The Snow Storm

It's a popular and classic thing for adults, at a certain point, to look back on the weather of their youth and declare it to be worse than the weather today.  Be that as it may, I'm absolutely certain that when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s we had a lot more really bad winter weather.  Even into the 1980s this was true.

Indeed folks who track climate often note that the 1970s was a cold decade and there was some discussion in the 60s and 70s about what to do, if anything, about a cooling climate.  At one point there was even a suggestion, in the 1960s, that perhaps the Air Force could be used to bast shipping passages in the event of increased polar ice through the use of atomic bombs, a rather frightening proposition to say the least.  In the early to mid 1980s, when I lived in Laramie the first time, the winters were so cold that there were weeks that didn't rise above 0F and once the snow set in, in the town, it simply remained there until the spring thaw, which was spiced by the sent of thawing dog crap that students had let built up in their yards all winter long.

So I have a fairly distinct recollection of earlier winters and perhaps that's why I found the recent reaction to the recent snow storm rather silly.

Now, I think the schools were right in shutting down in the regions of the state hit by the storms, and I don't blame them at all for that.  But individual reactions really caught me off guard.  A lot of people didn't go into work in some areas, although in the same areas, a lot of lifetime Wyomingites did.  I did, and I frankly didn't find the roads all that bad.  I was surprised when some people reacted by wondering if everyone would stay home when in fact everyone was already there.  Most locals were "no big deal". Indeed, I know of one employer who was likely to have taken the day off himself, being an import from somewhere else, who went to tell his employees to stay home only to find that he himself was the only one employed in that business who hadn't shown up on time.  He had to sheepishly go in.

Perhaps the most personally annoying, for a reason I'll note below, is the reaction of one of the person's in my neighborhood, however.

One of the really super nice people in my neighborhood whom I really like takes snow removal to an extreme.  I'll confess that I'm one of those people who don't come close to doing that, and as I have  busy schedule, I don't always get around to snow removal even when I should.  I knew the night prior to the big snow day that this would mean a big snow removal effort on his part. 

Well, sure enough, and when I went to work he stopped to talk to me and informed me that he was going to call the city to have the street plowed.

I don't really know if the city will plow a street simply because a resident requests it.  I really doubt it.  I hope they don't.  Something that average people probably don't appreciate much is that snow plowing efforts by cities are extremely expensive and a single storm can actually practically destroy a city's budget. 

Our city plows major through ways and that's all they need to do.  There's no reason whatsoever for a city to plow a residential street, save for the city's own purposes.  To make matters worse, our city plows to the center of the street which does keep cars from being plowed in but which also creates giant "windrows" which are a hazard in all sorts of ways. In residential streets, which aren't all that wide, it means that you really can't park in front of your house after they're created as there isn't room for cars to go buy after that.

Well, sure enough, when I got home the street had been plowed and there was a windrow with the width and elevation of the Himalayas in front of my house.  Sherpas had tried to make it over the top and had been frozen to death in their efforts.  Wild Yetis were roaming the windrows, and Indian and Pakistan were engaged in a fierce border fight over the windrow.

Okay, I exaggerate, but only a little.

That did mean that I could not park my Jeep in front of my house, thanks to the freaking windrow. 

Now I do have space. . . .barely, to park my Jeep in front of my travel trailer. . . when the weather is nice.  When I do that, I back into that space, carefully.  I tried to do that and found that the 1.5 feet of snow there meant I couldn't do it in one pass and had to go back and forth.  Finally, the Jeep slipped and the Jeep rack went into the bumper of my old Dodge D3500 parked there.  In pulling it forward, the rack was pretty badly damaged.

Great.

Now, I can't really blame the plowing on anyone.  I suspect that the city opened the street up in this fashion for its own purposes.  I really hope so.  But I'm really not happy about it.  I'll get over it, but now I have to debate on having a body shop repair my Jeep or having my brother in law weld up a cracked weld that developed after I bent my rack back into place.  He can do that, but he's busy, and it means driving out and taking away from his day to do that.  I doubt he has the time, and I know that I don't.

Wyoming has legendarily bad winter weather forever.  If you live here, and you want to drive, I figure you'll have a vehicle that anticipates that.  I was having no problem driving at all.  Nobody in my family, and they all drive, was. 

Sigh.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 11. Comparison and Constrast.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 11:

And these events were just two years apart:

March 11

1917  The Cheyenne State Leader for March 11, 1917: Laramie planning welcome for its Guardsmen

Laramie's troops were still delayed in Cheyenne, but Laramie was planning a big welcome for them when they returned.  Otherwise, Ft. D. A. Russell's contingent of Guardsmen were leaving for all points.

