McCook Redux

Mc Cook is a town defined by the remote prairie that engulfs it, a contrasting landscape that is at once barren but subsistent, harsh but forgiving. To appreciate the simplistic beauty of the “high lonesome” surrounding the southwestern Nebraska town of 8,000 residents is a taste that takes time to acquire. At first sight, the far off horizon is one of unnerving wilderness; empty and devoid of any anchoring structure to give the eye a perspective of distance. No shapes or shadows, only the blinding sun in a clear blue sky stretching onward for as far as a traveler can squint; a grand statement of nature’s beauty and awe, of God’s simplistic intent.

When I gush to friends of my love affair with the isolated High Plains, they are confused, “There is nothing to see?", they say in exasperation.  In time, I explain, the answer will become spiritually obvious to the soul as a clear eternal and timeless masterpiece of light, sky and land emerges.

Weiland Field

I like small towns and since my first visit in 2011, Mc Cook has become one of my favorites. In a small town everyone has a role to play; King or pauper, young or old, socially popular or placidly ignored; you settle into a niche - your own personal cog in the overall big wheel of civic purpose. It brings a contentment of caste balance, no pressure to try and be someone you are not: for every saint, a sinner; for every savior, a lost soul. 

Secrets are shared and the resulting soap opera like drama (in a somewhat perverse way) is part of the allure that will hold many to their native homeland roots from cradle to grave.  There are no secrets in a small rural town, but there are no strangers, either.   

A childhood spent in a small town can be like living in a large family of somewhat contentious relations. Growing up in a large city is more like being an only child with lots of secrets.  A small town has as many eyes as a fly.  

Often, the pact to forget is as important as the promise to remember, binding neighbors to a lifetime of unspoken support. Small towns can, in a head spinning speed, both suffocate the soul or nurture inter-ambition - and the flip can be as sudden as a western Nebraska weather change.

Climate dominates life in Mc Cook. The past has made the locals respectful of the awesome power nature is capable of unleashing, often without warning. Locals know to always keep a wary eye upon the horizon. 

In 1935, on Mc Cook High School’s graduation weekend, the community was hit with a double barrel attack of nature’s deadly wrath.  After an already heavy spring of rains had saturated the ground, on Friday, May 30 and Saturday, May 31, 12 ½ inches of additional rain fell on Mc Cook in a 24 hours span. The Republican River that runs through the town’s center was forced from its banks. The resulting high waters caused 14 deaths. The crest of the flood reached Mc Cook around 1 PM on May 31.  At approximately 4:30 PM that afternoon, with  rescuers desperately already locked in a fever pitch of lifesaving activity, an F4 tornado hit the city. The killer storm added five more citizens to the weekend’s list of fatalities and seriously injured another 35. To co-exsist with a fickle and deadly force like mother nature, sometimes all you can do is grab a root and growl.

I am in Mc Cook to attend a Friday night high school football game. The Mc Cook Bison are the long time pride of a town totally smitten with its high school football team. This will be my wife’s first pilgrimage to Mc Cook, my fifteenth . Tonight, I promise her, will be a throwback to a slower and more naive time, when winning a high school football game in a small town really meant something, where little boys dreamed of future gridiron glories, where old men reminisced of past battles now encased in honor memories and where teenage boys are bestowed a hero’s status they will all too soon find short and fleeting.

Tonight, the locals will entertain the team from Waverly in a quarterfinal round bracket match-up in the 2018 Nebraska Class B State playoffs. Mc Cook enters play with a record of 9-1 and a state #3 ranking. They have earlier this fall defeated York, the owner of the past two years’ state championship trophies.

 Coach Jeff Gross

Jeff Gross is in his 21st season as the head coach of the Bison. He is the conductor of a Mc Cook grid-iron symphony that for two decades has made him the face of the community. If ever a man has been in the right place, at the right time for the right job, it is Gross. The gods of football fate were in a good mood on a day late in the last millennium when they steered the unknown Hays, KS High School assistant coach to a job that had already been turned down by two more experienced coaches.

As an untried rookie  head coach, Gross’ first two teams, in 1998 and 1999, were at best, mediocre, finishing 4-6 and 4-5, respectfully. Since then, Gross has known nothing but football success in Mc Cook.  

Over the last 19 years, his Bison have compiled a gaudy record of 185 wins and 25 losses, an incredible winning percentage of .881. Along the way, the Bison have won two state titles (2002 and 2003), just missing a third consecutive title in 2004, when they, in heartbreaking fashion, lost the title game on a last second play. A third straight state championship would have been a Nebraska state record, a huge accomplishment in a state that ranks success on the high school football field right behind God and family. His teams have finished state runner-up twice. From 2001 to 2008, Gross led the Bison to a state record  72 game regular season winning streak. His teams have made the state playoffs for the last 19 consecutive years.

Long time Mc Cook businessman and Bison Booster Bob Elder tells me that Gross’ strength goes beyond X’s and O’s. “He just seems to have a way of getting kids to play above their level. You see a group in Junior High some years that looks pretty thin, but then by the time they are seniors, they are a solid bunch.” I ask about next year’s prognosis as the Bison will be graduating a deep and talented senior class. “I am telling you, Jeff will find a way.”

Elder is also a long time area high school football official. In the past, he has had limited opportunities to see the Bison play as he will be working a local game. He tells me that this year, although he has registered with the state association, he has only called one game. This evening he will serve as the host for the assigned officiating crew. "I have really enjoyed watching this group play," he says.

As we do every Friday afternoon when I am in Mc Cook  to attend a Bison home game, Coach Gross and I have lunch on the town’s quaint courthouse square at the Citta' Deli. Today, we are joined by our wives. Coach orders his traditional game day meal of Runza, a popular ethnic German sandwich stuffed with ground beef, onions and cabbage.

