My Days as a CFD Carny: I can talk you into giving me a dollar for nothing

Posted on July 26, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

They say everyone runs away to join the circus at least once. In my case, it was a carnival — and I didn’t run so much as stroll onto the Frontier Park Midway during Cheyenne Frontier Days with a borrowed shirt, a name badge, and absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Turns out, selling pop at the CFD parade as a kid was the ultimate carny boot camp. Who knew slinging sugary soda would be training for hustling balloon darts?

Carnival worker Anise was my mentor many years ago when I worked at the Bill Hame’s Show during Cheyenne Frontier Days (CFD).

CFD is done for another year. Preparations are now underway for the 2026 edition. again upon us. I’ve been away from Cheyenne for many years, but still manage to make it to CFD for at least one day each July.

I was in town for a few hours on Wednesday afternoon, Cheyenne Day. I don’t roam the bars anymore. This quick visit was spent in the backyard of our friends, the Jensens. Their place is walking distance to Frontier Park. I wandered over to the Indian Village. Some of my Northern Arapaho friends generally set up camps and provide cultural entertainment. I also go for an Indian Taco.

Time permitting, another pal, Jalan Crossland, is playing the Paramount downtown. He was lounging in his van before the show. It turned out he was playing at 5 pm. We returned to the Jensens’ for an Indian Taco and caught the tail end of the Little Sun Drum and Dance Group’s performance.

We went back to the Paramount Ballroom and parked in the parking garage just in time for the annual CFD monsoon that dumped buckets for about half an hour. We saw a few familiar faces, but I learned that CFD stays the same, but I keep getting older and older.

There are a bunch of locals who couldn’t care less about CFD. Some rent out their houses for extra Christmas money and leave town during the busiest time of the year.

When I was a newspaper columnist in Lander, I wondered what it was like to work in a carnival, so I decided to give it a try.

It turns out that the TV and movie business is a lot like carnival life. I worked an ABC Sports gig for a CU vs Nebraska game, which was as grueling, but didn’t involve sales.

I worked sound. My supervisor dressed carnival casual and had just flown in from a PGA golf tournament in Hawaii. He was flying out Sunday morning for a game in Louisiana.

I realized that I had developed pretty good hustling skills selling pop at the parade when I was a kid, and I can see how people get addicted to the vagabond carny lifestyle.

This is my account of that July weekend. Many years later, the CFD Midway would be the location of one of my movie shoots.

Pink Floyd’s “Money” filled the clear, still evening surrounding the double Ferris wheel across from the balloon dart game booth at the Frontier Park carnival, where I worked for the Bill Hames Show.

Running off to join the carnival was something I’d always wanted to try, and there’s no better time than the present. Getting a stranger to hand you their money with the chance that nothing will be given in return is entrepreneurship in its purest form.

I always had a very romantic view of the carnival life as one of freedom, no cares, and endless foot-long hot dogs.

The world needs more cowboys.

It’s now 7:30 pm on a busy Saturday night during CFD, and I met Wes, who had traveled with the show for many years. He finished his supper and escorted me across the Midway, where I was introduced to Dozier Simmons.

He and his wife, Angelyn, manage a half dozen games for Kelley’s Concessions out of Alabama and one of several companies affiliated with the Hames Company.

“Here’s a shirt and badge. This is Anice. Just do what she does,” Dozier said as I pulled the blue knit polo shirt over my head.

“The object of the game is to sell a dart for a dollar. They bust a balloon for their choice of a small mirror. Five wins for a large mirror,” Anice explained.

“Mirror” is a misnomer since the prizes are non-reflective square pieces of glass with pictures silk-screened on the back.

“I’m just part-time – a couple nights a week. I live in Englewood and work at a print shop in Denver. I share a motel room in Cheyenne with one of the other women and her boyfriend. I used to work full time, but the guy I was with beat me up, and I left the show a couple of years ago. Dozier asked if I’d work for him again,” she said while tying a knot in one of the spare balloons.

The game is really rough on the fingers – the world needs more cowboys.

Each of the mirrors slips into a cardboard sleeve to protect the paint and prevent patron injuries.

No matter how careful, I still manage to slice little cuts where I never thought had any useful purpose, like on the index finger cuticle, which gets irritated each time a balloon stem gets tied off.

My hands bled the entire weekend.

Tonight, another woman, Amber, is working with us. “I’m trained as a nurse and working here until something opens up in town,” she said.

Amber was tenderly limping around the area, obviously in pain. “It’s not my foot, it’s my back. I was shot in the abdomen, and it hit a disc on the way out.” She pulled up her shirt and showed the scars. “I ruptured another disc moving a box of these mirrors and have to have surgery again.”

Upon my arrival, the counter was divided into thirds. “Amber takes the first third, I’ll take the middle, and you take the other end,” Anice said with authority, since it’s her joint. I was the newbie and was at the end of the lineup.

There’s an infinitely long imaginary line separating each of the sections, sort of like the invisible cylinder above a basketball hoop used to determine goaltending.

Common courtesy is to avoid cross-hawking. Taking a fellow carny’s business is counterproductive. Anice advises me, “If you pull that stunt on one of the guys who’s traveling with the show, he’ll knock the hell out of you. I’m just telling this to you for your own good, if you decide to do this again.”

The dart game marks are pretty easy to spot: biker types wearing all black and mirror shades, “Hey buddy, I’ve got an Ozzy mirror that would go great with the Ozzy T-shirt you’re wearing.”

Pre-adolescent boys, minus their parents, with their fists gripped around several one-dollar bills. “Do you play Little League? Then this game is a cinch. Bust one and win a Bon Jovi mirror.”