1919  Tuesday March 11, 1919. The Arrival of Company L

In yesterday's paper it was Company I and Company L for the same company. Today that was cleared up, it was apparently Company L, and they were back in Casper.

And by back, we mean the men were back, given a rousing welcome and then discharged, set out in their civilian lives once again.

It was a handful of men, all NCOs, actually.  Their names all appeared in the paper.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Is Beer the Most Distributist Product Ever? Hey, what about whiskey (and other distilled beverages)?. Wait a minute, In Vino locorum subsidiarietatis Veritas?

There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee,
and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
When the wine ran short,
the mother of Jesus said to him,
"They have no wine."
And Jesus said to her,
"Woman, how does your concern affect me?
My hour has not yet come."
His mother said to the servers,
"Do whatever he tells you."
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings,
each holding twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus told them,
"Fill the jars with water."
So they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them,
"Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter."
So they took it.
And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine,
without knowing where it came from
— although the servers who had drawn the water knew —,
the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,
"Everyone serves good wine first,
and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one;
but you have kept the good wine until now."
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee
and so revealed his glory,
and his disciples began to believe in him.

John, Chapter 2.*

Okay, we've done beer, and we've done whiskey, what about wine.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Is Beer the Most Distributist Pr...: A bottle of "double cask" Wyoming Whiskey, which is Wyoming Whiskey that's also been partially aged in a sherry cask. ...

 

And no, we're not grasping for those lyrics from the famous John Lee Hooker song.

Frankly, I know nothing about wine.

I've always known that, but it really occurred to me after I decided to add this post, following my one on beer and whiskey.

Indeed, I pondered why that might be.  

My parents rarely drank wine, but for that matter my father only bought beer during the summer and while we often had a bottle of Canadian Whiskey on hand, it usually lasted an eternity.  Indeed, when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, it was considered to be a social obligation to have whiskey on hand for social occasions.  My folks weren't huge entertainers (they were definitely better than we are here however), and that's about the only time the whiskey was ever brought out.  We didn't stock more than one kind and for whatever reason, the only kind of whiskey my father ever bought was Canadian Lord Calvert.  I supposed that this might be because my mother was Canadian, but as she never ever drank it, that supposition might be way, way, off the mark.

One of my aunts and uncles liked Scotch, and liked Cutty Sark for that matter.  Asking my father about it, he told me that it tasted like paint thinner, and I have to agree.  And not just about Cutty Sark, but all Scotch Whiskey.

About the only wine my parents ever bought was Mogan David, which based upon their website must have been Mogan David Concord.  I feel bad, quite frankly, for the Mogan David company, because back at that time it was simply a fairly cheap and rather obviously Kosher table wine.  The purple wine came with a Star of David emblazoned upon it.  This was all prior to the introduction of tehir horrifying fortified "pop" wines which came out under the MD 20/20 name, and which acquired the nickname "Mad Dog 20/20".  I frankly think that their introduction of that brand, while it may have been a marketing mistake, was a mistake.  I'm surprised to learn that it still exists, actually.

Anyhow, when I was a kid, on very rare occasion, my father would buy Mogan David.  I'm not sure why.  It always came in big gallon sized bottles, and it lasted forever.  I haven't had it for years and years, and indeed not since I was young, probably ten years old or younger, and I'd get a small glass when they bought it.  As it isn't the kind of drink you serve to guests, and as they so rarely bought it, and quit buying it at some point, I don't know what the thought was.

Anyhow, when growing up and still young, "wine" to me meant Mogan David.

When I was in my very early teens my mother, for some still unknown reason, took a wine making class at the local community college and she accordingly started making wine as a hobby.  Simply taking up wine making was really odd for a person who basically didn't drink and who was living in a family that nearly didn't, so I don't know what she was thinking.  It was a mistake all the way around for a variety of reasons.

For one reason, she was a horrible cook and at least based upon her wine making experiment, being a bad cook equates with being a bad vintner.  Her wine was awful.  She made  most of it from berries that she harvested from where our garden was located and for years and years I assumed thereafter that the berries must have been basically unpalatable.  Later on, I found they weren't, when other people made other things out of them. Go figure.

Fortunately, after stinking up the house with the fermentation process for awhile, she gave it up.  Pretty bad stuff.

