Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2021
Too Clever By Half: Blogger Gets Harder to Use
Too Clever By Half: Blogger Gets Harder to Use: AND IT'S MY FAULT Sam Beebe/Ecotrust ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) The la...
Too Clever By Half: Restoring the 'Quick Edit' Tools, Version 2.0
Too Clever By Half: Restoring the 'Quick Edit' Tools, Version 2.0: The removal of the quick-edit tools has made Blogger harder to use . Here's how to get them back, at least for now.
Sunday, December 6, 2020
Railhead: Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming
When I first started this blog I hoped to explore, through the posts. . .and through the responses to them, the period of 1890 to 1920. The blog has served that purpose, but not as well as I'd hoped, although through doing it we've learned a lot.
This blog became effectively the third version of what it is now, which means that it strayed from its original purpose and morphed into what two prior blogs were, while also keeping its original purpose as well. That is, there were two prior blogs that commented on society, politics, baseball. . . whatever. As I killed those blogs off and didn't want to revive one like that, I started making those comments here, still while developing the original purpose.
While that was going on, we started some photo blogs as well. The reason was that back in the pre COVID 19 days we traveled around the region a lot. As we're interested in all sort of things, that gave us the excuse to photograph them. The first two were Courthouses of the West and Churches of the West.* Following both of those in very short order was Railhead, which features photography associated with railroads.
I note this as every once and awhile we end up with a post on one of our other blogs that serves the first first purpose of this one, and nicely. We just had one such example here:Railhead: Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming:
Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming
This is the Burlington Northern Depot in Casper Wyoming. It was built in 1916, which would place this building solidly in the era of the petroleum and livestock fueled economic boom that happened in Casper during World War One.
The following photographs were taken in June 2015 from a Ford Trimotor airplane.
Labels: Burlington Northern, Casper Wyoming, depot, Pentax K3, Pentax Kx, Wyoming
Location: Casper, WY, USA
I should know a lot more bout this depot than I do, and in trying to answer the questions that were posted, I now know more about regional rail than I did when the questions were posted even though the original post has been up for years. Indeed, in thinking about it, I also know that I don't know as much about the local refinery industry as I should.
All of which opens up topics for future exploration.
*The very first one was Painted Bricks, which predated any of our other blogs. It's dedicated simply to painted building signs and advertisements. It was earlier, I think, than any other blog we did.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Repeated Annoying Spam. No, that's not amazing.
Wow! this is Amazing! Do you know your hidden name meaning? Scratch here to find your hidden name meaning.I've been getting this spam message on one of our companion blgs, and occasionally on others, daily. Sometimes multiple times per day. It's always caught by our system, which requires moderator approval to post
So does someone think hitting a blog half a dozen times per day with this dumb message is going to come across as anything but spam?
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Mala Ipsa Nova
The University of Wyoming is preparing for a $35,000,000 cut its budget, which comes on the heels of a $42,000,000 cut in 2016-2018.
I really think this is a mistake.
This is something I've written about before in terms of Wyoming's economy, but like it or not Wyoming's economy is dependant upon four things and is pretty much limited to four things; those being 1) the extractive industries, 2) tourism, 3) agriculture and 4) government. Right now all of those things are hurting.
Education can be viewed as a species of governmental employment in that it is public employment. Beyond that, its been the claim in Wyoming for years and years that the state needed to "diversify" the economy. The extent to which that can really be done, it might be noted, in the current American economy is debatable, although there are things that definitely could be done and won't be. Be that as it may, a really strong educational system with a really strong university is one of those things. Without that, we won't be diversifying our economy.
Of course, what we could do is make really targeted cuts. Athletics could be one and the university could opt out of Division 1 athletics. What that would do I frankly don't know, but it could be looked at. And it might be time to look at the universities degree programs, which might emphasize some over others. UW lacks, we might note, graduate programs which would be of value to the state but which has one graduate program at least which is now of questionable utility to the state. The time has come to ponder these things.
One group of people who won't be gathering to ponder, apparently, are legislators, who decided this past week not to go back into a third session this year. Or at least so far.
People who will not be required to ponder more are travelers, who may need to now do more planning about intended "stops". On Monday ten of the state's rest stops are going to be closed.
This causes me to recall that years and years ago, when the kids were small, I thought about publishing a book just dedicated to the state's rest stops. This followed the idea of doing a book on the state's roadside historical markers, which it turns out had already been done, but which lead to our Today In Wyoming's History website, which itself turned into a book. The book on rest stops was putatively titled I'm Just Here For The Potty, which riffed on Gretchen Wilson's then popular song, I'm Just Here For The Party. In thinking on it, it's a good title for a blog, and now it is one, with no posts, just yet. If travel ever opens up again in the state, I'll start working on it.
I really think this is a mistake.
This is something I've written about before in terms of Wyoming's economy, but like it or not Wyoming's economy is dependant upon four things and is pretty much limited to four things; those being 1) the extractive industries, 2) tourism, 3) agriculture and 4) government. Right now all of those things are hurting.
Education can be viewed as a species of governmental employment in that it is public employment. Beyond that, its been the claim in Wyoming for years and years that the state needed to "diversify" the economy. The extent to which that can really be done, it might be noted, in the current American economy is debatable, although there are things that definitely could be done and won't be. Be that as it may, a really strong educational system with a really strong university is one of those things. Without that, we won't be diversifying our economy.
Of course, what we could do is make really targeted cuts. Athletics could be one and the university could opt out of Division 1 athletics. What that would do I frankly don't know, but it could be looked at. And it might be time to look at the universities degree programs, which might emphasize some over others. UW lacks, we might note, graduate programs which would be of value to the state but which has one graduate program at least which is now of questionable utility to the state. The time has come to ponder these things.
One group of people who won't be gathering to ponder, apparently, are legislators, who decided this past week not to go back into a third session this year. Or at least so far.
People who will not be required to ponder more are travelers, who may need to now do more planning about intended "stops". On Monday ten of the state's rest stops are going to be closed.
