Imbolc and the Leap Year Moon
When we moved here, I imagined a lot more cowboy boots, stetsons, and cowboy themed places. There are cowboy boots, our hair stylist Jackie says she wears nothing else, and in any restaurant (back when we could go to restaurants) a certain percentage of folks will have on a pair. Same with Stetsons and western shirts with the pleat in the back and pearl faced buttons. The Buckhorn, Denver’s restaurant holding the first liquor license the city issued, has a definite cowboy feel. Buffalo Bill and Wyatt Earp ate there. So they say.
Rather than clothing and decor, the cowboy way is evident here in a love affair with guns, the second amendment, and libertarianism. Let me alone so my cattle can roam. Out where you can’t hear nothing all day. Unless it’s me, a good guy with a gun, taking out a varmint tryin’ to steal ma stuff. Then you might hear me exercising my second amendment rights. (No, not me, as in me, but, you know.)
A gun shop owner, the Denver Post reports, said he’s seen a huge uptick in business. Part of, he said, is because “folks went to King Sooper, trying to track down some toilet paper and saw grown men and women fist fighting to see who gets the last pack of tissues.” Later in the article he tagged panic as the reason for the sales, not the virus. “You can’t shoot a virus,” he said.
Another guy, owner of Devils Head Choppers in Castle Rock, a joint gun and motorcycle shop, ran out of ammo. He said such a run responds to unusual events or even elections, particularly ones that favor Democrats. sbradbury@denverpost.com 3/18/2020
Up here in the mountains a lot of folks say their security company is Smith and Wesson. Isolated property, long driveways, uncertain response times from the Jeffco sheriff’s office reinforce these attitudes. These postures ride along with government can’t do it right, ever, thinking.
Darwin is having a partisan political moment. Look at this from Slate: “…in the United States, poll after poll shows the virus has found a population that’s particularly likely, through nonchalance and neglect, to help it spread. That population is Republicans.” Slate The whole article is interesting if you have time.
If a number of the red state folks, Trump fans, go out to scoot boots, bowl, eat chili, then there might be fewer of’em to line up in the voting booth. Damn science.
Fun times the good ol’ U.S. of A.
