Robert Greer's "Astride a Pink Horse" explores the twisted legacy of Wyoming's atomic era

Robert Greer

Robert Greer left Gary, Indiana, as soon as he could to attend college and eventually become the only international cancer specialist and best-selling African-American mystery writer to raise cattle in Platte County, Wyoming.

Not a bad claim to fame.

Robert has a new book coming out in March 2012:

ASTRIDE A PINK HORSE North Atlantic Books Hardcover: March 27, 2012, ISBN-13: 978-1583943694 

The Cold War ended years ago, or did it? 

For Thurmond Giles, a decorated African American Air Force veteran found dead, naked, and dangling by his ankles inside an entry tube to a deactivated minuteman missile silo in desolate southeastern Wyoming, the answer is no. The labyrinthine investigation that follows, led by Air Force fighter pilot Major Bernadette Cameron and ex-college baseball phenom-turned-reporter Elgin "Cozy" Coseia, reveals how the atomic era's legacy has continued to destroy minds and lives. 

Set in contemporary times, Astride a Pink Horse follows Bernadette, Cozy, and Cozy's eccentric boss Freddie Dames as they match wits with a gallery of unforgettable murder suspects: a powerful, politically connected cattle rancher, long bitter over government seizure of his land for defense purposes and the expulsion of his son from the U.S. Air Force Academy; a declining 76-year-old WWII-era Japanese internment camp victim and her unstable math professor nephew; an idealistic lifelong nuclear arms protestor; and a civilian Air Force contractor with a 20-year-old grudge against the murder victim. Do three amateur detectives stand a chance against these characters and the conspiracy that may be behind it all? 

Robert Greer's trademark mix of vivid eccentrics, surprising plot twists, and political edge makes this one of his most memorable thrillers.

Public art celebrates creativity and innovation and heritage and open minds

"Triangle" by Kirsten Kokkin in Loveland, Colo.

Public art can become a very personal thing.

I work in the arts, so know how one little statue can blow up into a huge controversy.

Today's Denver Post explored that city's public art program, and similar programs in Loveland, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction. The Denver percent for art program has been in place since 1977, which gives the city 34 years of perspective on art in the public eye. The most recent controversy raged around the bucking mustang sculpture with the crazy eyes that greets motorists at DIA. As many of you know, this is the sculpture that killed its creator. I'm not being facetious. The sculpture-in-progress fell on New Mexico artist Luis Jiminez and killed him. Now many Coloradans consider it cursed. Its nicknames include "Blucifer" and "Satan's Steed." The mustang is now legend.

To Denver's credit, its program mandates that an artwork stays up for five years once it's installed. The work passes through a review process before it's made and installed. It's not cheap to install a 32-foot horse along a public roadway. You don't want to take it down and put it back up every few months.

And then there's naked people. Loveland, epicenter of public sculpture, installed a bronze called "Triangle" by Kirsten Kokkin at a major intersection. It features three naked humans forming a triangle, thus the piece's name. My far would have been hat every teen boy in town would be climbing the sculpture searching for the naughty bits. But who needs sculpture when teen boys can prowl live sex sites via their home computer?

The "Triangle" artist has obviously studied the human form with the same attention to detail that motivated Michelangelo. I'm often amazed that people continue to care about putting sculptures in the parks and along their roads. But they do. And as in Michelangelo's time, public patrons provide the impetus and funding to do so. There may be some tussles along the way, but once a public work of art catches hold, it becomes a landmark. Witness downtown Denver's Big Blue Bear sculpture by Lawrence Argent. Witness the Lane Frost sculpture at Cheyenne's CFD Old West Museum. Witness the Chief Washakie sculpture in front of the Washakie Dining Hall at UW in Laramie. Witness Robert Russin's Abraham Lincoln head at welcome center on I-80 celebrating The Lincoln Highway. Witness the UW Art Museum and its "Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational" with its many innovative works. Some of those sculptures were not meant to last, as in Patrick Dougherty's sculpture made of locally harvested saplings. Witness the entire city of Loveland, Colo., once a sleepy enclave between Denver and Fort Collins, home to commuters and retirees, to a lively city filled with sculptures and international sculpture shows (coming up in August).