This causes me to recall that years and years ago, when the kids were small, I thought about publishing a book just dedicated to the state's rest stops. This followed the idea of doing a book on the state's roadside historical markers, which it turns out had already been done, but which lead to our Today In Wyoming's History website, which itself turned into a book. The book on rest stops was putatively titled I'm Just Here For The Potty, which riffed on Gretchen Wilson's then popular song, I'm Just Here For The Party. In thinking on it, it's a good title for a blog, and now it is one, with no posts, just yet. If travel ever opens up again in the state, I'll start working on it.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
End of the Decade and Ten plus Years of this Blog. A retrospective
Ostensibly, the first entry on this blog was made on May 1, 2009, so we officially crossed the ten year mark, by adding ten years to that date, on May 1, 2019, i.e, several months ago.
That first post looked like this:
May 1, 2019, in contrast, looked like this:
But it's likely ten, as this one was formed very early on, and indeed may have been the first one formed. At that time, as noted above, it was to aid in the writing of a novel. The novel is still unfinished, and risks never being finished, even though I still intend to. In the meantime, due to another one of my blogs, I did write and complete a book on Wyoming's history.
This month I'll also enter my 29th year of practicing law, and in fact my association with where I work goes back thirty years in the form of my first legal job, which morphed into my permanent legal job about a year later. In the interval my second legal job, the only other one I've ever had, in the minor form of being employed to write a paper with a professor that was published in a law journal, occurred. So in that sense, this month commences my 30th year in the profession I currently occupy, or I should say one of the two professions I currently occupy. It is of course the profession that I shall occupy until retirement, should I live so long, assuming I retire, which few lawyers that I know do. Prior dreams of entering the judiciary are now slaves to the passage of time, where they'll accordingly remain dreams unfulfilled. A path not taken not because of a choice not to do so, but because fate burned the bridge before I could cross it, that in fact being the fate of the majority of people who contemplate that career, and therefore being a fate that cannot be lamented.
The lack of progress on the book can probably be lamented, however, at least by me. It may have to wait until the aforementioned retirement. At least I'm not making much progress on it, other than in my mind, where I write almost everything that I write long before I commit it to the visible form. So perhaps in that sense, there is progress.
Certainly this blog has made it much improved. I know a lot more about the era its set in than I did before. And it's been fascinating indeed.
I've enjoyed this blog. I hope have as well, and are continuing to.
No, robots are not coming for your jobs
So says Robert J. Samuelson.
I hope he's right. Artificial Intelligence and electronic automation are something I do worry about. I'm glad that I'm not young in an era in which I'll have to face it really.
Indeed, frankly, I think technologically we're over the point where our technology is helping us and its clearly hurting. Tragically, people can't go back as they can't imagine doing so. But things are not improving in this area, in my view.
While Japan no longer has an empire, it does have an emperor (an odd thought), and as of today, it has a new one.* Emperor Naruhito.
It has a new Empress as well, Empress Masako, who was a career Japanese diplomat prior to marrying Naruhito. For reasons that aren't clear to me, Empresses don't go through the formal investiture ceremony in Japan. That may have something to do with the traditional role of the Emperor as a Shinto Priest.
Naruhito, age 59, is the first Japanese Emperor to take office since World War Two who was not alive during World War Two. Having said that, there's only been three Japanese Emperors since World War Two, if we include Hirohito, who was of course Emperor during World War Two and up until 1989. After Hirohito came his son Akihito, who just resigned, making Naruhito the first Emperor in 200 years to take office following a resignation of his predecessor. Akihito was born in 1933 and was therefore 12 years old when World War Two ended.
That's significant as well in that Akihito was born into a Japanese royal family whose heirs had a technical claim to an expectation to be accorded an official deity status, although that is really fairly grossly exaggerated in the West. The Japanese royal family dates back to vast antiquity and its origins are so ancient that they frankly aren't very well known. The first generally recognized emperor is Jinmu, who reigned starting in 660 BC, which is a very long time ago. Not surprisingly, with a family tree that ancient, the claim to the title of Emperor isn't completely unchallenged and there have been competing lines over time. Having said that, the fact that the Japanese imperial family tree can be traced back that far is really impressive.
The role of the Emperor has been a hard one for westerners to figure out. At various points in Japanese history the Japanese crown had nearly no power at all. In the history of modern Japan, it really acquired power with Emperor Meiji, who reigned from 1867 until 1912 and who, with the aid of his supporters, both modernized Japan and restored the power of the Imperial crown. Following the Meiji Restoration the crown had power of some sort, but it's always been difficult to discern. During the 1920s that power may or may not have waned following what amounted to a sort of right wing military coup following an attempted young officers left wing military coup. Everyone acting in both coups claimed to be acting with the interest of the Emperor at heart.
From the 1920s until the end of World War Two a confusing era resulted in which various historians claim that Hirohito had more or less power. He clearly had a fair degree, no matter which view a person might take. That came to an official end in 1945 when the Imperial crown was really saved from termination by the Allies, who found it useful to preserve it. Hirohito retained his position as Emperor for a very long time after that, but with no real official power, although as late as a couple of decades later it was discovered that high ranking officers of the Japanese Defense Force still consulted with him on matters, resulting in a scandal.
Hirohito, as noted, had been required to renounce claims to a divine status following World War Two but the claim was rather vague in the first place. A more significant role was that of Shinto Priest, which the emperor always was. The Imperial heads of state always receive the treasures of the Japanese crown, which date back centuries and into antiquity, that have Shinto significance, but I don't know if the Emperor remains a Shinto Priest as they once did.** At any rate, the strong claims, to the extent they existed, of divinity were boosted by the Japanese military in the 20s through the 40s and post war surveys by the Japanese government found that the Japanese people had never actually believed the Emperor had divine status anyhow. His renouncement of the claims, therefore, had no real impact on their views.
In any event, for the first time in modern history a Japanese Emperor has ascended to the thrown who was 1) born after Japan was no longer an Empire; and 2) was born after the crown had disclaimed any divinity. A new era of some sort, in an era when monarchy remains, but its hard to tell why.
________________________________________________________________________________
*Having said that, it's hard to figure out exactly why the Japanese Empire is historically regarded as such prior to the 20th Century, unless you take the view that the consolidation of power in the crown in the Japanese islands themselves constitutes an empire.
As there is some ethnic diversity in the overall island holdings, that's not an illegitimate view. Hokkaido was in fact the home of an ethnically separate people. The Japanese started colonizing the island in the 1330s. Okinawa is also the home of an ethnically separate people. It didn't become part of the Japanese Empire until 1879.