I don't know if that early experience left me tainted on wine in general.  I'd had beer obviously so apparently that didn't carry over.  As an adult I've been exposed to wine a lot more, but I've picked up a very limited taste for it.  Basically, I like Chianti and buy it on odd occasion.  I don't like any other wine much unless they are very close to Chianti.  Some of the wines that people really like I absolutely detest.   Most of them actually.  Dry Champagne I like, but it's not like you are going to drink gallons of that unless you are Winston Churchill.

So my knowledge on wine is super limited and will stay that way.

Anyhow, as I did beers and whiskey, and as I'm looking at this from a Distributist and local agricultural level, and as I know there are a couple of wineries in the state, I decided to complete the Tour d'alcohol with that.

Now, going into that I'll note that I'm very skeptical about the ability of Wyoming to produce any wine in the first place, unless it's made out of the wild stuff that my mom used, and I'd discourage that.  While my mother, in her brief vintner stage decided to plant a couple of Concorde grape vines over my objection (she never had a grasp on agricultural yield and she couldn't accept that a couple of vines weren't going to yield adequate grapes for fermenting, and she didn't accept that the harsh weather here wasn't conducive to grapes), Wyoming doesn't really have the climate for growing grapes.

Indeed, grapes are sufficiently susceptible to climate that you can actually tell what the climate of a past era was like based on them.  The line basically north of the Rhine in Europe and west the English Channel are the beer lines, basically (with some blending of the two) as you can grow grains north and west of there, but not grapes, usually.  When you can grow grapes in those regions, something odd is going on.  We know, for example, that there was a period when England produced a lot of wine.  It was during the Medieval Climatic Optimum.  You can't grow them there now.  Likewise, during the same era Newfoundland had abundant wild grapes.  It doesn't now.  There's never been a time when you couldn't grow grapes in France, Spain, Italy, Greece and North Africa, which is why all those areas have been wine regions (the modern exception being North Africa but only because of Islam).

So you can't do much with that here.

Apparently you can do a little,  however.

Before I go on, there's one additional thing I should mention that I recently learned.  I've always known that there are wines that are attributed to regions that surprise me, but I didn't realize that simply labeling wine is a big deal.  I had no idea.  Apparently in California, for example, a lot of wine labels are basically that.  Some big mega winery produces all kinds of wine and ships it out under lots of labels under contract.  People buying the label tend to think that a winery by that name is produced there, but nope, it may be just a label.

Indeed, a Benedictine Monk I know told me that the wine sold under the label of his home abbey was not produced there, but in another state and sold under the abbey's name via contract.  He was careful to note that as the abbey did in fact produce other things, but not wine.  The abbey was located in the far north so I would have really wondered about how the accomplished producing wine but, nope, they didn't do it.

That's a bit of a shame really as both wine and beer were once widely produced by monastic holy orders and for practical reasons.  Somehow, as we've progressed through the 20th Century and became more and more hedonistic and amoral we none the less found more in more in the way of societal puritanism to apply to people otherwise living moral lives.  Odd.  And its further misguided in that the Puritans themselves were not teetotalers at all.

Well, anyhow, I've come to know something about beer and whiskey but I remain really ignorant on wine.

So, anyhow, back to wine and Wyoming.

There are, surprisingly, a few Wyoming wineries.

The claimed first winery in Wyoming was Table Mountain Winery.  It interestingly was the brainchild of a UW student from a southeastern Wyoming farming family who researched the topic while a student and went on to apply what he learned, receiving a grant in the process.

And its a true winery.  A ten acre vineyard supplies the grapes for seven different wines which, after looking at their website, I realized that I have in fact seen in the stores.  I haven't tried it, but once again, this is a Distributist or Agrarian triumph, as its amazingly all local and they've been at it for nearly twenty years now.

I should note, before I move on, that the "claimed" item above is because well prior to this time, when I was a student in Laramie in the 1980s, there was some sort of winery in one of the small towns up in the mountains west of Laramie.  This was the Hiney Winery.  I know nothing about it other than that it advertised on radio a lot, back in the days when people, including me, listed to their car radios.  I recall it as their kitschy advertisements always closed out with the line "buy a little Hiney" or something like that, featuring that obvious double entendre.  I never tried it, and have no idea how it was produced.  Laramie is already 7,000 feet in elevation and the towns in the mountains were even higher than that, so I'd be amazed if the grapes were produced locally.