Young touchy-feely couples, “Hey, pal, why don’t you be a gentleman and win her another one of these cute panda bear mirrors?” Grandparents escorting grandchildren who are too short to see over the counter. “Tell you what, I’ll let your little cowboy stand on the edge here so he can be equal to the taller kids.”

The Simmonses stop by to pick up our money on their regular rounds. This time, Dozier has a swollen eye and skinned elbows. “Some college kid from Colorado punched him out over there. The police took him away,” Angelyn said in a scornful southern drawl.

The carnival business is tough. I didn’t run into any trouble.

Of course, the dart game is pretty easy to win, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who miss.

Losers are bad for business.

As soon as someone misses, the crowd disperses as if in mass thinking, “Yes, this game is somehow rigged.”

The hours on your feet are long, and the mental intensity is high.

At midnight, there’s only one more hour to go, and even Anice’s bark is complacent. The smiles become forced.

When you get busy, you have to keep up the endless personal chatter with everyone waiting in line while you locate the right mirror or put up more balloons so they don’t leave. Everyone who plays is a potential return customer.

It’s closing time.

Dozier calls my name. “See you at 10 in the morning. We’re each paid a percentage of our individual take. I inflated 150 balloons today, and my jaw aches.

Angelyn hands me $31.00.

It’s now Sunday, the last day of CFD, and the crowd is much smaller. When the rodeo lets out, there’s a brief surge. No night show tonight, either. Tomorrow is a work day for the locals, and many of the tourists are either gone or out of money.

Amber called in sick this morning and arrived late in the afternoon. I noticed she’s working another joint across the way and worry that I encroached on her balloon dart game turf.

Anice and I spent the morning chatting between marks. It being Sunday, religion dominates the discussion. Anice is a born-again Christian and feels carnival witnessing is part of her calling. There’s a Shroud of Turin mirror that is very popular today, available in both sizes.

I told her about my UFO experience near Laramie and why, like Billy Graham, I believe the spacenauts are angels.

She was skeptical, but would read Graham’s book, Angels: God’s Secret Agents.

A young drifter asks me if it’s okay to stow his bag under the counter. He’s looking for Dozier to ask him for a job.

The next big stop is the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. We hit it off, probably because I didn’t rifle through his stuff.

He turned out to be a real hard worker.

The food isn’t very appetizing, and I chose to go without, because time not spent hawking means fewer sales opportunities. That proved to be a mistake.

By nightfall, the marks are getting tired and not as eager to play. Women and kids just ask to buy a mirror.

“No, they’re not for sale. There’s more personal satisfaction in throwing the dart.” I could have made more money selling them from under the counter.

Men try to get better terms and ask, “How about three darts for a dollar, or two wins for the large mirror?”

At 10:00 pm, the place comes to a screeching halt.

The air is finally quiet.

The neon lights stop flashing.

“Let’s get this place cleaned up. I want it to look like we were never here!”, Juanita screams to three kids in charge of sweeping the asphalt parking lot.

Juanita runs the joint across from ours, in which softballs are tossed into a milk can to win a Spuds McKenzie stuffed toy.

The women who operate each of the joints are the informal lead workers supervising the “slough,” which is the carnival dismantling process.

There are a dozen of us sloughing. All the prize stock is bagged and locked in the water race trailer.

The dart game trailer is hitched to the panel truck and hauled out.

The parking lot is empty.

It’s now 2:15 am.

Dozier hands me $50 and says, “We’ll see you next year.”

I earned enough to make a deal with another CFD vendor and ended up buying a pool cue from him, which I still have.

Like in the movie business, Carnival inner circles are tough to break into, and I felt like I gained a little respect among my fellow carnies by paying my initiation dues all the way through the slough.

As I trudged across the empty parking lot at 2:15 a.m., $50 in my pocket and mirror cuts on every finger, I realized I had lived a weekend most people only imagine in neon and popcorn-scented dreams. I’d been baptized by spilled soda, blistered hands, and gospel according to Anice.

Next time I’ll bring gloves, pack a lunch, and maybe ask for a raise. I earned more than money that weekend. I earned my stripes, a pool cue, and just a touch of carny street cred. Not bad for a drugstore cowboy.

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My Cheyenne Frontier Days 5 life phases – Drunk and disorderly

Posted on July 23, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

They say you never forget your first drink — and for me, it was legally poured when I turned 19, the drinking age in Wyoming at the time.

As the last state to raise the bar to 21, Wyoming gave young adults like me an early glimpse into the hazy rites of passage that come with adulthood.

I wasn’t much of a partier in college, but grad school at the University of Wyoming and later my first job in Gillette during the coal boom quickly changed that. Suddenly,

I had a steady paycheck, no furniture, and no idea how to spend my evenings in a town with more churches than bars. So when Cheyenne Frontier Days rolled around each July, my housemates and I packed into a car and headed south for a little organized chaos.

4. Old Enough to Drink in Public – As far as I’m concerned, Frontier Days started to go downhill when the Mayflower Bar on 17th Street went rock and roll. It was a wild time back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

I was living in Gillette at the time, and one year, we packed way too many people into a room at the Atlas Motel (also known as the Alias Motel). It provided cheap overflow rooms for the Hitching Post, next door. Now that the motel has been demolished, I can say that we tore the crap out of that room.

The police would block off 17th Street between Capitol and Central Avenues and walk down the sidewalk, wielding nightsticks, banging beer cans out of the hands of pseudo-cowboys wearing huge gold and silver fake trophy buckles.The obligatory circuit was flowing along with the mass humanity from the Mayflower, then the Bluebird, and across the street to the Elks Club and back to the Mayflower, where I would bump into Cheyenne friends I hadn’t seen for years.