**Like a lot of things surrounding Japan, the Japanese Imperial Regalia are mysterious. They consists of a named sword, a named mirror, and a jewel. They are not as impressive, reportedly, in appearance as a person might suppose.
The sword is known to have existed as far back as the 680s, but it's older than that. The mirror is also ancient and may or may not have been destroyed and replaced in a fire in 1040. The jewel is likely prehistoric.
These items are not revealed to the general public and its sometimes speculated that they've been lost or destroyed. Japan, however, is remarkable in its ability of preservation of artifacts so the better bet, in my view, is that they're all original. They're all absolutely ancient as well.
That first post looked like this:
Lex Anteinternet?
The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new.
What the heck is this blog about?
The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?
Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book I've been pondering. And part of it is just because I'm curious. Hopefully it'll generate enough minor interest so that anyone who stops by might find something of interest, once it begins to develop a bit.
May 1, 2019, in contrast, looked like this:
Ten Years?
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet?: The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new. What the heck is this blog about? The intent of this blog i...Maybe even a little longer, as this blog was at first a highly inactive blog while I had a couple of others. Indeed, I've wiped out versions of this blog at least twice, or rather other blogs that represent what this one became.
But it's likely ten, as this one was formed very early on, and indeed may have been the first one formed. At that time, as noted above, it was to aid in the writing of a novel. The novel is still unfinished, and risks never being finished, even though I still intend to. In the meantime, due to another one of my blogs, I did write and complete a book on Wyoming's history.
This month I'll also enter my 29th year of practicing law, and in fact my association with where I work goes back thirty years in the form of my first legal job, which morphed into my permanent legal job about a year later. In the interval my second legal job, the only other one I've ever had, in the minor form of being employed to write a paper with a professor that was published in a law journal, occurred. So in that sense, this month commences my 30th year in the profession I currently occupy, or I should say one of the two professions I currently occupy. It is of course the profession that I shall occupy until retirement, should I live so long, assuming I retire, which few lawyers that I know do. Prior dreams of entering the judiciary are now slaves to the passage of time, where they'll accordingly remain dreams unfulfilled. A path not taken not because of a choice not to do so, but because fate burned the bridge before I could cross it, that in fact being the fate of the majority of people who contemplate that career, and therefore being a fate that cannot be lamented.
The lack of progress on the book can probably be lamented, however, at least by me. It may have to wait until the aforementioned retirement. At least I'm not making much progress on it, other than in my mind, where I write almost everything that I write long before I commit it to the visible form. So perhaps in that sense, there is progress.
Certainly this blog has made it much improved. I know a lot more about the era its set in than I did before. And it's been fascinating indeed.
I've enjoyed this blog. I hope have as well, and are continuing to.
Mid Week At Work: The good the bad and the ugly - Work for a living
Blog Mirror: No, robots are not coming for your jobs
No, robots are not coming for your jobs
So says Robert J. Samuelson.
I hope he's right. Artificial Intelligence and electronic automation are something I do worry about. I'm glad that I'm not young in an era in which I'll have to face it really.
Indeed, frankly, I think technologically we're over the point where our technology is helping us and its clearly hurting. Tragically, people can't go back as they can't imagine doing so. But things are not improving in this area, in my view.
May 1, 1919. A Red May Day
May 1, May Day, has long been associated with the far left as its the International Workers Holiday. In 1919, with Communism on the rise everywhere, May 1 was notably Red everywhere.
The evening Casper newspaper noting the riots in Cleveland as well as the anarchist bombing campaign. This paper also discussed the acquisition of property with a future eye towards social services. Costa Rica and Mexico were trying to get into the League of Nations, the paper also noted, but weren't admitted due to political instability.
In the United States, the Communist Party USA was founded, rapidly gaining membership (while always remaining a minor political party) in the wake of the decline of the Socialist Party in the United States, which had come under the eyes of the law for its opposition to World War One.
The CPUSA would have its glory years, if they could be called that, in the 1920s and the 1930s, during which it not only was a serious, if minor, political party, but during which it was also an organ for espionage for the Soviet Union. It never had more than 80,000 members at its peak. It's role as an arm of the efforts of the NKVD were already known, if not fully appreciated, by some who tried to bring it to the government's attention by the 1930s, and indeed a precursor to what later became known as the McCarthy Hearings actually occurred in the late 1930s and focused on some of the same people who would be examined later, but it was not until the end of World War Two when the full horrors of Communism in Russia were revealed that the CPUSA really started to decline to the trivial, where it remains today.
In Cleveland riots occurred on this day, springing from a Socialist march that was supported by Communist and Anarchist. The imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs was the spark that ignited that flame. There were about two deaths as the result of the riot, and about forty injuries.
In Winnepeg construction workers went on strike. It would soon expanded to be a general strike.
In Bavaria, German forces, supported by Freikorps, breached the Communist defenses in Munich bringing the Bavarian Soviet Republic to an end.
Cheyenne was having an air show on this day in 1919.
In the U.S. the news was also still breaking about the anarchist bombing campaign that had been started but detected. The campaign would revive later. It wasn't connected with any other radical group, although it likely had the appearance of that to the general public at the time.
All of this would contribute to making the summer of 1919 the "Red Summer", as it was termed by James Weldon Johnson. It would also fuel an ongoing "Red Scare" that had commenced during World War One. With the summer beginning the way that it was, that the scare would occur was pretty predictable. And in fact, the far left of 1919 was not only radical, but seeing a fair amount of global success. It's chances of success in the United States were frankly slim and always would be, but the combination of the news produced a predictable reaction.
A New Japanese Emperor
Japanese Imperial Standard.
While Japan no longer has an empire, it does have an emperor (an odd thought), and as of today, it has a new one.* Emperor Naruhito.
It has a new Empress as well, Empress Masako, who was a career Japanese diplomat prior to marrying Naruhito. For reasons that aren't clear to me, Empresses don't go through the formal investiture ceremony in Japan. That may have something to do with the traditional role of the Emperor as a Shinto Priest.
