Author Archives: Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

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About Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

I’ve been involved with community journalism since 1968 when I wrote for my junior school paper, the "Tumbleweed," through high school and college and then wrote for the "Wyoming State Journal." I put aside my newspaper pen and began Boulder Community Media in 2005. There wasn’t much community journalism opportunity, so I resurrected my writing career as a screenwriter. My first short screenplay, “Stardust”, won an award in the 2005 Denver Screenwriting Center contest. I've made a number of movies over the years. Filmmaking is time-consuming, labor and equipment intensive. I recently changed my workflow to first write a book and make a movie based on that content. - Electric Vehicle Anxiety and Advice - This is a memoir travelogue of three trips covering 2,600 EV miles around Wyoming (2022) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Winter Goose Publishers released my memoir in February (2022) - The Zen of Writing with Confidence and Imperfection - This is a book recounting how luck planed into my signing a book deal after a 15-minute pitch meeting. (2020) - True Stories of an Aging Baby Boomer - War stories about living in a cohousing and lessons others can learn when starting their communities (2021) - Beyond Sand Creek - About Arapaho tribal efforts to repatriate land in Colorado (PBS - TBA) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Based on my memoir about my childhood in Cheyenne facing overt and subtle racism toward the Japanese following World War II (PBS - 2021) - New Deal Artist Public Art Legacy - About artists who created work in Wyoming during the Great Depression (PBS - 2018) - Mahjong and the West - SAG indie feature which premiered at the semi-important Woodstock Film Festival (2014) Over the years, I’ve produced directed, filmed and/or edited several short movies, “Running Horses” (Runner Up – Wyoming Short Film Contest), “On the Trail: Jack Kerouac in Cheyenne” (Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival, Top 10 Wyoming Short Film Contest), “Gold Digger” (Boulder Asian Film Festival), “Adobo” (Boulder International Film Festival), “A Little Bit of Discipline” (Rosebud Film Series), and two feature length documentaries “Your Neighbor’s Child” (Wyoming PBS and Rocky Mountain PBS), and “Serotonin Rising” (American Film Market, Vail Film Festival). He also directed and produced the award winning stage play “Webster Street Blues” by my childhood friend Warren Kubota. Boulder Community Media is a non-profit production company dedicated to democratzing media in all their forms - large and small screens, printed page and stage by providing sustainable and community-based content. I mostly work with community-based media producers, organizations, and socially-responsible businesses to develop their content via – the written word, electronic and new media, the visual and performing arts in a culturally competent manner – I’m what’s commonly called a niche TV and movie producer. Along with all this is plying my forte’ – fund development through grant writing, sponsorship nurturing and event planning.

The Emotional Journey of Swedish Death Cleaning

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Today I drove a carload of boxes to Laramie and made the final major delivery for my Swedish death-cleaning project.

One destination was the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The boxes contained decades of my life: research materials, hard drives, scrapbooks, manuscripts, photographs, films, books, and assorted records from projects that occupied countless hours over the years.

A separate box held watercolor paintings my mother created. Those went to the Laramie Plains Museum. Some will become part of the museum’s collection, while others will help support its mission through fundraising auctions.

As I handed everything over, I found myself experiencing mixed emotions. The handoff took all of 10 minutes.

Kind of anticlimactic, considering I’ve been sorting and sifting since the Wyoming Writers Inc. conference at the beginning of June. AHC staffer Brie Blasi asked if I’d donate my stuff.

Part of me felt a sense of relief. My materials are no longer stacked in closets, on shelves, and in corners, waiting for me to decide their fate. They now have a permanent home where they can be organized, preserved, and, if anyone finds value in them, used by future researchers, historians, students, or curious people.

Another part of me felt a touch of sadness. Every box represented a chapter of my life. The manuscripts reflected ideas I chased. The photographs captured moments that seemed important enough to save. The films documented stories and people I believed should be remembered. Letting go of them felt a little like saying goodbye to old companions.

Yet there was also comfort in knowing that I have not really lost them. If I ever need to revisit a project, confirm a memory, or look up some forgotten detail from my past life, I can make the trip to Laramie and review the materials. They are stored in a different place now.

This delivery marked the culmination of a process that has taken years. Along the way, I sold my grandmother’s Sony micro TV and Star Wars action figures I used for gender bias training. Colleagues purchased my sports card and political memorabilia collections. Other items found new homes through donations and gifts.

