Part V: The Way Mike Worked -- Serving Fish 'n' Chips in Shrimp 'n' Grits Country

We called her Mom. She insisted. Never found out her real name. Her husband Tally called her "dear" or "hon" in the Southern way. She was younger than Tally by a decade or so, or so she seemed. Tally walked a limp that we thought came from the war, World War II, the one that all of our father's fought in. He said it came from a gunshot, a disagreement among bootleggers during Prohibition. We had no reason not to believe him.

We met at Long John Silver's Fish and Chips across from the University of South Carolina campus. Mom was the manager. She had replaced our first manager who had been skimming a bit off the top of the nightly deposit. One day he was our boss. And then he was gone.

In October of 1970, I was one of a half-dozen employees, mostly students, at this fast-food restaurant named for the fictional pirate in "Treasure Island." Color scheme was the brown of "a dead man's chest" and the gold of new doubloons. Everything was fried in vats of hot grease that was a shimmering gold when new and a dark brown when old and ready to be refreshed but it was almost quitting time and the day crew could do it. All of us wore grease-spatter splotches on our arms. Meals were served in cardboard replicas of a chest of gold. Sides were fries and hush puppies. Condiments were tartar sauce and malt vinegar that the Brits allegedly used on the fish and chips they bought at street corner vendors in London. My co-workers and I tried to cook up extra food at the end of the night so we could carry some home for late-night greasyspoon snacks.

Fish-and-chips were a new concept in the South. Some customers ordered and then wondered why they got fries instead of chips. We had to explain that in England, fries were called chips. The potatoes were a bit chunkier over there, not flat or curved or crispy, but they still were called chips.

After avoiding work and most of my classes my freshman year, I decided that I needed a job. I had premonitions of bad juju to come. I could read the tea leaves that we used in our sweet tea. I could divine the stars. I also could read the grade reports sent home by the university. I was on probation after a lackluster freshman year. I swore to the Navy ROTC unit's marine major that I was going to do better, really I was. He looked at my grades and the report of my lackluster performance on my first-year summer cruise. I had sailed to Guantanamo Bay and back on the USS John F. Kennedy. I had neglected my duties.

I did, however, distinguish myself during a 1970 Fourth of July weekend leave in D.C. when my BFF Pat and I rescued his younger sisters and grandmother from a stampeding crowd at the Honor America Day Concert at the Washington Monument. The riot wasn't a reaction to another sappy tune by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or another joke by Bob Hope. But a cloud of tear gas launched to disperse the Yippie-sponsored smoke-in at the monument. Pat's and my quick action didn't save any lives but we were proud of it nonetheless. Too bad that didn't show up in my midshipman record. I might have received a medal. "For valor in rescuing civilians threatened by a cloud of tear gas fired on pot-smoking hippies." Something like that. Later, Pat and I and his older brother Mike smoked a joint and talked about what a weird night it was.

When I returned to Norfolk, just before our ship sailed to Cuba, I called my girlfriend and she broke up with me.

I was looking for a new girlfriend when I returned to campus in the fall. I had a crush on one of my fish-and-chips coworkers. Kaley was pretty, blonde and had a wicked sense of humor. She also had a boyfriend, a Vietnam vet named Tim whose hair got longer and shaggier every time he came to pick Kaley up from work. The duo invited me to a party one night. I hung around Kaley and Tim as I didn't know anyone and my short haircut fueled my paranoia and everyone else's, or so it seemed. Tim broke out a syringe and prepared it, junkie-style. He shot up Kaley and then held up the syringe for me. I was almost stoned enough to say yes. But I didn't. Tim proceeded to minister to himself. They were soon in la-la land and didn't notice as I slipped out of the house and walked several miles back to my dorm.

The U.S. Navy revoked my scholarship in January and I was on my own. I could finally grow my hair and major in English. I kept working at Long John Silver's. When spring sprang, Mom and Tally asked me to come to their house and mow the lawn. Mom would feed me lunch. I agreed. It was the first of many trips to their house. By summer, the mowing of the lawn was an ordeal, with sweat streaming off of me and me pining for AC and a cold drink. One afternoon, stunned by Carolina heat, I went into the house. Heading for the bathroom, I opened the wrong door into a bedroom. It had a single bed, a shelf with photos and football trophies. The photos showed a young man in football uniform, in graduation gown, in army uniform.

"Our son Tom." Startled, I turned to see Mom in the doorway. She wore a sad face, unusual for her. She walked in and stood next to me. She picked up the photo of her son in uniform. "Missing in action. Vietnam. We kept his room ready for him but he hasn't come back. Three years now. Our only child." She replaced the photo. "Lunch is ready." She walked out and I followed. Mom and Tally were the same talkative duo they always were. Now that I am an old man, I recognize the relentless nature of sorrow. Sometimes, small talk over lemonade and sandwiches with tomatoes fresh from the garden are the only things for it.

A few weeks later, a traveling circus troupe came to town with a batch of purple haze fresh from the octopus's garden. We had a wonderful time. The circus people left town but I found my jacked-up self in the campus cafeteria babbling over breakfast to a group of exchange students from Hong Kong. They were very polite. And then I was at the university infirmary, knocked down by thorazine.

At the end of USC's summer session, I ended my college career and quit my job as a fish-and-chips wrangler. I left town. My plan was to live at my parents' house and surf until I got drafted.

Part IV: The Way Mike Worked -- This job stinks!

"This job stinks," I complained to Ronnie.

He looked at me over a pile of dirty laundry. Smoke from a Marlboro wreathed his face. He removed the cigarette and exhaled a big cloud. "Do what I do."

I stared. I was dense. "What?"

He unrolled the pack of cigs from his T-shirt sleeve and popped one out. He walked over to me, stuck the cigarette in my mouth and lit it with his Zippo. "Inhale," he said.

I inhaled. I'd smoked a few cigarettes before, usually late at night at a beer bash when anything seemed like a good idea: smoking cigarettes, skinny dipping in a gator pond, driving on sidewalks. In the summer of '69, I was a latecomer to nicotine. My parents smoked, as did most of their friends. Some of my buddies smoked. But I was a jock in high school and coach commanded that we not smoke. I wanted to do what coach said. 

"Watch me," Ronnie said in his Tennessee drawl. He gripped the end of the rolling container with its mound of laundry. You could almost see the fumes coming from the sheets and towels accumulated in 24 hours at the nursing home. "Let the smoke drift up into your nose -- that knocks out the smell." He pushed his cart out the laundry room doors and down the corridor, smoke trailing behind him. I followed with my load. Smoke rose from my mouth to my nose to my eyes. Within seconds, my eyes watered. I kept close to Ronnie, lest I run over one of the dazed oldsters wandering the halls. I was getting it -- the smoke blocked the smell. It also burned my nose and eyes, but it was a small price to pay for not smelling the smells of incontinent old people. I was 18, Ronnie my elder at 25. We were usually not burdened with inconvenient odors unless we let loose with a fart as we drove to our appointed rounds for the Acme Laundry (not its real name) of Holly Hill, Florida. But that was different. We were not old.

When we finally wheeled our loads up a ramp into the step van, our smokes were burned down to nubs. We tossed the butts on the ground as we returned to the truck cab. My eyes still watered as we continued on our rounds. Ronnie was already on another smoke. "See how easy?" he said. 

I just nodded.

I became Ronnie's assistant one hot Florida July afternoon. I worked in the laundry, loading washers and dryers with towels and sheets from old folks homes, beachside motels, and other businesses. I had left my job as bagboy at the Pantry Pride grocery store because I needed to make more money for my upcoming college expenses. The laundry doubled my salary. The work was tougher and sweatier than hauling housewives' groceries out to their station wagons. I hated the laundry, doubted I could make it to the end of August. One day, after Ronnie delivered a load to us peasants chained to our machines, he came over and introduced himself. He was a big guy with Elvis-style hair and tattoos. He looked like something out of 1955 instead of 1969. I probably did too, with my Howdy Doody face and short haircut. 

