Voting in Colorado -- Chapter 27

2020 Ballot

This is Chapter 27. I haven't written the first 26 yet. And don't intend to. 

Yep, they started mailing our ballots out October 9.  Got mine on the 10th. In Colorado ballots are mailed to all registered voters. We don't have to request them. We are responsible for registering to vote which we can do up to and including Election Day. To receive a ballot in the mail, people must register  to vote or update their voter registration (including change of address) through the 8th day before Election Day, October 26. We can vote in person early beginning October 19 or on election day, November 3, at our local polling places. We can mail our ballot back using the U.S. Postal Service, but we have to put a 55 cent stamp on it and get it into the mail before October 26. 

Or we can put it into a Ballot Drop Box which is free. State-wide, Colorado has 368 such boxes, including the ones at each County's Courthouse. Mine of choice is the one outside the Rec Center where I attended exercise classes prior to the Covid-19 Pandemic. 

There is an app we can use to track our ballot from the moment the state mails it to us, to when our Voter Registrar receives it back no matter how we send it. If there is some kind of problem with our ballot, they contact us and give us a chance to correct it.

Voting should be simple, pick a President. Pick a U. S. Senator, and a Congressman. Not really. We have 21 choices for President plus we can write in someone's name. (I personally don't expect to get any votes. Not even my husband would vote for me. We are on opposite ends of the political spectrum.) There are four choices plus a place for a write-in for U.S. Senator and the same number for Congressman. That takes care of the National part of our voting responsibility. Yes, it does.

However, there are all those State Offices. The District Attorney for our District. The County Offices. 

And the Judge Retentions for the State Supreme Court Justices, the Court of Appeals Judges, the District Court Judges, and right on down to County Court Judges. On the one hand I'm lucky not to have personal experience with any of these judges (knock wood) so I depend on the State Ballot Information Booklet. When I lived in Oklahoma we had no easy access to any information about the judges so I just skipped that part of the ballot. My husband voted to throw them all out.

A couple or three weeks before they mail our ballots they mail the Blue Book -- The  State Ballot Information Booklet. It is especially helpful with the judges and questions.

On the back of the ballot. What? Any sane person would feel successful to have completed one side, right? Right. But there's the backside yet to go and it's the complex ones. That's where we've got Amendments to the State Constitution, State-wide Statutory Propositions, and a City of Lakewood Ballot Question. Each identified by number or letter, the rhyme and/or reason for those numbers and/or letters are not as obvious as the names for tropical storms/hurricanes.

                  State Representative for our District                               Me
                             Chris Kennedy

                

Chris Kennedy, the State Representative for our District sent out the following missal. The text in brackets following each of his opinions is mine.

There are 11 statewide ballot measures and various local measures. For nonpartisan analysis of pros and cons, make sure to read your Blue Book (English Version | Spanish Version). There are also some great ballot guides out there from the Bell Policy Center and Progress Now Colorado, but I’m sure you’re unsurprised to learn that I have some strong opinions of my own:

Amdt B – Repeal Gallagher Amendment

I’m voting yes. This outdated property tax formula has led to a serious decline in local funding for our K-12 schools, which the state has tried but failed to adequately backfill. If we don’t pass Amdt B, our schools are going to take another big hit next year.

[I, too am voting yes. The Gallagher Amendment is an excellent example of not thinking far enough down the road. It is no longer useful and is, in fact detrimental.]

Amdt C – Bingo/Raffle Rules

While it’s silly that these rules are in the Constitution in the first place, Amdt C makes modest changes to help nonprofits fundraise using bingo and raffles. I’m voting yes.

[I'm voting no on this one. The current law requires charities using bingo and raffles as fund-raisers to use volunteers (usually members of the organization) to run the bingo or raffle. The change would allow the organization to pay people to run the bingo or raffle, making them (in my opinion) commercial projects.]

Amdt 76 – Requirements to Vote

I’m voting no. There are no jurisdictions in Colorado considering allowing non-citizens to vote, so this is largely symbolic. However, we do currently grant 17-year-olds the right to vote in caucuses and primaries as long as they’ll be 18 by the November election, and Amdt 76 would take that right away.

[I agree on this one. The wording change would not alter the meaning other than to bar soon-to-be eligible voters from participating in the primaries. It is unnecessary.]

Amdt 77 – Casino Bet Limits

Honestly, I’m a little torn on this one. Our community colleges certainly need more funding, and Amdt 77 could help. But I do worry the potential for higher betting limits to hurt people prone to gambling addiction.

[The way Chris explains his feelings on this one is a bit odd I think. It only applies to the three cities where there are casinos and would allow the people in those cities to approve additional games and set the maximum single bet allowed. It would allow the gaming tax revenue to be used for community colleges. Admittedly, I'm not much of a gambler and I don't live in any of these towns. So I don't have a dog in this fight. I will vote yes and let those who do, make their own decisions.]

Prop EE – Nicotine Tax

I’m voting yes. Increasing the price of nicotine products is the number one way to reduce teen use, which is very high in Colorado. While it’s true that nicotine taxes are regressive, I’d argue that the negative health impacts of nicotine use are even more regressive.

[I, too, will vote yes, not so much because of the morality involved, but just because vaping as a method of delivering a tobacco product came along after the tobacco tax happened doesn't mean it should be taxed differently than other tobacco products.]

