Lex Anteinternet: Dean Easton Resigns

When the letter noted here; Lex Anteinternet: Dean Easton Resigns: came in yesterday, most of the lawyers I know were pretty surprised. We all had the "what's up" reaction.  A story in today's Casper Star Tribune makes that a little more clear.  The new UW President has created a task force, without the Dean's input, to look into the whether the school is responsive to Wyoming's needs.  According to the paper:

He cited a new law school task force being assembled by UW President Bob Sternberg and the university's Board of Trustees as a reason why he resigned.

The decision to assemble the task force, intended to evaluate the university's College of Law, was made without asking the college's opinion on whether the task force was necessary or who should lead it, he said.

"Recent events cause me concern in this regard," Easton wrote in an Thursday email to colleagues in which he announced his resignation. "I cannot continue to serve as your dean while critical decisions are made about the College of Law without the input of the administration and faculty of the College."

Sternberg said Thursday the task force will evaluate how UW serves the state in areas including energy, natural resources, water and environmental law. It will be strictly advisory, he said, and he is accepting nominations for private- and public-sector stakeholders to fill it.

The task force will include people from Wyoming and regional legal communities, the UW Faculty Senate, representatives from the College of Law and other stakeholders, Sternberg said in a news release. Its chairman will be Cheyenne attorney Larry Wolfe, Sternberg said.

The College of Law was not involved in the decision to call a task force, or in the negotiations regarding who would be task force chairman, Sternberg said.
Easton told the Star-Tribune that "difficulties in communication with President Sternberg and the absences of communication from President Sternberg to the College of Law" prompted his resignation. He cited the task force as a specific concern.

Well, I'm probably in the minority, but while I understand Easton being miffed (and similar reactions have broken out in other departments, only two of the Deans remain from the seven or so that were in place when Sternberg took his position, due to similar concerns in their departments), I think an review of this type is overdue and, frankly, perhaps necessary.

Moreover, I don't really blame Sternberg for not including the Dean.

Here's why.

While I've met the Dean and like him, and even served on a committee he was associated with but I think a review will serve the law school well.  Frankly, this event was somewhat predicted right here on this blog months ago when I blogged about the Uniform Bar Exam.  The two events aren't directly related, but this has a certain "chickens coming home to roost" feel to it, probably just coincidentally.

But a review is needed, in my view, and I frankly don't know that the College of Law can be too involved itself.  The reasons are these.

The University of Wyoming is a land grant college, which President Sternberg has rightly been emphasizing since he came on board.  It's almost as if he's the first person at UW to remember that in quite some time. And, as a land grant college, it's mission is to serve the state, which he's also rightly been emphasizing.  This has made him, seemingly, a bit unpopular in some quarters, but it should be welcomed by the residents of the state.

The law school, part of that land grant institution, has in recent years steadily moved away from teaching Wyoming's law.  According to the more recent graduates that I've spoken to, right now it almost doesn't teach any at all, and indeed one recent graduate I know told me that students were actually told that the school didn't and wouldn't teach it.  Pretty shocking, really, for a school th at is supported by a state with such a small population.

It's all the more shocking if you consider that at one time one of the primary reasons to go to the University of Wyoming's College of Law was to position yourself to practice in Wyoming.  But now, with the Uniform Bar Exam, and a College of Law that doesn't teach Wyoming's law, that's not really true any more.  Indeed, as I warned earlier, there's almost no reason for the state to have a College of Law now.  Costs provide the only real reason. That is, it's cheaper for a person to attend the College of Law here, rather than elsewhere.

A state doesn't need to have a College of Law at all.  Alaska, whose legal problems are similar to Wyoming's, does not.  Having a College of Law is a great thing for the state, if the school does something that's focused on the state. That is, if the Wyoming school is grooming Wyoming students to be Wyoming lawyers and judges, that's fantastic.  If its just one more law school, however, in an era when there's an overabundance of new graduates, that's simply redundant and the state is entitled to examine the school and see what purpose it actually serves for the state.

The College of Law isn't going to do that, however.  I'm sure the College thinks its doing just fine. And the College supported the UBE, as we earlier noted, which does help its students a bit while hurting lawyers in the state in general and leading to an erosion of early knowledge on the topic of the law.

Given all of that, it's time for the State to take a look at the College of Law.  My hope is that the College will be reminded that it's a Wyoming school, in existence since 1920, with the goal of serving the State's population.

Postscript.

The Casper Star Tribune reports today that forty law school students have signed a letter in support of Dean Easton.  Essentially, they defended him and the statements in his letter (if I understand it correctly, the paper didn't print their letter) and agree with his complaints against the new UW President.

Well, good for them.  But I don't agree with them. Frankly, students are fairly poorly situated  to assess the quality or even the applicability of the education they receive. That knowledge comes after they graduate, when they find out if they learned what they needed to learn, or not.  Some of that knowledge will come very quickly, and some will be years in the making.  But it will come. They don't have it right now.

But that doesn't mean that they don't have good points and they should raise them.  Of the issues cited by the Tribune as a concern of theirs one certainly has merit in my mind, that being that this process should have been started after the ABA issues its current review of the school. Retaining ABA accreditation is absolutely critical for the school, and it won't be around long without it.

Of interest, apparently the letter cited the value to the State of the school, which is the same concern the President is citing. Dean Easton has created, as his letter below cites,  a number of programs which should be of great interest to the state's businesses, and he is to be applauded for that.  The President, on the other hand, has now stated that he's hearing concerns from the State's industry's that students are not well prepared.  The fact that there's no strong required focus on Wyoming's law would raise that concern with me as well.

Perhaps in some ways what this is really about is what the nature of this State's law school is to be.  For generations, it was a State school with a focus on the State.  The overwhelming majority of the State's lawyers were graduates of the School, as were the overwhelming majority of the Judges.  Many legislators were school graduates.  In recent years the school has tried to broaden itself into being a regional school, but that comes at the same time that there's an oversupply of lawyers in the country.  And the Dean supported the UBE, which pulls a leg out from underneath the UW Law School stool.  At that point, the school becomes just one more choice with its arguments being only the quality of the education, which is unlikely to be that much better than other regional schools, if as good (it's certainly on par) and the costs. Costs are advantageous, it cannot be doubted.

Perhaps the President should have involved the College in the process more, but I tend to think not.  The State's lawyers were not really in support of the UBE, in so far as the concerns I heard can tell, but the Dean backed that without consulting us.  Now if the Law School is getting reviewed, for advisory purposes, without its consent, in some ways perhaps that's a lesson in what effects such actions can have.  I simply wonder if its too late.  The school may be a strong regional school, but in order to do so it's really going to have to make that its main focus.  The fact that persons who wanted to take the Wyoming Bar Exam got an advantage by going there is now dead.