Naruhito, age 59, is the first Japanese Emperor to take office since World War Two who was not alive during World War Two. Having said that, there's only been three Japanese Emperors since World War Two, if we include Hirohito, who was of course Emperor during World War Two and up until 1989. After Hirohito came his son Akihito, who just resigned, making Naruhito the first Emperor in 200 years to take office following a resignation of his predecessor. Akihito was born in 1933 and was therefore 12 years old when World War Two ended.
That's significant as well in that Akihito was born into a Japanese royal family whose heirs had a technical claim to an expectation to be accorded an official deity status, although that is really fairly grossly exaggerated in the West. The Japanese royal family dates back to vast antiquity and its origins are so ancient that they frankly aren't very well known. The first generally recognized emperor is Jinmu, who reigned starting in 660 BC, which is a very long time ago. Not surprisingly, with a family tree that ancient, the claim to the title of Emperor isn't completely unchallenged and there have been competing lines over time. Having said that, the fact that the Japanese imperial family tree can be traced back that far is really impressive.
Jinmu with a long bow, as depicted in the 19th Century.
The role of the Emperor has been a hard one for westerners to figure out. At various points in Japanese history the Japanese crown had nearly no power at all. In the history of modern Japan, it really acquired power with Emperor Meiji, who reigned from 1867 until 1912 and who, with the aid of his supporters, both modernized Japan and restored the power of the Imperial crown. Following the Meiji Restoration the crown had power of some sort, but it's always been difficult to discern. During the 1920s that power may or may not have waned following what amounted to a sort of right wing military coup following an attempted young officers left wing military coup. Everyone acting in both coups claimed to be acting with the interest of the Emperor at heart.
The pivotal modern Japanese Emperor Meiji.
Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito in 1945.
Hirohito, as noted, had been required to renounce claims to a divine status following World War Two but the claim was rather vague in the first place. A more significant role was that of Shinto Priest, which the emperor always was. The Imperial heads of state always receive the treasures of the Japanese crown, which date back centuries and into antiquity, that have Shinto significance, but I don't know if the Emperor remains a Shinto Priest as they once did.** At any rate, the strong claims, to the extent they existed, of divinity were boosted by the Japanese military in the 20s through the 40s and post war surveys by the Japanese government found that the Japanese people had never actually believed the Emperor had divine status anyhow. His renouncement of the claims, therefore, had no real impact on their views.
In any event, for the first time in modern history a Japanese Emperor has ascended to the thrown who was 1) born after Japan was no longer an Empire; and 2) was born after the crown had disclaimed any divinity. A new era of some sort, in an era when monarchy remains, but its hard to tell why.
________________________________________________________________________________
*Having said that, it's hard to figure out exactly why the Japanese Empire is historically regarded as such prior to the 20th Century, unless you take the view that the consolidation of power in the crown in the Japanese islands themselves constitutes an empire.
As there is some ethnic diversity in the overall island holdings, that's not an illegitimate view. Hokkaido was in fact the home of an ethnically separate people. The Japanese started colonizing the island in the 1330s. Okinawa is also the home of an ethnically separate people. It didn't become part of the Japanese Empire until 1879.
**Like a lot of things surrounding Japan, the Japanese Imperial Regalia are mysterious. They consists of a named sword, a named mirror, and a jewel. They are not as impressive, reportedly, in appearance as a person might suppose.
The sword is known to have existed as far back as the 680s, but it's older than that. The mirror is also ancient and may or may not have been destroyed and replaced in a fire in 1040. The jewel is likely prehistoric.
These items are not revealed to the general public and its sometimes speculated that they've been lost or destroyed. Japan, however, is remarkable in its ability of preservation of artifacts so the better bet, in my view, is that they're all original. They're all absolutely ancient as well.
Therefore, rather obviously, something that really occurred over the decade was the massive expansion of daily posts. One short one started us off, and that was how things ran for a long time, with days and days between entries, and now there are days when three or four posts aren't unusual.
Having said that, anyone who stops in here has probably noticed that there are now fewer posts. The centenary of the Punitive Expedition gave us a chance to explore the topic on a daily basis, something of use to the ostensible purpose of the blog. That naturally flowed directly into World War One and that, in turn, to the immediate post war era. But now that's gone and the daily posts have also declined. There are no doubt those who are interested in the railroad crisis and the strikes that followed the war, and we are as well, but not enough to turn the purpose of the blog to them. It's not as if, of course, that blog is ending, but its returning more to its original format. . . sort of.
But only sort of. Early on this blog expanded to include a lot of other topics and it in fact absorbed a couple of other blogs that were contemporaneous with it. We originally didn't post on social issues, news of the day or politics here. We did that on another blog we once had. We shut that one down and much of it is just flat out gone, but quite a bit of it was incorporated into this one. Based on what we can find left of it, the very first blog didn't survive at all, so there are lost posts that would go back to 2009 if we did. But the successor blog's posts have been picked up here and incorporated in earlier years.
But what about those years?
I wasn't young when I started this blog. I would have been 45 years old, and that's not youthful. But I do frankly feel older now even though I'm in pretty good shape for somebody who is 56. Indeed, I'm in a lot better shape.
I'm a faster writer as well, although I was fast to start with. Typing here has honed my speed which has been at use to me in all sorts of ways, although it hasn't been in terms of getting my book done.
I've published a book since I started this blog and was commissioned for a second, but work (It ell myself) kept me from getting the second done. In truth that book, and the novel I'm working on, don't get done in part because I write here. It's time to devote more attention to those other efforts. That won't stop the blog either, but it is time to see if we can get those done, if we're going to. Who knows, we may very well not. As I often tell people when it comes up, in spite of the fact that Americans are made massively uncomfortable with it, once a man is over 30 years old, you are really living on borrowed time. Indeed, I'm now well past the age of my father's father when he died, nearly the age that my mother's father as when he passed away, and not that much younger than my father when he passed. That's the way thing are. On the other hand, I'm just a bit under half the age my mother's mother was when she passed away, and my own mother lived a long life. Only God knows how many years a person has been allotted, but they pass much quicker than a person could ever imagine.
The last decade has not, to my way of looking at it, passed nay quicker than any other for hte most part. Where I really notice it is in terms of work, in that matters I worked on a decade ago often don't seem that long ago. But the country and society has undergone enormous changes, it seems to me, in the past ten years and most of them are not good.