 Diana and Jeff Gross

Gross is a tailor-made fit for coaching football in Mc Cook, NE. After my first afternoon spent observing the Bison program back in 2011, it was obvious to me that he had earned the high rank and esteem of the locals, a task not easy for an outsider to accomplish as a football coach in a small town. He is engagingly glib, thoughtful and considerate. Gross is in many ways a re-creation of everyone’s favorite uncle - a huggable  personality that makes the day better and lightens the mood for all around. But, his moods swings are of lore among former players and assistant coaches and he can reverse  roles between bites of a Runza sandwich. Gross has mastered the balance between a control freak and a warm and caring people person - and make no mistake, he is both.

Jeff Gross is supremely confident in his own ability to build and maintain a championship level high school football program. He wears his belief in himself in a comfortable and transparent way. Setbacks, he once told me, he has learned over the years, are not an occurrence necessitating self-doubt, but an opportunity for self-improvement. Gross is simply a master teacher of the game of football. As well as any coach I have ever been around, Gross has a philosophy of what it takes to win football games that he clearly understands and believes in, thus he does not, and will not, vary the prescribed course.

If you want something done right assign it to someone who is already busy. There is a reason they are busy. Two years ago, Gross accepted the additional duties to his already substantial work day by agreeing to become the high school’s Principal. He says it has been a smooth addition to his day, that multi-tasking is something he enjoys.

At 50 years of age and with 20 years of head coaching experience under his belt, Gross is today at the apex of his coaching abilities. Not yet a worn and burned out second hand lion hanging on too long to the glory days of old, but, instead, an aged but energetic  fox, poised to pounce. What could possibly happen in tonight's game that he has not already seen?

Pressure, it has been said, is something you feel when you don’t know what you’re doing. Jeff Gross enjoys our playoff game day lunch, not a nervous twitch of uncertainty to be seen, as cool as a nun’s libido.

Gross is, at this juncture in his career, locked into his craft with razor sharp focus. Our discussion of tonight’s upcoming game is tactical and unemotional. Gross is hot-wired to live for just such moments as these, the hours of intense buildup before the big game. He thrives on the anticipation. It is in his eyes - he can never get enough of it, there's no grind to it, but instead, an intoxicating sense of empowerment permeates our conversation.

We talk of the whereabouts of former Mc Cook players and coaches. The four of us discuss our kids and their developing lives. Several locals stopped by our table to give their best wishes and support for the Bison. It is a state of nirvana for a man such as Gross – one who was put on this earth to be a football coach, to mentor young men. 

 State Quarterfinal Action

I, as any coach would, envy Gross’ current universe.  It is surreal rhythm. Time slows and before he knows it, practice is over. And then it is game day. And before he knows it, the game is over. And then the season is over. And now the calendar says it is time to get ready for next year. It is a success-inspired Zen state of confidence for a coach in charge of a program that has hammered out over the past two decades wins over the teams’ of its Prairie neighbors at a ratio of 9 for every 10 played.

The coaches’ wife, Diana, could write a “how to” book for coaches’ wives. When we first met in 2011, I knew immediately that she played a key role in facilitating a semblance of normal balance for her family. A native of nearby Phillipsburg, KS, the 53 year old is employed in an administrative role at the local hospital.

“I get the kids where they need to be. I am the facilitator,” she told me seven years ago.

The wife of a small town football coach is never an easy role to fill.  It is a path with many potential pitfalls, compounded by the drama that comes with the closeness of a small town – especially, when your spouse is arguably the most recognized and accountable person in the community.

“I enjoy my role as the coach’s wife,” Diana once told me. “The time demand for not only football, but all the other things Jeff is involved in is tough,” the coach’s wife admits, “but Jeff does a great job of keeping family involved. DJ has, since he was little, been very involved in helping his dad with coaching duties and we never fail to make Thursday night family night. We are all invested in the team, just in different ways.” For the Grosses, Bison football is not a hindrance to the family but an enrichment they have all grown with through the years.

 Second Half Kickoff

Mrs. Gross has evolved over her years in Mc Cook from a companion of the assistant coaches’ wives to today a mentor and a role model for the younger coaches’ wives. She is confident and friendly in a non-threatening, non-condescending way. The Grosses’ are viewed in Mc Cook as a couple in tune with the needs of the community. Her contribution to her husband’s success over the years cannot be overstated.

Twenty year old daughter Lexie Gross is attending nearby Fort Hays State University in her dad’s hometown of Hays, KS. “She is really doing well,” Diana informs me. “She is into video media, writing and production and just loves it. She did some work here in Mc Cook last summer between terms and she is really good at it.” Her dad concurred. “I still have a lot of family in Hays so we were very comfortable with sending her there. We are very proud of her.”

Seventeen year old son D.J. Gross is a senior at Mc Cook High School. He recently broke the school record for career tackles. He has been a nationally ranked discus thrower in track and field since his junior high years. He is today recognized as one of the best football players in the state. In addition to his football and track commitments, D.J. also plays on the basketball team and the town’s summer baseball team. He was a water boy for his dad’s team by age 6 . In Junior high, he was promoted to student manager.  DJ has been present at every Bison varsity practice since second-grade.

The younger Gross has already committed to play football next fall at the University of South Dakota in Vermilion. “He decided last summer,” Coach Gross says. “He wanted to get it out of the way and focus entirely on his senior season here. We have had several players in the recent past choose to go there (South Dakota) and have had good experiences. I am comfortable with his choice.”

Win or lose, tonight will be D.J.’s last game to be played at historic Weiland Field. “It is hard, kind of bittersweet,” his mom told me. “Football, Bison football, has been such a big part of our family’s life. It is going to be a big change for us. It is sad, but we are also very proud.”