"My helper just quit," he said. "Want the job?"

"When do I start?"

"Tomorrow at 6."

"Six in the morning?"

He laughed. "See you then."

What a reprieve! Riding with Ronnie started an hour earlier but I didn't care. We hit the mainland businesses first as the laundry only started piling up in the late morning at the beach motels as the housekeeping staff worked their way through the rooms. Sometimes Ronnie picked me up in his muscle car as I had sold my own car as it was a POS after three years of hard use. We knocked off at 3 just as the world really heated up or burst into an afternoon thunderstorm. 

Ronnie just got out of the Navy the year before. He served a stint on a ship off of Vietnam and had accumulated some tattoos and a dose of the clap in the Philippines. He got a kick out of the fact that I was off to be a Navy ROTC student, someone who one day might be an officer giving orders to the likes of swabs like him. For now, he was the one giving orders. "You ain't no officer yet," he'd say if he caught me loafing. "Yes sir," I'd say. His response: "I ain't no sir -- I work for a living. That's what my chief used to say."

I think about my 18-year-old self. I was excited and scared to be off to college. I was sad to leave my girlfriend behind -- she was attending a school 300 miles from me. I loved her and I said so and she loved me, or so she said. What did we know? Our family home burned down that summer but all 11 of us survived. We lived in a small place while waiting to rebuild. Problem was, all the clothes I'd collected for college burnt up in the fire or were impregnated with smoke. Early in the summer my surfboard had been stolen and, for the first time in four years, I felt left out of the beach scene. 

About a week before I quit the laundry, Ronnie took me to his trailer for lunch. He wanted me to meet somebody. We got out of the step van and walked to the door. A woman answered. Ronnie introduced us.. 

"Hello ma'am," I said. 

The woman wore long gray hair pulled back in a braid, a pleasant face etched with tiny lines around the mouth and eyes. "Don't call me ma'am -- I'm Shirley."

"OK, Shirley." 

Ronnie planted a kiss on her lips and I suddenly realized this was his wife. I'd called her ma'am because I thought she was his mother. I was surprised and a bit embarrassed for me and for Ronnie. Shirley served us tomato and mayo sandwiches and lemonade. She as nice and had a good sense of humor. She wasn't really that old, maybe in her late 30s or 40s. Old enough to be my mother but not Ronnie's. As we ate at the trailer's tiny table, she asked about me, what I liked to do, my plans for the fall. 

"You got a girl?" She smiled.

"Yes ma'am..."

"Shirley."

"Shirley, I have a girlfriend."

"She's pretty, too," Ronnie said as he chewed. "Drives a Firebird."

"It's her dad's," I said.

"Your girl going to the same college?"

"No. We plan to see each other for football games, and during school breaks.,"

"That's good, hon," she said. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."  She explained that she and Ronnie met at a Daytona bar after she left Georgia after a bad divorce.They hit it off and married after a few weeks. "Newlyweds," she said.

Earlier I had caught a glimpse of an unmade bed at the far end of the trailer. I imagined the two of them in that bed. I didn't want to but I couldn't help it. The trailer began to close in around me and I was relieved when Ronnie said it was time to get back to work. We said our farewells and that was the last time I saw Shirley. 

As we returned to our route, Ronnie, as if divining my thoughts, said, "She makes me happy." 

I just nodded. He drove the rest of the way in silence.

On my last day at work, Ronnie and I sat in the step van in a motel lot watching the waves break. A half-dozen surfers bobbed in the line-up.

"Those good waves?" he asked.

"Pretty good."

"We could have brought your surfboard with us on some of our runs. You could have done some surfing."

I told him that my board had been stolen. 

He nodded. Handed me his Zippo. On its side was a U.S. Navy emblem. "Going-away present."

"Thanks," I said. "I may try to give up smoking."

"No matter. You can light some of your marijuana cigarettes with it."

I laughed. "They're called joints, Ronnie."

"No matter. All you kids smoke it. My shipmates did. A lot of the guys in Vietnam. I tried it a few times. Just made me tired. I'll stick with beer and whiskey."

I thanked him again.That afternoon, I said my farewells to Ronnie and the laundry. My girlfriend picked me up. A week ;later, we said our own forlorn farewells during a last walk on the beach. 

Somewhere along the line, I lost the lighter and I lost my way. Shall I pin the blame on marijuana cigarettes? It's more complicated than that. 

Blogger's Note: I changed the names of the characters in this piece and the name of the laundry. I had to reconstruct the dialogue because it was 49 years ago and I wasn't taking notes. Most of the rest of the story is true. 

Another blogger's note: The Laramie County Public Library kicks off the fall season with the Smithsonian exhibit, "The Way We Worked." Sponsored by Wyoming Humanities, the exhibit "engages viewers with a history of work." It opens Sept. 22 and runs through Nov. 13. Grand opening is a "Hands-on History Expo" on Sept. 28 where you can "dial a rotary phone, draw water with a hand pump, enjoy old-fashioned refreshments (make your own ice cream!) and much more." You can see antique tractors, a wheat-washing machine and an old-fashioned library card catalog. I viewed the exhibit-in-progress yesterday. Great display of tools used to mine, log, and build railroads and dwellings in the West. I finally understood the difference between a dugout and a sod house or "soddie." One thing I know -- I would have gone stark-raving mad living in either one. 

Part III: The Way Mike Worked -- Never Take Your Eyes off of the Cash Box

My first and only job on the beach lasted one day.

I walked from our family's house on Hartford Avenue to a float stand near the Daytona Beach Boardwalk. A couple miles. Daytona is known for its hard-packed beaches that you can drive on. A float stand exists every half mile or so. They offered most items needed by a vacationing family in 1965 Florida: inflated rubber rafts, umbrellas and beach chairs. You rent by the hour or the day. Mom and Dad sit under the umbrella's shade as the kids ride the waves and try not to drown. Lifeguards are spaced in red towers every few hundred yards to keep an eye out.

My float stand was owned by a crusty old codger who probably was in his 40s when this 15-year-old worked for him. Can't remember his name, probably Bob. He wore shorts and his skin was the color and texture of cured leather. A no-nonsense guy with a few employees my age,  We were tasked with charging the tourists (cash only in those days) and setting up their equipment. Most customers were in pretty good spirits --they were on vacation after all -- although many were still a bit jangled after a two-day drive from Detroit in an un-air-conditioned station wagon with six yelping kids. We were tolerant of their gruffness and stupid questions. Is the beach open at night? Any sharks in the water? Where can I buy suntan lotion?

We were happy to answer in the least snarky way possible. Later, we could make fun of them. That was a hobby of anyone who worked on the beach. Plus-sized men and women in too-small bathing suits, their skin so white you knew they would end up in the ER burn unit by the end of the day. We knew better, or thought we did. Here in the 21st century, I spend an inordinate amount of time at the dermatologist checking on my sun-damaged skin.

Bob was a taskmaster. He taught me the ropes and turned me loose with customers. His cardinal rule was "Never take your eyes off of the cash box."  You rent the gear, stash the cash box, and help the tourists set up. We had a device like a big corkscrew to dig holes in the hard sand for umbrellas. A typically busy summer day. Many high school girls to ogle. Many grumpy parents to assuage. At one point, I left to install an umbrella and returned to find the cash box missing. Uh oh. I frantically searched for it. Bob came up and asked what I was doing. I told him. Concern creased his face. "What's rule number one?" he asked. "Never take your eyes off the cash box." My fellow helpers looked on with bemusement. After Bob let me search for a few minutes, he finally reached under a beach chair and produced the metal box. "Let that be a lesson to you." So my task was clear -- at the point of paranoia -- never take my eyes off of the cash box. I didn't know it at the time but my fate was sealed. At quitting time, Bob paid me what I'm sure was a princely sum for 1965 and told me I was fired. "What's rule number one?" I was tempted to say, "Never curse at a leathery old man who tricks you." But I didn't. I just took the money and headed home.