Prop 113 – National Popular Vote

I’m voting yes. Once enough states join Colorado in this interstate compact, all will simultaneously switch from giving their electoral college votes to the winner of their own state’s popular vote and instead give them to the winner of the national popular vote. It’s unfortunate that Presidential candidates really only campaign in a dozen or so states. With a national popular vote system, these candidates will be incentivized to campaign in every state. It’s simple. One person, one vote.

[I will vote no on this one. It will not give us the result of "One person, one vote." In fact it could discount a State's majority of voters, if they did not agree with the popular vote in the so-called interstate compact. If we are going to have a direct one person, one vote method of electing our President, we need to amend the Constitution of the United States and do away with the Electoral College altogether.]

Prop 114 – Gray Wolf Reintroduction

While I’m hardly an expert on wildlife issues, I’m voting yes because I believe it’s important to protect endangered species. I believe we’ll be able to adequately address the concerns from ranchers.

[I will vote no. Decisions regarding wild life conservation and management should be left up to the scientists just as should dealing with pandemics.]

Prop 115 – Prohibit Abortions After 22 Weeks

I’m voting no. This is just another attempt to restrict access to women’s reproductive health, and I maintain that this is none of the government’s business.

[No. 'nough said.]

Prop 116 – Income Tax Rate Cut

I’m voting no. This cut disproportionately benefits the wealthy while only giving back $37 a year to the average Coloradan. The lost revenue could mean slashing more than 2000 teacher jobs. I think the average Colorado family needs good teachers more than they need $37.

[I agree. The reduction would not be enough to make a difference for most of us, but would cause a significant loss of needed state revenue.]

Prop 117 – Voter Approval of Enterprises

I’m voting no. TABOR already makes Colorado’s budget process the most convoluted in the country. Prop 117 would do even more to tie legislators’ hands behind our backs at a time when we need creative thinking to keep our state afloat.

[I agree with Chris for exactly the same reasons.]

Prop 118 – Paid Family Leave

I’m voting yes. Too many Colorado workers have to face the terrible choice between caring for a loved one and keeping their job. By establishing a social insurance program for family leave in Colorado, we can ensure everyone can take the time they need to take care of a new baby or an aging parent while also helping small businesses get by while their employee is on leave.

[Again I agree with Chris. It's an insurance policy just like Unemployment Insurance and equally useful.]

Lakewood Ballot Question 2B – Recreational Marijuana

I’m voting yes to allow Lakewood’s existing medical marijuana retailers to begin selling recreational marijuana. I continue to believe a regulated marijuana market does a better job preventing access for kids than the black market, and Lakewood will put the increased sales tax revenue to good use on parks, police, and transportation.

[And, finally, I agree with Chris, but for the simple reason that medical only is just weird.]

Whew! We got through all 11 statewide measures plus one local measure! If you’ve read this far, thanks for sticking with me! Just a couple more quick things before I let you go on with your day!

[And when it comes to the rest of Chris's letter, I agree.] 

Remember to vote all the way down the ticket! Yes, there will be names you don’t recognize, but you know how to use Google. The people we elect to offices like county commissioner and district attorney have huge impacts on our communities, too.

Take a simple step to triple your vote. We all have friends and family who could use a reminder to vote. If everyone reading this commits to contact three people in their own network, it will go a really long way.

Thank you for participating in our democracy! As always, you can email me at chris@kennedy4co.com with your thoughts and questions.

Chris

    

Colorado Is Closed

Colorado has majestic mountains and towering skies.

Colorado hosted more than 86 million tourists in 2019, most of whom were actually Coloradans and residents of neighboring states.  Along with their more than a million international guests, Coloradans love their state. They ski and snowboard and snowshoe in the winter in the mountains. They hike and bike and fish and hunt throughout the state all year round. Colorado hosts music festivals, movie festivals, literary festivals, winter sports competitions, Broadway shows, concerts -- you name it, we got it.

But Colorado is closed.

Not the normal closure for winter. The road to the top of Mount Evans closes after Labor Day and doesn't reopen until late May or early June based on snowpack. Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park closes in October and reopens in late May or early June depending on the snowpack. Rocky Mountain National Park, however, normally stays open. Even the park is closed now.

I had a trip planned. The Air B and B was reserved for March 4 through March 7. The registration check was sent for the Association of Writers and Publishers Conference (AWP) in San Antonio Texas scheduled for March 5-7. Airlines tickets were purchased Denver to Houston for March 4, and the return flight March 8. My daughter would pick me and one of her partners up at Hobby Airport. We would have lunch with her husband there in Houston, then she would drive us to San Antonio.

Anticipation was high. Carolyn Forché, American poet, human rights activist, and my daughter's mentor would be there and I would get to meet her. I figured Jeffrey Brown, PBS News Hour's Arts Correspondent, would be there. (He has the perfect job for me -- he gets to interview novelists, historians, poets, artists, musicians. Not just movie stars and sports figures who are hocking a new movie or sneakers or some such.)

Before the day came to fly to Texas, I learned that Forché would not be there. Well, there was still Jeffrey Brown. 

As February wore on, reports of a new corona virus on the other side of the world were gathering attention. Warnings of an epidemic with the possibility of becoming a pandemic were sharing news time with snow storms.

Then I got an email from AWP saying that with the impending arrival of the new virus to the United States we could, if we did not want to travel, get our registration fee refunded or applied it to next year's conference. But the conference would go on as planned. And I went to Texas as planned. Even with half the expected ten thousand participants no-shows and about half the panel discussions cancelled, it was still great! And if Jeffrey Brown was there, I missed him.