 The Schlager's

It is heavily rumored around town that long time defensive coordinator Russ Shlager will be leaving the program at the completion of this fall’s season and returning to his native Colorado. All three of Schlager’s sons were standout Bison football players.  The eldest, Jake, has in 2017, completed a four year career at Colorado State University. The youngest, Zach, is a freshman defensive back for Colorado State. Middle brother, Joe, is a sophomore running back on the roster of South Dakota, spending the past fall as a red shirt rehabbing a serious leg injury.  He will be joined next season at the Vermilion school by former high school teammate D.J. Gross. 

Coach Gross says his longtime right hand man, Schlager, if and when he does retire, will be hard to replace. Gross embraces the many longtime relationships that run deep through the veins of the Bison football family. Coach Schlager’s longevity and service sit on the top rung of the Gross loyalty ladder. “We have some very good young assistants on staff now who played here for me,” the veteran coach states. “But the successful experience Russ had for so many years and the faith I have in him is not something you just switch over.” Eldest son Jake gave heart felt testimony to his father. “(He) no doubt will go down as one of the best (coaches) at this level. I’m lucky to have been able to call (him) my coach and my Dad and (I) couldn’t be more proud.”

The community of Mc Cook  proudly claims ownership of the Bison.  Mc Cook’s home football stadium, Weiland Field, has for close to 80 years served as a proving ground for many Mc Cook young man’s mettle.  There is tradition in the venerable WPA built stadium that hangs like the crisp smell of fall. Years of remembrances of unbridled joyful triumphs and heart crushing defeats linger, clinging to the Stadium like grit. This is to many a Mc Cook man, both young and old and many in between; hallowed ground.

 Standing Room Only at Weiland

The stadium lies in middle of the local community college’s campus. When the stadium was first built in the 1930’s, the local school board had jurisdiction over both the high school and the college. In the 1960’s, the high school and the college split, with the college now having its own elected board of directors. The high school moved west to a new campus while the college remained on the original campus. This makes for an awkward situation, in regard to Weiland Field today. Since the split, the local school district has maintained ownership and kept up the maintenance of Weiland Field which is located on the college campus. In the post-World War II years, Berlin was a city split in two with the American controlled section of the city, West Berlin, surrounded by the Russian puppet state of East Germany. This cold war standoff led to the building of the Berlin Wall and high tension levels between Russia and the United States that held for four decades.  

No wall was ever been built around Weiland Field, but, sporadically over the last 50 years, some controversy has arisen. The local school administration, a number of years ago, built a stadium with bleachers, lights and a track on its campus, as well as two football practice fields. Sub-varsity games are played there, but never a varsity encounter.

The late Max Broaderson was perhaps the most avid Bison supporter, and in this town, that is saying something. “I came to Mc Cook in 1970 to coach football at the college,” Broaderson said in a 2011 interview. “The next year, the college dropped the football program. But, we liked the town and decided to stay and raise our family (here). I went to work in the banking business and then real estate.”  Broaderson told me that at one time the local school board had floated a rumor in the community that the Bison varsity home games would be moved to the campus stadium and Weiland Field would to be torn down, the historic  gridiron  converted to a class room building and a parking lot for the college.

Weiliand Field lacks many modern amenities, true, most notably a lack of much off-street parking, poor and outdated locker room space and the logistics of getting the team and the band from the high school and over to the college on game nights. On paper, the move had merit. But tradition cannot be measured within the two dimension limitations of paper. Weiland Field has character. In the subterranean locker room before the game, as the Bison players and coaches endure the last minute twinge of nerves; they can hear and feel the energy of the crowd above them. With no running track surrounding the playing field, the closeness of the stands and the steep seats allows the crowd to be near the action and interact with the players.  The sounds are festive: cheering, the school fight song, the celebratory cannon blast after each Bison score - just reverberates, a priceless and unforgettable atmosphere for the unique experience of Friday Night Lights – Mc Cook style.

The leaking of the possible moth balling of the historic, old field created a hail storm of immediate protests and backlash. Threats of retaliation from well-connected civic leaders were made to local school officials. Broaderson said it was made crystal clear that if Weiland Field was abandon then the school could forget about any future support from the Mc Cook business community. You don’t tear down Fenway Park because of the lack of parking space, nor do you Mc Cook’s Weiland Field. The proposal died a fast and inglorious death.

 The Escort

The necessity of getting the team bus the 10 blocks from the high school to Weiland Field on game nights, while perhaps inconvenient, has spurn a unique Mc Cook tradition: the motorcycle escort. For the last decade the Mc Cook Bison football team’s bus on home game nights has had a woolly group of five to ten leather jacket dressed Harley riders to clear their path to the stadium.  

Just before the group started their duties on one game night, I spoke to a heavily tattooed member who seemed to be the gang’s leader. He would not give me his name - something to do with warrants or statute of limitations - something legal, he said. The group is not school sanctioned, "never heard of those guys" a school administrator tells me with a wink.

The number of bikes for the escort is normally between 6 and 10, "depending who is in jail already by 6 on Friday," the man in charge told me. In addition to riding shotgun for the team bus, they are also in charge of security for the game officials, in a way. "If we win, we protect them to get them out of town, if we lose, we are the ones who chase them out of town," he explains. I am sure he was just kidding. They seemed like nice boys just supporting their team. But, who in Mc Cook does not support the Bison?

Perhaps, no modern industry has changed as drastically over the last two decades as the traditional media, in particular, small market independent radio stations. The evolving of the internet and social media has turned our world of communications upside down. In some ways, it has brought isolated towns like Mc Cook more into the world, similar to 140 years ago when the Sears and Roebuck mail order catalog brought to the isolated small towns of the High Plains almost any modern good any rural person wanted, as long as they lived where a railroad could deliver. But, last week, Sears announced it was going into bankruptcy.

Technology gives us the ability to lessen the barriers of time and distance – and will continue to do so, but, at what price?

Small town radio is a social facilitator; one of the key cornerstones of a supportive community; in essence, the town’s bulletin board. It keeps locals informed at home and at work, and that will never be replaced by Web sites and blogs.