The sand heats up by the end of the day. Although my feet were as leathery as Bob's face -- barefoot is the usual summer state-of-being -- I walked through the shallows. I scattered the shore birds, watched the sand fleas dig into the sand. I watched older teens power their muscle cars down the beach. If I had thought about it, I might have stopped and looked behind me, watch as the waves obliterated my footprints. My life, already, was being born and was disappearing. I had walked on this beach dozens of times and would walk on it hundreds more. I was here with my parents and brothers and sisters. That first day, just moved from Colorado, with my mother shouting at us not to go out too far as a hurricane was coming. I walked the beach with my Irish grandfather, Me, hung over from my brother's bachelor party. my 80-year-old grandfather outpacing me, leaving behind shoe prints from the black Oxfords he wore. I ran the beach. Bicycled it. Played Frisbee on it. Walked it with girls from Kentucky I just met and a hometown girl who would eventually be my wife. I walked the beach in a February chill, taking a break from my dying father's bedside. My kids' footprints are down there, too, during our rare visits to Florida from Out West. Our family's Irish setter Shannon, her paw prints as she chased the gulls and sandpipers, the animal control officer hot on her trail.

All those footprints.

On that June day in 1965, I contemplated the lesson of the day: don't work for a jerk. I knew that my parents would not be pleased. They weren't, just urged me that night to find another job. I did. The following week, I was a new busboy at the Village Inn Pancake House and Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant. I worked pancakes and chicken all through high school. More about that later...

Part II: The Way Mike Worked -- The Paperboy and the Bully

The Smithsonian exhibit, "The Way We Worked," arrives in Cheyenne later this month. I thought about my jobs during 55 years, from neighborhood newspaper delivery to arts administration. That history tells me a lot about myself and about the changing workplace.

I didn't have a paid job until I was in sixth grade. I helped my buddy Bill deliver the afternoon Wichita paper. Not sure how much I made. Some of it went toward buying Boy Scout uniforms. I probably spent the rest frivolously. Bill did most of the collecting, the most odious part of the job. I sometimes accompanied him on his rounds.

Let's harken back to the days of two-newspaper towns. Remember those? It's not ancient history. Denver was home to the Post and the Rocky Mountain News. When I moved from Florida to Denver in 1978, the tabloid News was the morning paper and the Post was delivered in the afternoon. They both went to morning delivery in the 1980s. The News no longer exists. The Post is held captive by a hedge-fund group and is rapidly shedding its editorial staff in favor of fat profits.

I am old enough to remember the golden age of newspapers, an era that ended with the Internet although its death knells could be heard with the advent of network TV news and, later, the dawn of the personal computer.

Newspapers were big employers in every city. Reporters gathered the news, photogs shot the pictures, and editors edited. In newsrooms of 1978, you could call for a copy boy or copy girl to come get your typed (in triplicate) story and take it to the editors' desk. Hot copy was set by typesetters who wore boxy paper hats. Route Men delivered papers and paperboys (and a few girls) threw them on porches. Each paper had a physical clip morgue and a staff to do research. Advertising fielded a big staff to keep subscribers happy. There were ad designers and artists. The Post building was located where the convention center hotel is now. Hundreds of people worked there. All those hungry people patronized area restaurants. You wouldn't be surprised to learn that local saloons did a booming business. The same was true at the News with offices on Colfax.

In 1962 Wichita, Kan., the early risers delivered the Eagle in the morning and my friend Bill and I delivered the Beacon in the afternoons after school. Trucks delivered the papers to Bill's house and I came over to fold and deliver. On most days, the papers were not huge. Most days, Bill and I folded the newspapers without using rubber bands. You would think that the package would be become undone as we tossed them to anxious customers. But they didn't. At least, that's how I remember it. I remember Bill and I sailed them like mini-Frisbees onto porches in the tree-lined College Hill neighborhood. It was a given that papers must land on every customer's porch. Sometimes, the elderly asked us to put it inside their front door or in the milk box that sat under the mail box. That was a wooden box that held the milk delivered by the milkman at about the same time early-rising paperboys were delivering the Eagle. Milkmen finished their rounds by the time the sun rose. They often had a friendly relationship with the woman of the house. This gave rise to a joke about some kids looking more like the milkman than their daddy. Sixth-graders liked these type of teasing jokes, put-downs if you will, throwing shade as the kids say now, or they did last week, anyway. Sometimes it was the mailman, and it was always a man back then. Sometimes it was the handyman or the furnace man or the repair man. The women were at home. The men were there to take care of the home's various needs. Sounds quaint, now, doesn't it? A well-ordered universe, one that conservatives dream about. If only it were that simple.

Lots of paperboys delivered by Schwinn. We walked our paper route. The bungalow-style homes were built at the turn of the last century and were closely spaced. Often, they were perched at the top of a six-foot rise. It was easier for us to walk the route, taking shortcuts along the way. Out in the suburbs, developers were building ranch homes with breathing room which caused many a paperboy to deliver via bicycle. And porches? There might be one, but usually it was a concrete slab that led up to the front door. Most family activity was moving to the big fenced-in backyard.

We sometimes delivered papers to porches where the occupants were out front, maybe watering the flowers or catching a breeze on a hot day or just waiting for the news of the world or, at least, Wichita. We were obligated to hand deliver then. Old folks, then and now, were anxious to chat as they might be alone all day and anxious for human contact. We had to make it quick, as papers had to be delivered on time. The old folks who wanted to chat were usually those who complained if the paper was late. As a 12-year-old, I only had a vague idea of the lives of the elderly. I was a kid. These people were born in the last century, before airplanes and TV and Elvis. What could I learn from them?

I had one challenge. A bully circulated in our neighborhood. His name was Jack Weird. I didn't make that up -- that's how I remember the name. Maybe my memory has clouded, he may have had the nickname Weird Jack which is entirely possible. But Jack was gunning for me and I never knew why. I would be walking don the street, papers stuffed in my canvas Beacon bag, and around the corner came Jack. Sometimes he was with a bully friend. Other times he was alone. I knew what was coming but just kept on making my rounds. Bill was on the other side of the street or the next block. That was a shame because Bill had a rep as a fighter and Jack Weird never bothered him. Jack closed on me and I could see his evil leer. When he got even with me, he shoved aside my bag, punched me in the stomach, and kept walking. Now, I have to admire his economy of movement. No time wasted on verbal abuse or actually pounding me into the ground, which would take time and effort. Just one punch -- Bam! -- and on he went. Until the next time he saw me walking down the street, on the way to school or a Scout meeting. But only if I was alone. If I was with anybody, he walked on by. If he was with someone, he punched me and kept on walking. Odd what you remember. I often wonder what happened to Jack Weird.

I served a year as an assistant paperboy. Our family moved that summer, 1963, to the suburbs, closer to the air force base where my father was a civilian employee. I had no paper route. I transferred to a Catholic school, St. Francis. I had a crush on a neighbor girl. I began playing basketball because, for the first time, a coach asked me to go out for the team. I knew so little about the game. One blustery winter day I wore my long johns to a game. I rolled them up so they would be invisible under my shorts. As I jogged down the court, one of the long john leggings unraveled, much to the delight of the other team. I made a quick repair but my teammates teased me about it the rest of the season. I put up with it, I suppose, because that's what teammates did. You could be bullied, teased, cajoled, punched. That's the way it was. It's a different world now.