When I returned to Colorado on March 8, our niece and her family were staying with us before they went up to the ski area at Breckenridge on Monday, March 9. 

I walked with my walking group Tuesday, March 10. Went to my exercise class at the rec center on Wednesday, March 11, and walked again with the group Thursday March 12. My normal schedule -- exercise at the rec center Monday and Wednesday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. By that Thursday afternoon Jefferson County's (where we live) libraries and rec centers were closed for two weeks. The parks were still open for walking which our walking group did in the morning on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. After we walk we normally go for coffee at local shops. We continued to walk and go for coffee.

Sunday, March 15, I heard an announcement on the news that the Colorado Public Health Department was recommending anyone who had been in four Colorado counties during the previous week should self-quarantine for 14 day. Breckenridge is in Summit County, one of the four counties. I called our niece to see if she had heard. She had not. They had returned the day before to their home in Albuquerque on the Air Force base where her husband is stationed. She said "everything is changed." The Air Force base was closed. They were restricted to their home. Her children's schools were closed.

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2020. Governor Polis set statewide restrictions including closure of Colorado's schools; restricted gatherings to no more than 10 people; set the six-feet social distancing; closed dining areas in restaurants and bars, allowing only pick-up and delivery services; stopped the ski lifts and ordered ski resorts to close until April 6.

(In the U.S. we get to pinch anyone who does not wear green on St. Patrick's Day. Here we are maintaining our six feet distance and remotely pinching Joe.)

On March 25, Governor Polis put the State of Colorado in complete lock-down, with a stay at home order. This started on Thursday, the twenty-sixth at six in the morning and was scheduled to last through April 11. It is now extended through the month of April.

Grocery stores some days have plenty of this and not so much of that. And other days, just the opposite. Inexplicably there has been a run on toilet paper (No pun intended) and, as if the situation were not disquieting enough, on guns and ammunition.

We are still walking, maintaining our six feet social distancing, both while we walk and while we visit after we walk. We bring our own drinks and treats.

And today we held our first audio/video meeting online. Some bugs definitely need to be worked out for this.

But we'll get it figured out. And we will get through this together.

Higher Authority -- A Book Review

I don't usually read books that scare me -- not because I don't scare easily, because I do. But usually I know that a book is going to be scary and I don't start it. Like, I don't read Stephen King or Tom Clancy -- not because they are not good writers. They certainly are. Somehow King's horror, as far-fetched as it is, is still viscerally believable and his books are too long for me to complete before it gets dark. Tom Clancy, on the other hand, is not far fetched enough. The wars he starts in his books seem altogether too likely.

Higher Authority is the third in Stephen White's Alan Gregory murder mysteries. I started reading them because a friend recommended them and White is a Colorado author. Sort of a hometown boy, dontcha know.

Dr. Alan Gregory, the usual main character in White's mysteries, is a clinical psychologist in Boulder, Colorado. The main character in this book is Alan's fiancee, Lauren Crowder. Crowder is a particularly interesting character because of her power and because of her weakness.

She is a hard-driving lawyer and as Deputy District Attorney in Boulder, she is unafraid to go after the bad guys no matter how threatening they may be.

Her weakness? She has multiple sclerosis. To protect her tough-on-crime persona, she hides her frail health. She neither seeks nor graciously accepts sympathy even from the few who know her condition, including Alan Gregory whose proposal of marriage she accepted but about which she still harbors serious misgivings.

Lauren joins forces with an old law-school friend to litigate a sexual harassment suit in Utah against a highly respected member of the Mormon Church. Danger and death ensue.

White's website introduces the plot of Higher Authority this way.

"The sudden death of Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch propels his successor, Lester Horner, first into Hatch's Senate seat and then on to become the first Mormon associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Carried along with Horner is Blythe Oaks, an ambitious and intelligent woman who is also Horner's favorite law clerk and fellow Mormon.  But Blythe's reputation—and, by extension, Lester Horner's—is threatened when a female former employee accuses her of sexual harassment and career sabotage."

Are you confused yet? I surely was, because, at least as of this moment while I am writing this blog post, Orrin Hatch is alive and well holding his seat as Senior Senator from the Great State of Utah. He is Senate Pro Tempore making him third in line to the United States Presidency.

Which brings us to the book's fear-factor for me.

I knew very little about the Mormon church. My only experiences with Latter-day Saints have been with parents of my daughter's friends, with writer friends, and with seat-mates on airlines. And, of course, Orson Scott Card one of my favorite writers. Then there are The Osmonds. All enjoyable and not the least bit frightening.

I knew a little about the founding of the Mormon religion and their self-exile to Utah to escape discrimination and mistreatment first in New York, then Ohio, and finally Missouri.

I did not know so, so much. Of course, this book is fiction, but White seems to have done his research well. His book plays to my one great faith -- that all religions develop fanatics and the element of secrecy in any religion or religious order is the cloak that hides those fanatics. That is frightening to me.

Not to mention that the real, still living, Orrin Hatch holds a potentially more powerful political position than does any single member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Let me just say this book is very well written and its plot believable enough that I must have gained five pounds in the three days it took me to read it.

Lawrence Alvin Weber 05/30/1925 - 10/03/2016

Picture taken February 8, 1944

Lawrence Alvin Weber died in his sleep October 3, 2016 in Aurora, Colorado. He was 91 years old and a long way from home. But he didn’t know it.

