Okay, I think it might be time to start listening to good ole Auntie Madge.
Why, you ask?
How about this article I wrote that was published here Aug. 1, 2019 regarding how unsustainable of an idea it is to build a city or town's uniqueness on tourism? (https://bit.ly/2Uh1zws)
People may have thought I was taking a dump on tourism. I wasn’t. I just don’t believe it is a strong foundation to build anything on. Go google “failed/abandoned amusement parks” and you will catch the drift.
Tourism is a false facade. Cheyenne would be far more interesting if we knew the actual truth of it and the
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| Frontier Days 2020 has been canceled. Now what? |
You say, “Well then, Madge, if we don’t survive via Cheyenne Frontier Days, what do we do?”
I would refer you to the article I wrote August 23, 2019 (https://bit.ly/3dTLbtq). It gave a productive year-round solution, one that would not only help our changing economy and stimulate the youth in various and functional ways but would have the potential to feed the people of our city. Poor and disadvantaged or not. Anyone. Maybe even everyone.
Tourism, one week a year, doesn’t feed the whole city for a year. It sets up some businesses for a year and a few individuals for more than we can comprehend because CFD is essentially run by volunteers.
This one week in Cheyenne puts added stress on our EMS responders — police, fire, EMTs.
It breeds an environment for human trafficking and sex work.
I could add local anecdotes of people who generally feel safe leaving the door unlocked in the Avenues only to have a drunk, out-of-state CFD attendee walk right in the door thinking it was their Air B&B.
Nah, man.
Here is my next idea:
We turn CFD grounds into a place with a vertical garden that legitimately hires people to work. A massive geothermic, indoor greenhouse that has everything we might want to buy in the produce section and more.
We get some livestock of our own. Residents can buy shares in produce, meat, milk, etc. like a co-op.
We start canning and pickling.
We work with the city compost facility and get the vermiculture worm game going. We contributed aged horse manure.
We work toward that closed cycle system.
We invest in what we want to have. We give what we have to offer to build the economy we want to live in, not the one we are trying to imitate.
Brings me back to the other article I wrote about a “Fix It” place (https://bit.ly/2BBgF9w). Making the most of what we have and collaborating with the resources of our minds and aptitude. I need the citizens of Cheyenne to know that this is something we can do.
We need a lot of skilled people and people willing to learn new skills to make this work. Wyoming is wild and rugged. We need some real rare skills here along with very ordinary ones.
In this plan we need to hire the best butchers and packers willing to work for local ranchers to have their meat processed. We need big freezers to store goods. We need people who know how to fix those freezers. We need people willing to clean those freezers and do a legit inventory.
We need HVAC, electric, solar, machinists, growers, vermiculture people, ranchers, gardeners, bird and insect specialists, kind hands, sales people, restaurant workers, stock people, people with specialization in lighting and humidity.
We need:
People who want to learn to grow food.
People who want to learn a new skill.
People who realize oil isn’t feeding them.
People who love to cook.
People who water plants as meditation.
People who want to pull weeds to work out their anger issues.
People who want to take their kids into a place that shows something different and useful.
People who love to serve.
People who love good food and want to see their economy thrive on its own in the way it was meant to.
People who are heartbroken knowing people go hungry.
People who know about how technology can make this possible.
People with money to make it happen.
People with any resource to make it happen.
People who just are curious about what it could look like.
People who want to meet new people in a sober and productive environment.
People who like the smell of clean dirt and chlorophyll.
People who want ethically sourced local goods.
People who want to just come read a book in a warm greenhouse in the winter.
People who asked, “But what does Cheyenne have to offer?”
People who said, “Cheyenne is a dump.”
People who left but find themselves homesick for something that never existed.
If I didn’t list you, I am sorry, but I bet you fit in perfectly. We all love good food.
The plan is to do all the stuff the tenacious early Wyomingites did, but better and utilizing technology. It is good to learn the old ways and the new ones.
Every day there is a market of local goods at reasonable prices, locally provided.
We provide for our people.
We provide so much bounty that there is always enough to pass down to those in need.
We look out for our neighbor.
We offer a helping hand.
We take a sad song and make it better with our will and knowing.
We are more than CFD. We are Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Madge Midgely is a local writer.
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