My only job in the 'burbs was to take care of my brothers and sisters. My mom had delivered twins in June and was more than busy with them. I made my siblings sandwiches. Took them outside to play. Fixed their cuts and scrapes. My brother Dan helped with the first aid. We were both Scouts and proud of our lifesaving skills. We could rescue a careless swimmer. We could make splints and tourniquets. We knew what to do in case of rattlesnake bite. The Shay kids were the safest kids on the block.

JFK was murdered in November 1963. In the new year, Dad was transferred back to Denver. We lived in a motel while waiting for renters to move out of the house we left in 1960 when Dad hauled us off to Washington state and then Kansas. Again, my job was watching my siblings. I was going to get a job, maybe a paper route, but fate intervened when my dad was laid off by his aerospace conglomerate. He found a job with GE in Florida. Florida? Jeez, we were moving all over the damn place. Snakes and alligators! Hurricanes! But, we were mostly excited to live by the ocean. Mostly.

Next: Teen jobs in Florida.

Part I: The Way Mike Worked

The Laramie County Public Library kicks off the fall with the Smithsonian exhibit, "The Way We Worked." Sponsored here by Wyoming Humanities, the exhibit "engages viewers with a history of work." It opens Sept. 22 and runs through Nov. 13. Grand opening is a "Hands-on History Expo" on Sept. 28 where you can "dial a rotary phone, draw water with a hand pump, enjoy old-fashioned refreshments (make your own ice cream!) and much more." You can see antique tractors, a wheat-washing machine and an old-fashioned library card catalog. 

This is what libraries are for -- education and fun. Reading itself is a joy. Those facts alone are a bulwark against the Trumpists' war on truth, learning, creativity, and the free press. So come out to the library this fall and see what it was really like when your grandparents were kids. Dial a rotary phone. Man, I want to do that as it's been awhile. Wonder what memories that will provoke? And the library asks us for our memories, stories about what kind of work our forebears did, what we do (or did) for a living, what we want to do when we grow up. 

Some grow up knowing what they want to do with their lives. They are the lucky ones or the cursed ones, depending on how it all works out. Should I follow a predictable path, or take the road less traveled? Nothing more quickly provokes an eye roll from a high school grad than the question, "So what are your plans?" You can really punk your elders with wise-ass replies. I don't have any plans. I'm going to surf/snowboard until someone comes along and offers me a job. What's a plan?

I remember my elders asking similar questions at my 1969 high school graduation. What you going to do, Mike? I replied that I was attending the University of South Carolina in Columbia on a Navy ROTC scholarship and major in marine biology. I would serve my term as a naval officer, hopefully in places close to good surf spots. I then would become a marine biologist with a job close to good surfing spots. Oh yeah, I was going to get married, too, to my high school steady although maybe I wouldn't say that out loud because we hadn't discussed it yet. I was going to play serious basketball pick-up games as long as I could.

I really had no basis for any of this. Except the surfing part -- that I really loved. I loved the ocean, too, as a place that produced waves for me to ride. Did I spend my free time studying the ocean currents and plant/animal life? Did I dream of seagoing adventures on famous oceanography vessels? 

Where was my passion?

I read. I loved books. Some of my favorite novels were set on the ocean, those about Captain Horatio Hornblower, for instance. I devoured the novels written by Alistair MacLean, specifically "HMS Ulysses" and "Ice Station Zebra." I read books about World War II, my father's war. I read historical fiction and sci-fi and mysteries. I was an omnivore, reading-wise. I read the cool books, ones that people talked about such as "Catch-22," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,"  "Slaughterhouse Five." I wondered about the authors, how they got their start, how they sat down at a desk and typed all day. I never met a living author. I knew they existed but none of them came to my hometown, as far as I knew. None of them ever visited my small Catholic high school.

I had a clear picture of the ocean and the ships that sailed upon her. I had no clear idea of the world of writing. Thing is, I was much more attracted to the latter than the former. But how do you tell your Depression-era and WWII parents that you want to do something as ethereal as writing for a living? My father was an accountant with a well-stocked library. My mother was a nurse who read all of the time. My parents birthed nine children, and I was the eldest and the one who was supposed to be an example to them all. We did not grow up poor but budgets were always tight. My father bought breakfast cereal and macaroni-and-cheese by the case at the precursor of Sam's Club. My mother cooked fifties dishes, such as tuna casserole, that I never want to see again. My father changed jobs a lot and my mother worked, a rarity at the time. 

So I had to plan my own trajectory. And how did that work out? 

Stay tuned for details in my next installment of "The Way Mike Worked" series. Coming soon!

No switcheroo at the polls for this city boy in cowboy country

Every eight years election cycle, Democrats in Wyoming are faced with a dilemma. For the August primary, should we change our registration from D to R as in Republican and vote for the least offensive of the R candidates?

Wyoming permits voters to change their registration up to the Aug. 21 day of the primary and vote accordingly. After voting, you can change back and be on your way, your conscience clear that you may have helped keep the more odious conservative gubernatorial candidates from running against the Democratic candidate in November.  WYO is a party preference state, so at the polls you get a D or R ballot based on your registration. Up to 10 percent of voters in the state register as unaffiliated. To vote in the primary, you have to switch to D or R. Most will choose R in this overwhelmingly Red State.

In 2010, this tactic ensured that moderate Matt Mead was the R on the ballot against the D, Leslie Petersen of Jackson. Petersen was the superior candidate. But it was 2010, the Tea Party year, and she didn't have a chance in the general. Mead's opponents were Tea Party regressive Ron Micheli, the wishy-washy Colin Simpson, and former state auditor Rita Meyer.

Local Democrats gathered the night of the primary to nosh and and drink and gab and listen to the results on the radio, just as our ancestors did in days of yore. Micheli and Meyer exchanged early leads. Mead crept up and passed them both by the time all the precincts were in.  We went home secure in the knowledge that our guy had a snowball's chance in hell of winning and that Mead would guide us for the next eight years. This was important to me because I was a state employee and the Gov was my boss. I would work with him and his staff on issues important to the arts in WYO. I wrote the annual "State of the Arts" speech. Sometimes that speech was uttered almost verbatim at the Governor's Arts Awards in February. More often, however, the Gov's speechwriters got their hands on it and mangled it beyond recognition. As a corporate and government writer/editor, I learned long ago that anything I do is a rough draft. Actually, I discovered that as a fiction writer, too. I am never edited when I write in my journal or when I write this blog. The only time I revise my blog post-post is when I make a mistake, particularly a factual error. Blogs are notoriously cavalier with the facts, be you prog-blogger or wingnut from the Right. I attempt to be accurate.

Mead won in 2010 and 2014. He's a super nice guy as is the First Lady. Mead was so nice for eight years that he almost never got his way with the Republican majority in the state legislature.  Mead now says that he is going to retire to his Albany County ranch and chill, and who can blame him? We thought he would jump right into a Congressional race. Maybe in 2020. Maybe not.

Have I ever crossed over the Rubicon on primary day? No. Will I do it this time? No. The Dems have a terrific gubernatorial candidate in former legislative minority leader Mary Throne. She's a Gillette native, an attorney, a mom and a cancer survivor. Nobody on the Republican side can match her. Mark Gordon comes closest. He's the current state treasurer and a moderate compared to the others. He grew up on a ranch and continues to ranch, as you can see in his many folksy TV ads. He's up against some dedicated crazies but, at least in governor races, the moderate R usually has the advantage. Even now, in Trump times. Where you get the real crazies are in races for the gerrymandered legislature. I've documented some of their worst transgressions. Sometimes I get sad and give up. Then I get mad again...