There were other spots, including the Cheyenne Social Club on Capitol Avenue, around the corner from the Mayflower. It was a popular cowboy hangout for years before it closed. The storefront has been a variety of restaurants and an arcade.

The Albany Restaurant and Bar, located on Capitol Avenue across from the Union Pacific Depot, and the Crown Bar on West 16th Street, remain mainstays.

The Pioneer Hotel, in the next block west of the Mayflower, was taken over by bikers.

All the CFD gathering points are now on the edge of town at the Cadillac in East Cheyenne. and the Outlaw in South Cheyenne. When the parade ends, downtown turns into a ghost town with tourists and locals heading to the rodeo and the carnival Midway in Frontier Park.

I was an adult when I became curious about the Historic Plains Hotel, a Downtown Cheyenne anchor since the 1900s. Downtown Cheyenne has been unstable since JCPenney moved out to the Frontier Mall years ago.

A retail stampede followed, and the Plains was also trampled. My favorite hotel has changed hands several times and is now just a shadow of its former self.

In 2003, Al Wiederspahn and Mick McMurry, may they rest in peace, along with Bob Jensen, renovated the Plains into a showpiece. Since the time I sold pop at the parade, the Plains Hotel room suite that looked out over the corner of West 16th Street and Central Avenue was where I wanted to watch the parade.

I looked up and marveled at the people who were whooping and hollaring out the windows.

That wish came true for my 50th birthday. The hotel wasn’t fully open, but I rented the room and invited 100 of my closest friends over for Bloody Marys and to watch the parade.

Under the previous management, the Wigwam 2 – an homage to the original Wigwam Bar sort of worked. It was quite small, but fun. I’ll know more when I’m in town for Cheyenne Day. I don’t know what will be in there this year, but it’s a great place to watch the parade.

I imagine the bar-hopping circuit will be much smaller: Albany, Crown, and Elks. There is the relatively new Chop House, which, if they wanted to become the focus, could open up the parking lot to revelry.

Cheyenne Frontier Days started out innocently enough for me, first slinging sodas at the parade and singing along with my mom’s club friends. By the time Phase 4 rolled around, I was clutching a warm beer outside the Mayflower Bar on 17th Street, swapping stories with familiar faces I hadn’t seen since elementary school.

Back then, CFD wasn’t confined to the rodeo grounds. The real action spilled across downtown, and 17th Street buzzed like a rodeo of its own. Now that much of the revelry has moved to North Cheyenne, downtown feels almost ghostly after the parade and before the rodeo.

These days, I toast the good old days with a glass of something a little gentler and memories that grow a bit wilder with each passing year. While the chaos may have settled, the stories sure haven’t.

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My Cheyenne Frontier Days 5 life phases – ‘Bedpan! Bedpan!’

Posted on July 22, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

There’s something special about friends you’ve known since kindergarten, those bonds forged before life got complicated. For me, those friendships were built not just in classrooms, but on hay wagons and behind parade floats during Cheyenne Frontier Days. Going on 70 years later, we’re still connected through memories, tradition, and Cheyenne Day reunions.

I’d ridden in the parade before as an elementary school-aged kid. My mom was a member of the X-JWC (Ex-Junior Women’s Club), which sponsored a singing group called the Dearies, consisting of her fellow club members.

The X-JWC entered a float in the Cheyenne Frontier Days (CFD) Parade. All the Dearies had kids – Murrays, St. Clairs, Nichols, Lummises – and we all hung together during the summer, including during the construction of the annual float. My dad, who worked for Coca-Cola, provided a flatbed trailer that he hauled over to the Lummis’s barn.

I don’t recall any of the dads helping out much, except to attach the chicken wire skirt around the trailer. The kids weren’t very tall, and we were the best at stuffing white napkins through the wire.

This was before electric pianos, so the Dearies had to belt out a cappella, their old time classics like Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue, and Jadda, Jadda, Jadda Jadda Jing Jing Jing.

The moms brought us kids to the parade. Most of us rode the entry-level hay wagons. Back then, nobody minded gender identifying stereotypes. That was an initiation for kids to get involved with CFD.

The boys dressed up in their cowboy duds – hats, jeans, boots, maybe a bolo tie and western belt.

The girls wore long dresses, ribbons in their hair, and bonnets. The boys were instructed to be boisterous and yell “Hee Haw!” while the girls carried hankies and politely waved them at the crowd.

I grew out of selling pop at the parade and honed my social chops working at the Hitching Post. My next CFD phase was riding a wagon in the parades.

My CFD friends and I have kept in touch after all these years. That’s one of the good things about living in a relatively small town. We attended the same neighborhood schools and progressed through the grades together.

Our elementary schools fed into the same junior high school, which in turn fed into the high school. We are still in touch during Cheyenne Day, which is on Wednesday during Frontier Week.

3. High School Parade Rides: One of my East High School classmates, named Janice Benton, had the pull to get me and my friends into the parade.

Her mom was a volunteer on the CFD Parade Committee, and for three summers through high school, we rode in the horse-drawn field ambulance wagon.

Janice dressed up as a Civil War nurse, and two guys moaned in pain with bandaged limbs hanging out of the windows. My crew over the three parade days comprised Jan, Eddie Frye (pictured in full regalia), and Tad Leeper.

We had messy jugs of red-colored water and let it run out of the corners of our mouths – pretty graphic for a family-friendly CFD, but the crowd loved it.

We also had this “bedpan” schtick, but I don’t need to go into any of the details about that!

We didn’t know it then, but all those summers of float-building, hayrides, and CFD antics created more than just parade entries. They created lifelong connections. Every Cheyenne Day, we pick up where we left off, as if no time has passed at all. That’s the magic of small towns, old friends, and staying rooted in your past.