Postscript II

Jacquelyn Bridgeman has been named the Interim Dean of the law school, indicating that this process is moving along and Easton will not be returning to his position.  That may seem to be an odd comment, but I've heard speculation on that point.

I don't know the Interim Dean, but then I hardly know who any of the current professors are either.  Her UW bio indicates she has a BA from Standford (1996), with Honors, and a JD from the University of Chicago (1999). According to the Casper Star Tribune she is a Laramie native.

The law school actually had an Interim Dean when I entered the school as well, although I believe he'd been the full Dean at some prior point in time.  They were searching for a Dean at that time, and ultimately hired Dead Gaudio from the University of New Mexico for that position.  Interesting, a cousin of mine had him as a professor while attending the University of New Mexico's law school.

Postscript III

I haven't seen a lot of commentary in the Tribune on the part of letter writers on this story, although there have been a few.  Showing that my view is not universal by any means, the two letters have been supportive of the Dean and not the President.  I don't think I'm unsupportive of the Dean but I'm also supportive of the President, rather obviously.  Anyhow, a letter today was co-authored by a retired Judge who is supportive, in the letter, of Dean Easton.

One of the points advanced in that letter is that the writers interpret the President's efforts as one to create a focus on certain Wyoming industries, mineral development being one. That might be right.  They raise the point there that they feel that the number of UW graduates who obtain law practices in these industries is slight, and those who do only do with big firms.  That may or may not be correct, but risks becoming correct due to the UBE.  It's not a bad point, however.  It'd be a better point, in my view, if the law school was otherwise working hard to give the students an education in Wyoming topics, which no longer appears to be the case.

Even at that, however, I can't help but recall that I can think off hand of at least five lawyers who had prior experience in the oil and gas industry.  I've known lawyers who had been petroleum engineers, geophysicists, or geologist. All of those lawyers, saved one, have in fact worked in practices than involved oil and gas topics, with some of them having very extensive practices in that area.  And, as is almost  a practicing lawyer's standard joke, it's common for law students to focus on one anticipated practice area and end up in something else anyhow, with no ill effect on their later careers.

Postscript IV

On a related noted, somebody whose department has received an unfavorable review at UW who isn't taking the Easton approach is the head of the athletics department.  He's neither resigned, nor accepted the negative review. Rather, he's fighting back in the press, defending his actions and those of his department.

It's interesting how this works.  Here the new President hired an outside consultant to conduct the review, who did it in record time, and who reported back that the department has a culture that accepts defeat, basically. A "good enough" type of culture.  Not so says the department head, citing examples.

Which approach, I wonder, is better. To resign when you disagree, or to fight back citing examples?

Postscript V

Well, based upon the Casper Star Tribune's headline article of today, Dean Easton is no longer taking his own appraoch.

Apparently yesterday the President decided to hold an open forum with students. Former Dean Easton was in attendance and it turned into a real scrap. In an article headlined "Chaos in the College" the Tribune reports that the following exchange was had:

University of Wyoming President Bob Sternberg explained recent resignations of university administrators to about 100 law students, faculty and alumni. Sternberg took the helm of UW on July 1. Since then, the provost, three associate provosts and four deans have resigned. Sternberg explained to students that some were asked to resign.

But then one of those administrators stood up and protested.

“I’m prepared to lay out my case as to why you have not treated this law school ethically," said Stephen Easton to Sternberg.

Sternberg's treatment "unethical"?  Pretty strong words.  But they apparently grew stronger.  Sternberg accused Easton of hijacking the meeting, and the interim vice president of academic affairs had to intervene.  Apparently a major point of contention was how the meeting would be conducted.  Sternberg wanted a town hall type meeting, but Easton claimed he wanted a trial type setting, with the students in the audience to act as the jury.  The issue apparently boils down, according to the Tribune, to this:

Shortly after moving to Wyoming, Sternberg began traveling around the state and meeting with people. He began to hear critiques of the law school.

“I know you want me to be straight and I’ll be straight,” he said, explaining that people told him that UW’s law school used to be top in the country in energy, natural resources, water and environmental law.

“Some people said we are not at the top,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
The task force will look at that, he said.

The students in the audience apparently supported Easton, with those quoted indicating that they didn't want the school to become energy law centric, as that would ignore the needs of those who intended to enter general practice.

Well, what of all of this?

First of all, this development is not a surprise here at all, and folks who read this blog (darned few though they are) shouldn't be surprised.  I predicted this development months ago.  The opinions of students aside (which will be addressed below) the reduction in the focus on Wyoming law at the law school, combined with the adoption of the UBE, made questioning the relevance of the law school inevitable.

At one time, those who attended the law school were largely destined for Wyoming practice and they knew what topics were going to be on the Wyoming section of the bar exam.  For that reason, students took classes like Oil and Gas, as the law of the state was covered in those classes, and you were prepared for the exam. But when Wyoming's law becomes less emphasized, and the UBE doesn't even test on it, there really isn't much of a reason for Wyoming to even have a law school, save for cost and convenience.  I noted this earlier, and wondered when State industry and more importantly the Legislature would begin to wonder about this. That day arrived a lot quicker than I supposed it would.  Sternberg is doing the right thing by commissioning a study on this, before the law school is completely irrelevant.

Well, why not include Easton?  I don't know that I would.  The law school has developed in this direction under his leadership.  If that's going in the wrong direction, can we expect him to realize that?  I doubt it.

This isn't to say that the conclusion is foreordained.  Nor is it to say he's done a bad job. This might all amount to nothing at all. But to look at it objectively, it's going to have to be an outside review.

And, frankly, if the Tribune's account of this is correct I have to say that I've lost a lot of respect for Easton for suggesting a trial setting.  A trial setting is a setting in which something is tried to an outside jury, irrespective of the "jury of peers" language we use for that, and under a controlled set of rules (the Rules of Evidence combined with the Rules of Civil Procedure or the Rules of Criminal Procedure).  We trial lawyers use a process called voir dire to specifically choose an unbaised jury.  Easton knows that.  A jury of law school students isn't that jury.  Easton knows that too.  I suppose he conceived of this as a trial in front of the immediate stakeholders whose education will be impacted, but his actions in arguing for a trial, which Sternberg agreed to conduct later, are in my view rather childish. For that matter, as the law school professors aren't in the practicing lawyer class, and as at least Easton supported the UBE which hurts Wyoming lawyers, and which wasn't popular with all of them to be sure, I'd somewhat question if the school is necessarily completely tuned into the views of what practicing lawyers may presently think, although I'm not that attuned to what goes on at the law school, so I may be off base.