No switcheroo at the polls Tuesday for this cowboy. Actually, I'm not a cowboy. I'm a Dem and a city boy who's worked in the arts. As a kid, I used to suffer violent asthma attacks when adjacent to livestock. When I ride horses now, I look like the dude that I am. Kind of like Foster Friess, although much younger. Somehow, I learned how to survive and thrive in cowboy country without betraying my liberal social justice background. How about you?

This Baby Boomer grew up hating Nazis -- and still does

The Nazis are in D.C. this weekend.

Sounds weird, doesn't it -- Nazis in our nation's capital city? Last time we contemplated Nazis roaming through D.C. was in "Man in the High Castle," and that was sci-fi. Before that, it was George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, demonstrating in front of the White House against President Eisenhower's effort to send military aid to Israel. Nazis don't like Jews -- you probably heard about that. Rockwell thought there was a Jew in every boardroom and behind every tree. He should have been concerned about members of his own organization -- one of them gunned him down outside an Arlington, Va., laundromat in 1967.

Prior to World War II, Nazis curried favor inside the beltway. They found isolationists and white supremacists willing to listen. As Philip Roth envisioned in "The Plot Against America," Charles Lindbergh and his Nazi sympathizers did not get into the White House in 1940 and keep the U.S. out of the war and the Nazis in power.

Baby Boomers grew up hating Nazis. Our fathers fought in World War II and they hated Nazis. Movies and TV shows extolled the virtues of killing them. Until "Hogan's Heroes," which transformed concentration camp life into comedy. My father refused to watch the show. "None of that is funny," he would say. We kind of know what he was mad about but we did think it was funny. "I zee nuthing!" Oh, Schultz. Ha ha.

Nazis tried to kill my father. Not him, specifically, just any G.I. that wandered into France in June 1944. If they had succeeded I would not be here, in this form, anyway. I might be a grandmother in Belarus. I might be a Pacific Ocean sea slug. As in George Bailey's alternate universe, I may not have ever been born.

At the heart of my Nazi hatred is what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil." Hitler and Goebbels and Eichmann were easy to hate. But what about the millions of Germans who followed Hitler? Those who worked as low-level bureaucrats tallying the amount of gold yanked from dead people's mouths at Auschwitz and Birkenau? Someone had to keep those records. How far along are we with The Final Solution? Halfway? Two million more Jews to go!

Most of Hitler's support came from the compliant. This will always be Germany's shame. "We thought that smoke from Buchenwald was a barbecue." We were proud of bringing down this rotten regime.

Now we have our own rotten regime. Arendt would recognize the signs of totalitarianism. Trump is a liar and a braggart. His followers are true believers. Bad combination.

The Nazis march in D.C. today. Would I kill a Nazi just for being a Nazi? I don't think I have it in me. Would I punch a Nazi? Too old for that. Do I oppose everything that these people stand for? Absolutely. I wish I could be in D.C. this weekend at what are being called "counter-protests." Thing is, how can you counter such a rotten philosophy? This is a white pride rally. A bunch of goofballs, including KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who say that the white race is superior and your Indian/Somali/African-American/Nicaraguan neighbors are inferior. This cannot be as you have seen the proof with your own eyes. Your neighbors from India shoveled your snowy sidewalks after your heart attack. You watch the Academy Awards with your Somali friend who had no movie theater in his village. You've been a member of NAACP and seen the good works on this organization and the  stalwart stance it has taken against white supremacy. Your Syrian cardiologist saved your life. And so on.

The Nazis marching today in Washington aren't worth spitting on. Same goes for their leader, Donald Trump. They are beneath contempt but we must be ready to fight them with the tools we have. Truth. The Free Press. Poetry. Maybe violence, if it comes to that. It did once.

Poet Anya Silver bids farewell with righteous rage

Nicole Cooley wrote a Facebook post about her friend, poet Anya Silver, who died this week. She included a poem by Silver that expresses the anger we feel at the premature death of a loved one. This is the raw anger that we would like to turn loose but don't. We are angry and sad but sad rules out because that is what we feel and what we are expected to feel. If we indulged in the anger that Silver writes about, well, we would upset the others who are equally sad and angry as hell. It is a moment of solemnity, not rage. But rage belongs. Find more of Silver's poems at the Poetry Foundation web site. 

Metastatic

by Anya Silver, 1968-2018

I’d like a long braid to lasso my rage away,
to stand on a stage in a garter belt
and thigh-high boots and stamp my feet
through the floor, like to put my face
right up against someone else’s face and scream
until the scream knocks me to my knees, coughing.
I could become an arsonist, delicious click of the lighter.
Every time someone I love dies, I’d like a diamond
to line the hilt of a dagger, or tip an arrow.
I’d like to shoot the whole God damned universe
through its infinite starry center, and watch it suck
into itself, scattering the suns and galaxies
over each other like a jar of tipped glitter.
Don’t tell me not to be angry. Do you know
how close I am to flinging my whole animal body
at you, how little I care about being hit
back, or spat on, or bruised? Humiliation
means nothing to me. I have nothing to lose.
If you push me off a building, I’ll sing.
I’d jump in front of a bullet if I could.
I’d let someone wring my neck if only
I knew it would hurt God just one bit to watch me die.

That old guy peeing in the chair still has stories to tell

The certified nursing assistant (CNA) named Ashley pulls me out of my chair and leads me to the walker so I can get to the handicapped accessible bathroom. It's 4 a.m. on an August Friday and she and the nurse make their rounds. The staff has pumped fluids into me all day and dosed me with diuretics. I fell asleep in the chair so I could be close to the john. The joke was on me. I pissed into my Depends and my gown and into the chair.  I had spinal surgery and have trouble walking. I am as helpless as the baby I hear crying over on the pediatric side of this surgical floor.

"Sorry," I mumble.

"It's OK," the CNA says. "It happens."

Not to me it doesn't. That's what I wanted to say. I am a 20-year-old CNA -- we were called orderlies then -- working in a Florida hospital. I peel 67-year-old old men out of chairs they have peed in. I clean them up, help them dress, sop up the mess, and get them back into bed.

"Sorry " they say.

"It's OK," I say. "It happens."

I am a 20-year-old college dropout. I'm not old enough to drink or vote. As I do my chores, I think of the cute blond 20-year-old CNA named Sharon whom I helped earlier in the day. We laughed as we made the bed in an elderly woman's room. The woman sat slumped in the corner as we talked about movies we liked. I wished that this co-worker was not dating my good friend Jim. I sure would like to take her out to one of the movies we talked about. Maybe a drive on the beach. Maybe the surf would be jazzed after work. Maybe I would take some time to think about what to do with the rest of my life.

I'm 67 again. The hospital staff has put me back in my chair, turned off the lights and left. The young CNA is thinking about Friday night, just 12 hours away. The nurse with the braids could be contemplating a weekend with her family camped by a mountain stream. You can see the jagged outline of the Rockies from my fifth floor room.

I am a 20-year-old in a 67-year-old body that is failing. My wife sleeps in the pull-out bed near the window. Some of us suffer in silence. Some of us like company. I wonder what the other young people who keep this hospital working are thinking about tonight. I wonder who other old men are remembering tonight.

I remember this. That cute nurse's aide from that hospital long ago broke up with my friend and I took her to a movie. We spent the next 18 months together. In the summer of 1972, we hitchhiked 10,000 miles around the U.S. we ended up living in Boston where we both found hospital jobs we liked and decided to become nurses together. She became a nurse and I decided to pursue my love of writing. End of our story.

Thursday morning, about 3 a.m., I found myself awake and still a little buzzed from Wednesday evening's surgery. A nurse named Dusty asked if I was ready to pee.

"Need to urinate eight hours after surgery or..."

"Or what?"

"You know what a catheter is, right?"

