Facebook: You Can Run, But You Can't Hide - 5/28/2011

Last week, through the miracle of Facebook, I was contacted by a woman that I once dated, but hadn’t spoken to in 17 years. I know what you are thinking: one of my sperm had matured and now needed a kidney and/or a college education. No, she contacted me because I had been on her mind for nearly two decades. Well, she hadn’t pined away too much; as she has been married for the last 10 years to the same guy she was dating when I met her. He must be a real catch if someone like me can hold her interest. I am not the kind of man who holds a woman’s attention through the checkout line at Costco.

When I was assured that she was not tracking me down to kill me, I relaxed and enjoyed the contact. It was not nearly as awkward as one would expect.

Lucky for her that there are only three people named Rick Wainright on Facebook, and one of them is my son. I did not have the same good fortune while searching for my old Air Force friend, John Smith. There are nearly 80,000 of them, but I remain optimistic.

I remembered this woman fondly, but she has detailed memories of our short time together that I had long forgotten. And it seems that she was somewhat distraught when I packed up and moved without telling her or even saying goodbye. I honestly had no idea that I meant more to her than a port in the storm. Though it gives me a warm feeling to have someone nearly 2,000 miles and a lifetime away remembering me, I am also very sorry that I ended up hurting her by my absence and thoughtlessness. I have chosen to live a solitary life, but occasionally take comfort in the company of others. I guess I never considered the possibility that others have also taken solace in my companionship.

I want to take this time to somewhat publicly apologize to any woman who found herself in the path of my willy-nilly journey to the abyss. And a word of advice to women: if you like a guy, you might mention it to him before he moves on to the next thing. We don’t tend to be too perceptive and our attention span is very short.

But I take a little satisfaction in thinking of her thinking of me as her husband is trying to give her a good rogering. I never liked the little shit anyway.

Writer's Island "Embarrassing Predicament" & Sunday Scribblings "Stranger" - 11/16/08

This weeks prompt of “Embarrassing Predicament” from Writer’s Island and “Stranger” from Sunday Scribblings lend themselves to this story. My kids have been encouraging me to write about this event, not one of my finest moments. First, a bit of background.

I retired from the Air Force in 1992 and for some reason, still unknown to me, moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming. I went to work for the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) as the sole Wyoming field rep. My job in a nutshell was to sit in bars and listen to music, writing down what I heard. You see, to play music in public you are required to have a license which pays the creators of that music royalties. My job was to build a case against those that refused to purchase a license. Some called me the music police.

I received a pretty good salary and a company car. Pretty good gig. Except for one thing, Wyoming is freaking huge and traversing it winter is nearly impossible. For those not familiar, Cheyenne is almost not even in Wyoming. It is on the extreme southeastern border. The drives to Mammoth, which is almost not even in Wyoming on the extreme Northwestern border or Evanston, which is almost not even in Wyoming to the Southwest, are grueling. So I decided to move to the exact center of the state. It didn’t exactly take Euclid to find the center, since Wyoming is almost a perfect rectangle. This task would have been much more difficult had I been somewhere like Michigan.

The exact center of Wyoming is in the middle of nowhere (as most of Wyoming is) on Highway 20, near the town of Powder River, with a population of 51. So I selected the closest town with streetlights and a gas station. I moved to Riverton, Wyoming in 1994. Riverton is a nice town of a little under 10,000, with a great golf course (very important to me).

As Wyoming cities go, it is a virtual megalopolis, 9th largest in the state. Some of you who live in more populous areas are now gasping at this amazing fact. You are also wondering where this embarrassing predicament with a stranger occurs. OK, here it is.

Riverton sets smack dab inside the Wind River Reservation. This huge piece of wasteland is shared by two tribes, the Arapaho and the Shoshoni. I knew nothing of Native Americans (though I have some blood) other than what I had seen in old westerns. I have since found out that those accounts were somewhat slanted. I had heard about a lot of crime on the reservation, but most of it is between the two competing tribes. A bit like the Crips and the Bloods or the Hatfields and McCoys. They don’t necessarily love each other. But, though I am a white eye, I was still a bit wary of being a stranger.