It's not that uncommon for people who are past mid stream to look back and think things have gotten worse. A lot of things have not. But the nation's social structure has as its evolved in a contra-scientific and contra-natural manner. At some point in the last decade the political philosophy of relativism triumphed in such a manner that its now the case that people's whims, delusions and even baser desires are regarded as all important even when they rebel against the laws Darwin first set out so long ago. It's not possible to continue to go in this direction indefinitely, and while I would have regarded as absurdly alarmist earlier on, it's now possible to seriously ponder if the very long domination of the west in the affairs of the world is ending as the western world just isn't serious any more, even if it regards itself as such. If that's the case, the western world at this point would be in a place where it deserves that fate and would even benefit from it, being replaced on the stage by more serious cultures, many of whom have taken the best of what the western world developed over two millennia and have incorporated it into their own thinking in a serious manner. If so, it would be the acting out, as has happened so many times before, of what Tennyson noted in stating:
The old order changeth yielding place to new And God fulfills himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me I have lived my life and that which I have done May he within himself make pure but thou If thou shouldst never see my face again Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.
Of course, it's easy to have such glum thoughts in an era in which the nation's politics seem to be hopelessly adrift and the nation with it. I recall as a child hearing such things stated during the Administration of Richard Nixon and the following Ford Administration, which was characterized by the Watergate episode and the following impeachment drama, and then capped off by the nation's obvious defeat in and abandonment of South Vietnam. Much of the past few years has had that feel to it, and indeed much of the past decade has been like living through a second 1960s. The 60s, which really lasted from 1964 to 1975, was an awful decade full of societal drama and decay combined with a losing overseas war that seemingly had no end to it, followed by a political disaster. As some say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, and the 2010s have had that feel to them, with societal institutions of ancient origin redefined outside of the election of the culture, an ongoing set of wars that stretch all the way back to 2001, and two political parties that are moving away from each other faster than the opposite ends of the universe. Fatigue from that alone would be inevitable, and the pessimism that fatigue brings about.
So perhaps the 2020s will be better, and in some ways they nearly have to be. Some things may have reached bottom or will in the next decade. But others are not likely to.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne*?
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup!
and surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak' a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
sin' auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
sin' auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak' a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
A request of our readers who use Chrome.
If you use Google Chrome on your browser, is this site working well for you?
If it isn't, can you indicate what any problems you are experiencing are?
If it isn't, can you indicate what any problems you are experiencing are?
Lex Anteinternet: Chrome Messing Up Blogger. Time for Lex Anteinternet Part II?
Lex Anteinternet: Chrome Messing Up Blogger: It is, and that's odd, as Chrome is a Google platform and so is Blogger. Anyhow, right now, on Chrome this blog is so slow its unusabl...I posted on this last week and the problem persists.
Of course, I don't know how limited, or widespread, it may be.
The page seems to hang up on the labels and never work right after that, and this page certainly has a lot of labels. I may go in and try to wipe out some duplicative and unnecessary ones. If that fails, I'm seriously considering starting a Part II of Lex Anteinternet as a second blog. I hesitate to do so as all the Google stats that go with this one will be lost, as it'll be a brand new blog. But a blog that's impossible to load is pretty pointless.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Southern Rockies Nature Blog: What Would a Mountain Lion Eat for Thanksgiving?
Southern Rockies Nature Blog: What Would a Mountain Lion Eat for Thanksgiving?: A wintry view of the riparian area in or near Santa Ana Pueblo, photographed from Amtrak's Southwest Chief on November 20th. Br...
Friday, September 20, 2019
Lex Anteinternet: September 19, 1919. President Wilson visits San Diego (and President Trump a century later).
After I posted this item yesterday:
Which I hadn't been aware of.
I'm not sure what it says about me that I was aware that Woodrow Wilson had been there a century ago, on that day, but not the current President.
Lex Anteinternet: September 19, 1919. President Wilson visits San D...: President Wilson arriving at the U. S. Grant Hotel in San Diego, California, Sept. 19, 1919 On this day in 1919, President Wilson was...It was pointed out to me that President Trump was at the U.S. Grant hotel in San Diego yesterday.
Which I hadn't been aware of.
I'm not sure what it says about me that I was aware that Woodrow Wilson had been there a century ago, on that day, but not the current President.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Unpublished
As I've noted before, almost all of the blogging here occurs in the wee hours of the morning.
What's I've noted a bit is that a lot of posts get started but not finished. Indeed, just before typing this out I weeded unpublished posts down from 265 to 188.
188 is still a lot of posts I've started but not finished.
Blogging is an avocation, not a vocation, so it's not really a big deal, but as one of those posts that I'm going to try to up here soon notes, I'm working on a books and perhaps that's a sign that I ought to get at that and use the wee hours more productively.
Which might be a bit easier now to some degree. We're not going to stop blogging, but a really careful observer will note that the now nearly daily update from a century ago has stopped. It'll resume from time to time (we have the legendary 1919 World Series coming up), but the events I was tracking on a daily basis; the Punitive Expedition, World War One, and events of the immediate post war have ceased.
Given all of that, some of the 188 old posts that are lingering here will start to get published. It likely won't be noticeable, as I've always posted on every topic known to man anyhow, while trying to keep focused on events prior to 1920 which were designed to assist (and have) in background for a novel I'm working on. I'm a fast typist and a bit of a polymath, and this will continue to reflect that, no doubt.
But the daily newspapers have really thinned out.
And, speaking of newspapers. . . .
What's I've noted a bit is that a lot of posts get started but not finished. Indeed, just before typing this out I weeded unpublished posts down from 265 to 188.
188 is still a lot of posts I've started but not finished.
Blogging is an avocation, not a vocation, so it's not really a big deal, but as one of those posts that I'm going to try to up here soon notes, I'm working on a books and perhaps that's a sign that I ought to get at that and use the wee hours more productively.
Which might be a bit easier now to some degree. We're not going to stop blogging, but a really careful observer will note that the now nearly daily update from a century ago has stopped. It'll resume from time to time (we have the legendary 1919 World Series coming up), but the events I was tracking on a daily basis; the Punitive Expedition, World War One, and events of the immediate post war have ceased.