Dusty accompanied me and my walker around the quiet halls, thinking that might shake up my system. She took me by the veranda that looked over the sleeping town. We chatted. When we got back to the room, she ran water in the sink and I voided. Dusty took a look at my bladder through a scope and found I had urine in there just looking for an excuse to come out. I eventually squeezed out enough to keep the catheters away.

The next night, I turn into Niagara Falls.

At one point, I thought about spending my working life in hospitals. Not peeing in chairs but taking care of those peeing in chairs. In an alternate universe, that is Mike's life. There are many alternate universes. My reality is now.

This won't finish me off. I will be older and incontinent somewhere else. My wife of many years will be gone. My friends will be gone. My grown kids will live far away. I once asked a hospice nurse if people died with their loved ones around them.  "Most people die alone," she said.

I leave stories.

A return trip to the Mind Eraser may help me with mobility issues

I can't walk. OK, I can walk but with difficulty. I fell three months ago and the docs finally figured out I sustained some spinal damage that took its time showing up. My fall was a wimpy fall. I lost my balance and fell into s snow-packed gutter. It was the last snow of the season in Fort Collins and I was helping my daughter move. Nobody saw my fall. If they had, I am sure they would have rushed over to help the old guy out of the gutter. So no witnesses. I brushed the snow from my keister and realized I was going to walk around the rest of  the day with a cold, wet butt. Five days later, my back began to ache. The ache stretched across the entire lower back. It hurt like hell. I started having trouble walking. I retrieved my cane from the closet and used that to get around until I couldn't and then made the transition to a walker. My fingers began to tingle and I lost coordination in my left arm.

It took three months to get to the "bottom" of the problem. My spine sustained some damage from the wimpy fall. A minor whiplash exacerbated my arthritic spine, and maybe a blow that I had sustained in an earlier fall or a traffic accident from three years ago. Whatever, I needed surgery. That's today. I was bummed to hear I needed spinal surgery but I hunted down a great surgeon for the task. So nervous about it. Excited, too, as this might be the beginning of the end of my decrepitude. The doc says I will probably need therapy to get back the use of my legs and arms. I can deal with that. But not walking? I am an active guy and this frustrates me. Even when I write, I get up and pace. I work out in the gym three days a week and swim two days a week. I love to hike but the  mountains have missed me this summer and I have missed them. 

I have a friend Tom with MS. We've known each other for 25 years. He was jut diagnosed when we met at our Denver church. I've seen his struggle. I've been part of the group getting him from his van to the wheelchair. I've helped Tom negotiate non-accessible spots, of which there are too many. He no longer walks and has difficulty with his hands and arms and innards. Still, he keeps on. When our boys were teens, we took them to Six Flags Elitch's in Denver. My son Kevin went off to swim with a girl he met and the rest of us decided to ride the Mind Eraser. Tom's son Brian insisted. Riders with a handicapped tag get to go to the front of the line along with their family members. The Elitch's staff members were good about helping Tom into the contraption that looked like a medieval torture device. The ride picked up speed and five minutes later, my mind was totally erased. I screamed the entire time, or at least I think I did. We were shaking when we disembarked but also laughing like fools. Tom needed help getting back in the wheelchair and we enjoyed some of the more sedate rides the rest of the day.

Tom showed courage and grace getting on that ride. I was skeptical he insisted, as did Brian. Tom's mind has remained sharp even while his body did not. He played baseball but now is just a dedicated follower of the MLB, notable his hometown Red Sox and our regional favorite, the Colorado Rockies. I look upon him as an example of what you can do when threatened with one of life's toughest physical and mental challenges. When I had to use the walker, I stopped going out. I didn't want people to see me in such sad shape. After six weeks of that, I was a mess. My wife challenged me to go to our annual Fourth of July party and bocce ball tournament. I sat and kept score while she refereed. A few of the grown men had stopped at the Fireworks Superstore on the way to the party. They set off smoke bombs and twirly, flashy things. No big rockets as fireworks are illegal in this Wyoming town that everyone in Colorado equates with Fourth of July celebrations. I had fun. We all did. At that point, I began to get out of my shell and get back in the world. That's it, isn't it? You have to get out in the world. No excuses.

Following today's surgery, I will be challenged to see what my body can now do. Sure, that's a challenge. But it's the mind that's the real issue. I get to test the strengths and weaknesses of my physical self. But it's my spiritual and mental state that makes the difference.

Maybe I need a return trip to the Mind Eraser. 

Do odd things happen to writers, or are writers just odd?

A question for my writer friends: Do odd things happen to you, or are you the odd thing?

The answer is important. The world is odd, filled with strange happenings that call out to be translated into poems and stories. But I may be the odd one for noticing and then spending hours/days/months on writing a story to make some sense of this odd occurrence. Maybe it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be entertaining or thought-provoking. It may never be published, never. read by more than a few blog fans. 

To get on with the story...

I had a weird experience Tuesday at a Colorado hospital that will remain nameless. I was the subject of a Cervical CT Myelogram procedure. The docs and nurses in Radiology were supposed to start in on me at 1 p.m.. And then it was 2 and then 3. Finally, the head tech explained to me that the computer had hijacked the hospital. It mistakenly booked me in the fancy Radiology room next door and wouldn't acknowledge that I was waiting in the plain vanilla Radiology Room. I said why don't you put me in the fancy room. He said it was expensive, only used for the difficult cases. I was glad that I wasn't a difficult case. 

The IT guys stormed the premises. They were not like the "IT Crowd" technos who told frantic operators this: "Have you tried turning off  the computer ans turning it back on?" They came to rescue. The problem seemed to be a tough one. The IT guys figured out they had to discharge me from the hospital and admit me all over again, trick the computer into thinking I was a new patient suited only for the cheap room. 

They did that and thought they had it licked when the computer changed its mind and put me back in the fancy room. There must have been ten people in the room, some working frantically on the computer, others preparing the room for the medical procedure that was sure to start any time now. I talked about books with a nice nurse who was writing a children's book in her spare time. Earlier, as she checked me in, she found out I was a writer and said that she thought that I looked like the creative type. I was flattered, as people usually think I look like Colonel Sanders. 

After two hours, they tricked the computer for good and the Radiology team jumped into action. The doc pumped me full of contrast, which one of the techs described as a "sticky oil" which, when scanned, highlights the details of my cervical spine. Once they pumped me full of sticky oil, one of the techs got on with tilting me at various angles on the table while another tech shot images on the scope. They tilted me head first and then prone. They tilted me forward for a second time to make sure the contrast reached into the furthest reaches of my upper vertebrae. I didn't object. I only wanted to do this once. They took some other pictures with me on each side and one of my neck and shoulders. Satisfied, they sent me over to the CT room where another tech scanned me. 

When I got back to the recovery room, a new nurse turned on her computer and looked for my chart. "You don't exist," she said. 

Odd, but I was lying right there. A few minutes later she found me.

"Looks like the computer discharged you" 

Of course. 

The nurse got me readmitted and discharged me again, because that was part of her job. 

As my wife Chris drove me back to Cheyenne, a few things occurred to me. It wasn't a bad way to spend five hours. It was 95 hot degrees outside, cool inside. Chris had taken the day off so we spent some quality time together. The staff was kind and patient. It made me wonder if they were this nice to all patients. The nurses admitted that many who come through their doors are very sick and usually older than me. Some of the procedures involve a lot of physical pain. Pain, as always, turns your attention inward and you are not always aware of others feelings. Me, well, I was in a little bit of pain but didn't want to be a pain. So, after lying around two hours waiting for the multimillion-dollar computer system to recognize me, I decided that resistance was futile. I could have told them to forget it and make me another appointment. But I didn't want to come back another day.  

It was very entertaining. The staff gave me a handful of cafeteria food coupons to make up for the delays. I hope I'm not back at that hospital any time soon, not even for chicken-fried steak night.