 He was born May 30, 1925 in Luther, Oklahoma to Lawrence Leland and Emma Mae Jarvis Weber. He was the second of four children, the only son in this farming family, surrounded by a thriving rural community of 613 according to the 1930 census. And of those, a good many were members of his extended family.

So much of his life’s focus must have come from his beginnings. He was a child during the Great Depression and Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl years. Being a child and busy with school and sports and his family and friends these hard times probably weren’t as much a concern for him as they were for the adults. Because his family farmed, they had food to eat. As long as the weather cooperated and their crops came in. But the national sense of unease, of not knowing where the next meal was coming from, must have filtered down to the children.

He would always be concerned about people having enough to eat. All his life, even when he lived in town, he grew a big garden and produced enough food to can or fill his own freezer and the extra he gave away. You couldn’t visit Momma and Daddy in the summertime without going home with fresh vegetables. After he retired, he volunteered at the Edmond Hope Center where he worked in the Food Room.

On the heels of The Depression and the Dust Bowl came World War II. In October 1943, his senior year in high school, he enlisted in the Navy. The Seabees, the Construction Battalions.

I asked him why the Navy. I knew he couldn’t swim. In fact he never was comfortable swimming even after he learned. He said it was because they were required to provide better food than any of the other services. Plus he liked heavy equipment and they would teach him to use it.

The Navy took him out of the small rural town where he knew everyone and sent him off to Rhode Island where he knew no one. In those days joining the Navy was “for the duration.” And nobody knew how long that duration would last or what the world would look like when the duration was over. The Allies were not necessarily odds-on favorites in the war against Hitler’s Germany. And the survival of any individual member of the armed services was far from guaranteed.

From Rhode Island, which must have felt very foreign compared to Oklahoma, Daddy was sent across the country by train to California.

That was the first time he’d been to Colorado. The trains were still steam locomotives. And they were routed north from Denver into Wyoming then west through the South Pass because the Rockies were too high in Colorado for the trains to pull.

From California, he was shipped out to the Solomon Islands. On April 1st 1945, the 82-day battle for the control of Okinawa started. Daddy was there. In all, the 10th Army had 182,821 men under its command including over 88,000 Marines and 18,000 Navy personnel (mostly Seabees and medical personnel.) Nearly 250,000 people died during that battle. 14,009 American soldiers. More than 149,000 of the island's 300,000 civilians, and more than 77,000 Japanese Soldiers.

His 20th birthday fell two-thirds of the way through that battle, in the midst of such death and destruction.

The only thing, really, that he ever talked about Okinawa was when they were hit by a cyclone. That must have been the one thing like home to a young man from Oklahoma.

When I wanted us to go to Mexico one vacation when we were on the South Texas gulf coast, Daddy said he'd promised himself when he was in the Navy that if he ever got back to the United States, he was never leaving it again. And he didn't.

It’s always frustrated me that he never seemed to feel that the apocalypse was at hand, like I did. Not during the Cold War when the magazines were filled with bomb shelter blue prints and the nation was stock piling water and dried food in public bomb shelters. Not during the most violent days of the Civil Rights Movement when American cities were burning. Not during the war and anti-war days of Vietnam.

I didn’t know that maybe it was because he lived most of his childhood in a world on the verge of disaster. And came of age in the midst of incomprehensible death and destruction.

I don’t think he’d have been too worried about this year’s election cycle even if he’d have understood what was happening.

I did appreciate that when we would move to a new house, if it didn’t have a storm shelter, he had one built and always one that was big enough to accommodate our family and any in the neighborhood who needed a safe place to come.

He grew food and provided safe shelter.

I think the thing I most admire about my Daddy was the way he took care of my mother. During her last years she developed dementia. To the point that toward the end she didn’t know any of us – even Daddy. She’d see him coming up from the barn and she’d ask “Who is that man?” But when he spoke she knew him. She always recognized his voice.

My Daddy concentrated on what needed to be done and did what he could. With grace and good humor.

He enjoyed babies – any kind of babies – calves, puppies, chickens, goats, grandkids and great-grands.

He liked to play. Cards with Momma and friends – the women against the men. Work-up softball in the yard after work with my brother and me and all the kids in the neighborhood. Or a pick-up basketball game at family get-togethers. He put up a basket down by the barn after he retired to his acreage in Logan County. That was so Momma and the grandkids could play HORSE.

And he cooked. And he ate. He was the best person to cook for because he liked everything. And he always appreciated good food.

When my brother and I were growing up, Daddy’d take us either to the Texas Gulf Coast or Colorado for formal vacation. When we moved to Colorado after Mother died Daddy would always comment that he never thought he’d ever live somewhere as beautiful as Colorado.

Oklahoma was always “home,” but his home in Colorado always looked “just like a picture.” And he felt at home there.

Picture taken December 2013

Hiking Lakewood -- Nonfiction

Seen from Stone House Park, that shadow of a rounded, treeless hill is Green Mountain, my north star. You can see it from almost anywhere in the Metro Denver area. It marks my way home to Lakewood, Colorado.

Lakewood is a suburb of Denver, and I must say Colorado does its suburbs right. We have easy access to public transportation, top-notch medical care, good schools, rec centers (Lakewood has three.) We have movie theaters and community theaters. There are restaurants that range from food trucks parked outside micro-breweries to steak houses with cuisines representing every culture you can imagine and a few I've never thought of.  If your idea of entertainment is shopping, it's here -- upscale to thrift store.

