Because the Pleasant Hill Billies didn’t have an open spot on their schedule, your Oregon Ducks host Wyoming in a non-conference clash sure to cause ripples all the way to the Moshofsky Center. It is the first time that Oregon and Wyoming have met, and the game promises to be fraught with excitement.
Scene in Autzen Stadium men’s room six minutes into the game this week.
But FishDuck.com/italicsarecool believes that Oregon fans always hunger for knowledge about our esteemed opponents. Since we don’t have an esteemed opponent this week, we thought you should know some things about Wyoming. A recent poll (taken in my house, where I was both poll taker and poll responder) revealed the answer to the question, “What is the ugliest town in America?” The answer was Sinclair, Wyoming.
The last time I stayed in a motel for $19.99, it was on seventh in Eugene and I paid by the hou … never mind.
Wyoming, west of Laramie, has some of the most desolate driving in the Lower 48. I crossed the state on I-80 one day in 2001, and found miles and miles of … miles and miles. But I wanted to give the state a chance. I can generally find beauty and inspiration everywhere I go.
So I let the vastness wash over me. Over Elk Mountain I drove toward Rawlins. I went through the aptly named Bitter Creek. I drove through Superior and, even though I found it Inferior, I motored on. Suddenly I found myself inspired! I knew what I wanted to do next!
It may not have been a great plan, but it was a plan.
Sure, Wyoming may not be for everyone (read almost anyone), but the half dozen or so people who call Wyoming home impress me with their rather offbeat sense of humor. I am told that the most famous resident of Cody was Buffalo Bill.
I’ll grant that it was a funny show, but Dabney Coleman is Wyoming’s most famous person?
But fair is fair. If a state contributed something to the positive nature of the discourse in this country, I am going to give that state the credit it deserves. Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote. This came to pass in 1919.
You Go Girl! Vote!
Unfortunately, the right of suffrage was taken away in 1920, when the women of Wyoming voted to have the men castrated for making them live in such an awful place.
Quick show of hands. How many of the guys reading this just crossed their legs?
But I have to admit that I visited Cheyenne just a few years ago, and found it a rather charming little town. It isn’t big enough to be a county seat in most places, but Wyoming calls it a capital and so too shall we. I took a trolley ride, and it traveled around town, displaying to me the most interesting aspects of Cheyenne.
The tour lasts one minute, 18 seconds.
One thing that I learned on the trolley tour was the identity of the Governor of Wyoming …
Governor Matt Mead
… though I must admit that I found his resemblance to Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik to be rather off-putting.
“To-do list. Open a shopping center in Gillette, sign water usage bill for Converse County, cut off some heads in Casper.”
But when all is said and done, the Ducks will have another win, the Cowboys will have enough money to change school colors from mustard and mud, and the womenfolk from Wyoming who visited Autzen will say, “If there is a God, I will be living in Eugene by Christmas.”
GO DUCKS! Bludgeon the ‘boys!
Top photo by en.wikipedia.org
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Kim Hastings is a 1984 graduate of Northwest Christian College. He cut his journalistic teeth as sports editor of a paper in his home town of Fortuna, CA, and, later as a columnist for the Longview Daily News in Longview, WA.
He saw his first Oregon game in 1977 and never missed a home game from 1981 until a bout with pneumonia cut his streak short in 1997. He was one of the proud 3200 on a bitterly cold night in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1989 for the Independence Bowl, and continues to be big supporter of Oregon sports. He is an active participant on the various Oregon Ducks messageboards as “TacomaDuck.”