Good books and late-night comedians will not save us from the Trump cult

It was the best of times.

It was the worst of times.

They might be Dickens' best opening phrases, this in "The Tale of Two Cities:"

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The author goes on to tell how an apocalyptic event such as the French Revolution can bring about both noble deeds and The Reign of Terror.

Not a new theme, not even 150 years ago when The Tale of Two Cities was published. It's biblical, right? Humans were born in original sin and can only be saved through God's grace. On the road to redemption, humans joust with perdition. The Ten Commandments fall by the wayside as The Seven Deadly Sins rampage through the countryside.

That's a western cultural view. But all cultures offer something similar. Shakespeare lives on because he offered entertaining portrayals of human folly, ones that "end well" and many that don't. The best literature does the same thing.

Human behavior is terrifying. No end to world events to serve as illustrations. Fiction tries to encapsulate the struggle of good vs. evil without being too doctrinaire or too predictable. It's a challenge. How do you offer solace to your reader when your imagined world tuns to shit? Some prefer traditional romance or cozy mysteries. Literary culture scorns the romance writer and reader. When I worked at  bookstore with other snarky college grads, we snickered at those housewives who bought Barbara Cartland volumes by the number. There were so many of them, all with similar overs and titles, that the readers lot track. "Do you have number 37?" they would ask. "Love's Tender Promise" or is it "Tender Love's Promises?" We usually could send them on their way with the right book. During lulls at the store, we challenged each other to come up with the most absurd romance title. We were so smart and judgmental. We read real books when we had time after working several part-time jobs, full-time employment tough to find for English majors..

Humans are so ridiculous.

When the well-educated, urbane, Barack Obama was president, we thought that the U.S. was on its way to becoming a post-racial oasis bristling with creativity and promise. This may still be true. Or maybe it never was true. Our wit and wisdom did not prevent Trump's rise to power. It will not get rid of him. As much as I like Trump jabs delivered by late-night TV hosts, it will not deliver us from the Trump cult.

That's up to us voters.

Home of the free, land of the brave, and graveyard of forgotten pasts

Genealogy once was the province of  retirees, Mormons, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Young people didn't care because, well, they are young people. Mormons cared because their salvation and that of their ancestors depended on it. The DAR just wanted to know whom to accept and whom to snub.

DNA tests have contributed to this change. People find out that they have 20 percent Sub-Saharan Africa in their genome even though they have red hair and freckles and get plastered every St. Patrick's Day. It's a revelation. They begin to ask who these ancestors were and head to ancestry.com to trace their lineage. Some lines are easy to trace. They left behind birth/death records, census entries, military service. Facts can be found. We fill in the chart and show it off to our families who care more about their NCAA tournament brackets than they do about Grandpa's service in World War One. The PBS show, "Who Do You Think You Are?, takes this a step further. Celebs want to trace their roots and ancestry.com supplies the trained genealogists, researchers and librarians who find out that their ancestors include the first king of England. Their story also comes with a slice of humble pie. I may be related to a king, but I also am the offspring of indentured servants, slave-holders and convicts. Therein lie the compelling stories, but you only have so much time in a one-hour show. We may discover our fourth great grandfather's name but it takes newspaper clippings and other docs to find at least a germ of their life's stories.

The searchers are left with their imaginations.

This is the province of  fiction writers.We can take an obscure fact and twist it into a 300-page novel., We find one of those boxes on the ancestry.com web site, fill in our knowledge with a few facts, and then let 'er rip. On the show, celebs confronted with the fact of an ancestor''s checkered past wants to know who what when where why and how. The trail of historical documents dries up and they are left with their imagination which often is lacking.

The most commonly asked questions on this show is: "How come I didn't know any of this?" In America, we forget our pasts. America is the land of the free and the home of the brave and the graveyard of forgotten pasts. Our ancestors were interesting but not interesting enough to be remembered.

I am writing a novel about my grandparents' era, post-World War I Colorado. Two war veterans, one Irish immigrant, and one budding suffragist from rural Ohio. These four people have been gone for decades. I grew up with them but my children never knew them and are not particularly interested in their stories. Their grandchildren will never know me and not care about my stories. I find this exceptionally sad. "Who Do You Think You Are" often closes with a visit to an ancestor's grace. The burial sites are sometimes in fine shape. Often they are neglected,weedy and overgrown, or just impossible to find. It's easy to spit out a cliche: their burial sites may be neglected, but their stories will live forever.

No they won't. Mine won't. Yours won't. People will forget. We forget quicker in the USA than anywhere else on the planet. The inexorable onrush of capitalist culture depends on it. To change that attitude only leads to grief.

Or to fiction. I am writing about my grandparents' era. They were young. They moved across the country into what they thought were promising futures. My goal is to capture that time. It didn't turn out as hoped. I know some of those stories too. But to be young and a pioneer. Such a delicious time, and fraught with peril.

It's their story but not their story. More a feeling of what it felt like to be them in a certain time and place.

All told from the POV of a this soon-to-be-forgotten entity.

Writers from the South (North, East & West) -- read them all

Status updates cycle through Facebook so quickly. A person from academia posted the other day that he was searching for justification for teaching a course on southern literature at his university. Can't find it now to respond in person but I've been thinking a lot about it and have some thoughts.

My first response is this: you study southern literature because its fun. I am a former student of Harry Crews at University of Florida and you haven't lived until you've read Feast of Snakes and Karate is a Thing of the Spirit.

Fantastic fiction writers abound: Bobbie Anne Mason, Carson McCullers, Connie May Fowler, Alice Walker, George Saunders, Walker Percy, Eudora Welty, Kaye Gibbons, Tim Gautreaux, William Faulkner, Lewis Nordan, Flannery O'Connor, etc. Alas, I know very few southern writers under 40. That's my loss, I'm sure. I could remedy that by reading more litmags with roots in the South: Georgia Review, Chattahoochee Review, storySouth, Carolina Quarterly, Snake Nation Review, and many others. If these mags are doing their duty, they are publishing up-and-coming writers in the South and those of us who carry the South around like a beat-up copy of a Faulkner novel.

So study southern literature. As long as you read the books. Read them all.

South Carolina's Pat Conroy wove the South and family and military traditions into his novels. I looked forward to reading a new Conroy novel. I was transfixed by "The Prince of Tides." Southern angst, crazy families, suicide, escaped convicts, tiger attacks -- you don't get many of those in southern novels. That was a doozy of a dysfunctional family. Too bad they made a movie. We got too much of Barbra Srreisand as Susan Lowenstein and not enough of the Wingo family.

At first encounter, I wasn't all that impressed with Flannery O'Connor. Then in grad school I took a class on the short story. I started writing short stories and reading new authors to understand their secrets. I read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and realized it was a twisted tale and a work of art. It possessed some of that magic you get in a great story. O'Connor imbued her stories with the mysticism of her Catholic faith and the South, a wicked combination. Her characters vibrate with life. The Misfit's final words about the grandmother are harsh and mysterious and I still don;'t know exactly what they mean. He kills Grandma, we know that. But his motives remain mysterious. Like faith itself -- beautiful and unknowable. One thing that helped me understand her stories is reading her collected letters in "The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor."

That's it, isn't it? The great stories shine with a fire lit by the author. When you read Raymond Carver, you are beset with his yen for demon rum. He's not of the South but his work possesses some of those elements. Nebraska's Willa Cather seems to have dragged Southern Gothic elements over the prairie from her Virginia birthplace.

Read them all.

Artists respond to Trumpists' barbaric immigration policies

From the "13 Artists on: Immigration" article in today's New York Times Style Magazine: Art Spiegelman's "A Warm Welcome," 2015. CreditPortrait by Phil Penman. Artwork courtesy of the artist. 