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My Cheyenne Frontier Days 5 life phases – Learning about jerks at an early age

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

Cheyenne Frontier Days was more than just a celebration of cowboy culture—it was where I began to learn how the world really worked.

By junior high, I had graduated from selling pop on the streets to bussing tables at the Hitching Post Inn, Cheyenne’s busiest spot during CFD. Ironically, after the HP was condemned, it was torched by its owners.

It was there, under the glare of neon signs and cigarette smoke, that I got my first hard lesson in human nature—and racism. I didn’t have the vocabulary for it back then, but I knew what it felt like.

All businesses either make or break their year based on their CFD trade. The hotels jack up their prices, which is understandable. Cheyenne becomes a destination for rodeo fans or those who have CFD on their list of things to do before they die. CFD is akin to what the 10-day-long Sundance Film Festival will mean for Boulder.

The Hitching Post Inn was a conference and convention center that was always busy. It was the Wyoming State Legislature headquarters.

Even more so during CFD. When I was in junior high school, my first job was working as a busboy there during the summers of 1966 to 1968. It gave me an early education about human nature. I hadn’t run into as many jerks and a$$holes as I did during those days and nights at the Hitch.

The night show entertainment at the CFD arena has become the big draw these days. CFD numbers are up, not because of the rodeo, but because of the party atmosphere promoted during CFD. The standing room seats are the primo tickets and a party zone for young people who think hamburger comes from the grocery store.

The world needs more cowboys.

Back in the good old days, the popular shows were family acts like Doc and Festus from “Gunsmoke” and the chuck wagon races. They don’t do those anymore either due to liability issues.

Being a Cheyenne native, some people are surprised to learn that my family and I were city people and didn’t get much into the rodeo part of Frontier Days.

2. Learning Human Nature at an Early Age: My first shifts at the Hitching Post were during the day in the coffee shop. Most days it was busy, but during CFD, the place was packed with a waiting line that extended onto the sidewalk outside.

“Hey Hopsing!” I heard from a guy from Texas with a bad mustache, wearing a polyester, brownish herringbone western-cut jacket. At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about until he yelled it again, pointing at me. “Can ya bring me more cowfee!”

This was the first time I had ever been overtly berated based on my race. It took me by surprise because I was Japanese, not Chinese, like the Cartwright’s stereotypical servant from the Bonanza TV show.

Lorne Greene, who played Ben Cartwright, performed his one hit Johnny Ringo at CFD at a night show in 1970.

That moment has stuck with me and influenced my work today, which includes writing books, such as Views from Beyond Metropolis, and creating documentary films, including Beyond Sand Creek and Beyond Heart Mountain, with a focus on cultural competency themes. Additionally, I create safe spaces where diverse communities can read my books, watch my movies, and come together to discuss important issues.

As I became more experienced, my favorite shifts during CFD were 7 pm to 3 am and 11 pm to 7 am. There was always plenty of action for a 14-year-old kid running booze and glasses to the smoke-filled Hitching Post Coach Rooms for the Sons of the Pioneers Show, shooting the breeze with fun-seeking cowboys and their girlfriends at the counter in the coffee shop.

During the day, I delivered room service to the lounge singer named Jody Miller. She was a one-hit wonder. She climbed the charts with Queen of the House, a remake of Roger Miller’s King of the Road.

I was in Phoenix Books and Music when it was still owned by Don McKee, and noticed a record by Jody Miller. The only other famous person I met was Victor Jory, who sat at the coffee shop counter in a tan safari jacket, smoking cigarettes.

Just before sunrise one morning, another busboy named Mark Samansky – God rest his soul – and I went into the Coach Rooms.

Mark played the drum solo from Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. I don’t think the boss – Kenny Ahlm – ever figured out who was making all the racket. The drum solo begins at 6:29 of the music video. I kept in touch with Mark until he graduated from high school. He was a few years older than I, and we lost contact.

He, not surprisingly, went into radio broadcasting as a well-known DJ in Florida and Denver. He died a few years ago.

That one moment—being called “Hop Sing” by a customer who saw only my race—never left me. It cracked open a lifelong awareness that eventually shaped my work in film, writing, and community-building.

Today, I create spaces where people can confront those same biases, build cultural bridges, and speak across differences. I didn’t ask to learn that lesson at age 14, but I carry it with me still, from the Coach Rooms of the Hitching Post to every story I tell.

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My Cheyenne Frontier Days 5 life phases – Entrepreneurship at a young age

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

Before I knew what “entrepreneur” meant, I was hauling red wagons of Shurfine soda along the Cheyenne Frontier Days (CFD) parade route. The image features me, my sister, Lori, and our friend Carol Lou posing before heading to a CFD activity.

That side hustle as a sixth grader taught me more about business than any textbook ever could.

Growing up in Cheyenne, CFD wasn’t just a rodeo and huge crowds, it was a rite of passage. For me, that passage started in grade school with a red wagon, a stash of off-brand pop, and hot asphalt in front of the parade-goers along the route.

I didn’t know it then, but that scrappy little side hustle was the beginning of my entrepreneurial spirit. Long before I understood words like “margin” or “market demand,” I understood this: people were thirsty, and I had something to sell.

Phase I – Parade Pop Sales: When I was in the sixth and seventh grades, one of my golfing pals, Pat, my sister Lori, and cousin Matthew from Salt Lake City sold ice-cold pop along the parade routes. My family was heavily involved with CFD. My sister and I are pictured getting ready to ride in one of the parades. Sitting in the hay wagon on a straw bale gave me my first look at CFD as a participant. From my perch, I noticed older kids pulling wagons and selling pop.