Moving on, Cody Wyoming has a Buffalo Jump Winery.  Knowing what a buffalo jump is, I wonder about the name, but the tourist town has a winery so called.  The last time I was in Cody I noticed it or at least an outlet selling the wines, but I didn't stop in (I'm obviously a very poor candidate for wine tourism).  Their website indicates that the grapes are from California, Oregon and Washington, and they have a second outlet in Arizona.  So they're producing wine, but they're acquiring the grapes. The owners also indicate that they're in buffalo ranching, and indeed they were in that prior to being vintners.

There's also a Jackson Hole Winery, making Jackson Hole the location of at least two breweries and one distillery, or perhaps two distilleries if we include nearby Driggs Idaho in the mix.  Their website indicates that they produce 2,500 cases of wine per year and a large percentage of the grapes are from a farm owned by the vintner, which is a family operation.  However, the vineyards are in the Sonoma region and other grapes are acquired via partnerships and business arrangements. As Jackson Hole is over 6,000 feet high, the lack of local grapes isn't surprising. They do produce the wine themselves.

Weston Wineries, which apparently also produces liqueurs, is another Wyoming winery that relies upon importing the constituents from other states, in this case grape juices.  Indeed, their website specifically notes that they do that and that its common in the industry, which it truly is.  In looking it up, I realized that it too is something I've seen in the stores but never tried.

A really unique winery is found in Gillette Wyoming and was mentioned here the other day in the context of distilleries, that being Big Lost Meadery.  As it name indicates, it specializes in mead.

I'll be frank.  I can't stand mead so I'm not going to try this product.

Most people have never tried mead and are only familiar with it, if they are at all, from stories about Vikings quaffing down buckets of mead. Given that, we imagine it in our minds being something like Russian Imperial Stout or something.  It's not like that at all.

Mead is made from honey.

That's right, it's made from honey.

Now, I'll confess that my experiences with mead are quite limited.  When I was 19 years old, and hence old enough to first drink in Wyoming (the drinking age was then 19), I bought a bottle of mead due to the Viking legends.  It was awful.   I likely didn't make it past the first glass before I tossed the bottle out.

Recently I've had mead again, but for an odd reason.

Up at the start of this entry I noted that my mother tried her hand at wine making after taking a class at the local community college.  About a year or so ago my son, in college, decided to try it too.  His efforts were less reliant on products of the wild, indeed they weren't at all reliant on it, and he gave it up after an initial effort.  Nonetheless, a friend of his wanted to try mead and so they recently made a batch.

Their mead wasn't nearly as bad as the mead that I had when I was young, and I note that there's "dry" mead that's less sweet.  His friend and his family were really impressed with it.  While I was much less unimpressed with it than with the stuff I had years ago, I'm not going to take it up.

Which means that I'm not going to try Big Lost Meadery's product.  It may be great, if you like mead, but as I don't, I'm not going to bother.

Based on their website, Big Lost (which also brews beer) plays a bit with the manly  man image of mead. But the fact that the Norse and other northern Europeans drank it at one time actually tells me something else.

Grapes don't grow in the far north but there are plenty of bees up there, and bees make honey.  The fact that the early Scandinavians made mead (and they weren't the only ones by any means) tells me that if people figure out how to make ferment something, they'll ferment anything available.  Honey was available.  As soon as beer became available, it's worth noting, the Norsemen switched to that.**

And that about covers it for Wyoming's wine. 

Except for the homemade stuff, of course.

________________________________________________________________________________

*St. John covers here, of course, Jesus' first public miracle, the changing of water into wine at the Wedding Feast at Cana.

The entire story is an interesting one, and not simply (but of course principally) because it was Jesus' first public miracle.  Like most of the Bible, the story is multi dimensional in all sorts of ways.  One thing we can take from here, from a historical prospective, is the practices that pertained to wine at the time.

Very clearly, then as now, there were various grades of wine.  We learn from this story that the wine that Christ created from the water was of superb quality.  The steward was amazed that the hosts had saved the best wine for last, a practice that woudl be the reverse of what we'd expect then and now. 

Also, based upon the common size of water vessels at the time, this involved a very large quantity of wine. 

That's interesting not only because it tells us of the commonality of wine at the time. . .nobody was shocked that there was a lot of wine, but running out of wine would have been a disaster for the hosts, but also because it touches on a theological point, that being that the drink that was brought into the room at the Last Supper was wine, not "grape juice", as some take great straining strides to maintain.

**I've referenced before, but the novel Krisin Lavransdottir, while a novel, gives a really good account of daily life in Medieval Norway including the drinking habits of Norwegians at that time.  Citing a novel for factual information is always hazardous, but its so well researched I feel it can be relied upon for those details, and it makes it plain that a vast amount of beer and ale were consumed.  Mead is mentioned exactly once in the book.