Some of the comments of law students, I'd note, were well placed. But I'd also note that law students aren't the best judges of the practices they will ultimately have.  Some lawyers enter into the exact practice they imagine immediately after law school, but many do not. And, moreover, in Wyoming every lawyer needs to know something of the topics that are important to the state.  One student noted that some wish only to do divorce litigation, rather than oil and gas.  But what about that divorce client with oil and gas interest?  Once you take that on, you are doing oil and gas.  And some wish to only be prosecutors. But what if the prosecution arises in an oil and gas context?  Better to know that law.  Or what if you just find you like mineral law more than something else?

Students may need to learn these things, and the State bar should test on them.  The State bar isn't, and that's letting future lawyers and the citizens of the State down.  It's worth at least looking at the law school and seeing if its meeting the needs also.  It may be, but resisting looking won't help get us where we should be going, or let us know if we are there.

Postscript VI.

This story has managed to hit the front page of the Casper Star Tribune for two days in a row now, as Dean Easton is shown with Sternberg in the background at the recent forum that was held. The story itself is about all the turnover at UW, which is apparently not that unusual in context (new President) although it may be unusually rapid.

Somewhat to my surprise, the Tribune's editorial today supports President Sternberg, noting that he has a right to make changes consistent with his vision.

Postscript VII

The Casper Star Tribune has a new editor, and so far I have to say that it's been an improvement in the paper.  The editorials have improved, and the wishy washy personal column from the editor the last editor ran are now gone.  This has showed itself in two recent editorials regarding President Sternberg, one of which ran in the paper today.

This one, headlined; "Sternberg's view: doing what he was hired to do" nicely sets out the paper's view and Sternbergs. This frankly isn't what I would have expected out of the Tribune, as I would have expected it to be wishy washy but leaning towards Easton.  Not at all here.  In fact the paper commented:

Sternberg felt ambushed when he arrived at a meeting with students and the freshly resigned dean of the College of Law. He said he has been meeting with different colleges and groups of the university, and the law school appearance was arranged as a town hall meeting well before Stephen Easton resigned after announcement of a task force to review the college.

“I didn’t agree to a quasi-judicial meeting,” Sternberg said. And when the dean insisted on what he called a “trial-like format” to decide if the new president had treated the law school ethically, Sternberg considered it inappropriate.

So do we.

We think it was Easton who lost credibility. The dean led an attack that wasn’t seeking answers. It amounted to exactly what he accused Sternberg of doing to the law school — talking instead of listening.

I also agree that Easton has lost a credibility, and stated that in one of my earlier entries above.  Indeed, I think the fact that he even attempted to take on this topic in this fashion, with a law school audience, shows how insular things might have become at the law school. This debate is being played out state wide, even nation wide, so pitching an appeal to a student audience was rather naive on Easton's part. It's particularly naive as the continued existence of the law school doesn't depend on the tuition payments of the current students, but the good graces of future legislatures and, quite frankly, the tolerance the parents of future potential students may have for what's going on and agreement with where the school is headed academically.

The paper went on to note:.

We heartily support the belief that accountability is important and we want to see an improved university.

The next time Sternberg comes to a student meeting, it’s our hope that they hear what he is saying and that he is able to bring them into his vision. Looking for areas that can be better is a positive move and Sternberg says it is why he was hired.

He was blunt about what the Board of Trustees expects from him, insisting “I am doing exactly what they hired me to do.”

This followed comments by the paper to the effect that part of the upheaval is because the school had grown use to the prior long term leadership and was now having a reaction to change.  I think that's likely the case too.   It's ironic that some of the reaction has been expressed as outright opposition to Sterberg's comments that he wants UW to be the nation's "best" land grant university.  There's been one editorial by a UW faculty member and a letter to the editor attacking that recently, which I think is telling.  Normally, that kind of language would have been expected from UW. That faculty members are reacting to it is pretty amazing.  It suggests the motto of UW should be "Okay is good enough."  That's pretty sad.  Even if they don't become the "best" land grant college, whatever that is, they ought to be striving for it.

The Population of Veterans

I've seen frequent written commentary in recent years to the effect that our current wars impact us very little, as a society, as so few Americans are actually in the service.  Sometimes the authors go a bit further and suggest that only certain demographics are in the service.

 Getting outfitted with Leggins, World War Two.

Perhaps I just live in or near one of those demographics, as I certainly know people who are currently in the service, or only recently out of it, and that would include people I'm related to.  For that reason, such commentary always takes me a bit off guard.

A lot of times, fwiw, commentary of that type suggests a titanic shift in American society, but taking the long view (as we often do here) I'm not so sure that's correct.  Assuming those commenting are correct, what we would find long term is that there are historically big swells of veterans, such as after the Civil War, after World War One, and after World War Two, but that the historic norm is for that swell to be just that. The US had traditionally had very small armed forces, and its traditionally relied very heavily on the militia/National Guard to fill the ranks, at least initially, in times of disaster.  For example, as much as we read about them, how many veterans of the Indian Wars was a person likely to run into, say in 1903?  Not many, really. There weren't many.

Looked at that way, the real anomaly was the big population of veterans starting with 1918, and running up until fairly recently. The number of men conscripted and enlisted for World War One was huge.  Many of those men, probably almost all of them, were still relatively young when World War Two arrived, and indeed quite a few served in both wars.  World War Two was enormous, and so were the Armed Forces, so the resulting veterans' population likewise was enormous.  Indeed, World War Two gave us, for the first time, a significant number of female veterans (there were female veterans from World War One, however, as well).  

The historic norm would have been for the service to decline in size following World War Two, and at first it did, but soon it was evident that the US was engaged in a Cold War.  That Cold War was nearly a hot war on occasion, and indeed, I'd argue it became a hot war with the Korean War and the Vietnam War, for us (and other examples could be added for other Western nations), with those wars being properly regarded as campaigns in the larger war.  Not too surprisingly therefore, but unusually for the US, we kept a big peacetime Service, although again that peace was not a normal peace.  Anyhow, that again gave us a big population of veterans.  If you graduated high school between 1946 and 1990, your  chances of serving in some branch of the military were pretty good, whether that be active or reserve.

Not so much now, apparently.  Or at least the commentators claim that to be the case.

If so, that's probably a return to the historic norm, if a departure from the way things have been since December 7, 1941.

_______________________________________________________________________________

This post has an accompanying poll.

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: November 11. Veterans...

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: November 11. Veterans...: On Today In Wyoming's History: November 11. Veterans Day : we take a look at various things that World War One caused to occur globally...

Today In Wyoming's History: Veterans Day

Today In Wyoming's History: Veterans Day:

Today is Veterans Day, commemorating the day in 1918 when World War One's fighting came to an end.  Originally called Armistice Day, and commemorating only the end of that war, after World War Two the holiday was expanded to honor all veterans of all wars, and veterans in general.

How does that work in your town, and in your place of employment?  Is this just another day?  Does your town honor it with a function of some sort.  Do you have the day off?  Let us know.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

by Ewart Alan Mackintosh (who himself was killed in action).

