. Tom and psychiatrist Susan Lowenstein had some memorable encounters during the course of the book. OK, they carried on a steamy affair. On the screen, Nick Nolte and Barbara Streisand lit things up. The movie, I'm afraid, is not very good. The book? Amazing.

Most recently, I read Conroy's memoir "My Losing Season" about his senior year playing basketball for the Citadel Military Academy. As you can infer from the title, the Citadel team didn't make it to The Final Four -- not even close. The book, however,  recounts a group of young men who played on even while being trounced by every team in the South. It's a wonderful book, one that also served to repair the Conroy-Citadel rift that followed Conroy's best-seller about a school like the Citadel, "The Lords of Discipline."

Farewell, Pat Conroy. You will live on in your books.

Local Republicans pack 'em in at 2016 presidential caucus

Look for the sign of the blue bison.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the lowdown on the county caucus:

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

When: Saturday April 9, 11 a.m.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.

The Wyoming wind (finally) blows itself out

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

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

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

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

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

Democrats hold legislative reception Feb. 19 in Cheyenne

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

Here's more info from the LarCoDems web site:

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

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

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

St. Patrick's Day parade in Montreal. 

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

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

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

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

Nurses are needed now!

From 

National Women's History Museum

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