In this terribly tragic week, when the focus in central Wyoming has been on middle school and high school-age kids for all of the wrong reasons, there also was some good to be found.
Dale Killingbeck, who writes for the Cowboy State Daily, has done a superb job with accurate reporting on the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Maher on Sunday afternoon outside the Eastridge Mall in Casper.
Nothing I could add here would take away any pain or grief or make sense of a senseless attack.
On Monday, a thin slice of the nation experienced a total solar eclipse, when the moon passes directly between the sun and us.
In Wyoming, we experienced the same thing in August 2017.
Then, all it did in my opinion was intrude on my daughter’s birthday. I neither got excited about it nor particularly cared.
This year, maybe because I was looking to the heavens to provide answers to what the hell is wrong with our world, I very much enjoyed news coverage of the event.
I watched every moment of a two-hour midday special on the eclipse, following totality from south Texas through the Midwest and up to Maine.
The same news guys who told us nightly in 2020 that we were all going to die if we had human contact and didn’t get continuous jabs were now brought to tears by the moon playing hide and seek with the sun.
The images were beautiful at each stage of the process. I also enjoyed the very practical perspective that we all need the sun — its light, its warmth, its ability to make things grow.
Without it, the world is a dark and dreary place.
And that brings me back again to one of one.
The debate about Caitlin Clark being the greatest of all time without winning a title is perhaps the dumbest sports vitriol I have ever heard.
The WNBA “stars” who spew that garbage, many of whom played college ball at UConn, seem petty and ridiculous.
They act like a bunch of jealous Mean Girls.
They should instead be grateful that they will play in front of sold-out crowds this season when CC comes to town, most likely with the Indiana Fever.
By the way, the Fever announced Wednesday that 36 of their 40 regular-season games this season will be nationally televised. That would be the CC effect.
I have a totally non-sports friend who lives in Iowa and has become absolutely captivated by CC.
She was excited to visit friends in Minnesota this summer and take in a game when the Fever came to town. The day she checked, the cheapest ticket, although still available, was $500.
Speaking of girls, I was taken to the woodshed this week by a reader for referring to female athletes as girls.
When they are in high school, they are girls. When they are not yet 20, they are girls. And frankly, if they are significantly younger than me, which is 98 percent of the population, they are girls. I meant nothing derogatory by it.
Mike Hall of the Big Ten Network did a tremendous look back at CC’s career. It’s four minutes worth watching.
At the end, looking for that timeless tagline, he simply said, “Her now famous Hawkeyes jersey was two two’s, but she was one of one.”
The moon, the sun, and one of one. Let’s continue to look for the bright moments among the bleak.
Sally Ann Shurmur can be reached at: SallyAnnShurmur@gmail.com