“I can do that,” I thought. My dad worked for Coca-Cola, and we could purchase products at a discount. Despite the wholesale price, I opted for a higher profit margin. Besides, thirsty parade-goers weren’t interested in brands. Coca-Cola did have bags of ice and cups. None of the other kids had those.

Two months ahead of time was spent hoarding all the cheap off-brand sodas, such as Shurfine and Cragmont, to sell at each of the three parades that wound through downtown Cheyenne.

They just wanted something wet and cold. This was well before bottled water. I think it was before flip tops, and we had to open them using a can opener.

In our first year, we ran out of pop and wasted at least half an hour running over to Brannen’s Market on Carey Avenue, which is now a Wyoming state government office.

During subsequent years, three red wagons were dispatched, and cars with additional supplies were strategically parked along the parade route. My cousin saved the bag of loose change from his first take as a reminder of his first entrepreneurial project. I wonder if he still has it.

These days, kids must obtain a permit and be accompanied by an adult. Plus, there is no selling in the street in front of potential customers, only on the sidewalk behind them.

Sheesh – talk about overregulation.

Looking back, selling Shurfine soda from a wagon might seem trivial. The lessons were lasting: prepare ahead, work as a team, and always stay close to your customer. It was my first taste of hustle, and it stuck with me.

As you think back on your own childhood, what lit your fire? What small moment—maybe overlooked at the time—nudged you toward the person you’ve become? Sometimes, it’s not the big milestones, but the hot July mornings with sticky fingers and jingling pockets of change that shape us most.

If the world needs more cowboys, maybe it also needs more kids who get their start selling pop at a parade.

Why I’m a Cat Person: Or How the Moon Came to Life in Boulder

Posted on July 17, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

WordPress suggests writing prompts. Today – Dogs or cats?

I didn’t choose the cat life. The cat life chose me. Specifically, a fluffy Siberian Forest was wandering down Colfax Avenue in Denver like some kind of mystical furball hitchhiker.

Let me back up.

Six months earlier, I’d climbed off my deathbed (yes, the actual kind with the dramatic lighting and everything), and apparently, the universe thought, “What this guy needs now is a four-legged enigma with a regal tail and zero regard for human schedules.”

A friend rescued the cat that was foraging at the restaurant where she worked. They brought her over and she’s been judging my life choices ever since the June 2014 Full Moon from the window sills and atop the fridge and step ladders.

Now don’t get me wrong. I grew up in a dog household. Waggy tails, bigger personalities, endless games of fetch, and smells that defy science. I love dogs. I respect dogs. But as an adult? I like naps, autonomy, and furniture that isn’t chewed beyond recognition.

Cats are basically introverted roommates who pay rent in headbutts and purrs. Dogs, bless their wiggly hearts, are needy toddlers with a bark button.

They want to be in your lap, your car, your soul. Cats? Moon will look at me and say, “You may approach me… but only if you’ve recently opened a can.”

Moon is primarily an indoor cat and doesn’t require daily walks. She doesn’t whine at the door. She doesn’t bark at Amazon deliveries. She simply is. Like a Buddha with whiskers and a mysterious past.

And after coming back from the brink of death, I wasn’t ready for a high-maintenance commitment. I needed soft purring. She’s not a lap cat, bit likes occasional attention. She’s low-drama, high-fluff, and suspicious of everyone but me (most days).

So yes, I’m a cat person. Because Moon wandered in like a cosmic gift on Colfax Avenue, dogs are wonderful, but cats are survival partners with fur.

Superman, Slurpees, and the Art of Showing Up

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

Superman has been my hero since childhood, not just for his strength or ability to fly, but because he stood up for the underdog, the outsider, the marginalized. His story runs through the heart of my memoir, Views from Beyond Metropolis, as both a metaphor and a moral compass.

So when the new Superman movie hit the big screen, I caught a RealD 3D screening. What happened before, during, and after reminded me that even the most iconic heroes sometimes play to a nearly empty house.

By the time the movie finally started, after 30 minutes of trailers and commercials, there were only eight people left in the theater.

The movie? Solid. A high-level noisy story with plenty of comic-book camp and a darker, more grown-up tone. More cursing, more open-mouthed making out, and quite a bit of monster-and-robot smashing. Only one human casualty, though the collateral cyborg damage was massive.

Not really a preteen-friendly flick, but enjoyable for fans of the character or the genre. Superman still carries the weight of hope and idealism, even in a world that looks a lot rougher around the edges.

What stuck with me wasn’t the film, but the contrast between that nearly empty theater and what was happening at my go-to 7-Eleven at Valmont and Folsom, where July 11th, aka 7-Eleven Day, was in full swing. People lined up for the store’s famous giveaway: a free Slurpee.

Not for me this year. When I pulled into the parking lot, a few hand-scrawled signs taped to the doors declared “Slurpees are out,” a small but crushing blow to me after braving the summer heat for a brain freeze on the house.

The juxtaposition felt symbolic.

On the one hand, a nearly empty theater screening a high-budget, high-concept retelling of one of America’s oldest pop culture icons. On the other hand, a jammed convenience store gives away a small cup of frozen sugar water. Priorities, right?

A Brief History of the Slurpee: The Slurpee has a storied past. It originated in the late 1950s when Omar Knedlik, a Kansas Dairy Queen owner, started serving partially frozen sodas after his soda fountain broke.

The icy concoctions became so popular that he commissioned a machine to replicate the effect. In 1960, Knedlik partnered with an engineer to build the machine commercially, and The Icee Company was born. These machines began appearing in convenience stores across the nation.

In 1965, 7-Eleven struck a licensing deal with The Icee Company to sell the drinks. As part of the agreement, 7-Eleven couldn’t use the “Icee” name.