(Private D Sutherland killed in action in the German trenches, 16 May 1916, and the others who died.)

So you were David's father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David's father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight -
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers',
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed 'Don't leave me, sir',
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer.

The Big Picture: 6th U.S. Cavalry at Texas City, Texas in 1914.

Persistent Myths

A series of threads dedicated to debunking persistent myths of all types, no matter what their source.

Yes, it's a Quixotic pursuit.

It's probably this time of year, but there are certain myths a person hears again and again that are demonstrably false, but there's just no countering them.  It says something about the power of rumor over facts.

More, likely much more, to follow.

Joining the Corps before 1918

This is probably the wrong context to ask this in, given as today is the anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps, but I've often wondered about it, so will ask anyhow.

Prior to 1918, what motivated men to join the Marine Corps? In spite of the way its recalled now, it was really an obscure service prior to World War One with a very limited ground role. Indeed, it was so obscure that I recall reading in the memoir of one of the World War Two era USMC generals, who had started off as an enlisted Marine, that he hadn't even known about the Corps until an Army recruiter referred him down the street to the Corps, as the Army wasn't taking applicants due to being full, when he stopped in.

After World War One I understand it, as WWI really created the modern Corps in some ways, with WWII definitely making it what it is today. And I can understand how a young man in the 20s or 30s would join it, given the reputation it came out of WWI with. But prior to that you really hear very little about the Corps. What motivated men to join it?

Happy Birthday USMC

13th Rgt, USMC, Quantico, post WWI.

Officers, Gauntanimo Bay, 1911.

List of recessions in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of recessions in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting look at economic ups and downs, including quite a few of which I wasn't aware of.

Education and opportunity, 1910s

The Pritzker Military History Library runs a series of interviews of authors of notable military history books. Recently they interviewed Richard Rubin on his book, The Last of the Doughboys.  The book relates a series of personal interviews the author had with World War One veterans right about the point they were 100 years old, or older.

The reason that I'm posting this here, with this caption, is that the first interview of the book was of a centenarian who related how he'd graduated from high school just prior to WWI, and had been directed towards an insurance company in a neighboring town. He obtained a job there, and made that his career.

How remarkable that this was even possible, and it shows a difference between that era and our own.  First of all, it'd be nearly impossible for a person to obtain a lifetime career based on only a high school education now.  Moreover, most people wouldn't come out of high school with an education sufficient for a white collar career. I wonder if that tells  us something about the value of any education at that time, or the quality of the education received?  Or perhaps the quantity of education generally received?

Two mule loads of earth

 2 Kings:

Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times
at the word of Elisha, the man of God.
His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child,
and he was clean of his leprosy.

Naaman returned with his whole retinue to the man of God.
On his arrival he stood before Elisha and said,
"Now I know that there is no God in all the earth,
except in Israel.
Please accept a gift from your servant."

Elisha replied, "As the LORD lives whom I serve, I will not take it;"
and despite Naaman's urging, he still refused.
Naaman said: "If you will not accept,
please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth,
for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice
to any other god except to the LORD."

I wonder, by this measure, how much two mule loads of earth amounts to?

Too short rather than two long? Law school prof backs four-year requirement

Too short rather than two long? Law school prof backs four-year requirement

Goodness. Four years?  In many commonwealth jurisdictions now law school isn't even a doctorate level degree, as it is here.  You obtain a baccalaureate in the law and go on to practice from there.  I'd be opposed to that, as I feel that the undergraduate course of study has some value to it, and that perhaps a lot of 18 year olds who might start off on a course of study of the law wouldn't be sufficiently mature, but I see no reason to add another year to law school at all.  That would seem to mostly benefit the finances of law schools.

With there being a new lawyer unemployment problem in many parts of the US now, moreover, it would add insult to injury to force an additional year on a person that might have a poor chance of paying off.

Levis

Rancher, wearing blue jeans, in the early 1940s. The roll up cuff was extremely common at that time.

At the time I started this entry, I had just noted here a news story that every one in the US is well aware of, that being the supposed demise of Hostess and its most famous product, Twinkies.  I correctly noted in that entry that I thought the brand would be back, and was correct, but that's not the point of my entry here. Rather, this time I'll look at another major brand, which to my mind has declined over they years.  This time I'll mull over another famous brand name and product.

That product is Levis.  Or, more particularly, Levi-Strauss' signature product, the Levi's 501 jean.

In the popular imagination for those of a certain age, the Levi 501 has always been around. That's not really true, the jeans archetype actually took a real pounding in the late 1960s, when bell bottom jeans became inexplicably popular.  But they rebounded in the mid 1970s.  I can actually recall the exact moment when I knew that you could get them again here, locally.  I didn't like bell bottoms at all, but they were the only jeans you could get.  Walking one day in the hallway of the junior high I saw another student with the straight legged 501.  I went home that day and had my parents take me downtown and buy a pair.  That's probably the one and only time I ever had my parents go right out and get clothing for the reasons of "fashion.".  But I hated those bell bottoms and the 501s looked so much better.

Here, for example, is how the Levi Strauss company now conceives of those wearing its jeans, as featured on their website.  Most of these guys look like a stiff breeze would blow them over.  Heck, most of them look like they'd go running home crying due to stiff breeze and spend the rest of the day in bed watching the Lifetime Television network. What a pathetic state of affairs.  In some ways its pretty symbolic of what seems to have happened to the company, and maybe even a bit of American culture in general.

The Levis myth has the the birth of the company occurring when a California miner came in to Strauss' Sand Francisco shop and asked for a pair of trousers to be cut out of tent canvass, with Levi Strauss being that tent maker.  That's a nice myth, but it isn't really true.  Strauss operated the San Francisco branch of larger and more geographically spread mercantile firm, which sold a variety of things, including canvas and tents.  His San Francisco store was really part of a larger fine dry goods firm.  Stauss didn't really invent the iconic trousers either, but was approached Jacob Davis, a Latvian immigrant who was a tailor in the area. Davis, almost certainly not his real name, was continually buying canvas from Strauss and came up with the idea of making reinforced with rivets cotton trousers.  Davis and Strauss had another connection, although not too much can be made of it, as they were co-religious, both being immigrant who were Jewish.  Strauss, however, had been born in Bavaria, with Davis being born in Latvia. The cultural differences between the two were probably fairly pronounced.

But not so pronounced that they couldn't form a company for the new enterprise, which is what they did.  Davis was the actual patent holder, with the patent for the rivet reinforced trousers dating to 1873.  Knowing his market, the patent drafter depicted the design being worn by a miner.