Art Spiegelman ("Maus: A Survivor's Story") was one of the 13 artists asked by the NYT to respond to current U.S. immigration issues. An immigrant himself, he has a few things to say about his own experience, and the above illustration:

I first saw the Statue of Liberty in October 1950 while perched high on my father’s shoulders. My parents, survivors of Hitler’s death camps, had been granted immigration visas to the United States, and all the passengers were crowded on the foredeck of the Gripsholm as we approached the harbor. I was less than 3 years old when my father excitedly pointed at the giant lady standing in the water to welcome us to New York. I was suitably awed until we got closer and was disappointed to see that she was “just” a statue.

"Maus" was probably the first graphic novel I read, and it took me awhile to get to it. It was after I wandered into an exhibit of Spiegelman's work at the Rollins College Gallery in Winter Park, Fla. It was about a decade ago. I thought of graphic novels as bloated comic books. "Maus" taught me otherwise. Something about seeing the exhibition-size artwork arrayed around the gallery got to me. I know quite a bit about the Holocaust but something about Jews as mice -- and Nazis as cats -- got to me. I recommend it highly. The issues  echo down the years to 2018. It's tempting to equate any fascist behavior to the Nazis. But Trump's cruel, racist actions are happening right now in the U.S., not in 1943 Germany or Poland. 

We take a look at coal-fired arts projects

Coal has been on my mind lately. Not in my mind, but I wouldn't be surprised if our Republican geniuses in Congress plan to replace our precious bodily fluids with coal dust. That should open up a new market for a dying industry.

Coal mining has a long tradition in Wyoming. I don't want to see it disappear. I would like to see some creativity applied to the issue instead of fear-mongering. The state has been home to coal mines since its settlement by white folks. Many families have been sustained by miners hacking rock out of underground mines or scooping it up in strip mines. Many communities owe their existence to coal. Some of our museums celebrate what you could call the coal culture. Rock Springs just added a coal mural to the side of a building in its flourishing downtown.

Coal mural in downtown Rock Springs. Artist is Dan Toro.

Underground Rock Springs is honeycombed with old mines. Mines and miners' unions made this city. It's good to see it acknowledged on a mural, and there is probably more to come. The main building at Western Wyoming College celebrates coal, too, with its large exhibit of the dinosaurs that once roamed the area, Consider dinos pre-coal, before the earth swallowed them up, applied heat and pressure, and then surrendered it to men with picks and shovels. I've always been crazy about dinosaurs and wonder why they are not more celebrated in Wyoming.

For 25 years, I was tasked with helping arts projects get off the ground. I was paid to be creative. I was also paid to fill out a lot of paperwork and read hundreds of grants. It taught me about this state of the arts. Lots of creativity and creative people. You could call them creatives as Richard Florida most famously did. Creatives, however, rarely are seen in the wild and seem to thrive only in urban enclaves, places such as Willaimsburg in Brooklyn and RiNo in Denver. It's a surprise to many coasters when they find pockets of creativity in small places that have no catchy nicknames.

I was pleased to hear a story on Wyoming Public Radio about another very creative person in an out-of-the way place. Mosaic artist Rachel Sager returned to her hometown in western Pennsylvania mining country. She wanted to practice her art and help her town recover from doldrums caused by closing of its mines. So she did what any other creative person would do -- she bought a defunct coal mine and turned it into an arts destination. Actually, she bought a swath of property that also was the site of an abandoned coal operation. She reclaimed the walls of the ruins from decades of vines and weeds and thought that it  would be a great place to show off her mosaics. She also thought it was a great way to show off the work of other like-minded artists from around the world and, in the process, give her tiny town of Whitsett and economic shot in the arm. She called it The Ruins Project. Sager dubs herself "the forager mosaicist" for her love of using found materials in her artwork. She is classically trained in the techniques of andamento, so also teaches classes and invites other visiting artists to do the same. Summer is an especially lively time at The Ruins Project.

Mosaic by Rachel Sager from The Ruins Project

I don't know if Sager has ever visited Wyoming, but she certainly has found some influences there, as shown in the following:

"American Jackelope" by Rachel Sager

Not sure if I have ever seen a mosaic jackelope. I have seen them in the wild, of course, on nights when the full moon shines on the North Platte River Valley.

To bring this story back to Wyoming, I wonder about other coal-inspired projects. Do you know of any? Certainly there are some in Gillette. Hard to imagine creating an arts project out of an abandoned open-pit mine. But who knows? Wyoming artists have been tasked with tough jobs before, such as surviving as an artist. Who knows what brilliant coal-inspired things could happen.

Top three Republican governor candidates want to out-conservative each other

The three richest Republican gubernatorial candidates seem to think that Wyoming needs rescuing from a cabal of liberals. Did I miss something? For the past eight years we've had a Republican governor and the four other state elected officials. Conservatives increased their lopsided majority in 2016 as a new wave of Know Nothings swept into power on Donald Trump's coattails. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one. Yet Republican candidates in 2018 seem to think we need to be more conservative, which is hard to fathom. It's like asking Trump to to be less of a loudmouth greedhead. It just can't be done.

Millionaire stock trader Foster Friess, the man who embodies the loathsome side of Teton County politics, looks ridiculous in his cowboy outfit. His pitch is even more ridiculous. In his TV ads, he promotes himself as a"conservative businessman "who wants to see that Wyoming remains a land of dreams for the next generation." Dream on, Wyomingites. With Republican policies, you can work three jobs for less than minimum wage while dreaming of life in a mansion with a mountain view. And golf! FF will create jobs by tapping into "clean and abundant energy resources (shot of oil well), cut down on wasteful spending and make sure Washington doesn't get in our way." Is he talking about Trump's Republican government? Or that guy Obama? Will businessman Friess be as efficient at running the state as Trump is running the country? It's too hard to go on, watching TV spot after TV spot. Bless you, mute button. Stephen Colbert summed up Friess's campaign in his segment "Profiles in Discourage:" https://youtu.be/vBmIoVOg1O0

He's only one of the conservatives who wants to make Wyoming more conservative. Mark Gordon actually looks pretty good in his cowboy duds although I'm getting a bit irked at his hay-pitching routine. Gordon is a rancher from Johnson County and our current state treasurer. In one of his spots, he says that he "will fight to get government out of the way." Do you know that, as governor, you are actually the head of the government? I guess it doesn't matter. Many R voters in this state see "government" as a dirty word. They must not drive on any gubment roads or depend on rangeland fire fighters when wildfires threaten their mountain homes. And I'm certain that none of the ranchers get U.S. Government grazing subsidies. Republicans hate government -- let's put them in charge. What could go wrong?

Conservative businessman Sam Galeotos is from Cheyenne. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone describe themselves as a liberal businessman. Not in Wyoming, anyway. Mr. Galeotos has been instrumental in lifting our downtown out of the doldrums -- I will give him that. His refrain is "get government out of the way of small business." Also: "Conservative ideas, fresh perspective." He's run many successful small to medium-sized technology businesses. He is big on tech, which is a hopeful sign. I wonder, though, how many college-educated tech people want to come to a state whose legislature continues its Stone Age policies of demonizing the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and science? They don't believe in funding education and Know Nothings continue to usurp power at our lone four-year state-funded university. We have tech businesses in Cheyenne. Many of those young employees are commuters from mostly-liberal northern Colorado, mainly Greeley and Fort Collins. And UW grads continue to flee the state after graduation. Where are those jobs and policies that will keep our young people in the state?

There are other Repubs in the race but they are not on TV, not yet. And there is a great Democratic Party candidate, Mary Throne, who is our best bet. I'm a Democrat and you probably expect me to be biased. I'm a liberal and I live here too. I matter, but none of the above-named Republicans seem to care. It's all about name recognition and the "R". And the money.