Lakewood not only maintains its streets and sidewalks (this is the only town I've ever lived in that actually repairs sidewalks and not at the expense of the homeowner -- well other than the taxes we pay) but they save areas they call open spaces and green belts. It being high plains desert where water is especially precious, "green" may be a more hopeful than literal term. Still....

Stone House Park (one of my favorite places to walk) is on Bear Creek Trail. The trail is 14.5 miles long, extending from Morrison and the entryway to Red Rocks Park on the west, east to the South Platte River. From there you can follow the South Platte River Trail into downtown Denver.

Last Sunday my husband and I needed a break from our nonstop Olympics viewing. (Who'da thunk we'd become completely sedentary during the Olympics?) So we walked Bear Creek Trail east from Stone House to Wadsworth. That's about a mile. Then a mile back, of course.

  

We crossed Bear Creek and came to the biggest Cottonwood Tree I've ever seen. That's me at its base. I waded through weeds almost as tall as I am. My husband's first concern was chiggers.

We're originally from Oklahoma where chiggers are a serious threat. If you've never had chiggers (that's what we call having been bitten or eaten alive, more like, by them) then you have lived a charmed life.

According to the Colorado State Extension Service, "Chiggers actually do not bite, but feed by digesting small areas of the upper skin through saliva. The “bite” that chiggers produce is a reaction to the proteins in the saliva. They are rarely encountered in Colorado." Thank goodness.

 

East of the forest area the paved trail runs through an open meadow bounded on the south by condos which you cannot see.

Then it runs right through a large prairie dog village.

When the trail is empty you forget that this park is in a city of almost 150,000 people.

But a group of bicyclists or people walking their dogs quickly dispels the middle-of-nowhere illusion.

Bear Creek and the trail cross under Wadsworth Boulevard

Wadsworth is a major four-lane, North/South thoroughfare through Lakewood. With the exception of rush hour, the traffic volume is tolerable. In the park, it's as though the street and traffic and all those humans going hither and yon do not exist.

We decided that was far enough. What with my stopping to take pictures and watch the prairie dogs, he was having to walk at half-speed. There is nothing quite so wonderful as having a tolerant husband.

We crossed the creek and headed back to the parking lot at Stone House using a different trail. Bear Creek Green Belt has several trails to choose from. We chose one that follows close by the creek and is shaded by trees. The sun in Colorado can be fierce.

And the skies, extraordinarily blue which this little lake reflects beautifully.

  

August is nearing the end of summer what with the possibility of snow as early as September and the flora is shifting from the growing season into the seeding season. 

      

Thistle going to seed                        Blue Mist Penstemon

And this year's Canada Geese goslings are as big as their parents.

Now back to the house for a nice glass of ice water, a pulled-pork sandwich, and an Olympic Rugby Match. Did you know Rugby actually has rules?
                                                    

Skies!

Colorado sky

The only thing in Colorado bigger than the mountains and the prairies is the sky.

I know, I know. All the writing teachers that I've had the good fortune to meet tell you not to start your story with a weather report. The old "It was a dark and stormy night" bugaboo. But, you know what? Skies and their weather are facts of nature that we can't ignore no matter how we're surrounded by concrete, glass, and steel.

I lived most of my life in Central Oklahoma where paying attention to the weather can literally save your life. There, people learn early on what the Fujita Scale is. And when the television meteorologist says to get below ground, you're glad you have a storm shelter. Or your neighbor does and they are kind, generous people with whom you have a reasonably good relationship.

The nice thing about meteorologists in Oklahoma is that they have the equipment and trained personnel to track tornadoes. They can tell you what town -- indeed, what intersection -- the storm will be crossing when. So if it's not your neighborhood right now, you're free to enjoy the show. And even when the Oklahoma skies are the most threatening, they are beautiful. And exciting.

Lucky for me, I now live at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, one step above the prairie. 

Tornadoes can happen anywhere in the world. Even in the mountains. But they're small, much less damaging than the big Super Cells that grow over the open plains. Here at the edge of the mountains, storms are born and build as they move east out onto the Colorado prairie. There they can become the monsters I've known in Oklahoma.

But, not here. Lightning and wind are certainly hazards, but with reasonable precautions, the skies are not dangerous. They're just beautiful. 

The sky is a splendid distraction from my life and a balm to my spirit almost anytime I need it to be.

We had two dreary days in a row. Cloudy and a heavy mist. Not a real rain, just soggy air. The kind that collects on your glasses and you have to use the intermittent setting on your car windshield wipers. Until a truck passes you and the splash back blinds you for that less than a second that seems like forever until you can hit the windshield wiper button for an extra swipe to clear your vision. 

Makes you wonder whatever happened to those mud flaps that trucks used to sport. (You know, the ones with the buxom chrome maid on a background of black rubber who might promise more than you're interested in right then, but at least she delivered protection against what that truck's tires merrily kicked up in your face.)

And then. And then. The sun came back. It was stunning. 

I spend a lot of time with my dad. He has dementia and lives in a residential care home. Not the most pleasant way to spend the rest of his life, or even the few hours of my life that I visit there. That afternoon he and I sat out on their back patio and basked. Two turtles in straw hats just glad the sun was back.

As often happens here, the afternoon sun spawned storm clouds. 

They gathered high into the impossibly blue Colorado sky. They were magnificent. And I had my cell phone which takes pretty good pictures. BUT, I was driving in rush hour traffic. I could snag a few shots when I came to a stop light, which is usually pretty often along the first part of my route home.