Patrick Dougherty, "Short Cut," 2008

Many Wyoming cities have gone gaga over sculpture. Every corner in Sheridan's historic downtown features a work of art. Gillette has an Avenue of Sculpture. Cheyenne is planning the same thing along Capitol Avenue between the State Capitol and the Historic Train Depot. The newly renovated Capitol Plaza features statues of suffragist Esther Hobart Morris and Shoshone leader Chief Washakie. Across the street on the grounds of the Wyoming Arts Council, a sculpture of iconic Western artist William Gollings paints the scene (his painting of the Capitol is on the wall inside the building). At the other end of the street, a new sculpture of a pioneer woman carrying a valise and disembarking from a train celebrates Wyoming's "Equality State" moniker. In Wyoming, "Equality State" is always a work in progress.

That's also true for public art. Always a work in progress. New work goes up to admire and gawk at and maybe even complain about.

From May through October, tourist buses arrive daily in downtown Cheyenne. Groups of Japanese and Russians and Chinese tourists swarm over the Capitol grounds. They take each other's pictures by the Bison and by Esther and by the cowboy on the bucking bronco. They might go into the Capitol (if it's open) but time is short and they need some memories of their travels. Artwork on the Capitol grounds provides that.

Some of our legislators and public servants feel that art is a frill, that it provides no real benefit to Wyomingites and to the tourists that stoke the state's number two industry.

Buffalo soldier statue near Warren AFB in Cheyenne (USAF photo)

These people are short-sighted and possibly blinded by Tea Party rhetoric. The Governor of Kansas was so blinded by it that he eliminated the state arts council. Others, such as the Governor of Maine, banish works of art that they don't agree with. This negates one of the main goals of public art, which is to get the viewer to think about the site's culture and heritage. A mural of union workers can do that (although people in Maine have been spared that experience). A statue of a mountain lion can do that, as will the new sculpture at the Wyoming Vistitors' Center on I-90 near Hulett. The statue and commemorative plaques celebrating the buffalo soldier near Warren AFB's main gate opens up a new chapter in frontier and African-American history. Some of these soldiers came out West post-slavery to find more opportunities and less prejudice. It also brings up the fact that the U.S. military was officially desegregated by Pres. Truman in 1948, way before schools and businesses and transportation and your local Woolworth's counter.

It's tough to keep an open mind in these most close-minded of times. But our future depends on it.

"Freedom Riders" asks: Would you put your life on the line?

An amazing documentary. My wife and I saw it on WY Public TV several weeks ago. Donate to Truthout and get a fee copy. 

I shock Tea Party Slim: "You guys are geniuses!"

Tea Party Slim couldn't wait to hear what I learned at Netroots Nation. He was pounding on my door five minutes after I returned from my trip.

"Let me sum it up," I said. "You Tea Party types are (pause for effect) geniuses."

This knocked Slim for a loop. "Geniuses?"

There was a time when I would have responded the same way. Geniuses? The same guys and gals with kindergarten spelling skills, who get all their news from the Fox Propaganda Channel, who shout nonsense at Congressional town meetings?

"Let me rephrase. I'm a little groggy from five days of Liberal politics."

"God forbid." There was a strange light in Slim's eyes, as if imagining Life in Hell.

"The Tea Party movement is genius," I rephrased.

"The Tea Party movement?"

"The big picture, Slim. The motivating force behind all of you."

"You mean the Constitution? The dreams that motivated our founding fathers?"

I summarized a presentation by Van Jones. Van Jones is an environmental advocate, civil rights activist and attorney. He's black, too. All of these assets made him a conservative target in 2009 when Pres. Obama appointed him as point man for the Green Jobs Economy.

"Van Jones said that he spent the past year studying the Tea Party," I said. "His conclusion: there is no Tea Party. It has no director, no D.C. office, no receptionist. It's an open-source brand."

I could tell that Slim was wary, as if he was being lured led into some kind of Liberal trap.

"I know what this is," he said. "It' something anyone can use."

"That's right. A brand ready-made for every Right Wing group in the country. Anti-immigrant groups, Ayn Rand Book Groups, KKK..."

"There you go," he said. "We're not Right Wing, we're true conservatives. You Lefties want to paint us a radicals."

"Lefties?" I smiled. "You got me. Anyway, there were thousands of 'true conservative" organizations ready to adopt the Tea Party mantle. Those small groups became a large force of like-minded people pushing their politicians."

"And we won in 2010."

"Yes, and you want to win forever. But you can't."

A wry smile from Slim. "Wanna bet?"

"No offense, Slim, but you're old and white. I'm getting there too. Tea Party rallies feature gray hairs and gray beards and people with walkers."

"And we vote in large numbers."

"Agreed. But you and I are an endangered species, Slim. Sure, you elected people like Rick Scott and Scott Walker and hundreds of ultra-conservative legislators all across the U.S."