Levi 501s appeared amazingly early, with the denim trousers being offered for the first time in 1890.  But, contrary to another widespread myth about them, they didn't become the trousers of the cowboy.  No cotton jean did.  Cotton jeans were the hard wear clothing of working men, engaged in heavy labor.  They appealed to the same set that buys Carhartts today.  Cowboys, in that era, wore wool trousers as a rule.  The highly accurate paintings of Remington and Russel are good illustrations of that, which if observed often shown cowboys wearing checked heavy wool trousers, or even in one instance NWMP wool breaches.

And Levi Strauss wasn't the only brand around offering blue denim trousers.  Prior to World War Two there were a variety of company's that manufactured them, with Lee, the manufacturer of Lee Rider's, being the biggest.  The brand that first popularized the idea that cowboys wore blue jeans was a brand oddly named Booger Reds, with those jeans being popular because their very dark blue color filmed well.  Levis were pretty much a West Coast item and were not well known elsewhere.

About the time that that movies started to depict cowboys as wearing jeans, the washing machine really came in, in earnest. That changed what people wore, particularly those who worked in heavy labor or dirty labor of any kind.  Before the washing machine cotton offered no advantages over wool, except that it was cooler in the summer.  By and large, the fabric people wore was wool.  The Army, a major consumer of cotton today, didn't even issue a cotton uniform for general wear until the 1930s, although it had long issued a cotton stable uniform strongly resembling modern Carhartts for quite some time prior to that.  But when washing machines came in, all that changed.  Cotton is easy to wash by machine.  Wool is not.

This is not to say that cotton wasn't worn at all.  It was, and obviously had been. Cotton was the major pre Civil War export item in the American South.  The growing and harvesting of cotton fueled slavery before the war, and the Southern states thought cotton so important, as a global commodity, that European nations would have no choice but to recognize the Confederacy as a nation.  In the odd way things go, the Southern succession actually caused the Egyptian cotton industry to boom, so cotton did not turn out to be the king that southerners believe it was, and in turn the British were more tied to Egypt, technically part of the Ottoman Empire, than ever.  Anyhow, that does demonstrate that cotton was from very early on an important textile plant, as with some other plants that can be sued for textile fibers.

Indeed "denim", the fabric that blue jeans came to be made of, had been around for eons prior to Levi Strauss ever making a pare of trousers.  While the first Levis were canvas, not denim, denim trousers had been around long enough to pick up that name from a French town which was associated with them.  They were a popular trouser with French sailors, and the French even made denim sails for ships.

And by the early 20th Century, and indeed well before that, cotton had become a popular cloth for shirts, and as we have seen, for the trousers of heavy labor. That doesn't diminish the importance of wool, which was huge, but it does show that cotton clothing of various types wasn't uncommon by any means.  Quite t he contrary.  Levis, on the other hand, weren't the only makers of blue jeans, and they weren't even the most common.

Between World War One and World War Two, blue jeans started to take off because of the introduction of the washing machine, crude and scary though they were, and the the movies.  With American households starting to turn to washing machines they started to turn more and more to cotton, although cotton didn't take over, overnight.  Cotton work clothing became increasingly common, as cotton was easy to wash.  Wool, however retained a hugely significant spot in clothing.  It remained the common cloth for most outerwear and mostly daily men's trousers, if they weren't working in some sort of dirty labor. 

Cowboying, however, is a type of dirty labor, and starting after World War One, cotton jeans came in, in a major way.  Jeans made good trousers for cowboys as they were relatively tight fitting (but not super tight, is in the Metro-sexual way Levis models now wear them)., they were relatively cheap, and they were easily washable.  That made them good clothing for ranchers and cowboys on the more modern pattern of ranch, which had fenced pastures and stable headquarters, where people generally returned to a house or bunkhouse every day.

Movies picked up on this right away, in part because a lot of early cowboy actors actually were cowboys. And jeans photographed well. The favorite jean for early movie makers was a brand called "Booger Reds", which were a deep blue, but Levis, a West Coast brand, show up as well.

Nationwide, however, Levis didn't dominate the market by any means. Probably the most common pattern of jeans, nationwide, were Lees.  Lees, like Levis, saw ranch use, and it was for that reason that Lee adopted the name Lee Riders for their jeans.  Prior to the Second World War Lee was the biggest manufacturer of jeans.

In addition to Lee, by the 1940s Levis already had a truly Ranch-centric competitor making a jean brand designed for ranch use in mind.  Lee was a fairly old company by the 1940s, but it already had a competitor in Casey Jones, a textile company which was already making a jean they sold under the name of Wranglers. Wranglers had wrangles in mind for the design, but Casey Jones didn't actually manufacture very many.  In the early 40s, however, Casey Jones was bought out by Blue Bell, a company that  manufactured overalls.  It acquired the Wrangler name, and in 1947 Blue Bell came out with the pattern of jeans still known as the 13MWZ, a pattern designed specifically for riders, and more specifically for rodeo riders.  

It was WWII that pushed Levis over the top as the dominant blue jean manufacturer.  It isn't as if nobody was making jeans going into the war, but Levis expanded enormous during the war.  Industrial work was the reason why.  So, perhaps ironically, a jean that was so commonly associated, early on, with cowboys in marking really expanded due to the industrial and heavy work during World War Two.

After the war, while it had competitors, Levis really took over as the dominant jean.  They remained, however, pretty strongly associated with physical work of one kind or another. By that time, people routinely believed that they'd always been the trousers of cowboys, which wasn't true, but they really were the trouser that most cowhands were wearing at that time.  For most people for everyday wear, however, assuming that they weren't in some physical labor, other trousers remained the norm. Wool remained pretty common in the 1950s, but cotton trousers had by that time come in pretty big as well. World War Two also caused that to occur as, while the Army was mostly clad in wool in Europe, every soldier had cotton khakis for stateside warm weather wear, and cotton combat uniforms had been introduced in varying patters in the Army everywhere.  Cotton "chinos", which were really simply the basic Army cotton khaki trouser, had come in.

In the 50s blue jeans busted out of the status of work only trousers when they became associated with rebellion. James Dean, Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin and others were all seen sporting them in films associated with 1950s rebellious youth. By the mid 1950s they were becoming the everyday wear for a generation. By the 1960s they'd completely taken over, with the Baby Boomer generation of the 1960s wearing bell bottom Levis for everything, and an older generation ahead of them wearing them a lot as well.  Colored (i.e., non blue) Levis came in as the cowboy stars of the 1930s and 40s had them made for color films of the 60s, expanding the myth that Levis were 19th Century cowboy clothing.  By the time I was in junior high and high school in the 70s and 80s, every boy wore Levis.  In the mid 70s, most girls did too, and indeed wore the same patterns as boys, except that they'd worn the new jeans into the bathtub and then out, until dry, to "shrink to fit" them to form.

So what happened to Levis?