So, they rebranded it as the Slurpee (named after the slurping sound) and gave it their own flavors, branding, and promotions. That’s why Icee and Slurpee drinks look the same, taste similar, and use basically the same machines.

Since then, the Slurpee has been a summer staple and a cultural icon. It’s colorful, nostalgic, and always predictable, except on 7-Eleven Day.

Superheroes and Slurpees: As a long-time Superman fan, I couldn’t help but notice the parallels. Superman is a symbol of American timeless idealism and resilience, but is taken for granted. The Slurpee, in its own way, is a symbol too: of cheap thrills, childhood summers, and the small joys that still matter.

The takeaway? Maybe it’s this: sometimes the big, bold stories play to nearly empty rooms, while the little rituals—the free Slurpees, and other everyday traditions are what draw the crowd.

Maybe it’s just that you never know what you’re going to get when you walk through a door. Could be Superman. Could be a hand-scrawled “All Out“ sign.

Either way, show up. You might be surprised.

A Cold Ironic Truth: Here’s one last twist to the day. Before heading into Theater 6 for the nearly empty Superman screening, I noticed that the Cinemark concession stand sold high-priced Icees. I skipped in favor of water to wash down my medium overpriced popcorn, anticipating the free Slurpee.

It’s a dialectic. On one hand, six bucks might be worth it when you consider the air-conditioned theater. On the other hand, you get handed a paper cup with a plastic dome lid and a twisty straw for free, unless the 7-Eleven is out.

That’s some delicious irony.

The day ended up feeling like a case study in American priorities: a big-budget superhero film playing to a nearly empty room, and a convenience store swamped with people looking for a free cup of frozen sugar water, only to walk away empty-handed.

We still show up for the things we care about, even if we leave disappointed. Whether it’s the enduring appeal of Superman or the nostalgic pull of a Slurpee on a hot July day, we chase these experiences because they remind us of who we are, or who we used to be.

When the machine is broken or the crowd is small, the story’s still worth telling.

The things that matter most don’t come with long lines or loud applause. Superman reminded me, once again, that showing up, speaking up, and standing firm still count, even when no one’s watching. Maybe especially then.

If Superman or Slurpees meant something to you growing up, or still do, check out my memoir, Views from Beyond Metropolis.

Click here to get your copy today!

His story is woven into mine, from childhood to the present, as a symbol of hope, justice, and resilience. If you’ve ever felt like an outsider or stood up for someone who was, you might see yourself in these pages.

If you have questions or comments, message the ALAN-BCM BOT. We learn more and more every day!

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Riding the River: Reflections from the Big Thompson to Texas

Posted on July 13, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

Every now and then, I seem to have a brush with death, not because I have a death wish, but maybe to remind myself to stay grateful that I’m still on the right side of the grass. We’re approaching the 49th anniversary of the Big Thompson Flood and the 12th anniversary of the flood that inundated Boulder.

The Bible is full of disasters. Not just as warnings from on high, but as turning points when people had to set aside their differences and face something bigger than themselves.

When the flood came for Noah, survival meant togetherness: family, animals, the whole ark of creation. In Acts, Paul survives a shipwreck and an earthquake by the cooperation of sailors, soldiers, prisoners, and even a Roman jailer, all of whom were caught in the same storm.

Disaster doesn’t discriminate. That’s what it takes to bring people together who might never otherwise speak, help, or even acknowledge one another.

The Big Thompson Flood in 1976 was an experience that still haunts me. I’m lucky I wasn’t one of the 144 casualties. In light of the catastrophic, so-called “1,000-year flood” in Texas this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s changed and what hasn’t.

The pundits and politicos are making the rounds, wagging fingers at budget cuts to the National Weather Service and FEMA. No doubt, gutting public infrastructure doesn’t help anyone. When a wall of water barrels down a canyon in the dead of night, no government agency or politician can move fast enough to outrun it.

Back in 1976, I spent the summer working with the National Park Service at Rocky Mountain National Park. I’d lucked into the job, thanks in part to a few letters of recommendation from former Colorado Congressman Wayne Aspinall, a gruff but fair-minded man I’d met during grad school in Wyoming.

I’d gone down to Cheyenne for Frontier Days, unable to resist the last weekend of “The Daddy of ’Em All.” Saturday night, July 31st, instead of crashing with my friends, I made the fateful decision to drive back through the Big Thompson Canyon so I’d be on time for my Sunday shift.

That drive nearly killed me.

A black layer of clouds over an orange band extended across the western horizon. By the time I reached the Narrows on U.S. Highway 34, I was the only vehicle heading west.

Everyone else was fleeing east.

A state trooper flagged me down, told me to turn around. He said something about “bad water” up ahead. I didn’t make it far before slamming into six inches of runoff that turned into a wall of water.

In seconds, I was surrounded. My Pinto was no match for the surreal surge of mud, uprooted trees, and natural gas tanks that floated.

It was like what Dorothy saw when carried away by the tornado in the Wizard of Oz. I’m pretty sure I saw Miss Gulch ride by on her bicycle with Toto, too.

A family in a car across from me floated over the edge and vanished downstream into the black.

Then fate intervened: a porta-potty got jammed against my bumper, nudging me toward the canyon wall instead of into the torrent.

I scrambled out the window, waded to higher ground, and was eventually picked up by a Highway Department truck. That night, I huddled with strangers at Rainbow Bend. I don’t even remember falling asleep.

By morning, the road was gone. The canyon was a war zone. The hillside was littered with dead fish, trailers, cars, and splintered timber. We heard the dam at Estes Park might break. Eventually, a Chinook helicopter airlifted us out.