"And a U.S. House majority -- don't forget that."

"How could I?" I shivered as my mind flashed on an image of Michelle Bachmann. "But your crazies are motivating us. Those Wisconsin legislators who bullied teachers and firefighters are being recalled. Young people are rising up. And progressives have open-source brands of our own."

"Name one."

"Rebuild the Dream, for one."

"And Van Jones is the big cheese?"

"No, he's just getting the ball rolling. Local groups in Wyoming can be a part of it and won't have to pay dues or kowtow to some vaunted leader. The Netroots will be a part of it too."

"Bloggers." Slim said it with scorn.

I decided to switch the narrative, a timeworn Republican trick that Dems are slowly beginning to learn. "How does it feel to be a trailblazer?"

He brightened. "So you're coming to our Open-Source Brand Tea Party rally Friday at the State Capitol?"

"I'm at every Tea Party rally, Slim. Usually I come to privately revel in my scorn. This time I'm attending for research."

"Research?"

"Sure. Van Jones said he wants his open-source brand to be as warm and fuzzy, kind and sharing, as the Tea Party. And as patriotic -- liberty and justice for all, eh?"

Slim rose and headed for the door. "I'll see Friday at noon. Better wear protective coloration and not that." He pointed at my red-white-and-blue Democracy for America T-shirt.

"You guys don't believe in democracy?"

"We're a republic -- as in Republican."

And I thought we were making progress, Slim and I. Maybe we will find common ground Friday at the Tea Party rally.

Photo: Van Jones says that the Tea Party could be a model for Liberal activists.

Bob Greer comes to Cheyenne to talk about his books and African-American history in the West

My wife Chris is on the planning committee for the annual Cheyenne Juneteenth celebration and the fund-raising banquet put on by the Wyoming NAACP. Chris and I are both proud members of the NAACP and freckle-faced Celts of Scots (she) and Irish (me) heritage. My Mom was Black Irish, if that means anything.

Chris asked me about a speaker for the Juneteenth dinner. I suggested Robert Greer, Dr. Robert Greer, "Bob" to most of us. Bob found a fine literary magazine, the High Plains Literary Review, back in 1986 and accepted my first published story in 1990. I'm eternally grateful for his good taste. I've read two of his CJ Floyd novels and listened to the audiobook for another while driving across Wyoming several summers ago.

CJ Floyd is a bailbondsman working out of the colorful Bail Bonds Row across the the Denver Police Department. Several of CJ's adventures have taken him all the way to Wyoming. Usually he is ferreting out miscreants and consulting with his sources in the city's Five Points neighborhood, which was the black section of town during the racist days of red-lining. Denver attempted to keep all the "Coloreds" in Five Points, Larimer Street and Lower Downtown, now the Yuppie and artsy enclave of LoDo. Denver thought that an invisible red line would stop minorities from migrating to the swankier parts of town.

My mother used to take us to our family doctors down in Five Points. Our doctors' names were Kobayashi, Momei and Hosakawa. Colored folks. Nisei. Two of the three fought with the 442 Regimental Combat Team in World War II. My father, a World War II vet of the European Theatre, never went with us. He never objected to my Mom's choice of doctors. But he was a product of his times and he was damned if he was going to go to a "Jap" doctor.

Denver has an intriguing history and Bob does his best to inject it into his mysteries.

Bob will come to the Cheyenne Holiday Inn on Saturday, June 4, to speak at the annual banquet of the Wyoming NAACP. His theme will be the contributions that African-Americans made to the history of the West. He will sign copies of his books from 6-7 p.m.. Dinner will follow, with Dr. Greer's speech at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 per person, $50 per couple. You can purchase tickets for the event by calling Abe Stevenson at 307-634-8304 or Bennie McLaughlin, 307-634-5527.

When he's not writing, Dr. Greer is a professor of pathology, medicine, surgery and dentistry at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in. He also holds a master's degree in creative writing from Boston University and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Miami University of Ohio, his alma mater.

Greer has lived in Denver for thirty years. In 1986 he founded High Plains Literary Review and continues to serve as its editor-in-chief. He is the author or co-author of three medical textbooks and over 125 scientific articles. His short stories have appeared in dozens of national literary magazines and his short story collection, Isolation and Other Stories, published in 2000 by the Davies Group Publishers, is also wonderfully illustrated.