 KICX's Rich Barnett, right

Rich Barnett, since 1989, has manned the long hours’ jobs of sports director and morning news director for Mc Cook FM radio station KICX. Rich’s portfolio would be a fine template for anyone wanting to run a professional small town radio station.  I would bet when Rich was a kid he had hid under his bed a $10 transistor radio, a cheap pair of ear phones and a stash of AA batteries that magically carried through the wonders of the AM airwaves and into his darkened bedroom the magic of far off ball games. I would also bet he had a cheap tape recorder into which he broadcast imaginary games to an audience of none.

Every fall Friday night I put on my Bison sweatshirt and “dial” my laptop into Rich’s detailed call of that night’s game. Streaming brings Rich and the Bison to the world.

In 2013, two years after I had written the book Prairie Blitz, I was contacted by a man in New Jersey. He related to me that he had given my book to his dad as a Father’s Day present. Growing up in a small rural Minnesota town, he told me that attending the Friday night games of the local high school football team was a special father/son memory. He had been forced to move his aging and ailing dad to a retirement home in the town where the son now resided. He said the local high school football in his suburban New Jersey area was too painful to watch; played on Saturday mornings with no crowd and no passion. During the 2013 season, his dad wanted to know more about how the seasons of the three teams I had wrote about were progressing. They started streaming Rich’s live game broadcasts. It became a Friday night ritual father and son looked forward to, conjuring up nostalgic memories of small town Minnesota life of 40 years prior. Soon, several other gentlemen in the retirement home joined in each Friday night to listen to the Bison game. Think about that, a New Jersey retirement home hosting a senior citizen booster club for a Nebraska prairie high school football team of teenage boys. Good job, Rich.

It was a great game, but, it was not supposed to end like this.

The tears flowed freely in the Bison post-game mid-field huddle. A senior class who had bonded as brothers since that first day of 5^th grade football practice with one goal in mind – get to State – were no more. The Bison fell to Waverly by a final score of 36-30.

 Pre-Game

The visiting Vikings overcame a 20-7 first half deficit to roar back and claim the upset victory. Bison standout junior quarterback, Cameryn Berry, rallied his team from two scores down in the fourth quarter to set up a last play potential game winning pass into the Waverly end zone. Berry is a dual threat signal caller, who, incredibly, had not thrown an interception the entire season. His game ending pass was picked off. It was just one of those nights.

An estimated overflow crowd of 3,000 saw one heck of a high school football game. In the end, Waverly quarterback Rhett Jordon was just too much for the Bison: too fast, too strong and too smart. On the first play from scrimmage, he shocked the home team with a 69 yard run. One the last play of the game, he intercepted Berry’s pass in the end zone. In between, he rushed for 297 yards and two touchdowns and initiated the play that the game turned on, a 79-yard TD pass to Mason Nieman for the go-ahead score in the fourth quarter.

 First Family of Bison Football

Coaching high school football is like a poker game. No coach wants to quit when he's losing; the community never wants him to quit when he is ahead.

The overriding question on the mind of all in Mc Cook this November is an obvious one: will Coach Jeff Gross be back on the Bison sideline next fall for a 22^nd season?

When you are a high school football coach, everything in your life comes after your football responsibilities are met. Can Gross still make that commitment? With his plate now overloaded even more than before with his recently assigned principal duties, a son playing college football next fall four hours away from Mc Cook and the now seeming imminent loss of his defensive coordinator; is this not the most ripe of time for Gross to chart a new course?

Gross does his best imitation of the Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope, when asked about his future plans, bobbing and weaving. “I’ve coached way more games than I have in my future, I know that,” is his coy answer.

It has been my pleasure, over the years, to know several coaches like Gross - coaching lifers. They are a special breed. Most will someday retire from coaching - if they live that long.

The Eve of Destruction

“Take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you,

And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,

Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.”

Barry McQuire

“I think it is dangerous because it threatens to vest power in the hands of second-rate men whose only qualification is their ability to pander to other men's fears. I think it divides this nation at a very critical time -- and therefore it weakens us as a united country."

President Lyndon Johnson on the eve of the 1966 mid-term election

In the words of the infamous Rodney King, “can’t we all just get along.”

Downtown Encampment

It is an apt time in our national journey to heed the advice of the nation’s first digital age poster child of police brutality. The late King would have liked current President Donald Trump and Trump would have liked King. The savvy taxi driving product of the streets of Compton and the real estate hustler from Queens have more in common than first appearance would suggest. They both love the “Art of the Deal.” In 1992, King suffered a horrific beating at the hands of the Los Angeles police department. It was recorded by a bystander with a video camcorder. King sued the city in civil court and won a 5 million dollar settlement. He then married one of the jurors.

Today, America is on a direct collision course with itself. Partisan politics have ripped the nation apart from within. Lines of conflict are clearly drawn straight along political party affiliation.

With President Donald Trump as a leader who makes no attempt to hide his impulsiveness and even admits to enjoy the chaos he has orchestrated, the nation rolls unencumbered down a track of future uncertainty. Trump support and disapproval ratings both hover around 50% - a perfect storm for legislative gridlock.

Encampment, Wyoming is populated by 180 hardened mountain souls. I try to visit this hidden jewel, 8000 feet up in the San Juan Mountains of southern Wyoming, at least once a year. After the obligatory visit to the local hot springs, to flush out those nasty toxins of modern day progress, I always next visit the local senior citizen center for a hearty mountain midday meal - no gluten free, decaf coffee or other such snowflake nonsense on this menu  - and the political robust conversation that follows. 

I have learned to grudgingly respect the defiant right wing stance most of my Encampment acquaintances take on current social and economic issues. Some, I proudly report, due to our political conversations over the years, I now consider political adversaries but also, valued friends.