Lex Anteinternet: Is Beer the Most Distributist Product Ever? Hey, what about whiskey (and other distilled beverages)?

A bottle of "double cask" Wyoming Whiskey, which is Wyoming Whiskey that's also been partially aged in a sherry cask.

Here's an item I just posted, all about local beers:

Lex Anteinternet: Is Beer the Most Distributist Product Ever?: Eh? Okay, let's start off with a definition refresher, as for many folks the term "Distributist" is a mystery. ...

Several years ago here, I posted an item on whiskey that featured a photograph of a bottle of Wyoming Whiskey:

The Rebirth Of Rye Whiskey And Nostalgia For 'The Good Stuff' & Beer and Prohibition.

Things have really changed since then.  Like breweries, distilleries are popping up all over.  Even locally, to my amazement.

Wyoming Whiskey was a new offering at the time, and was advertised as a bourbon comparable to Maker's Mark.  Frankly, I didn't care much for it, but I'm not a huge whiskey fan.  Inside word is that its much improved since then and I did buy a bottle of it as a gift for somebody the other day and, yes, it was much better than I recalled.

But it certainly isn't alone anymore.

Actually it wasn't even then.

Before we move on from Wyoming Whiskey, which as noted now has a reputation as being much improved as noted, let's note something on the Distributist angle to this.

As probably everyone knows, Wyoming Whiskey is owned by the Mead family.  It isn't employee owned or anything, so it doesn't really fit the model perfectly and its certainly not in the same category in regards to that as Casper's Skull Tree Brewery or Ft. Collin's Fat Tire Brewery, but an interesting thing about it is that it was formed as the Mead's had more corn than they knew what to do with.

Plowing a corn field in which last years cut stocks are visible.  1906.

Corn is the basic constituent of bourbon and sour mash, the archetypal American whiskeys which are notable in that regard as it distinguishes them from the whiskeys of the British Isles, where whiskey got its start (Scotch and Irish Whiskey are rye whiskeys).  Bourbon, which bears that name for reasons I know not of, got rolling as Appalachian farmers, mostly descendants of the Scots and Scots Irish at first, didn't know what to do with their corn surplus so they distilled it.  The Mead's took the same approach.  So they do provide an example of a farming family with a local product that made it into another local product.  If not a great example of subsidiarity, it's sort of one.

Anyhow, there was already the Koltiska Distillery in Sheridan Wyoming when Wyoming Whiskey got up and rolling and which was making an assortment of hard alcohols.  I've never tried it and I've never even seen it in anyone's home for that matter. But it was around then and still is now.  In fairness to my original post, it doesn't distill a whiskey and it specializes in liqueurs, although it now distills a vodka.

Vodka was the original product of Backwards Distillery, a small distillery that got up in running in Mills Wyoming and which is owned and operated all by immediate  members of the same family.  I was skeptical that the small distillery would make it at first, but the collection of people who own it and work there proved to have a real business head as its first product, vodka, was its choice simply because its easy to make correctly.  It turns out that they always intended to offer a whiskey and they've been aging a batch for some time.  According to the early press on it, the constituents are unique so it can't be classified as a bourbon or rye, etc., but is something else. American Whiskey is what they're calling it.  Based on what I read, it features corn and wheat.  Maybe wheat has been used in other whiskeys (I know its been used in vodkas, and in fact is what vodkas are normally made of), but if so, I've never heard of that.

This is interesting in and of itself as they've not only successful produced an aged whiskey as a very small outfit, they've done it under the wire so that not much was known about it as they were doing it (they also started distilling gin).  I don't like vodka as a rule (and I don't like bourbon really either) but the one and only occasion I had Backwards vodka it was actually really good.  Since then I've had a high quality Russian vodka brought back from Russia by a friend on a single occasion and I have to note that it was good also, so my opinion on vodka may be based on bad vodkas, which if that is true, would include nearly ever vodka.  Anyhow, it'll be interesting to see what their American Whiskey is like.

A page out of the same book might be found in Jackson Hole Still Works, which is a distillery in Jackson Hole that produces vodka and gin, which seem to be the starter hard alcohols for distilleries. Their web site indicates that they might have whiskey on the horizon.  The company was started by two friends and they note that they use all local products.  As there's no constituents grown in the immediate Jackson's Hole area, they importing corn from Byron and Powell, which means they are benefiting local farmers within the state. They emphasize, in a subsidiarity sort of way, that they're committed to environmental and local causes, and all of their spent grain is donated for animal feed to a local livestock producer and a further emphasis on having a low carbon footprint.