Given all of that, some of the 188 old posts that are lingering here will start to get published. It likely won't be noticeable, as I've always posted on every topic known to man anyhow, while trying to keep focused on events prior to 1920 which were designed to assist (and have) in background for a novel I'm working on. I'm a fast typist and a bit of a polymath, and this will continue to reflect that, no doubt.
But the daily newspapers have really thinned out.
And, speaking of newspapers. . . .
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Ten Years?
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet?: The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new. What the heck is this blog about? The intent of this blog i...Maybe even a little longer, as this blog was at first a highly inactive blog while I had a couple of others. Indeed, I've wiped out versions of this blog at least twice, or rather other blogs that represent what this one became.
But it's likely ten, as this one was formed very early on, and indeed may have been the first one formed. At that time, as noted above, it was to aid in the writing of a novel. The novel is still unfinished, and risks never being finished, even though I still intend to. In the meantime, due to another one of my blogs, I did write and complete a book on Wyoming's history.
This month I'll also enter my 29th year of practicing law, and in fact my association with where I work goes back thirty years in the form of my first legal job, which morphed into my permanent legal job about a year later. In the interval my second legal job, the only other one I've ever had, in the minor form of being employed to write a paper with a professor that was published in a law journal, occurred. So in that sense, this month commences my 30th year in the profession I currently occupy, or I should say one of the two professions I currently occupy. It is of course the profession that I shall occupy until retirement, should I live so long, assuming I retire, which few lawyers that I know do. Prior dreams of entering the judiciary are now slaves to the passage of time, where they'll accordingly remain dreams unfulfilled. A path not taken not because of a choice not to do so, but because fate burned the bridge before I could cross it, that in fact being the fate of the majority of people who contemplate that career, and therefore being a fate that cannot be lamented.
The lack of progress on the book can probably be lamented, however, at least by me. It may have to wait until the aforementioned retirement. At least I'm not making much progress on it, other than in my mind, where I write almost everything that I write long before I commit it to the visible form. So perhaps in that sense, there is progress.
Certainly this blog has made it much improved. I know a lot more about the era its set in than I did before. And it's been fascinating indeed.
I've enjoyed this blog. I hope have as well, and are continuing to.
Friday, March 8, 2019
Some random observations
1. My tower computer at home, which I use for nearly all of these posts has been ill.
I was just going to not post while it was being repaired (which it now is, I just need to pick it up), but as I've had my laptop at home this week, I've made a few entries on it.
I've found that as good as the laptop is, it's really the pits to use as your solo computer. I could remedy that in various ways, but as this is temporary, I'm not going to.
2. Readership has really started to fluctuate here on a daily basis, with the general direction being down. I predicted that earlier, even though I've kept up with a lot of century delayed real time posts. . That was predictable. As the story of the immediate post World War One world starts to dominate, it looses its appeal for many.
Indeed, it's hard to follow. Right now, for example, a century ago, Germany had quit fighting the Western Allies but was fighting the Poles to some degree and was also fighting the Red Army, the latter due to the requirements of the Allies who had not been able to fully field forces in the Baltic's. So the war had never really ended for the Germans, even though they'd been required to partially demilitarize, and even as they were fighting among themselves with arms that had been bought by the Imperial German government for its army but which were now in use by everyone against each other.
It's hard to follow.
3. A newspaper that keeps claiming its circulation hasn't gone down because of its electronic presence really ought to have an electronic version that really fully works. Yes, it should.
I"ve been reading that electronic version this week as the weather has been bad which has kept the newspaper from being trucked up early from Cheyenne. Late delivery has been pretty common, not occasional like the Tribune claimed it was going to be.
4. One advantage of using the laptop is that I can type this stuff out from the kitchen island, which means that my view is of the sunrise. Not the basement wall. I like that. Due to my short stature and the general view, the view is really of the skyline, not so much of the houses across the highway. I like that as well.
5. When I'm really busy, I'm really irritable.
Perhaps that's why I found myself irritated by some American neo Gandhite spouting off about the novelty of a March "fast for peace", which is apparently a monthly thing.
I don't know that much about Gandhi, but if you are a member of the one of the Apostolic faiths, which have always fasted, the neo hip American mis-discovery and misunderstanding of Eastern religions is irritating. I know something about the independence of India and its' worth noting that on this day in 1919 the British government in India extended the proclamation of the wartime declaration of emergency specifically because it was concerned about Indian independence movements. Gandhi, fwiw, supported the British effort in World War One. During World War Two there was an active independence movement in India which was ineffectual but which allied with the Japanese and which formed an army under Japanese control to fight the British. Independence following the war was an inevitability, already agreed upon prior to the war as a fact but not as to date, and would have occurred with or without Gandhi. British withdrawal from India was one of several really good examples of the British extracting themselves from their collapsing empire in a really brilliant fashion in which it looks like they were pushed out, but they were basically running out. Appearing to be pushed out looks better, frankly, from an immediate and historical prospective.
Since independence, Indian has not been a model of pacific behavior. It's fought wars with its former territorial fellow, Pakistan, and its fought a border was with China. During the early Cold War period it flirted with being a buddy with communist movements here and there which weren't in its own democratic long term interest.
6. The United States could go nearly 100% carbon neutral in less than a decade simply by mandating nuclear power plants be built and vehicles be carbon neutral, which would mean largely electric.
Nuclear power is completely safe, or at least as safe as other power generating methods, and is proven. It'd work easily. It won't be done as the greens have a non scientific fear of nuclear power.
Indeed, in real terms, the Western world's fear of nuclear power is the global power generating equivalent of being a no vaccine advocate. It's non scientific and harmful A person can't be a real green in any meaningful sense and oppose nuclear power.
I was just going to not post while it was being repaired (which it now is, I just need to pick it up), but as I've had my laptop at home this week, I've made a few entries on it.
I've found that as good as the laptop is, it's really the pits to use as your solo computer. I could remedy that in various ways, but as this is temporary, I'm not going to.
2. Readership has really started to fluctuate here on a daily basis, with the general direction being down. I predicted that earlier, even though I've kept up with a lot of century delayed real time posts. . That was predictable. As the story of the immediate post World War One world starts to dominate, it looses its appeal for many.