Encampment residents have skin in this game of political debate. Many are fourth or even fifth generation area residents. They are invested in their current lot and do not feel an obligation to supplement those from different and foreign demographics whom they see as lacking in both work ethic and personal pride. They are, justifiably so, proud of the lives they have carved out of this challenging environment and feel no obligation to support through their taxes those who, they feel,  do not share their self-sufficient attitude.

My latest visit to the Cowboy state of Wyoming corresponds with the 2018 mid-term elections. I roll into Carbon County two days before the Tuesday vote and just ahead of an early fall snowstorm.

This election, we have been told incessantly for weeks now by the national media shrill; will be the most definitive mid-term elections in our lives. For the past two years, President Donald Trump has turned the American political landscape into a mine field of conflict and confusion. The now-President promised during his 2016 campaign to shake up Washington D.C., saying he likes chaos, that it is good, keeps everyone on their toes  Call it a promise kept. His pragmatic supporters take a Machiavelli approach - look at the great results he has made so his methods are of secondary or of no concern. Today, thanks to the former reality TV star turned leader of the free world; political chaos reigns.  

Mr. Trump has turned politics into America’s new blood sport, with personal insults, crude descriptions and nicknames of adversaries topped with retaliatory threats to any who oppose or question his behavior or policy. What was once implicit – Trump’s race baiting and other undocumented scare tactics to appeal to his mostly rural white base – is now explicit and by a large portion of America, found to be acceptable.

 City Limits

Trump has been well known for nearly 40 years as a master of media manipulation and self-promotion. He has taken the current mid-term election of 2018, one he is not on the ballot for, and turned it into a personal referendum on him. He is criticized by many politicians, in both parties, for making no attempt to be a president for all Americans. Trump figuratively flips his political middle finger at such whining of what he labels as weak liberals, encouraging his base to cast votes on the basis of fears he intentionally manufactures.

 The President has spent the month before the mid-terms jetting across the country to speak to one after another adoring crowd of mostly rural white supporters. He is desperate to brace up Republican candidates to prevent a congress flip to blue and the possibility of  congressional investigation into Trump’s behavior.

Trump wears the racial, cultural and religious divisiveness his rallies ramp up with one inflammatory statement after another as a badge of unapologetic honor. The press rages in its disdain while Trump loyalists roar their approval. His political incorrectness is a main allure to what he labels the nation’s silent majority.

Make America Great Again, his trademark political statement, resonates with many who until the Trump phenomena felt ignored, unheard and not valued. They see Trump as a long awaited source of entitlement and a politician who finally does not talk down to them. His critics call him a merchant of bigotry who has concocted a noxious mixture of misinformation, half-truths and right out lies to purposely keep the nation divided. Remarkably, a man who was born a millionaire and has lived a life of vast economic privilege has convinced the poorest of white America that he is one of them.

The President is a man addicted to his twitter account. His often bizarre, grammar challenged and cryptic middle of the night tweets are legendary. Perhaps his most braggadocios - and there is a long list of deserving rants to choose from - was his Memorial Day, 2018 communique to the nation: 

“Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18 years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!

Trump, with his five draft deferments due to what he has admitted was a fraudulent claim of bone spurs, has had a hard time selling veterans on his personal patriotic support for the military. He states his main accomplishment as a civilian during the Vietnam War was not catching a sexually transmitted disease. His Memorial Day flippant tweet was not well received by the nation’s veterans. One vet took to twitter to announce his disgust with Presidents tacky tweet. “So, he tells us, “Hey, sorry your dad died in a worthless war in a far off land named Vietnam, but have a “happy” day and look what a great job I am doing.””

The stories of Trump handlers who attempt to keep him distracted and off Twitter are numerous but lacking for much success.

I use Encampment, WY as my stethoscope for detecting the right wing conservative pulse of America. This is Trump country.  No taking a knee during the pre-lunch pledge of allegiance, my wife and traveling partner, wisely advises.

High in the mountains of southern Wyoming, life can be hard. Long frigid winters callous the inhabitants creating an independent streak hard for a flat lander to understand.

Winter and the incessant snow it brings dominate life in Encampment. The short summer is a constant whirlwind of preparation for the soon to hit bitter frozen months. One long time area rancher told me he had seen snow fall in every one of the twelve months of the yearly calendar. There is ice along the banks of the Platte River in early October and often the year's first snow falls before the World Series—a biting white and wet snow that swirls across the high plains and drifts amongst the fall leaves on the one block downtown main street of Encampment. There is, many years, snowbanks by Thanksgiving of over several feet and winter may not end until one final wet blizzard is deposited on the flower beds of May.

R.G. and Lynne Finney have mountain grit and the stubborn independence needed for Wyoming survival. Their political beliefs are conservative to the core, reflecting the rugged individuality the area is known for. R.G. is the Marlboro man aged; his wife, Dodge City’s Miss Kitty; with all the feminine charm of a true lady, but tough enough to corral the most out of line cowboy. Together, they reflect the rugged individuality that won the West. Both, now in their late 70’s, show no sign of slowing down. They will soon celebrate 61 years of marriage. “I got real lucky,” says R.G.

In 1959, R.G. left his native Canada, moving south to the United States and gaining citizenship with the intent to join his newly adoptive nation’s military. At a time when many American young men were making their way north to Canada to avoid the military draft and participation in the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War (or sitting out the conflict with bone spurs), Mr. Finney chose a 180 degree opposite route, in both terms of direction and patriotism. Why not join his native Canadian military, I asked? Not enough action, he responded.

Finney spent 14 years in the military, the first two in the Navy followed by a 12 year hitch in the US Army. He held membership within the elite ranks of the 82nd Airborne Division and the Green Berets. After his military stint ended, Finney attended and graduated with a divinity degree from Dallas, TX Baptist Seminary.

Finney tells me he has never felt better in all the year’s he has been an American citizen about the state of the nation’s vitality than he does today. He gives full credit to the man in the White House. “We needed something done and he has done it,” he says. “For too many years,” he continues, “we have let others walk all over us, not with this president, not today, he means what he says and the rest of the world knows that. Look at the economy, look at the respect we now have around the world. With the last guy, other nations laughed at us. Not now.”