They aren't the only Jackson's Hole distiller, however, and a Grand Teton Distillery also is up and running in Jackson although it gives its address as Driggs Idaho.  It also produces its products, including vodka and bourbon, from local constituents, advertising that nothing comes from more than 25 miles away.  It bottles potato vodka, which for an Idaho distillery, makes particular sense.

There was, until this past July, a Wojtek Distillery in Laramie, which I don't know anything about other than that the Polish sounding distillery was owned by Polish descendants there who specialized in Polish distilled beverages, including something called Vazoonka.  I'm clueless about Vazoonka, but Laramie, while a college town, isn't a giant city (20,000 souls).  It briefly had a distillery of its own, but one that didn't produce whiskey (which is okay by me).  It shared space with a winery, but when it shut down it indicated that it's "parent company had sold" and I note that the winery it was indicated as being associated with apparently no longer exists.  It promised to reopen soon, but I can't see that it has yet.

The individual that started Wojtek Distillery is apparently from an Albany County ranch family, which if so gives us another sort of Mead like example, although I know nothing else about this operation.  I lived in high altitude Albany County for a little over six years and I saw very little in the way of crop agriculture while there, although there's a little in the Centennial Valley region.  Given that, I'd be surprised if they're raising whatever the constituents for these products are, but I don't know that or anything else about their operation.  They believe that they are the only producers of Vazoonka outside of Poland, or rather were, I suppose.  Whatever that beverage is, I'd note, it's so obscure that I can't even find a Wikipedia entry for it.

Anyhow, this is a really interesting trend.  I've been surprised by the explosion of local breweries, and further surprised when at least one, Skull Tree, dedicated itself to acquiring its constituents locally. Distilleries surprised me even more, and then to find at least three of them dedicating themselves to using local constituents in a really dedicated way, and one of them, Jackson Hole Still Works, going even further in that in their community involvement, is really remarkable.

So we're seeing local products in this area competing with something that only a few years ago was very much headed in the other way. And now some of them are dedicated to using local constituents.

Interesting.  And. . .interesting model for other areas?

Sunday Morning Scene: Some Gave All: World War One Memorial, Episcopal Cathedral, Laramie, Wyoming

Some Gave All: World War One Memorial, Episcopal Cathedral, Laramie, Wyoming.

Memorial at the Episcopal Cathedral in Laramie, WY to the war dead of World War One. This memorial has, unfortunately, been vandalized.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Paul's Newman Center, Laramie Wyoming.

Churches of the West: St. Paul's Newman Center, Laramie Wyoming.:

This is St. Paul's Newman Center in Laramie Wyoming. This large church and Newman Center office is fairly difficult to photograph, due to the vegetation, and its long length.  It's located directly across the street from the University of Wyoming dorms on Grand Avenue.

Blog Mirror: Beanies, Brooms and Bother: UW Freshmen Get the Initiation Treatment (and Lex Anteinternet: Freshman Caps? The Wyoming Student, November 2, 1917.)

November of last year (no doubt the result of mining newspapers for entries on World War One and the ongoing crisis with Mexico), I posted this item from the Wyoming Student (today's Branding Iron) regarding Freshman Beanies:

Freshman Caps? The Wyoming Student, November 2, 1917

As noted, I was amazed as I'd never heard of UW having Freshman beanies.  

In trying to look those up, I ended up quoting from materials about other universities as I really couldn't find much in regards to the University of Wyoming and Freshman Beanies.

Well now the American Heritage Center in Laramie has run this item:

Beanies, Brooms and Bother: UW Freshmen Get the Initiation Treatment

That article reveals that at least as late as 1967 UW freshmen still wore beanies. Apparently they wore them, at that time, from the start of school until the first home football game.  The story further reveals:

After the UW Cowboys scored their first touchdown, the students threw their beanies in the air and never had to wear them again. The tradition of beanies apparently goes back to 1908 when male students had to wear green caps and women green stockings. During the 1920s, freshmen had to wear the beanies until Homecoming.

Weird.

And that would have been trouble for me.  I went to the University of Wyoming for a grand total of six years, three as an undergraduate and three as a law student, and I never once saw a UW football game.  I guess I would have, had I gone then, as getting rid of the beanie would really have been a goal.