Greer has been involved in cancer research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center for more than thirty years. In 1983 his research group was the first in the world to report a synergistic link between smokeless tobacco use and human papillomaviruses in certain cancers of the mouth. That research foundation is the basis for the plot of his novel,The Devil's Hatband,the author's first novel featuring Denver bail bondsman and detective CJ Floyd. Several of his novels are set in Wyoming.

Spoon, Greer’s 2009 novel of the contemporary American West, won the Colorado Book Award for literary fiction. It also was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Spur Award and received the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union 2010 Media of the Year Award. Wyoming’s Craig Johnson, author of Another Man's Moccasins and The Dark Horse, had this to say about the novel: "With Spoon, Robert Greer tells the story of a modern-day range war in wildfire prose both taut and lyrical."

Greer also reviews books for a Denver National Public Radio affiliate, KUVO, and raises cattle on a ranch in Platte County, Wyoming

Cheyenne marks the 25th anniversary of King holiday

Today we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Many speeches will be delivered, many of the man's quotes will be requoted. The holiday this year comes on the heels of the violence in Tucson. Violence, of course, is "as American as apple pie," said sixties Black Power activist H. Rap Brown. His original quote mentioned cherry pie. Apparently, that didn't seem American enough. But you get the picture. The U.S. has a history of violence that can't be denied, no matter how many whitewashed texts are written by ultra-conservative revisionists (Lynne Cheney, Glenn Beck, Texas, etc.).

But Americans haven't yet cornered the market on violence. Protesters in Tunisia were gunned down this week. Coalition soldiers continue to be blown up with IEDs planted by Afghanis angry that their relatives were blown up in a U.S. drone attack. Knifings and shootings and beatings and torture are a fact of life worldwide.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was a proponent of nonviolence. He died by the gun, but he didn't promote the gun. Just the opposite. Some black activists did take up guns, although their numbers were wildly exaggerated at the time. But not MLK.

Dr. King gave thousands of speeches that promoted peace and nonviolence. Her actively campaigned against the war against black people in the South. He also opposed the Vietnam War and the Cold War. As he said often, notably in "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community:"

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Chaos or community? Have to wonder if those are the only choices we have. We're not exactly at the chaos point, but closing in on it. Community was much in evidence in Tucson last week, as we all came together for a brief time to honor the dead.

Author and Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley makes a great point in AP story about Dr. King. If we don't create a nation that's serious about nonviolence, Dr. King's legacy may fade away. In 50 years, all that we may be left with is a day off to go buy more trinkets at Wal-Mart.

"The holiday brought the freedom struggle into the main narrative," Brinkley said. "The day is meant to be a moment of reflection against racism, poverty and war. It's not just an African-American holiday. The idea of that day is to try to understand the experience of people who had to overcome racism but in the end are part and parcel of the American quilt."

Two years ago this week, I walked in Tucson's King march. I walked with my son Kevin from the University of Arizona campus to a city park. Nice January Arizona day. The marchers were white and black and Hispanic and Asian, a representative mix of Tucson's population. Many, such as my son, were younger than King was when he was gunned down in 1968. They are aware of his struggle but might not know the full weight of his commitment to nonviolence.

Two years later, some of these same people will march again. They also were out last week at vigils and memorials and funerals for Arizona's dead. Yesterday, hundreds of Tucsonans staged a march from McCormick Park to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords office. Today, many will be volunteering during a "Day of Service" for the King holiday.

Returning from my 2009 trip to Tucson, I watched most of Pres. Obama's inauguration from the Phoenix airport. I thought to myself: "A new America begins today." I jumped the gun a bit was a bit premature with my forecast. Change has begun, but so has a violent reaction to it. We can make progress as long as we don't succumb to fear and hate. We'd do well to keep Dr. King's words of nonviolence in our minds and in our hearts.

Today's Cheyenne march for Dr. King begins at noon at the Depot Plaza downtown. It concludes at the Capitol Building. Following the event, Love & Charity Inc. will serve chicken noodle soup at Allen Chapel, 917 W. 21st. Weather forecast: This morning's weird torrential rains have given way to sunshine. Wind still blowing, but what else is new?

On Veterans Day... A story from the front lines of empathy

Six days before Veterans Day 2010, Afghanistan War veteran and author Wes Moore had this message:

“As a society, we need to be more empathetic, tolerant and proactive.”

This was unlike other speeches I would hear in the week leading up to Nov. 11. It was a crowd of some 700 people whose mission includes empathy, tolerance and activism. It is the annual gathering of the Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health. While I’m sure there were military veterans in the room, most attendees you would fall under that term sneared at by Mrs. Palin and her pals -- community organizers.