Mrs. Finney’s roots in the Encampment River Valley run deep. Her maternal grandmother, Dixie, moved to the area from Montana in 1917, following a divorce. “Her husband, my biological grandfather,” Lynn tells me, “was just not a good person, but for a woman to divorce her husband in those days, well, it just wasn’t done. It took both courage and faith. And then to set off with a three year old and did it all on her own, it was very hard for a divorced woman in those times.”

Beatrice, Lynn’s mother, was destined to be an only child. She was 3 years old when the two settled in Encampment. “Grandmother had a sister here,” Lynn states in explanation of the destination of the young divorcee. In 1920, Dixie married a local sheep rancher named Orlando Peterson, who a decade earlier had himself migrated from Boston to Encampment. With a young daughter in tow, the three began to build a life on Peterson’s 640 acre mountain homestead. Located on the Continental Divide, 20 miles west of Encampment, 8,000 feet up on a terrain as rugged as any found in the lower 48 states, the blended family’s cabin was snow bound 7 to 8 months of the year.  It was a hard life. Two large mountain meadows provided enough foliage to sustain the family’s small sheep herd, but it was always a fine line they walked with Mother Nature and the mostly self-sufficient lifestyle they embraced for survival.

“It was very isolated way to live,” says Lynn. “They were 40 miles away from anywhere. For eight months of the year, they had no (outside) contact. No electricity and running water only in the summer months. Back then, you were on your own. My mother always called him (Orlando Peterson) her father. He was a good man. He lived until he was 87. After he passed we made my grandmother winter with us. They had a very hard life. My mom knew how to work and she passed it on to me,” says the task oriented Finney.

The improvements made under Trump, according to Mr. Finney, are not being fairly reported by the press. “Look how he has reached out to Israel,” he observes. “And the economy, look how strong it is. The media is all against Trump, except Fox News.”

I ask if Fox is fair and balanced or Trump’s mouthpiece, with political hack Shawn Hannity, disguised as a journalist, his biggest cheerleader. “What about CNN,” he rhetorically asks. “All I watch on the news is Fox. I watch the others and I just get mad.”

 The Finneys

To Lynn Finney, Trump’s accomplishments in the past two years are numerous. “Look what he has done for the veterans,” she states. “Look how he has taken on the opioid problem. We have jobs now and anyone without a job doesn’t want one.”

The Finney’s were gracious in accepting my request of their political views, making an acceptation for me to a long held policy. They have been for years successfully involved in the hospitality industry and do not discuss politics with clients. “People can really get mad about political talk,” Lynn tells me. “We hear a lot (of political talk) and sometimes it is hard to bite your tongue, but it is not good for business to mix in politics. We have made an exception for you.”

I ask the two about health care, a major concern for any senior citizen who has paid their entire working life into a system many now claim will soon implode without a major infusion of tax money. “The whole (system) is not a good system,” R.G. tells me. “Trump has got things going the right way. He has been so busy with this election he needs more time to get it fixed. I am  confident as soon as this election is over he will get (health care) a priority.  He is going to get the drug makers (pharmaceutical industry) under control and then with more people working, more people can afford insurance. I come from Canada and I can tell you the socialist system up there is not what we want.”

His wife adds, “With all the jobs now, people are working and they will able to buy health care coverage they want instead of a free handout I have to pay for. A socialist system will not work, it never has anywhere. President Trump is making people take responsibility for supporting themselves. It is a long time coming.”

“I feel better now about the economy of this country than anytime I have since I became an American citizen,” R.G. summarizes, “and it's all because of Trump. We finally have a president who is not afraid to say what needs to be said and he does what he says.”

Our political stances are very much polar opposites, but I also enjoy the Finney’s company and find their grit inspiring. They have, through hard work and perseverance, lived the Great American Dream. I respect that.

My sister-in-law Cydney and her husband Ron, based on the limited political conversations we have shared, I would tab as moderate conservatives. In the 2016 presidential election, they faced an excruciating problem many Americans bemoaned;

 Cydney and Ron

choosing the lesser of two evils. They did what many moderate Republicans did on that November, 2016 day - held their nose and chose Trump over the much maligned “Crooked Hillary.” It left a bitter taste. “I said to Ron when we got back into the car,” recalls my sister-in law, “‘my goodness, we just voted for Donald Trump to be our President.”’

Look up the mental health conditions of defensive self-esteem and narcissistic rivalry and you will have a better understanding of the behavior of Donald Trump. His thin skin and inability to not lash out when criticized creates the polarizing effect his tenure has wrought. His downfall will not be porn stars, Playboy bunnies or Access Hollywood tapes, but his lack of empathy for anyone but himself.

The POTUS has the self-control of a spoiled 12 year old. He has to have constant affirmation of his brilliance, so it is off to another hastily scheduled pep rally in Missouri, Kentucky or Ohio, where he can rant to his base about the "son of a bitches" in the NFL or how the first amendment is the enemy of the people, with constant braggadocio claiming of sole credit for everything he sees as good in his alternate reality universe of entitlement. Sorry friends, that is just how I see it.

I attempt to talk to as many conservative Republican as I can. In the back water territory I like to roam, they are not hard to find.  I sincerely value views that are different than mine. However, not all are open to my prodding nature. One Encampment gentleman at the “wrinkle club,” as one senior called his daily luncheon companions, told me it was, “none of my business,” when I asked for his views on health care. Never take it personal, I learned a long time ago. Maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he was not happy that my round table discussion delayed the start of the daily after-lunch domino game, or, maybe, he just had me pegged as a liberal asshole.

I see today two major problems conservative politicians must deal with and I am not shy on sharing them with anyone willing to listen. First, being the alt-right Tea Party. In 2018, Trump has completely hijacked this grassroots movement’s platform. His incendiary and inflammatory rhetoric has managed to attract to their ranks almost every bigot looking for a platform to rant from.