I took a dry pair of socks and a cup of day-old coffee in a styrofoam cup from the Red Cross station in Loveland before I was driven to a friend’s house in Cheyenne.

The phone lines were down, and my parents had no way of knowing where I was. They drove from Laramie to Loveland, and I imagine the Red Cross had noted that I was driven to Cheyenne.

After the Big Thompson Flood, Colorado invested in better flood warning systems, maps, and plans.

We like to think we’re in control. That if we just budget better, fund better, and predict better, we’ll be safer. Natural disasters remind us that even the best planning is still a matter of guesswork. We can’t control the storm. But we can choose how we respond to it—and to each other.

Because floods don’t just wash away roads and houses. They strip away illusions. They collapse social walls. They reveal who we are when everything else is gone.

The Big Thompson Flood tore through a remote canyon in 1976, claiming lives in an area where few people lived year-round. Its violence was no less devastating, but its reach was constrained by the sparse population in a flood-prone landscape. In contrast, the recent Texas floods swept through densely populated neighborhoods never meant to withstand such relentless force.

The human cost was far greater.

After 1976, Colorado made significant strides in flood management, including the development of warning systems, drainage plans, and revised maps.

Yet, when floods returned to Northern Colorado in 2013, the water carved new paths that no one had anticipated. The humbling truth about disaster planning rests on the illusion of predictability.

I made a documentary about the 2013 post-flood cleanup efforts by Workforce Boulder County.

We draw new lines on maps, build dams, and write updated protocols, but nature has no obligation to follow them. Ultimately, preparedness is less about control and more about humility and an ongoing acknowledgment that we live at the mercy of forces far older and more powerful than ourselves.

The same thing happened in Kerr County in Texas, where so-called “1,000-year floods” engulfed more densely populated areas built on the assumption that nature would follow existing plans and models. There are 120 dead and 170 unaccounted. The Guadalupe River had previously overflowed its banks in 1987, killing 10 kids.

We’re still asking the same question: Why weren’t people warned?

It’s the wrong question.

Nature doesn’t care about weather models. It doesn’t wait for press conferences. We can throw all the money in the world at weather models, but there will always be events that happen too fast, too fierce, and too far outside the lines of prediction.

So here’s my takeaway:

We’ve got to stop pretending we can engineer our way out of disaster.

Instead, we need to build resilient communities and networks of neighbors who check on each other, establish evacuation routes that don’t rely on cell service, and cultivate a culture that takes preparedness seriously, not as an afterthought.

The next flood, tornado, or fire won’t care if it’s 3 a.m., or if you’ve stocked up on groceries, or if your kids are asleep upstairs.

It’s coming anyway.

I’m a gambling man who likes to hedge my bets, but when it comes to survival, it’s not about always hitting Soft 17, it’s about how well you plan, how fast you move, and who’s got your back.

If there’s one strange gift disasters leave in their wake, they bring people together who might otherwise never share a meal, a conversation, or even a glance.

Floodwaters don’t care about your politics, your skin color, or your tax bracket. When the sirens wail and the power’s out, neighbors knock on each other’s doors.

Strangers become lifelines.

It’s a divine paradox as old as time. The Bible is full of disasters that forced people to act collectively, to lean into faith and one another.

Noah’s flood gave rise to a new covenant. The Tower of Babel collapsed, scattering humanity and seeding diverse cultures and languages.

In those moments of crisis, the ordinary divisions collapse, and something more human emerges. Maybe that’s the hidden lesson behind the chaos: survival isn’t a solo act.

The New Testament, too, reminds us that disaster can strip away our walls and reveal what binds us. When Paul’s ship wrecked in Acts 27, it wasn’t rank or religion that saved the day, it was shared survival.

The prisoners, guards, and sailors all reached the shore together. When the prison shook in Acts 16, it was mercy, not muscle, that turned a Roman jailer into a follower of Christ. Crisis doesn’t just collapse buildings, it collapses barriers.

If you live in a flood-prone area, a tornado alley, or a place at risk for wildfires, even if you think you don’t, plan the best you can and know your neighbors and bridge the divides before the water does it for you.

Whether it’s a canyon in Colorado, a prison in Philippi, or a neighborhood in Texas, survival is never a solo act. If you wait for the sirens to blare before you decide to get organized, there may not be time to turn around.

My memoir, Views from Beyond Metropolis, tells that story and many others like it—moments when crisis revealed unexpected connections and the quiet power of human resilience. It’s also a guide for how we can start bridging the social, economic, and cultural divides before disaster forces us to.

Want a head start? Grab the book. Start the conversation. Build the bridge.

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X-Ray Vision and Other Myths: Why Superman Was My Mentor, Even Though I Can Barely See the Big E on the Eye Chart!

Posted on July 8, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

We all grow up with myths that guide us. Some wear capes. Some live next door. Others disappear from the map. When we look closely, even without superpowers, we can still uncover truth, memory, and meaning.

When I was a kid growing up in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, I thought I might be Superman, or at least adopted from Krypton. I didn’t have X-ray vision unless you count squinting hard enough to read the cereal box, but I did have a strong sense that I was supposed to live by some kind of heroic code.

In my memoir, Views from Beyond Metropolis, I reimagine what Superman’s “American Way” might look like today—not truth, justice, and unquestioning conformity, but truth, justice, and cultural competence.

Spoiler alert: you don’t need superpowers for that.

The 500 Block Was My Fortress of Solitude: Superman had his Fortress of Solitude. I had West 17th Street. Specifically, the 400 and 500 blocks in downtown Cheyenne were once home to a thriving Japanese American neighborhood. My grandfather owned a pool hall at 512 West 17th Street, adjacent to the City Cafe, where my grandmother prepared Japanese and American cuisine.