All that's a form of hazing, of course, but fairly gentle hazing.  It seems absurd now, but almost every outfit that's tight knit in some fashion has rituals of that type, whether it be getting to wear your soft cap in basic training or getting to ditch your beanie at university.  A ritual of belonging.

Now all that has gone away, it seems.  And frankly I wouldn't have lamented the beanie one darned bit.  I'd have hated that.  Of course, in the 1960s I would have been unlikely to endure that as Casper College opened up in the 1940s and I'd have been more likely to have gone there.  Indeed, just knowing myself, if I'd been a high school graduate in 1961, instead of 1981, I'd like have attended CC until 1963 and then graduated with an undergraduate degree in 65 or 66 and in 67. . . I'd have probably been in Vietnam.  A sobering though.

Anyhow, just pondering it, these rituals are gone.  In their place, but only tangentially, are mandatory classes on diversity in the broadest sense.  Changed times, to be sure.

The American Heritage Center article also discusses the hill at UW with a big W on it.  Apparently a custom of white washing the big W started in 1917, but it's long died out as well.  The W can still be seen if you know where to look for it.  The article features a photo from 1953 of the white washing, which is interesting in that its two male students directing two female students in the activity. . .hmmmm.

Casper College also had a hill with a C on it, called appropriately enough "C Hill". The C is long gone.

Well, it's fall, and the students head back.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Zion Lutheran Church, Laramie Wyoming

Churches of the West: Zion Lutheran Church, Laramie Wyoming:

This is Zion Lutheran Church in Laramie Wyoming.

Belleau Wood. The news hits home. June 5, 1918.

On June 5 all the newspapers were full of the early news from Bealleau Wood, although the battle had not yet acquired that name.

The death of Charles Fairbanks, Theodore Roosevelt's Vice President, was also on the front page.  Fairbanks hadn't been the Vice President all that long ago, but already the major figures of the early Progressive Era were starting to pass on.

It what might have been the first news of it's type to hit US newspapers (maybe), the press was also starting to worry about seaborne air raids, at this time in the form of aircraft transported by submarines.  As absurd as that may sound, the Japanese did in fact do that during World War Two, having perfected the ability between the wars, and used them in at least one small raid off of the Pacific Northwest.

Early summer weather was significant enough to make the front page in Laramie, and as any Laramie resident can attest, early Summer weather in Laramie can in fact be "unsettled."  Summers in Laramie are beautiful, but they feature some spectacular storms.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Church Ruin, West Laramie, Wyoming

Churches of the West: Church Ruin, West Laramie, Wyoming:

This striking church ruin is located in West Laramie, Wyoming

The structure is clearly that of a classic Gothic style church, which was constructed out of stone and cement.  The structure of the church itself would tend to indicate that it was likely built in a classic

Catholic church manner, which would indicate here that the church was likely built with a Catholic or Episcopalian congregation in mind, although its location might possibly indicate that it was built as a chapel for the Territorial Prison in Laramie.  The structure is very old, and its been in ruins for as long as I personally can recall.  It's now located on the grounds of a farm, but at the time it was built it would have been actually several miles outside of Laramie, and indeed it would have been at least three miles from the territorial prison.

This church is a mystery to me, and if anyone knows what it was, I'd appreciate knowing.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Emmanuel Apostolic Temple, Laramie Wyoming

Churches of the West: Emmanuel Apostolic Temple, Laramie Wyoming:

This is an older church located in West Laramie, Wyoming.  The sign on the church identifies it as the Emmanuel Apostolic Temple. Given the appearance of the church, and its location, it was almost certainly built for some other Protestant congregation many years ago, but I otherwise know nothing about it.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Paul's United Church of Christ, Laramie Wyoming.

Churches of the West: St. Paul's United Church of Christ, Laramie Wyoming:

This is St. Paul's United Church of Christ in Laramie, Wyoming, which was originally founded in 1886 as Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische St. Paulus Gemeinde.  It was originally a German  speaking Lutheran Church, as t he name indicates. It went through a series of denominational changes since its founding, and the last German language service was offered in 1932.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First United Methodist Church Laramie, Wyoming

Churches of the West: First United Methodist Church Laramie, Wyoming:

This is the First United Methodist Church in Laramie, Wyoming.  I know very little about this church, but the design in striking.  When I livedin Laramie I used to pass by it often on the way to school and often thought that the church resembled the keel of a ship, upturned.

When Laramie discontinued the teaching of the German language

Getting upset with all things German had gone a bit far.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26, 1918.