Second, the right wing Christian religious fanatics who claim Trump was sent by God to save American Christianity. These self -appointed guardians of the nation’s morality would gladly take us back to the dark days of the middle ages of intolerance. These zealots claim divine intent and biblical justification in their attempts to spread hate and divisiveness amongst us by inventing convenient enemies. Their demonizing anyone who is “different”: blacks, gays, women and other religious beliefs; is an insulting affront to anyone who believes in our constitution. The nutcases at Westboro Baptist Church and The Aryan Brotherhood are radical examples.

It does not take me long to energize a group of conservatives.

 Senior Citizens Center

Bill and Madeline Telfer, like their valley neighbors, the Finneys, have been married for 61 years. “We were real young,” Madeline says. The pair will soon welcome the arrival of their first Great-Great Grandchild. They have a large extended family, scattered far and wide, they enjoy traveling to visit. I had spoken with the couple on a previous visit and had found them to accessible, articulate and easy to talk with, but very hunkered down in their conservative beliefs.

 Bill is retired from a long career with AT&T, the large telephone conglomerate. The job kept the family on the move and they say they now enjoy their permanent residence in Encampment, both having been raised in the immediate area. Makes a good base to hang out when not visiting grand kids, Bill tells me.

Health Care is a major concern of both. They, understandably are frustrated with the bureaucratic tangle that muddles their medical needs. “It is just constant change,” says Bill.  He feels powerless. “I will get a letter saying the insurance will not cover the medicine I have been on and have to switch to this other drug. I feel that should be up to me and my doctor. What if the new medicine doesn’t work as well for me? Nobody in the government seems to care.”

Madeline shares with me the logistic struggles when living in a rural remote setting like Encampment and how those challenges are magnified when choices are limited. “One of us might need to see a specialist in Boulder and the other a doctor in Cheyenne.” She feels a loss of ownership in her own health care management. “They tell us what doctors we can see and which ones we can’t. I have some serious health problems and it is not just like I can not go.”

“They need to leave our social security alone, stop raiding the fund when the government needs money,” Bill says. Both feel that the mandatory insurance component of Obama Care was unfair, even “illegal.” Obama Care was unpopular and a constant talking point of conservative politicians. Candidate Trump promised to make the removal of the hated mandatory  component the first priority of his presidency. Promise 'kept, as Trump supporters like to say, but now what?

I have never understood the opposition to the mandatory insurance rule. I discuss this at length with senior citizens. The Finney's and the Telfer's both feel insurance companies should be made to cover pre-existing conditions. That is why, I explain, we have to have mandatory laws for coverage.

To me, is seems to be elementary that if citizens only buy insurance when they need it, the system cannot support itself. Social welfare programs, like social security, only sustain themselves if you have a wide base at the bottom paying in more than they receive in benefits.

 Orlando and Dixie Peterson,
circa 1960

With all insurance plans (and Social Security) the youngest and normally healthiest members provide the base that pays in much more than they take out. The same principles are valid with property insurance. Eliminating the mandatory component from health care would be akin to buying insurance after your house burns down and expecting to be able to make one small monthly payment to an insurance company who will then rebuild your house because they have to honor pre-existing conditions, in this case, a house fire. It will not work that way.

Health Care has become the most effective weapon of accountability today for the democrats to attack republicans based on the first two years of the Trump administration. Trump has dismantled Obama Care as much as he can. Only the dramatic midnight vote of a dying John McCain stopped Trump and the Republican Senate from finishing the job.

Trump bought a house with several annoying roof leaks. As promised, he has torn off the old roof but has not yet started building a “wonderful” new replacement. Most troubling, there is no sight or sign of any building materials at the construction site and the immediate forecast calls for heavy rain.

 Dr. Cowboy Bill Johnson

Trump promised many times during the 2016 campaign, and has continued to claim during the first half of his presidential term, that he has a “wonderful,” and “beautiful,” alternate health care plan. However, the nation has yet to see even a vague plan of what is an incredibly complex problem to solve. The national polls show, and my conversations with the senior citizens in Encampment validate, that a pall of concern is starting to erode away any senior citizen trust for Trump and the Republicans assurances on health care.

Considering Trump’s past dealings in the business world, his six bankruptcies and his numerous business adventures that have enriched him but left his investors holding an empty bag of unfulfilled promises while often landing Trump as a defendant in a fraud law suit, the first ripples of alarming concern amongst his many staunch older supporters is, in my opinion, well placed.

A gentleman at our senior citizen’s discussion made the point, shared by many in this nation, that he didn’t trust the nation’s press core. “They all lie,” he said. “If they don’t like you, they make you look bad. They don’t like Trump, so they twist his words to mean what he doesn’t mean.” Fair assessment I counter, but does the president, with his unprecedented attacks on the first amendment of freedom of the press, bring some of his problems upon himself? Two clichés: don’t pick fights with those who buy ink by the barrel and the pen is mightier than the sword.

The gentlemen did agree with my assessment that both sides try to keep us apart. “They all label people, depending if you agree with them are not.” No more independent thinkers is a problem of D.C. today, he felt. The recent confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Bret Kavanaugh is a chilling assessment; a senate approval vote of 50-48, strictly along party lines. Not even one independent maverick? Why even bother holding a hearing?

 Cutting into
Domino Time

“We are told all the time that there are new standards, but what are they, what is okay and not okay, nobody has an answer,” he continued. I can’t dispute his concerning observation. He felt that the left was mainly responsible for the lack of civility found in today’s political climate. “You can’t even go into a restaurant and sit down and have a decent meal without some nut screaming in your face,” he spat out between clinched teeth.” On this point, I agreed the democrats have been hurt by the sometimes violent displays of resistance to the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. I would hope, I said, these are isolated incidents that Fox News has sensationalized and not typical or acceptable behavior by the left. These images scare elderly Americans and play right into Trump’s narrative of us vs. them. “CNN does the same thing,” the local man  countered.