Indeed, it's hard to follow. Right now, for example, a century ago, Germany had quit fighting the Western Allies but was fighting the Poles to some degree and was also fighting the Red Army, the latter due to the requirements of the Allies who had not been able to fully field forces in the Baltic's. So the war had never really ended for the Germans, even though they'd been required to partially demilitarize, and even as they were fighting among themselves with arms that had been bought by the Imperial German government for its army but which were now in use by everyone against each other.
It's hard to follow.
3. A newspaper that keeps claiming its circulation hasn't gone down because of its electronic presence really ought to have an electronic version that really fully works. Yes, it should.
I"ve been reading that electronic version this week as the weather has been bad which has kept the newspaper from being trucked up early from Cheyenne. Late delivery has been pretty common, not occasional like the Tribune claimed it was going to be.
4. One advantage of using the laptop is that I can type this stuff out from the kitchen island, which means that my view is of the sunrise. Not the basement wall. I like that. Due to my short stature and the general view, the view is really of the skyline, not so much of the houses across the highway. I like that as well.
5. When I'm really busy, I'm really irritable.
Perhaps that's why I found myself irritated by some American neo Gandhite spouting off about the novelty of a March "fast for peace", which is apparently a monthly thing.
I don't know that much about Gandhi, but if you are a member of the one of the Apostolic faiths, which have always fasted, the neo hip American mis-discovery and misunderstanding of Eastern religions is irritating. I know something about the independence of India and its' worth noting that on this day in 1919 the British government in India extended the proclamation of the wartime declaration of emergency specifically because it was concerned about Indian independence movements. Gandhi, fwiw, supported the British effort in World War One. During World War Two there was an active independence movement in India which was ineffectual but which allied with the Japanese and which formed an army under Japanese control to fight the British. Independence following the war was an inevitability, already agreed upon prior to the war as a fact but not as to date, and would have occurred with or without Gandhi. British withdrawal from India was one of several really good examples of the British extracting themselves from their collapsing empire in a really brilliant fashion in which it looks like they were pushed out, but they were basically running out. Appearing to be pushed out looks better, frankly, from an immediate and historical prospective.
Since independence, Indian has not been a model of pacific behavior. It's fought wars with its former territorial fellow, Pakistan, and its fought a border was with China. During the early Cold War period it flirted with being a buddy with communist movements here and there which weren't in its own democratic long term interest.
6. The United States could go nearly 100% carbon neutral in less than a decade simply by mandating nuclear power plants be built and vehicles be carbon neutral, which would mean largely electric.
Nuclear power is completely safe, or at least as safe as other power generating methods, and is proven. It'd work easily. It won't be done as the greens have a non scientific fear of nuclear power.
Indeed, in real terms, the Western world's fear of nuclear power is the global power generating equivalent of being a no vaccine advocate. It's non scientific and harmful A person can't be a real green in any meaningful sense and oppose nuclear power.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
As we pass 700,000 views, the State of the Blog(s).
Lex Anteinternet
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Today this blog will pass the 700,000 viewed mark at some point.
That's quite a few. The authors here at Lex Anteinternet appreciate the viewer readership and participation.
It's a bit deceptive, however.
In reality, many of those views, indeed the majority of them, reflect the big ramp up from the Punitive Expedition which caused a lot of additional posts here. Those posts started coming in 2016, marking the centennial of that event. This is easy to see from the table on the site, which is set out again here:
Blog Archive
We went, as can be seen, from 743 posts in 2015, which was a small drop from 2014, to a big jump in 2016, and we've posted at about the same rate through the rest of the Punitive Expedition and World War One.
Punitive Expedition posts started an immediate jump in readership. The highest monthly readership prior to that had been 4,177 which reflected an odd spike in August 2014. Before that it had grown to normally be between 2,000 views and almost 4,000 views monthly. With the Punitive Expedition it immediately jumped up over 5,000 and normally stayed up.
At some point we started posting links to some threads here to Reddit, which you are supposed to be careful about and which we were not as careful as we should have been, due to ignorance on that. Those were linked into the 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit and that really started readership climbing. It climbed month by month to the end of the Punitive Expedition in February, 1917, when we stopped doing that. The highest readership of any month was March 2017, which was 55,954.
Since then it's dropped way off, in no small part because we stopped doing the posts to Reddit. It hasn't declined to prior levels, however. April 2017 still had 31,000 views. June 2017 was just under 10,000, but January of this year was 38,533. Normally, however, we get around 5,000 to 6,000 views per month, although it seemed to be slowly declining. Last month, however, we received 20,204.
Not bad for a blog like this, and one which has next to not registered viewers actually (I don't know how many people get emails).
This blog is only one of several blogs we run, however. Given that this one is over the 700,000 mark, how about the rest of them?
Probably our most important blog, if any of them are important is our Today In Wyoming's History blog, which was largely completed a few years ago and is only updated now (it's been turned into a published book).
Today In Wyoming's History
It now has 148,571 views. It averages about 1400 to 1500 views per month, which isn't bad for a blog that's only supplemented, for the most part, at this stage.
Our oldest blog is our photo blog:
Holscher's Hub
This blog site serves as a depo for things (mostly photographs) not posted on my other blog sites. Otherwise, it merely redirects to them.
is
Blog Archive
In contrast, Some Gave All, our blog dedicated to war memorials (and some in addition to that) has been quite active very recently:
Some Gave All
It's about at its historic norm in terms of number of posts, mostly because I haven't had time to put more up, but it will be steadily active here for awhile and with posts from France that should be interesting
Blog Archive
It now has 60,265 views. It's monthly viewership is steady, but not large. It'll be interesting to see if the photographs from France change that, but its mostly interesting to see how its readership now rivals that of our photo blog.
Churches of the West passed our photo blog at some point and will likely go over 100,000 views next year. It has just over 93,000 now.
Churches of the West
A blog dedicated to photographs of churches and church architecture in the Rocky Mountain West.
Blog Archive
The decrease came about as at first I had all of the churches I routinely and easily ran across in Wyoming and Northern Colorado to post, but as I got them in, there were fewer to post. That's why the first year had 86 posts. Following that, I have posted a lot from other regions, and I'm still working on Wyoming, but most of my travel is business travel and that doesn't always lend the opportunity to actually photograph what you might want to. Indeed, I should have a lot more from Texas than I do, but I just didn't have the chance.