Late one night, I was leaving the IGA grocery store, walking to my Ford Taurus POS company car. Two young Native American men cut me off from my car. That part of the parking lot was nearly empty. They were saying something to me, but Native American’s are very soft-spoken and speak almost under their breath. They also have a strong accent and dialect that I became familiar with later. I could not understand them but I knew one thing for sure. I had only been in town for a week or so and I was being robbed. I had a bag of groceries cradled in one arm and a gallon of milk hanging from the other. My survival instincts took over. I was not going to be a victim. In a surprise attack, I swung the gallon of milk upward as hard as I could against the jaw of one of my assailants. He went airborne over the hood of my car. The plastic jug exploded, showering the crime scene and me with milk. The other thug ran away before I could select something in my grocery bag to hit him with.

Almost immediately a police car arrived with blue lights blazing. The city cop asked me what happened and I proudly told him my heroic story. He started laughing, which I thought odd. He said, "You ain't from around here are ya? They weren't robbers, they were beggars. They wanted your change." I tried to explain and he waved me off. He said, "I will take care of them, just don't be clobbering our citizens with 2%." Luckily, the unconscious Arapaho draped across my car was not seriously injured. I was really sorry about what happened. I could have just said no. I am sure those two guys were not expecting my reaction to "spare change?" Put yourself in their moccasins. You ask a stranger for some change and WHAM, he initiates a homogenized attack on you. I left some money with the cop to give them. Not really, but, in hindsight, I wish I would have. It would just make me sound like less of a jerk.

I went back into the store to get a fresh jug of milk and a paper towel. The night manager met me with one of each. He said it was on the house because watching that episode was worth it. He had called the police to get rid of the beggars, who were bothering customers. He hadn't expected a vigilante would show up. For the rest of my six years in Riverton, every time I saw that particular police officer or any of the IGA night crew, I was referred to as the milkman. Coincidentally, I was never approached by panhandlers again.

People that know me know that I am a charitable person and not prone to attacks on Shriners, the homeless, or Habitat for Humanity volunteers.

Sunday Scribblings - If I had to live at a different time in history - 10/12/08

This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is "If I had to live at a different time in history":

When I lived in Wyoming, my job often required that I drive across its lonely expanse in winter, which lasted September through May in a mild year. I had lots of time to reflect, as there were miles and miles where the only broadcasts on the radio were the cattle report or cowboy poetry readings. It always amazed me looking across the frozen, high plains, with its predominant forty mile an hour wind creating horizontal snowfall, how the pioneers survived. I had all the modern conveniences and I was still miserable during the dark months.





Interstate 80, which is one of the main arteries of the United States, linking San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, travels across southern Wyoming. This 400 mile stretch is obviously the weak link in the entire 3,000 mile journey. Interstate 80 rises to an elevation of nearly 9,000 feet near Laramie, but the mean is around 5,000 feet. I say this because there are times each winter that huge portions of it are impassable due to whiteout conditions. Gates are closed and all traffic stops. Motorists have the option of returning to the nearest town (of which there are few) or remaining in their vehicle. I have seen miles of tractor trailers parked waiting for the interstate to reopen. Every spring thaw they find motorists that elected to remain in their vehicles. And I80 is a major superhighway; you don’t even want to know about county and secondary road conditions.











Wyoming weather is extreme and unpredictable. With that in mind, consider piloting a Conestoga wagon across the prairie not knowing when a beautiful autumn day was going to turn to a deadly blizzard. I would have been a horrible member of a wagon train. I think I would prefer freezing to death to climbing into a fresh buffalo carcass to keep warm. They were an amazingly hearty people, surviving disease, weather, bandits, and Indians that did not wish to be colonized. I am not a pioneer. In spite of nearly 30 days in the Boy Scouts, I have absolutely no survival skills. I cannot start a fire without an excellerant. I could not track an animal on the beach. Every knot I have ever tied came loose on its own. I am allergic to everything that grows or blows. If I go more than eight hours without eating I become a one-man Donner Party.


My microwave stopped working the other day and it created a crisis that made me temporarily forget about my disappearing 401K. A lost remote control in my home is cause for sending out a search party. Lost car keys require the formation of a posse. As a frontiersman, I would have been considered a tenderfoot. I am all right with that.

Wordless Wednesday - Cheyenne, Wyoming 8/1/1985