Well, perhaps any company that becomes so dominant is bound to fall. But it is a surprising decline. By the 1970s Levis were so dominant that they'd become an item of smuggling into the Iron Curtain.  Levis were it.  Lee remained, but it had a mere fraction of the market it had once dominated.  Wranglers were there as well, but they were only worn by people who were strongly associated with agriculture, or, interestingly enough, by people who otherwise actually rode, reflecting the fact that their cut was designed for riders (white Wranglers are the trouser of professional polo players to this day).  Perhaps a market like that was doomed to be prey to students of marketing.

It came with women's jeans first.  By the late 1970s, designers were pitching new jean brands at women.  Calvin Klein comes to mind, but as pointed out in an emailed comment to a post on a companion blog of ours, locally young women turned to Rocky Mountain Jeans, a good brand pitched just at them.  Levis was slow to react, except that it started to expand into semi dress wear with "Dockers", a chino line of clothing probably reflecting that a lot of Boomers were no longer the rebels they once were.  Their market share declined.

And so, in my view, did their quality.  I still like Levis 501s and I still wear them today. But now that they're made overseas, they just aren't what they were. Sizing, for example, is inconsistent.  Wranglers are always the size they claim to be (and I wear them too).  Lees are more or less the same as they've always been. But Levis can be anything from big to small in the same sizing, and even the cloth isn't consistent. It's a sad decline of an iconic brand.

And their advertising is junk.  Rather than appealing to Hipsters, or whomever they're trying to appeal to, they'd be better off studying Wrangler whose wearers have brand loyalty.  Or perhaps they ought to study Harley Davidson, which also does.  Harley went through a rise and decline, only to recapture their market by remembering who bought them in the first place, and why.  Levis ought to ponder the same.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 10. Daylight Savings Time.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 10: Today, for 2013, is the dread advent of Daylight Savings Time, in which the weary are deprived of an hour of sleep.

And the day in which those, who on the evening prior, received the promise that "no, I won't be hard to wake up" have been told a fib yet again, as those who must be awakened transfer their anger and wrath about the early arrival of the dawn to the human messenger.

Postscript:

I don't know if its a product of age, but I find it increasingly difficult to adjust to either end of Daylight Savings Time, and as a consequence, I'm not so fond of it.

I used to be able to very easily switch from one time to another, but now I invariably wake up early when we go forward in the Fall.  I've been waking up earlier and earlier in recent weeks anyway, but I really don't want to start routinely getting up at 4:00. But now, I'm wide awake at that time.

I really wonder about the value of Daylight Savings Time in this modern age.  Is there one?  I'd be just as happy if we chose to hence forth forgo it.  Outside of North America, do other nations have it? 

T33 Soviet Tank.

T33 Soviet Tank.: This is a Soviet T33 tank on display in Spain, photo displayed by my friend Daniel Moratal who appears on the photographs.. This early So...

Cows at San Carlos, Costa Rica, courtesy of Juan S...

Cows at San Carlos, Costa Rica, courtesy of Juan S...: My friend Juan Sepúlveda took these fascinating photographs of cattle near San Carlos, Costa Rica.  Interesting photos, I've never se...

German 88 mm Anti Aircraft Gun in Spain

German 88 mm Anti Aircraft Gun in Spain: A very fine example of a German 88mm Anti Aircraft gun in display in Spain, photographs courtesy of my friend Daniel Moratal.  He reports...

The Big Picture: Mobilization Camp, Texas City, Texas 1914.

Dean Easton Resigns

Interesitng development at the UW law school as of yesterday:

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Friends of UW College of Law:

As a result of changes at the University of Wyoming, I can no longer be effective in representing the interests of the College of Law as your dean.  As a result, I have submitted my resignation as dean.  I will continue to serve as a faculty member, and I look forward to working with you to make the University of Wyoming College of Law an even better law school.

Ours is a very special law school.  As I tell prospective students all the time, I cannot imagine why anyone attends a law school other than UW College of Law.  Our law school has a strong tradition, plus exciting new programs.  In just the four and a half years that I have been here, we have seen many exciting developments, including:

• Continued growth of our energy and natural resources program, an area particularly important in Wyoming, including a rich curriculum that includes a fourth of our elective courses, a new energy competition that sends students to two national competitions (where they have already had substantial success), establishment of the Center for Law & Energy Resources in the Rockies, launching of our joint degree (with the Haub School) in environment and natural resources, a course offering a tour of Wyoming energy and mining facilities, and ground work for the establishment of an Energy & Natural Resources Clinic that will be added to our curriculum in the fall of 2014.  Few, if any, law schools can match our extensive energy and natural resources course offerings, even though almost all other law schools are larger, some much larger, than our College of Law.

• Expansion of our experiential education program in response to student and market demands to include new clinic-like courses.  Due in large part to generous private gifts, we have added programs in estate planning and international human rights law.  Through the support of the Wyoming Attorney General, we will be adding a year-long energy and natural resources clinic next fall.

• Adoption of a “clinic guarantee” that promises each student the opportunity to practice law under a faculty member before graduation.  About a dozen of our students brief and argue cases to the Wyoming  Supreme Court every year.  My colleagues at other schools are amazed at the practice opportunities provided to our students through the generosity of the Wyoming Supreme Court’s student practice rule and the professionalism of the practicing attorneys who oppose our students in litigation and other environments.

• Growth of the Rural Law Center, which sponsors popular CLE seminars attended by citizens from across Wyoming and provides legislative and other assistance to those in Wyoming’s  rural communities.

• Adding two new funds to support our experiential education programs, the John M. Burman Fund and the Kepler Fund for Professional Education.

• Establishment of the Summer Trial Institute, a “boot camp” intensive trial advocacy program that is an attraction to prospective students and the envy of those associated with other law schools.

• Creation of the Center for the Study of Written Advocacy, with two of the top five legal writing professors in the nation.

• Initiation of a unique partnership with one of Korea’s elite law schools, Kyung Hee University, which has brought both students and professors to our law school and has provided the opportunity for us to teach an International Business Transactions course, via satellite, to students at both campuses and thus provide our students with experience in international transactions that they can put to use in energy and other practices in Wyoming and elsewhere.

• Raising our Wyoming Bar examination pass rates (with pass rates above 80% in the most recent Wyoming bar exam and in all states), after a brief, but difficult period on the Wyoming bar exam, in part via a bar exam preparation class offered for the first time in the spring of 2013.

• Bringing Civil Pretrial back into the active curriculum, to better prepare our graduates for litigation practices.

• Substantial success by several competition teams at the regional and national levels, including several regional championships and national Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight finishes (including both of our teams qualifying for the Elite Eight of the National Energy & Sustainability Moot Court Competition this year) and two national runner-up finishes (in the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition and the National Client Counseling Competition, the ABA’s largest national competition, with approximately a thousand participating teams).