This past year I don't think I went to Texas, even though I had at least one trip scheduled, and therefore there was also a drop. Both the picking up all the local ones and the discussion above explains why there's been a big drop off on our Courthouse blog.
Courthouses of the West
A photo blog depicting contemporary courthouses in the Western United States.
Blog Archive
As can be seen, we only posted to Courthouses of the West four times in 2018, and four times in 2017. Very little. So its quite inactive. It's presently at 34,059 total views, which isn't bad all things considered. Perhaps ironically, I know that there's still courthouses that I run across all the time in Colorado and Utah that I haven't photographed, as if you are going by them in a moving car or hurrying on your way to court, you probably don't stop to photograph anything.
Another one where I know I have passed up on photos is Painted Bricks.
Painted Bricks
The Painted Brick Building Sides of buildings in Wyoming's towns and cities, and sometimes from other areas of the West. An examination of old style advertising. . . as it looks today.
Friday, November 23, 2018
Painted Bricks, a blog dedicated to art on buildings of all types, has more views than that at 37,043.
That was one of our first efforts, and was all local. After we did the local buildings, we kept going as the subject was interesting and it dovetails nicely with this blog. There should be a lot more posts on it, but it's again one that we sort of do as the opportunity presents itself. We're far from covering everything in the state at this point. Posts tend to be fairly steady on it, year by year:
Blog Archive
Railhead
A website dedicated to interesting train stations I run across, or trains perhaps, or perhaps just interesting things connected with railroads.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
We were also surprised, in making this post here, that we had more posts this year than most.
This year we added another transportation blog, The Areodrome. This was acdtually a revived effort as we had another blog of that name some time ago.
THE AERODROME
Posts
We like aircraft and have a lot of aircraft photographs, which is why we did that. All those photos would have previously have gone on our photo blog. Viewership is up over 12,000 since March, which is when it was started, which isn't too bad given that its a new effort.
Also new efforts are two additional Church blogs, one for the East and one for the South, reflecting that our one dedicated to the West had photos outside of that category. They're readership so far has been very, very small, and frankly those blogs aren't really complete and still in a draft form so far, so that's not too surprising. Indeed, their few posts and draft quality are probably detracting from viewership to Churches of the West as people would be entitled to think that its equally poorly developed, which it isn't. We've been adding to the Churches of the East blog quite a bit recently, so perhaps that will change.
Again, thank you for reading!
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Love those pix from the Tri-Motor!! Tri-motor was a GREAT plane; I had a chance to fly in one
ReplyDeleteonce. Noisy!! but a great ride; I'd love to do it again!!
BN was A GREAT RAILROAD too bad the got "saddled" with the SF!!
I would like to know if you have more information about this location. My grandfather, Patrick Henry Brennan was road master and know he was based in Casper for quite some time. The family history has dwindled as the years have gone by. I would love to gather as much as I can for my sons....
ReplyDeleteStephanie, I'm not sure what all you'd like to know, but as noted the station was built in 1916. During that period the BN was upgrading a lot of railroad stations in the state and removing the older wooden structures with much more permanent brick ones. At least based on my observation of their period stations they were divided between smaller brick structures for smaller stations, and larger ones like this for larger stations. This station is nearly identical to the one in Sheridan Wyoming, for example.
DeleteThe structure is coincident with a major local boom in the oil and gas industry that occurred during this period. I've written about that here: https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2017/03/1917-year-that-made-casper-what-it-is.html
Starting in 1914 the demand for oil enormously increased due to WWI and Casper was the site of more than one refinery. As the war heated up, demand for oil was sufficient such that one of the refineries was enormously increased in size and capacity and, at the same time, a gigantic demand developed for livestock of all types. Casper was served by two railroads at the time and both served Arminto Wyoming, which is discussed elsewhere on this site, which was the largest sheep shipping location on earth.
This continued to be the case throughout World War Two and into the 1950s, and of course during the same period most long distance transportation was undertaken by rail. By the 1960s, however, passenger rail transportation had dropped off. Following the Transportation Act of 1958, the Post Office quit shipping most mail by rail and that also ceased. Scheduled daily domestic rail transportation therefore dropped off. As late as the 1980s Casper still was served by two railroads but somewhere in that timeframe the other one quit operating in Wyoming leaving only the BN.
Additionally, after passenger transportation ceased the town came to be served by bus transportation and for a long time Greyhound and perhaps some other lines used the old railroad depot as a terminal, although they no longer do. It remains in use, of course, as the BN's station, but all the rail traffic in the yard is freight, and has been for decades.
Hope that was of some interest.
Just doing a quick bit of research, I'm guessing that your grandfather was the the railroad master who retired in 1941 and was the railroad master in Casper at that time. If that's correct, he would have died in 1958, which is the same year my mother's father died, fwiw.
Anyhow, that would have made him the railroad master just prior to World War Two. During that period of time the BN had a very active passenger service and carried mail to Casper at least daily from the a larger post office in Denver. The mail was delivered at night and then sorted at the post office, which at that time was at the Federal District Courthouse. A view of that courthouse is here: https://courthousersofthewest.blogspot.com/2011/02/ewing-t-kerr-federal-courthouse-casper.html
In addition to passenger service, the BN had an active oil transportation business at the time through this railyard and it still does, although not from multiple refineries as was then the case. In the 1930s and 1940s Casper had three extremely active refineries, the largest of which was the gigantic Standard Oil Refinery which closed in the 1980s. It also had a Texaco Refinery and what is now the only surviving refinery, the Sinclair Refinery, which was probably the Mobile Refinery at the time.
The BN also served a large regional cattle and sheep industry in that period as cattle and sheep were shipped by rail, not by truck as they now are. Adding to that, Casper had a packing house that operated in what is now part of Evansville. A photo of the old packing plant, including the rail line, can be seen here: https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-pandemic-and-food-part-three-good.html
The packing plant was about to change hands at the this time, and may have already done so, which I'm noting as its shipping was sufficiently large such that the packing plant had refrigerator cars named for it by the railroad, which was a practice that railroads engaged in at the time for shippers of sufficient volume. An example of the car can be seen here: https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2011/10/holscher-packing-company-refrigerator.html?spref=bl