Wyoming Welcome : Jill Berry Blog

Two weeks ago I drove up to teach at Laramie County Community College (LCCC), in Cheyenne, Wyoming. One of my favorite places to teach. This time I stayed at the Howdy Pardner B&B, run by “Calamity Jan”. She had this welcome sign on the front door.
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The place is stuffed full of everything cowboy, and I mean everything; the lamps, the art, the fabrics, even the butter.
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Calamity Jan keeps a map of where her clients come from. Love those maps.

Wyoming is where my great-grandfather was born, on the way to where his parents finally landed in Cle Elum, Washington. Harry Charles Masterson was the number 1 birth certificate in the state, so I am part of Wyoming’s first white family. Maybe that is why the place resonates with me; it calls up the spirits of my ancestors. It is also true that I get to work with fabulous people there, and that is a real treat.
Matt West runs the art department at LCCC. He is married to Maureen, and has two daughters, Mariah (is that how you spell it?) and Chloe. Maureen and Mariah (sp?) were both in my class. I love having related folks in my classes, it is so interesting to see the bounce back and forth.
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Here they are, the West family, cute as buttons and really nice too. They had me over for dinner twice, once for gourmet salad, once for BBQ. I think I might remember the salad for a long time. Matt picked it up from a well-known place downtown, and his girls were having none of it. It was pretty funny, but you had to have been there.

Wyoming is a casual and homey place. There is a diner there that I like, right off the road on the way to LCCC. When you walk in the door, you notice right away that it is filled with regulars. The jackalope is mounted the wall, along with every cowboy souvenir imaginable. The clientele is mostly mightily mature, and the waitresses all call you “Hon”. There is a very small aisle between the tables, and not an inch on the wall for anything new. The funniest thing is, right when you walk in the first thing you see is a huge sign that says “No skating of any kind in cafe”. I have never been in a place where skating was less likely. Who is going to skate here, and where? I sit down and imagine Chet over there riding high on rollerblades, making his way down between the five tables on either side of the aisle. Someone must have done this at some point, or they would not have used the big old sign to address it so loudly. I am very sorry to have missed that scene!

Ah, back to the class. My Personal Geographies class is always really satisfying. It is very personal and interesting to see what comes up for participants, and how they always manage to make stunning art of their memories. Check it out!