Not that day. Wouldn't you know, I hit green lights all along Broadway. (When would I ever complain about green lights in rush hour traffic?) Then finally I hit a red one.That's when I got the pic at the top of this blog. There would be rain in the night. And rain on the high plains desert of Colorado is good.

     

Photos taken at the last stop light before the highway becomes a freeway.

The car radio was off. No bad news. The car windows were down. I noticed how many other drivers were enjoying their ride with their windows down and the air washing through their cars and their lives with light and promise.

From one day to the next, we'd gone from gray cloudy mist to sunshine blue skies to glorious life-affirming rain clouds.

Skies! It feels good to remember life ain't so bad.

Namaste

When I went to bed last night, I hadn't the slightest idea what I'd write about for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. Today is N. "No." Maybe "Never." Definitely something "Negative."

I was tired. I'd spent the day in a hospital ER with my aged father. We were under a Winter Storm Warning with the promise of a two- or three-day snow event. Seven to fourteen inches of the white stuff for our Denver suburb. April is the Second Snowiest Month in Colorado.

A good sleep and waking wrapped "in my sweet baby's arms" with that tell-tale white, early morning snow-light seeping through closed blinds and I had a smile and today's N-word.

Namaste. (NAH-məs-tay)  According to Wikipedia, it's a respectful Hindi greeting meaning "I bow to the divine in you."

Yesterday, as my husband and I were heading home, by way of our favorite Mexican restaurant. We hadn't eaten since breakfast. Anyway, there was a Jeepish vehicle ahead of us with all kinds of stickers on its backside. One touting pet adoption, another outdoor recreation, a "native" bumper sticker, one of those ecumenical bumper stickers like so:

              

By using the standard background for a              I've seen this one in several states
       Colorado license plate, the bearer proclaims       and I like it.                                            

their having been born in Colorado, a rarity.                                                               

And there in the middle of the spare-tire was the biggest. It said Namaste. Even without those magnificent Rocky Mountains rising in the near distance ahead of us, I knew I was in Colorado.

Words are my life! The language we speak, where we learned to speak it, and where we speak it now.

I'm from Oklahoma where license plates say "Native America." Native there refers to Native Americans -- Cherokee, Comanche, Cheyenne, Choctaw, and those are just the C-tribes. According to the the U.S. Census Bureau, Oklahoma has the second highest population of Native Americans of any State in the Union. (Behind California, because I know you wondered.)

Namaste is from those other Indians. I don't think I've ever seen "Namaste" stuck on the side of a vehicle in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma's not exactly The South. It's really more the Southwest. But it's definitely South of Colorado. So I say "y'all." I call my father "Daddy." I drink "pop." I jam words together --  at meal time I might ask "Jeet yet?" and a fellow Oklahoman might answer "No. Joo?" And we might have fried chicken or chicken fried steak. Or a burger. (McDonald's and its golden arches are the same everywhere.)

In Colorado, I've discovered green chili. That's a spicy stew of tomatillos, chili peppers, and pork.

When we lived in southeast Arkansas, they greeted everyone with "Hey," and ate the best fried catfish in the world.

I knew that one of our local police officers there in Crossett, Arkansas was originally from central Texas as soon as he talked about a "tank." He meant a body of water that Oklahoman's call a "pond." Here on the Front Range, Coloradans would call it a "lake."

Just thinking about the intricacies of languages and all the cultures across the world makes me happy.

Let it snow! Namaste, y'all.

Justice -- Reality or Illusion?

I am real. I am typing this right this minute. The letters are appearing on my laptop's screen and forming into words. Into sentences. Forming symbols that will convey my understanding of Justice to anyone who can read English.

Reality or Illusion?

I might be an app and if I am there would be no need for me to use a keyboard. And this minute could have been hours ago. Or days. Or years. The letters may never have appeared on any screen until you started reading this post. And, I can assure you, only I will understand the thoughts I write exactly as I intend them to be understood. And that's just for today. Some tomorrow, I will have forgotten most of today and experienced enough of life to change my understanding of Justice.

Merriam Webster defines Justice as:
1   a :  the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of
           conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments
     b :  judge
     c :  the administration of law; especially :  the establishment or determination of rights according
           to the rules of law or equity
2   a :  the quality of being just, impartial, or fair
     b (1) :  the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2) :  conformity to this principle or
           ideal :  righteousness
     c :  the quality of conforming to law

I want Justice to exist, especially the fair part.

We humans are not alone in this. My husband and I used to have two dogs. Oscar a Dachshund and Bess the Basset Hound. (Actually, we've had many dogs, though never more than three at a time. And cats and birds and fish. And the idea of wanting fair treatment has been observable in all of them. Well, maybe not the fish. I never got well enough acquainted with individual fish to be able to ascribe to them any particular interest in anything other than food and sex.)

Anyway, Oscar and Bess liked to lick our yogurt cups and ice cream bowls. When there was only one for us to share with them, we had to give the other a doggy treat. Even then, they could hardly wait until their sibling finished so they could get a chance at the cup or bowl. They made it quite clear that they did not consider a Milk Bone in lieu of the yogurt cup or ice cream bowl, fair.

I think the desire for Justice is the driving force for the popularity of fictional murder mysteries. Although true crime inspires many nonfiction books and television shows, it's fiction I like. In a novel, TV show, or movie you almost always find out who done it. And the murderer is dealt with, promptly and without regard to their family or financial status. That's fair.