A Navy veteran in the group was the one dissenting voice on the canonization of St. Donald. “He is a divider,” he commented. Drawing on his military experience he emphasized the need for team work. “We have got to start to come together, stop all of the fighting. Right now, instead of trying to make things better for the people, all each side cares about is hurting the other. And we out here are the ones suffering. It is on both sides, but the President should take the lead. He is our leader, and he needs to lead.”

I make a mental note to place learning more from and about Bill “Cowboy” Johnson on the top of my agenda of my next trip to Encampment. We talk in passing as I am escorted by an anxious troop of domino players off the floor. Bill tells me has been a lifetime rancher, discarding what he was trained for as a clinical psychologist. In fact, he is Dr. Wadsworth, holding a doctoral degree in his specialty. A range Cowboy riding trail while analyzing the mental health of his heard? There is a good story here, I am sure.

“This a great place to live,” Cowboy tells me. “I would like to talk politics with you again. I enjoyed it so be sure to come back.”  And that, Cowboy, is a plan.

The much anticipated mid-term elections are now complete. The result: A Blue Wave meets a Red Wall.

The Democrats picked up 28 seats and now have control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years. The makeup of the House is now darker, younger and more female than ever. These are not the demographics that fit Trump’s base and this is the first time Trump has to deal with a legislature not controlled by his own party.

The Republicans held on to the Senate by gaining either three or four seats for a majority of four or five. The Arizona race has a razor thin spread and is now undergoing a recount.

The day before the election, the President sounded more temperate than normal.  "I would like to have a much softer tone," he told the Sinclair Broadcast Group. "I feel to a certain extent I have no choice, but maybe I do and maybe I could have been softer from that standpoint."

Twenty four hours later he has returned to his old combative self.

At what can only be described as an “unworldly,” day after news conference, the President for 90 minutes released all of venom at his usual punching bags; the Press, Democrats and the “witch hunt,” Justice Department’s investigation of possible collusion by the Trump campaign with the Russians to win the 2016 Presidential election. 

Trump was intent on taking a victory lap, declaring the prior  evening’s results as a “marvelous, all most total,” victory for him (he failed to share credit with the Republicans whole won races for both the Senate and the House).  "It was a big day yesterday. Incredible day," he crowed, despite his party losing control of half the legislative branch. He called the evening’s national vote as confirmation the American people, “think I am doing a great job.” Exit polls showed 54% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

Trump is master at the linguistic gymnastics of twisting the facts. He suggests a view, then he declares the view as fact, then announces confidently that “other people say this,” or “many people tell me all the time,” but never shares the source or documentation of his vague self-serving declarations.

 The Mangy Moose

He sparred loudly with the media in the day after news conference, labeling them again, “the enemy of the people.” Repeatedly telling reporters asking questions he did not like to “sit down.” He twice ordered aides to “take the microphone away, take it away, now,” from a credentialed media member. He told one of his main media targets, CNN’s Jim Acosta: "You should let me run the country. You run CNN.” And then later, "That's enough. Put down the mic. CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude terrible person." Later that evening Trump pulled Acosta’s white house press past.

And of course, the President attempted to obstruct a Department of Justice investigation into, amongst other charges, that the President had obstructed justice. (I know, it is complicated.) "This is a investigation where many, many millions of dollars has been spent, and there's no collusion. It was supposed to be on collusion. There's no collusion. And I think it's -- I think it's very bad for our country, I will tell you. I think it's a shame."

Later in the day of Trump’s wrath, he  fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and named Matt Whitaker as acting attorney general. Sessions had been a favorite target of Trump’s displeasure over the investigation of Trump. He had expected the Attorney General to show loyalty to the President as opposed as to the American public. Whitaker has been a high profile critic of the Trump investigation. He now will oversee the same investigation he has criticized. Trump called his new appointee, “a loyalist.”

Trump threatened Democrats if they exercised the constitutional demand of oversight of the executive branch and conducted any investigation of the White House. "But they can play that game, but we can play it better, because we have a thing called the United States Senate, and a lot of very questionable things were done, between leaks of classified information and many other elements that should not have taken place."

To complete the day, he even threatened and ridiculed Republicans who did not “embrace,” his support in their individual campaigns.

"You had some that decided to, 'Let's stay away. Let's stay away.' They did very poorly. I'm not sure that I should be happy or sad, but I feel just fine about it……. "But Mia Love gave me no love. And she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia…….. "I think she could have won that race, but she didn't want to have any embrace…….. "Peter Roskam didn't want the embrace. Erik Paulsen didn't want the embrace."

This is the leader of the free world speaking.

Over the last two months before the election, Trump endorsed and campaigned for 99 Republicans. Fifty-one lost, 33 won, and 15 are still, the day after the election, too close to call. Support from Trump worked very well with his established base, but fell flat in areas Trump has ignored.

As the debacle of a press conference ground on, Trump’s dialogue, as it often does when he becomes angry, became incoherent. "You can't do them simultaneously, by the way. Just think, if somebody said 'Oh, you can do them,' no you can't. Cause if they're doing that, we're not doing the other, just so you understand," was his answer to a question on a middle class tax cut.

If you want civil discourse then you must speak with respect, listen with tolerance (I prefer speaking with tolerance as opposed to listening, but I am working on it) and don’t take yourself too seriously. We are currently in the throes of leadership that benefits from a disunited populace. We need to break free from the con we currently live under.

We must not only seek common ground amongst our diverse populace, we must demand our elected leaders work to find it. The status quo of tribalism – you and me against them – must be eradicated from our political landscape, along with those who promote dividing us further for political gain. It starts with civility towards others, no matter what their political beliefs.

If you feel hope is lost, visit Encampment, Wyoming.