And in Laramie, something indicating the direction of things to come occurred:

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26: 1918  Elmer Lovejoy of Laramie patented a powered garage door opener.  Lovejoy had previously built his own automobile.

Lovejoy would work on this for a period of years, actually, so apparently he wasn't satisfied with his first design.

Laramie Boomerang, February 18, 1918. Exact same weather report a century prior.

Today's weather report could have been a repeat of the one in this issue of the Laramie Boomerang from February 18, 1918.

Two draft evaders headed for Mexico?  Seems like a poor move.

Monday At The Bar: Comparison and Contrast

I was supposed to start a trial in Laramie today, but as it settled at the last moment, I am not.

 

 Albany County Courthouse.

In preparing for that, I went to check out the courtrooms.  I've been in the Second Judicial Distric's courtroom before, but I haven't done a multi-party trial there before, so I thought I better see what the accommodations were like in that context.  I also thought I better update myself on the court's technology, which is increasingly becoming a big deal.

Here's the courtroom for the state district court there:

 Second Judicial District's courtroom.  As you can see in this photograph, the courtroom is equipped with two tables for the parties and and its now wired for computer access, with a big screen on the wall.

As we've previously discussed here, this courthouse was built in 1931, making it one of several Depression Era courthouses still in use in Wyoming.  Since 1990, when I started practicing law, these courthouses have had to be updated to take into account electronics.  It's interesting to note, I guess, that when I started practicing in 1990 none of the older courthouses, and I've tried cases in courtrooms considerably older than this, had such features, no did anyone think think they were necessary in any fashion.  Now a person wouldn't dare build a courthouse without such features and the old ones that are still being used are being retrofitted.

I also checked out the courtroom facilities at the law school as the space considerations somewhat concerned me and I thought I better inform myself on what else was around, just in case.  I had heard they'd put in a nice moot courtroom (they actually put in two), but I hadn't seen them.  Here's the big one, an intervening wall makes this somewhat confusing but that wall can be folded up to increase the size of the courtroom.

 Big Moot Court courtroom at the College of Law.  This bench has seats for multiple jurist so it was obviously built taking into account appellate arguments, but it also features a jury box.  Big screens can be seen above for electronic interface.

The wall here folds in, which would expand the size of the courtroom.  Looked at this way, what we're seeing here is the bar of the courtroom and some additional space behind the parties' tables.  In this configuration this courtroom is obviously set up as a lecture hall, which is what this space was when I was in law school.

It's interesting. The students, for trial practice, clearly have one of the nicest courtrooms in the state.  And I don't think that's bad.  And I'm not saying that the courtroom downtown in the same town is bad either. 

But field conditions, in all things, often don't match the school ones.

I'm sure such things will soon be a thing of the past here, and darned near are now, but I have tried a case in a 19th Century Wyoming courthouse (no longer in use) and at least one whose construction predated World War One.  In the former case neither counsel (me and opposing counsel) opted for any high tech things of any kind so the lack of electronics was not a hindrance.  But that's becoming increasingly rare.

But has the quality of the presentation of information  actually improved?

The Laramie Boomerang for April 4, 1917: Troops might go overseas

War hadn't been declared yet but it began to dawn on people that war with Germany meant sending troops to Europe, something that President Wilson had indicated in his request for a declaration of war.  The news had been so full of the war being naval, and problems with Mexico, that this hadn't been obvious at first, even though it should have been.

Wilson's speech, however, grossly underestimated the number of men that World War One would require in that role.

In an act that would be shocking today, students at the Laramie High School who were 17 were being encouraged to enlist in the Navy.

And scarlet fever was back.

The Laramie Boomerang for April 3, 1917: Senator LaFollette a Traitor?

Given the stories I've been focusing on, this one is a bit off topic, but I couldn't resist the headline declaring "Battling Bob" LaFollette a traitor for using a parliamentary move to delay the vote on President Wilson's request for a declaration of war. Seems a bit much.

The scarlet fever outbreak in Laramie seemed under control.

Winter wouldn't leave.

The Laramie Daily Boomerang for March 29, 1917. Laramie's Guardsmen ordered to Ft. D. A. Russell as, maybe, the Kaiser makes a peace move?

The Medical Company of the Wyoming National Guard, based in Laramie, was ordered to Ft. D. A. Russell outside of Cheyenne. At the same time, the Laramie paper was hoping against hope that entry into the war might not be necessary.  Who could blame them?

The Connor Hotel, by the way, still stands in Laramie, although I don't think it's a hotel anymore.