Which is more impressive–the tree or the Bighorn Mountains behind it? Luckily, we don’t have to choose as they come as a package deal. Photo taken in Sheridan, Wyoming.
https://beccagivens.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/sunday-trees-244/
From Denver to Cheyenne to Sheridan to Murdo to Sheridan again, for these past three weeks I’ve been in overdrive! It has been wonderful, but it is about over. If you’ve never driven through Wyoming and South Dakota, this is just a tiny bit of what you have missed. Today, back to Sheridan, Tuesday to Denver, Wednesday back to Mexico.
This has been a fabulous trip, but, yesterday I literally tripped and fell flat trying to take a photo in the middle of Main Street in my home town during its 100th birthday celebration––luckily after the parade! So, twisted ankle, swollen knee, wrenched back. Time to go back to a different home. My camera broke, so few pictures of people were retrievable, but in a day or so, I’ll have some stories to tell. Good news is, after two trips from the router guys who had to come 150 miles to do repairs, looks like my friend Mark’s motel has had its wifi problems taken care of.
It has been 50 years that I’ve been coming to these 5 year all-school reunions. In that time, the high school population has shrunk by half, down to 49 students, even though it has gone from being a town school to a county-wide school. Lots of energy still left judging by last night’s alumni dance–the floor mainly populated by young families and cowboys and cowgirls. Still a good representation by my class of 1965, but that is a story for a day when I don’t have to pack and be in the car in minutes. Bye, Murdo. See you again in five years.
Please click on the first photo to enlarge them all and see the true magnitude of these prairie views.
I was trying to post my blog when my sister and brother-in-law asked if I wanted to accompany them to town to meet friends at the Star Cafe. Since I’d been trying in vain to post since I woke up this morning, I decided to stay in the motel until I’d posted, so she told me to call when I was ready to come into town and she’d come get me.
A few hours later when I was still unable to post, I tried to call, but alas––no cell phone coverage and no wifi! When I went to the office, I was greeted by a sign that the office would be closed until 3:30 and with not a car in the parking lot, I knew I was the solitary person in residence at the moment.
The only solution I could think of was to walk to town–more than a mile away down a gravel road like this one:
and then along the shoulder of the highway that leads to town.
En route I would need to cross an overpass over Interstate 90 as well as an exit and an entrance.
It was a hot day and the way would be treelesss. Still, I set out on my adventure.
First, past the lonely horse in the pasture.
Giving him a few pats on the nose, I was on my way again. We were both looking pretty hot!
As I approached the local cemetery, a police car pulled up to see if I needed help, but didn’t offer me a ride.
After a half hour walk or so, I encountered another solitary inhabitant of the road:
And,as you can see from this view, I was drawing nearer to my destination. Just another 600 feet or so to go.
I arrived at the Pioneer Auto Museum a bit wind-tossed and sweaty, and luckily the two very nice ladies in the gift shop loaned me a cell phone to call my sister. Ten minutes later, she picked me up and we did a short swing through town to see former residences and other haunts before returning to the motel. It was, in fact, a bit of a futile exercise just to return to where I’d departed from an hour and a half before. The rest of the day, however, turned out to be wonderful––old friends as well as some new ones, some surprises, a few tears, lots of laughs and a few messages from dear departed ones via stories I’d never heard before. But it is 3:20 in the morning and I need to be up by 8 so I will desist and say as a famous man did many times in the past, that that is the rest of the story!
The rest of the story regarding this solitary sunflower will come a bit later. Stay tuned.
Nightmare
You hide yourself in shadows deep
to watch me as I fall to sleep.
Half-lidded, with your sleepy stare,
you cup my cheek and stroke my hair.
I do not know as I fall deeper
that you stalk this drifting sleeper.
Then just as I do not resist,
you give my hair a painful twist.
I try to jerk awake but fail.
I tense my muscles, fight and flail,
but I cannot escape your grasp.
I call for help, I moan and gasp.
Sir Nightmare, from where do you come
with death knoll beat on ragged drum?
I hear its pulse now through the day.
At every hour, it sounds the way
back to the horror of the night––
a pathway to that final fight
when I will mount at last that steed
that nightly stands to do its deed
to carry to oblivion
this sleeper off to meet her kin.
That father lost, those lovers three
who wait for my delivery.
Is this nightmare just a dream––
a mere digression from the stream
of conscious thought––a nightly swim
through a fantasy most grim,
or a window showing me
an inevitability?
(The photo is intended only as an illustration and has nothing to do with the person pictured!!!)
These daisies lined the path up to the fabulous Brinton Memorial Art Museum near Sheridan, Wyoming. I couldn’t take photos inside the rammed earth structure, but it was gorgeous. Although I published 4 shots of the daisies yesterday, here are other variations on the daisies to compensate for not being able to show you the museum:
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/07/14/flower-of-the-day-july-15-2016-swan-sunset-dahlia/
I’ve spent most of this day trying to get onto the internet and understand that non-connectivity is a common problem here, so although I’ll continue to try to post daily, it might require an act of God to allow me to do so. Keep your fingers crossed..or you will miss out on all the excitement of the Murdo All-Class Reunion!! With photos. (Still your beating hearts it may not happen.)
By Storm (‘S Cool Reunion)
From places frozen, moderate, warm,
each five years we group and swarm
over mountains, plains and seas.
Some jog in place and others wheeze
as in the past, we’re told to line up
in a row to wait to sign up.
Though years ago, it’s true not all
heeded Mr. Appleby’s call,
we now comply and then we freeze
as Margie calls out, “Quiet, please!”
and those that years have made defiant
suddenly become compliant.
Teens again, we squirm and stand,
united in this reprimand.
We’ve journeyed here to reunite,
our faces wrinkled, our clothes too tight;
but all around us in time’s disguise,
are those we do not recognize.
We stand embarrassed, tempest-tossed,
feeling ill-at-ease and lost
until a tiny shift takes place
and we recognize a face!
Then suddenly, the line is filled
with strangers finally double-billed
when old faces shed their years
and we recognize our peers
as cheerleaders and ball court stars,
cruisers “U’ing Main” in cars,
pranksters, whisperers and hypers,
Mrs. Kuhrt’s impressive typers,
marching bands and spitwad flickers,
dribblers and football kickers.
“Hello” and “Hi there” “Hey!” and “Howdy!”
transform the neatly rowed to rowdy
as senator and cowboy bond
as though transformed by fairy wand.
Financier and building framer
guffaw with a hall-of-famer.
Counselors, teachers, moms and dads
remember misdeeds, pranks and fads.
Wrinkles fade, pounds fall away,
as we’re returned to yesterday.
Thumbscrews
At what point might your courage fall
and might you deign to tell it all?
What waterboard or thumbscrew might
cause you to give up the fight
to tell the secrets of friend and kin
just to stop the pain you’re in?
Please friend, before revealing facts
involving secrecy or pacts,
consider what I tell you here
before you choose to grace my ear.
Never would I tell your pain—
repeat your secrets e’er again—
under normal circumstance,
nor betray by eye or glance
anything once told to me
with a vow of privacy.
Until, that is, the knives come out
or waterboards? Without a doubt
gross cowardice would be revealed.
To torture I would surely yield.
In short, in matters of gross pain––
I would repeat your words again.
So if you have a secret dark
that you have a need to park
inside the conscience of another,
please tell your sister or your brother,
for a wise decision it would be
to choose a braver soul than me!