That was the setting for much of my early life and the historical backdrop of Views from Beyond Metropolis. Today, most of it’s paved over.

If city planners had X-ray vision, maybe they could see the noodle houses, produce stands, and bustling community spirit still lingering beneath the concrete.

Why does Superman still matter? Superman always straddled two identities: the alien outsider and the all-American hero. For me, growing up Japanese American after World War II, that tension felt familiar. We weren’t sent to War Relocation Camps like many West Coast families, but we still felt the overt stings of racism, like slurs and stares. Some of it is more subtle, like being complimented on how well we speak English.

In the book, I discuss how those experiences shaped my sense of cultural competence, which involves recognizing bias, responding with civility, and adapting to a diverse world. It turns out that you can learn a great deal about inclusion by observing how Superman handles villainy. (Pro tip: laser eyes are not required.)

The Real Superpower? Seeing What’s Missing: One of Superman’s powers was the ability to see through walls. Mine has been the ability to see through stories, especially the ones that erase people who look like me.

Views from Beyond Metropolis explores not only my family’s legacy, like my grandfather’s incarceration at the Tulare in 1942 and my uncle’s detour through the Puyallup assembly centers, but also the larger patterns of legalized oppression in America from slavery to Japanese internment to suburban redlining.

I attended the 2025 Camp Amache Pilgrimage in southeastern Colorado, where the Ireichō book of names lists the 127,000 Japanese incarcerated during World War II. The book verified the whereabouts of my grandfather and uncle.

Sounds heavy, I know, but that’s why I keep it grounded with humor and lived experience. Being mistaken for someone’s Kung Fu teacher in the middle of a grocery store checkout line teaches you to laugh and educate.

**Why Read Views from Beyond Metropolis?**

In Views from Beyond Metropolis, I suggest that it’s time we evolve it:

From rugged individualism to interdependence.
From assimilation to belonging.
From monoculture to shared culture.

Maybe you don’t need X-ray vision to be a hero. Perhaps you simply need the ability to see others clearly, especially those that history tries to forget.

You don’t have to be Japanese American.
You don’t have to be from Wyoming.
You don’t have to like Superman (though it helps).

If you’ve ever …

Felt like an outsider looking in,
Been teased for how you look, speak, or live,
Witnessed bias and didn’t know how to respond, or
Realized, maybe uncomfortably, that you’ve been the one who didn’t see clearly

… this book is for you.

In Views from Beyond Metropolis, I use my lived experience, growing up Japanese American in post-war Wyoming, assimilating and still having to navigate subtle racism, and learning from everyday heroes, to help readers:

Understand how bias works (and how to undo it)
See through the myths of Superman’s American Way that exclude more than they include
Find humor and hope in hard truths
Learn practical techniques for building cultural competency and community

It’s not just a memoir. It’s a lens. And it might help you see yourself—and others—more clearly.

👉 Buy the book.
👉 Start the conversation.
👉 Be the hero in your own story.

If you have questions or comments, message the ALAN-BCM BOT. We learn more and more every day!

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The Ghost of Kerouac in Longmont, Colorado: Sal Paradise on Neon Forest Street

Posted on July 5, 2025 by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

When Jack Kerouac set out from New York in 1947 on his now-famous cross-country road trip, he chased freedom over pavement.

That adventure became the heart of On the Road, published a decade later in 1957, and immortalized his alter ego, Sal Paradise.

What many people don’t know is that one of the key stops along that existential highway was a gas station in Longmont, Colorado, at the time, a dusty outpost on U.S. Highway 287. The old gas station was transformed into a cafe and music venue at 1111 Neon Forest Street in Prospect Village.

It’s a little-known landmark that holds the soul of a restless America, the kind we might just need to revisit.

In the summer of 1947, Kerouac’s odyssey carried him from Nebraska into Wyoming, where he landed in Cheyenne during Wild West Days (an homage to Cheyenne Frontier Days), an irony not lost on the aspiring writer.

Then came Colorado. He caught a ride south, eventually getting dropped off at the gas station in Longmont. He spent the night on his way to Denver, where he met Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady’s alter ego.

That unremarkable station at the time became a fleeting but pivotal waypoint in his pilgrimage westward.

Today, that station is gone from the highway, but not from memory. Moved and restored in the artsy, planned Prospect Village neighborhood, Johnson’s Gas Station now hums with espresso machines and live music.

The neon sign glows not just with light, but with ghosts of jazz, of youth, of daring hitchhikers and broken-in boots. You can almost hear the beat of bongo drums and the soft shuffle of typewriter keys if you listen long enough.

What if places could remember us? What if that gas station still remembers the kid who would become the voice of a generation? That kind of reckless optimism pulls you across the country with no plan but a thumb and a dream. Is that what we’ve lost in our rush for certainty?

Check out “On the Trail: Jack Kerouac in Cheyenne,” a short movie that imagines where Sal Paradise stopped before he headed down the road to Longmont.

Click on Neal and Jack to watch “On the Trail: Kerouac in Cheyenne.”

In an age of navigation apps–not paper maps, tight schedules–not leisurely drives, and curated digital lives, maybe we need places like Johnson’s again, not just to fill our tanks, but to empty our minds.

Maybe we need roads with no clear destination. Maybe the ghosts of the road still have something to teach us.

Next time you’re in Longmont, take a detour to Neon Forest Street. Have a coffee at the old Johnson’s station. Listen to the music. Let the past whisper to you. The road is still there, and maybe it’s time to take it.

If you have questions or comments, message the BCM-ALAN-BOT. We learn more and more every day!

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**Why Read Views from Beyond Metropolis?**