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Welcome!
I am glad you are here, and I hope to get to know you. Friends and readers are vital to discussions, whether in person or written. I hope you’ll become a conversation partner or reader friend. Join my Journey! You’ll feel energized, inspired and motivated.
This site is devoted to my writing, creative and expository, to guitar and vocal performances, and to readings and lectures since retirement. It is dedicated to friends, family members, fellow writers, and guitarists and vocalists. Below, some favorite snapshots.
See the latest posts of my creative writing efforts and my favorite Cheyenne Post columns in the pages following.
The poster to the left anounces a panel of speakers, of which I am one, at the Africa MAAFA conference. My topic will be unresolved grief my own and African American. For the latter, it is the mourning and grief of the displacement and dispersal of Africans dragged into foreign countries as slaves; the grief over injustices and discrimination that dominate African American lives after all this time to the apathy of white Americans, the grief over lives lost to unjustified police violence. Unresolved grief brings with it an intense rage, often unacknowledged. I'll be relying on Ta-Nehisi Coates's book-length essay, Between the World and Me, which eloqauently expresses the grief no doubt shared by many African Americans--and also Coates's rage. Please see my essay on rage and grief on the "Columns Cheyenne Post" page.
About my fellow speakers, Mohamed Salih is a firend of long standing dating to the time I sang in the UUCC choir which his daughter directed; Mohamed himself was a frequent visitor to our church where he directed an Islamic prayer service on Friday evenings. A few years ago he moved with his family to Denver.
Above: It's June 2, 20203,a rainy day, but poppies and lilac are beginning to bloom around my house.
These pictures are of Rafaël Feuillâtre and his jaw-dropping virtuosity on the guitar at an April 28, 2023, performance in Cheyenne, WY, see my essay on the "Columns Cheyenne Post" page of this site, entitled "Monsieur."
The guitarist was born in Djibouti, a country on the northeastern coast of Africa then in the grip of a civil war. Having been adopted at an early age, he grew up in the town of Cholet in western France. Some of his compositions reflect his African roots but also his life in France.
It's early May 2023 and I am visiting my youngest son and family in California with my canine companion. Just now staying with grandkids while their parents are away on vacation. AJ is in high school and active in baseball; his sister Grace will be in middle school come fall.
On another matter, before leaving for Calif. I attended the performance of a fine classical guitarist from France. Click here to read what I wrote about it in the Cheyenne Post, an online news outlet. My original essay is this:
A sunset at my house on Windy Acres, 50 miles north of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and 17 miles south of Wheatland. After an early snowstorm in October 2019, Eugenavich Tevs captured the image.
Above, a picture from the time when Andy and his children visited from California along with his oldest brother and family from Texas. Above is a pic of Andy's boy and girl with their cousin Amanda and an exchange student from Japan who lived with Amanda's family during her school vacation of, I believe, two weeks. Her time in the US was marred by homesickness, poor baby.
To the right, Amanda on her horse Athena, at home in Texas.
To the right: Playing Teleman with fellow guitarists Russ Williams and Bill Bailey. Photo by Keith Blaney.
I continue to be active in the Guitar Society where, apart from solo pieces, Russ Williams and I have played duets.
Above: Playing the Japanese "Sakura," "Cherry Blossoms" in preparation for a performance at Slater Community House.To the right: Singing Amanda McBroom's "The Rose" in three-part harmony at Unitarian Universalist Church of Cheyenne. To the left is Pianist Priscilla Golden.
Below: With Achilles, the dog owned by a short-term tenant; to the right, with my dog Abby, also in Cheyenne. Abby came to me in June 2015. At eighteen months old she had three previous owners and would not allow me to touch her. This has changed, now that she has come to know me. Lucky for me, she loves to travel.
Above: California sons and grandsons, enjoying a day at the beach. Those grandsons have since grown into college students. Next to them: Abby again.
Below right: Edith and Abby with visiting dogs Scout and Cota, whose owners, my son Frank and his spouse Beth, visited also. Early June 2022, still cool enough to wear long sleeves.
Below left: with guitar partner Russell Williams performing at Cheyenne Guitar Society in the library of Laramie County; to the right, a more recent solo performance, also at CGS. See Music Gallery page for recordings, including a recent YouTube video with Landon Peck.