Unless, of course, the accused is innocent, then Justice is served because they are acquitted and the right baddie is identified. We're still talking fiction here.

That's why I write Science Fiction/Murder Mysteries. (Murder on Ceres)

Real life and true crime stories don't work that way. In real life, unless you personally know who done it (or maybe you did it yourself) you can never be sure that the right person is 'brought to justice.' And all too often the application of Justice is capricious and random.

Reality is if you get caught smoking a joint in the privacy of your own home in Denver, you might be considered inhospitable if you don't offer your guest a hit.

Get caught smoking a joint anywhere in Oklahoma and you could face a felony charge and one year in prison. Get caught again, and you could be looking at two to ten years incarceration.

More reality, in Oklahoma, a person can get convicted of First Degree Rape and be sentenced to five years. Or anything up to life without parole. Or the death penalty.

Wait a minute -- step across the Colorado State Line into Oklahoma and get caught more than once smoking a joint and you could be sentenced to more time in jail than someone who gets the minimum sentence for First Degree Rape. That can't be fair.

Ah, the reality of Justice is murky water meandering through a dangerous bog. (That's why lawyers get the big bucks.)

Now, I'm not a lawyer and I sure ain't gonna smoke marijuana in Oklahoma.

Think I'll stick to fiction where Justice is the kind of illusion I want to be real.

( Explanation )

image from blog.acronis.com

I had a dream. In my dream someone was talking about IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices) but when they handed me one, it was an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) which exploded some kind of repulsive goulash all over everything. Without sound or smell. (Sometimes my dreams are like that. Visuals only.) But the feelings were there -- fear, revulsion, nausea, anger.

I live in Colorado and I love it here. Colorado is famous for world class skiing, majestic mountain scenery, and three-hundred-thirty days of sunshine annually.

And for mass shootings. (None involving Muslims.)

In the most recent here in Colorado, a man entered a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado Springs and opened fire. During a snow storm. While the shooting was ongoing, the images on our television screens showed flashing lights, ambulances lined up waiting, military style vehicles. And people with ATF, CBI, CSPD, CSFD, etc. on their jackets moving through the snowfall. It was like a snow globe gone mad.

Somehow the letters made it all worse. It's like the world needs parenthetical explanation. And there is none.

Today the sun is shining. The air is clear and cold. I am going for a walk with friends who do not espouse hate, celebrate war, or speak in acronyms that need explanations.

We're in Trouble, BUT -- essay

image from usnews.com

We’re in trouble. As a nation. As a society. As a culture. 

We are undereducated which makes us susceptible to the worst of the charlatans selling snake oil to make us thin, beautiful, and long-lived. Susceptible to the worst of the schemers promising fool-proof investment strategies that will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams. To the worst of the politicians offering lowest-common-denominator solutions to poverty, crime, and terrorism. And to the worst of the promulgators of conspiracy theories. The Moon-landing hoax. Who killed JFK? Anti-Vaxxers. You name it. A group of shady someones somewhere are threatening our “good life.”

This blog post is not a conspiracy theory about how we got undereducated. And how our children are continuing to be undereducated. Ignorance has been with us since the beginning of time. You could argue that it’s human nature. BUT, to quote one of my favorite movie lines, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” (Kathryn Hepburn as Miss Rose Sayer to Humphrey Bogart’s Charlie Allnut in The African Queen.)

Our various news services have announced the 2013 rankings, state by state, of our high school graduation rates, touting the overall average of 81%. BUT those various news services go on to say why that 81% may be misleading.

Each state has its own requirements for graduation. Each state has its own method of counting those students who do not graduate. And not all states were required to report. My natal state Oklahoma was one of the states given an extension. No numbers from there were figured in the 81% average.

One way we can compare the success of the education of these graduates is the ACT exam. It is the same for all who take it regardless of where they received their high school diploma or what kind of diploma they received. Some states have more than one kind of diploma

Iowa came in at Number 1 with a graduation rate of 90%. Iowa offers one type of diploma and does not require any exit exam to graduate. In 2014, 68% of Iowa’s graduating students took the ACT exam.

Of that 68%:  75% met the ACT benchmark for English, 52% met it for Reading, 48% met it for Math, and 47% met the ACT benchmark for Science. 

ACT benchmarks are “scores on subject-area tests that represent the level of achievement required for students to have a 50% chance of obtaining a B or higher or about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in corresponding credit-bearing first-year college courses.” (ACT) 

The State of Texas came in 2nd with a graduation rate of 88%. Texas offers eleven kinds of diplomas and requires graduates to pass exit exams in algebra and English. 40% of Texas’s graduating students took the ACT exam in 2014. (62% of Texas’s graduating students took the SAT exam, 33.9% of whom met the SAT benchmark score.)

Of that 40%: 60% met the ACT benchmark for English, 42% met it for Reading, 47% met it for Math, and 36% met the ACT benchmark for Science.

My home state of Colorado came in 36th with a 2013 graduation rate of 77%. Colorado offers two types of diplomas and requires no exit exams. 100% of the graduating students took the ACT exam in 2014.

63% of all graduating Colorado students met the ACT benchmark for English. 43% met it for Reading. 39% for Math and 36% for Science.