• Doubling (and almost tripling) our scholarships, including new scholarship programs provided through private giving from alumni and other friends, e.g., the Brimmer Scholarship, the Barrett  Summer Trial Institute Scholarships, the Energy and Natural Resources Scholarship, the Loretta Kepler Scholarship, and the Jack and Lynnette Cassari Scholarship.

• Holding the line on tuition increases, so our students can graduate with reasonable debt loads, not the crushing debt experienced by students at many other law schools.

• Increasing our enrollment of international students, who pay full non-resident tuition and enrich our teaching and learning environment by broadening our horizons.  During a trip through our law school, one might hear French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, or other languages, in addition to English.

• Maintaining enrollments within our target zone (to provide graduating classes of seventy some students) in an era when most law schools have plummeting enrollments (with a forty percent national reduction in law school applications in the past ten years).

• Expanding our continuing legal education programs and other services to alumni and other members of the bar, mostly in Wyoming but also in Colorado and other states.

None of these is “my” achievement, of course, and I do not mean to claim credit for them by listing them here.  Rather, all of these accomplishments were made possible through the dedication of you -- the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other supporters of the College of Law.  To take just one example, I will always be amazed that seventy or so top attorneys, judges, and court reporters volunteer to come to Laramie at their own expense to teach in our Summer Trial Institute every year.  I personally want to thank you each one of you for all of your efforts on behalf of the College of Law and its students.

Special mention must be made, though, of the hard work of the staff and faculty of the College of Law.  During my four and a half years as dean, I have never been able to distribute raises to our staff and faculty.  Also, during that same period of time, the University of Wyoming has managed budget cuts by reducing staff positions.  As such, the College of Law staff, which was incredibly small when I accepted this position, has decreased dramatically during those four and a half years.  Despite a long period of no raises and decreased staff, the staff and faculty of the College of Law have added the new programs noted above.  Through their incredible efforts, the College of Law is an even better institution than it was before almost half a decade of flat salaries and reduced staffing.  I am confident that it will be an even better institution five years from now, if we are able to provide additional support to the staff, faculty, and students.

The strength of the law school, despite severe resource limitations, was recently confirmed.  As many of you know, the ABA/AALS site visit team recently concluded its visit to the College of Law.  Based upon my exit interviews with the site visit chair and the entire site visit team, I expect the report to be quite favorable.  Based upon the exit interviews, though, it is likely that the site visit report will express substantial concern over the limited resources, especially staff and administrative resources, provided to the College of Law by the University.  We are almost certainly trying to run the law school with the smallest administrative staff of any law school in the country.  Several site team members noted that the staffs at their home law schools were much larger than the staff at UW, even though their law schools were only moderately larger than UW.  The site visit report is also likely to express concern about the law school building (other than the William N. Brimmer Legal Education Center, including the two new moot courtrooms, which are extraordinary facilities), especially the lack of facilities for our three centers and the remote offices for our clinic programs.  Quite simply, we are in need of either a new building (other than the William N. Brimmer Legal Education Center) or a substantial addition to the current building to house our centers and clinics within the main law school complex.  The site visit report could note other, more minor, concerns, but overall the site visit team was very impressed with our integrated approach to legal education that teaches our students about the theory of law and provides them with the skills they will need in practice.  They were also impressed with our faculty and its scholarship and teaching, with the students, and with the staff -- though the small size of the staff is a major concern.

It is crucial for the College of Law to continue to offer a comprehensive legal education, not an education that is overly focused in one particular area of the law.  This helps us attract students who have a wide variety of interests, which we must do to thrive in a very competitive environment for law students.  It also helps us prepare these students for practice in a wide variety of legal specialties.  We cannot allow an emphasis on one area of the law to detract from our duty to prepare great attorneys for the citizens of Wyoming.  As such, it is incumbent for the College of Law to provide a comprehensive legal education.

It is also crucial for the College of Law to comply with the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools, including Standard 205(b), which provides that the “dean and the faculty shall formulate and administer the educational program of the law school, including curriculum [and] methods of instruction.”  In executing this important responsibility, we have always welcomed the suggestions of others who have the law school’s best interests at heart.  This is reflected by our active Advisory and Alumni Board, by holding regular Town Hall Meetings with students, by my frequent attendance at Board of Trustee meetings and conversations with individual Trustees, by a meeting we held with general counsel from several energy corporations, who provided advice about how best to prepare students for energy practice, and by the open door policy of our administration, which is always receptive to suggestions for improvement of the College of Law.  However, the faculty and the dean must govern the College of Law, if it is to continue to enjoy the accreditation that allows the College of Law to maintain its reputation, allows its graduates to take the bar exam in Wyoming and in every other state, and allows its alumni to take advantage of opportunities available only to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools.

Recent events cause me concern in this regard.  Important decisions affecting the College of Law have been made without meaningful consultation with me or others on the faculty.  If the concerns that have led to this lack of consultation are with me, my resignation will remove this impediment and clear the way for the effective faculty governance of the College of Law that the accreditation standards require.  I cannot continue to serve as your dean while critical decisions are made about the College of Law without the input of the administration and faculty of the College.

Let’s pull together to defend and build the law school that we all love.  With your help, we can continue to make the University of Wyoming College of Law an even better law school for its students and for the state of Wyoming.

Thank you for your support of the College of Law and of me.  The work you have done for the College of Law is amazing.  It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve as your dean.   I look forward to continuing to work with you as a member of the faculty.

Sincerely,

Steve

Stephen D. Easton

Dean and Professor of Law

University of Wyoming

College of Law

Dept. 3035, 1000 E. University Avenue

Laramie, Wyoming 82071

(307) 766-6416; FAX (307) 766-6417

Economics of Farming with Horses

 This interesting article appeared some time ago in Rural Heritage:  Economics of Farming with Horses.

 Cotton farmer, 1937.

At the time it ran, I subscribed to the magazine, and I even wrote a few articles for it.  None of mine dealt with this topic, however.  Nor could they, as I'm not a farmer, and I wouldn't know how to use a horse in farming.  Or a tractor, for that matter.

 Unhitching horses, 1937.

The same topic, horse vs. petroleum economics, is being explored here on the SMH site, but with a different prospective.

 Army freight wagon, 1940.

It's an interesting topic, and one that we usually don't consider in this fashion. The slow (and it was slow) switch from horses to petroleum horse power, was an economic decision more than anything else.  There are other factors, but the "inevitable" march of progress type of prospective is wholly in error.  Gasoline powered vehicles of all types were enormously expensive originally, and gasoline was as well, contrary to the popular concept that it was darned near free.  Early on, gasoline was actually more expensive in real terms than it is now, and for that matter, so were automobiles.  The switch away from horse was influenced by other factors in various areas, including convenience and easy maintenance in urban settings, but dollars and cents mattered more than any other factor.