Lest you think that Mr. Moore is some namby-pamby community organizer…. Well, he is a community organizer. Not much namby in his pamby (or vice versa).

He served in Afghanistan in 2005-2006 with the U.S. Army’s elite First Brigade of the 82nd Airborne. Trained in the art of combat and the art of jumping out of planes in full battle gear. He grew up in a single-parent family in a tough Baltimore neighborhood. He graduated from military school and Johns Hopkins. He later became a Rhodes Scholar and studied in scores of foreign countries. He was special assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2007. He writes. He thinks. Soon, he’ll be a father for the first time.

We should be thanking him for his service. Instead, he thanked us.

“Thanks for the work you do,” he said on this chilly Atlanta Friday. “There’s no way we can advance in society with only a sliver of society engaging in the conversation.”

He added that there are “no expendable kids and no expendable zip codes.”

As a teen, Moore felt that he was expendable. He started getting in trouble. His mom was scared. She found a military school who agreed to take her son. He went to Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania -- but wasn’t happy about it. Moore ran away. His mom sent him back. He ran away again. His mom sent him back. After returning from his fifth AWOL, Moore felt something click in him. He found himself in the midst of an opportunity. He was being encouraged to excel.

So he did.

As he pursued military service and education, Moore discovered that others who had grown up in his neighborhood were falling through the cracks in those beat-up mean streets.

One was Wes Moore – the one in the title of the book The Other Wes Moore. He and three other young men robbed a jewelry store. As they fled with $400,000 in stolen goods, one of the men drew a gun and shot and killed an off-duty Baltimore police officer. A multi-state manhunt ensued. The robbers were captured and tried. The other Wes Moore now serves a life sentence without parole in prison.

“This was the wind in the back of the project – I wanted people to understand these neighborhoods we come from.”

Moore corresponded with the other Wes Moore and later they met face-to-face. Soldier Moore found out that Prisoner Moore was smart and tough. He wanted no pity but agreed with Soldier Moore that action was needed to save other neighborhood kids.

“We can’t look at them as ‘those kids,’ “ Moore said. “We need to say ‘our kids.’ “

He added: “Potential in the U.S. is universal but opportunity is not. The biggest gap we have in our country is the expectation gap.”

We applauded wildly, of course. We all agreed on the mission. How could we not. Poor kids and kids of a different color and kids with mental health issues all need to be considered “our kids.” But we diverge on the methods.

Moore asked us to consider some things.

"You are out there every day and know we can’t wait for someone else to figure it out,” he said. “Answers don’t lie in state capitol buildings, they lie in our communities.

“You are all the change agents.”

He didn’t say it but I was thinking it – you can’t count on solutions from the federal government. We are moving away from that dynamic. Community organizers need to think more creatively about the first word in this description – community. For too long, we’ve looked at money and answers to come raining down from D.C. Most of the time, the answers were coming from us, although there was that fed cash, too.

But the rains have turned to showers and, once the weird new Congress is in place, a drought will surely follow.

We’ve already seen that with our Wyoming federation affiliate. Some of the government funding sources are drying up. Corporate and private sources don’t have the cash to spare. How will our youth get services during the coming drought?

Moore isn’t waiting around for someone else to take the lead. He wrote a book. He’s speaking to all kinds of groups, motivating grass-roots work on mental health and fatherhood in the black community and prison recidivism. He works with the kids in his old neighborhood and in New Jersey where he now lives (in the photo, Wes is talking to students at Patterson Middle School). He’s tackling it head-on, just the tactic you might expect from an Army officer turned community organizer.

“We have a saying in the Army – you can’t hit a target you can’t see,” he said. That got a spirited hoo-ah from the back of the room. Moore acknowledged it and moved on. He’s a mover.

Wes, since I didn’t get a chance to say this last week when you signed my book: “Thanks for your service. Happy Veterans Day.”

Wes Moore's book info: The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, 256 pages, Spiegel & Grau, ISBN-10: 0385528191; ISBN-13: 978-0385528191

In U.S., opportunity is not universal

Wes Moore, author of "The Other Wes Moore," today at the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health conference in Atlanta: "In the U.S., potential is universal but opportunity is not."

Looking forward to reading the book.

More Atlanta public art

"The Rites of Spring" by Eliot Weinberg. Cold day in Atlanta. It is warmer (I hear) back in Cheyenne. Wes Moore speaking at Mental Health conference luncheon.