For me the most damning of these statistics is the very low percent of graduates who meet the ACT benchmark for Reading. Remember, those percentages are of percentages of percentages so the ACT exams can confirm only that slightly more than 29% of the Number 1 state’s graduating students meet the benchmark for READING. We’ve no way to tell what percentage of the 32% who didn’t take the test would have done. Not to mention the 10% who did not graduate.

Okay. So a person graduates from a less than admirable secondary school without an acceptable level of Math and Science education. If that person can and will READ, he can fill in the holes. Self-taught doesn’t have to mean substandard.

I could indict our national education system. But we don’t have one. Or our abysmal failure to support the fractured education system that we do have. We don’t support it by setting high standards. We don’t support it by firing subpar educators or respecting competent educators or rewarding the exceptional educators. We don’t support it financially.

BUT these failures can be corrected. We can work on correcting them at the local, state, and national levels. Expect quality and be willing to pay for it.

In the meantime, we can do what we can at home

I know if you’re reading my blog, you are a reader so I’m preaching to the choir. BUT us choir members can do something. We can read to the children in our lives. We can read around the children in our lives so they see reading as a good and desirable activity.

We can donate our books and magazines to places where they’ll be read again – schools, churches, libraries, medical clinics, rec centers, day care centers, nursing homes. And a whole bunch of places you can think of.

Give kids books – for their birthdays and Christmas. (Try to avoid giving that special nephew the same book two Christmases running like I did.) Drop a book in their Trick or Treat bag. How about giving them a book just because it’s Tuesday? Take them with you to the local public library so they learn that it’s their library.

And, while you’re at it, do these things for the adults in your life, too.

P is for Pink -- Creative Nonfiction

When we married, my husband had a concrete sense of fashion, especially as it came to colors and patterns appropriate for male attire. Blue, black, gray, white, olive drab, and red. Orange during hunting season.

“I don’t wear plaid,” he told me.

A quick glance through his flannel shirts gave the lie to that statement.

“But these are plaid,” I said.

“No they’re not.”

My husband is easily the smartest man I’ve ever known.

But, it occurred to me that he didn’t know what plaid was. I asked him to show me something plaid. He pointed to my green checked table cloth.

He could diagnose and treat any number of diseases in any number of species. He could identify aircraft from the early days of human flight to stealth fighters. He recognized the trees in the woods and birds on the wing, but designs in fabric were of no interest to him and he paid no attention to them.

My son was twelve years old when Scott came into the family. John had developed his own sense of fashion with very few restrictions from me. And no restrictions at all when it came to color or pattern. I’ve always thought that clothes were one of the few aspects of a child’s life that they could safely control themselves. Within reason of course. If there’s snow on the ground, they should at least wear socks with their sandals.

Early in the marriage, my son came downstairs ready for school. Scott took one look at the boy’s sneakers laced with fluorescent orange laces. Exercising more tact than I ever do, he took me aside and suggested that perhaps John should relace his shoes with something “a different color.” He was genuinely concerned that the other kids would make fun of John. If the other kids made fun of John’s fashion choices, I never heard about it. John continues to dance to his own fashion tunes to this day.

As time went on, Scott and I had a daughter. Grace was born independent and never slowed down. 

She hated the cute little Disney shorts sets I picked out for her and quickly took charge of her own fashion. Being a bit of a drama queen, she had a tendency toward costumes, much to her father’s chagrin. But he loved her anyway and never said much to her about it. He still loves her and still says nothing about her fashion choices.

In spite of the family he found himself in, he continued his own narrow views of what was acceptable for himself. Conservative suits, dress shirts, long ties. Striped shirts were okay as long as the stripes weren’t too wide. No checks. Nothing botanical (unless it looked like camo, and that not for work.) No yellow, purple, or bright green. And definitely no pink.

Then he moved to Colorado. My dad and I didn’t move here for a couple of years, so he was pretty much on his own. When Grace and I visited, I had trouble with the altitude and the low humidity. It was hard for me to breathe and my nose bled. We’ve been up here long enough now that I’ve adjusted. (I still get sick going up Pike’s Peak, but it is so beautiful and they make the best donuts at the summit.)

The thing is, sometime in that first year, he took to wearing bow ties and purchased a pale pink dress shirt. I was so proud.

“Your father is becoming more adventurous, more aware of fashion possibilities,” I bragged to our daughter.

“Mom,” she said in that tone, “he’s just oxygen deprived.” 

Bess

Elizabeth  2000 - 2014

 

    Our good Bess. We got her as a pup in August 2000. Her people had taken her to a pet shop in Louisiana for sale along with several of her siblings. Lucky for us, she didn't sell and they gave her to us.

 

    Her working title was Scrunch, no doubt because of all that wrinkledy skin. Basset Hounds, in addition to being a full dog long and half a dog high, have enough extra skin to make an extra little dog. In honor of her breed's English heritage, we named her for Good Queen Bess. And the fact that Elizabeth the First had no offspring went right along with our plans for our Bess.

 

   She had the traditional Basset sad face, but she was the most cheerful dog we've ever had. She was completely oblivious to the vagaries of weather. Be it cold or hot, sun, rain, or snow, she loved the outdoors. She bayed 'possums until they passed out from fright and treed 'coons standing watch at the base of the tree until one of her humans could persuade her to come inside for the night.

 

    She was born in Arkansas, moved to Oklahoma, and then to Colorado. She didn't mind the moves as long as she had her family. Over the years, that family included cats and dogs and birds. And her humans -- a mom and dad and grandpa, two brothers and two sisters, a niece, and two nephews.

 

    We miss our Bess.