 U.S. Army recruiting poster from 1919, the year after the Allied victory in World War One.

Of course, once they came in, petroleum fueled farm equipment not only came in because of an economic tipping point, they changed the economics of everything as well.  After awhile, all farmers nearly had to switch to them, or such was the perception.  That impacted what they could farm, and then what they had to farm.  The irony of mechanization is that in the end, it not only meant fewer farm horses, it meant many fewer farmers.

 World War One vintage recruiting poster for the Indiana National Guard.

Standard Transmission

U.S. Army mechanic servicing a transmission on a heavy truck, during World War Two.

My son recently obtained his "regular" driver's license and therefore is now competent, in the eyes of the state to operate conventional motor vehicles on the public roads.  The vehicle that we own that he's generally allowed to drive is a 1997 Dodge D1500 4x4 pickup truck.  For some reason, over time, this locality has become Dodge central.  We have three Dodge pickup trucks, and they're all standard transmission trucks.  We also have a Chevrolet Suburban, and its an automatic.  Maybe all newer ones are.  Anyhow, the topic of driving came up the other day and he mentioned that a friend of his asked him about how to drive a standard transmission, which is a question I don't think I'd have thought to ask anyone when I was 16 years old.  I knew how to drive a standard transmission.  I think that all the boys I hung out with did.

Which isn't to say that we all drove standard transmissions all the time when we were first driving.  Thinking back, at age 16, I'd owned a vehicle, a Jeep, that had a standard transmission for a year by the time I obtained my license.  But my next vehicle, a Ford F100 (yes, F100, they don't make a "light" half tone any more, but in 1974, the year mine was made, they did) was an automatic transmission.  So was the next vehicle I owned after that, a 1974 Dodge D150.  But since the D150 I've never personally bought another automatic.  I prefer manual transmissions.  I have owned two, sort of.  I inherited a 1973 Mercury Comet, a great car, that was an automatic, and the car that we bought a decade ago for my wife is the aforementioned Suburban.

But I've owned a lot more standards and the only times I've actually purchased a vehicle new, they were standards.  I've owned just about every type as well, from "three on the tree" types, now a thing of the distant past, to the once very standard four speed transmission, to the current six speed.  As most of my vehicles have been 4x4s as well, I've also always had, on my vehicles, the manual shifter for the transfer case.  On one older 4x4 I once had, I had three levers, one for the transmission, one for the high and low range of gears in the transmission, and one for the transfer case, a once very common arrangement that  even those who drive modern standard transmission 4x4s would probably be baffled by at first.

I can't say really why I prefer standards, but I do.  I guess I like the ability to determine what gear I think I should be in, rather than have hydraulic pressure determine that for me.  And most more work like trucks were standards. But that's soon to be a thing of the past.  My guess is that within the next decade a person will have to be driving a very heavy truck in order for it to be purchased with an automatic. When electric vehicles come in, and they will, standards will be irrelevant completely, as they work differently.

Even within the past three decades this trend has been pretty evident.  At the time that I was getting ready to leave the National Guard for law school, thinking that I wouldn't have time to be a Guardsman and a law student (an erroneous decision that, hindsight being 20/20, I would have made differently, staying in the Guard while in school and after) the Army was acquiring automatic transmission heavy trucks to replace the old standard transmission trucks.  Training time, and lack of soldier familiarity with standards, was the reason why.  Since that time I think it's become almost impossible to acquire a manual in a pickup truck except if it was made by Chrysler, and the end of that day is in sight.

Gear shift and Transfer Case shifter, for my (rather obviously dirty) Dodge D3500.  A view of this type will soon be a thing of the past for new vehicles, I suspect.

This is not to say that I'm lamenting this.  I do think manual transmissions are a better option for folks who know how to really use them for trucks, but most people no longer learn how to drive a standard transmission. Shoot, most people don't even call them "standard transmissions" and automatic transmissions really are the standard today.  When electric vehicles come in they won't feature a transmission of this type at all, and neither the current automatic transmission or the manual transmission will remain, although to most drivers of automatics the difference will not be noticeable.

But what a difference it makes in regards to some people's ability to drive.  Back when standards were the norm, there were some who had problems driving simply due to that. My mother barely learned to drive an automatic, I can't imagine what driving a standard (if she ever did) was like for her.  And today, many people simply can't do it. They don't know how.

 Note:  We've added a poll on this topic off to the side.

Wyo Whiskers: Fenimore Chatterton | Wyoming Postscripts

Wyo Whiskers: Fenimore Chatterton | Wyoming Postscripts

Holscher's Hub: Nocturnal Ursine Visitors

Holscher's Hub: Nocturnal Ursine Visitors: About a decade ago a bear visited our backyard in the middle of the night.  Stuffed bear head, literally, on my office wall. This bear...

Today In Wyoming's History: October 30, 1918-2013

Today In Wyoming's History: October 30, 1918-2013:

October 30, 1918-2013

As a short addendum to today's entry, it's interesting to note that tonight the Boston Red Sox will attempt to wrap up their bid for World Series Champion in their hometown. If they are successful, it'll be the first time that Boston has won the Series at home since 1918, the year of the short season caused by the World War One "Work or Fight" ban on continued play.

That's sort of interesting in and of itself, but it's also interesting in the historical context in the contrast it offers between World War One and World War Two. The Wilson Administration really took a much heavier handed approach toward the home-front than FDR later did in a wide variety of ways.

Today In Wyoming's History: October 29: National Cat Day

October 29

 Today is National Cat Day.

The Big Picture: Ft. McKinney in 1909.

Today In Wyoming's History: October 25: World Pasta Day

Today In Wyoming's History: October 25:

Today is World Pasta Day.

Why, I don't know, but that's what it is. The University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center has a post up for today, October 25, 2012, on this event, and asks the question of whether pasta was part of your diet growing up.  It was for me, fwiw, and I suspect for most other people as well, but not with the many fine varieties available today.  "Macaroni and Cheese" was a frequent noon meal when I was a kid, and not the kind that comes out of a box.  Indeed, I've never liked the box kind, which strikes me as somewhat anemic.  Spaghetti was also a frequent at our house, which was the regular boxed spaghetti noodle type, with a red sauce made from tomato soup and with, typically, antelope or deer as the meat in the sauce.  I can't ever recall having ground beef used in spaghetti sauce as a kid at our house.  And macaroni noodles, i.e., elbow noodles, occasionally showed up in shrimp salad, which my mother occasionally made.  And of course, there were canned "beenie weenies, etc." that had noodles in them.

I'm sure I didn't have any of what I would have regarded as exotic pastas, like lasagna, in a homemade example until I was in university.  Otherwise, that was exotic restaurant fare.