I hope the people who have received my stuff enjoy it. All my items spent years, sometimes decades, in my care. Collections are curious pursuits. We think we own them, but we’re only temporary caretakers. Eventually they move on to the next person, carrying their stories with them.

There’s little left. Some clothes. Some shoes. A few personal possessions. My car. The essentials.

I’m an organ donor. I imagine those will make it into worthy sick people if my parts aren’t too worn out.

What surprised me most about Swedish death cleaning is that it was never really about getting rid of stuff. It’s about deciding what mattered and what stories deserved a future beyond my shelves and storage boxes.

The works my mother painted will now have lives of their own. Some may hang on walls where people who never knew her will pause for a moment and admire her work. Others may help support a museum dedicated to preserving local history. In their own way, they will continue telling part of her story.

The same is true of the boxes I delivered. The manuscripts, photographs, films, and research materials represent a lifetime of curiosity and creativity. Long after I am gone, someone may open a folder, examine a photograph, watch a film, or read a manuscript and discover a small piece of the world as I saw it.

There is something comforting about that.

For years, I thought I was collecting things. Today, I realized I was collecting stories.

Now those stories belong to the future.

As I sit at an EV charging station writing this, listening to Jalan Jalan Crossland on Wyoming Public Radio & Media, I feel a sense of peace. My mother’s work has found a home. My work has found a home. The burden of holding on is replaced by the satisfaction of passing it all forward.

My final act of stewardship is not keeping material objects forever.

It’s about making sure they can continue their journey without me and not end up in the landfill.

One Slide at a Time

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Rediscovering history before it fades away

I’ve been putting off the slide viewing for years. Sorting my stuff for the American Heritage Center motivated me to go through them.

The task seemed simple enough. I have boxes and carousels of slides and photographs accumulated over decades. I’ll take the hard copies to the AHC. My plan is to digitize them and create an online archive by signing up for another Google Drive.

Kodachrome was top quality in its day. A status symbol. The best prints. Kodak quit making Kodachrome, and I don’t want photos on the walls.

Now, all I want are fuzzy reference shots.

The thought of reviewing the slides daunted me, since I haven’t looked at them in decades. Some are labeled. Others are complete mysteries. I know there are family photos, travels, community projects, and who knows what else. There are stories worth preserving in those boxes. The challenge is finding and remembering them.

I stopped procrastinating.

I dug out my analog Kodak Carousel projector and created a makeshift digitizing station in the basement. The projector throws images onto a portable screen. An iPhone mounted on a flexible arm photographs each slide as it appears. The arrangement would horrify a professional archivist, but perfection wasn’t the goal. I just needed reference images good enough to identify people, places, and events.

The setup looks ridiculous, but it works.

In about 90 minutes, I clicked through four carousels.

Some images brought immediate recognition.

“That’s my uncle’s living room in Peru.”

“There’s Grandma.”

“I remember that train ride to Machu Picchu.”

Others were complete puzzles.

“Who are these people?”

“Where was this taken?”

Why did I think this was important enough to photograph 50 years ago?

As the images appeared one after another, I realized the project is about photography and about memory. Photographs freeze a moment in time, while memories fade. The two are complementary. The people who can identify the faces in old pictures don’t stay around forever. If nobody writes down the names and stories, eventually the photographs become anonymous.

I mentioned my progress to a neighbor. He wasn’t nearly as excited as I was, probably because he’s not ready to cut loose. My neighbor on the other side of the sidewalk is purging his mothballed business and saw my setup in the basement. I told him I’d keep it set up if he wanted to look at his slides.

The process reminded me why I’ve been engaged in a bit of Swedish death cleaning. The goal is to leave behind fewer mysteries for friends and family.

Before anything can be preserved, it has to be identified.

Because the sun comes up early, It’ll take me a few more days to look at everything in the relatively dark room.

The setup may be imperfect and takes up a lot of space. Analog slides are cumbersome, having to manually load them, being sure they’re right side up and not backward. I had two piles ready to store, but the apparatus irritated one of my neighbors who tossed them in a box out of disgust. It took up a lot of space in a common area. I should have rubberbanded them together.

The images I record will not be museum quality, but each click of the projector reveals another piece of my otherwise forgotten puzzle.

Some mysteries are solved instantly. Others require a little detective work, but every slide I identify is one less story at risk of being lost.

Those old carousels turned out to be time machines after all. I visited Peru for a family reunion, explored the Superstition Mountains in search of the Lost Dutchman, attended Nixon’s 1973 Inauguration, and, in high school, traveled to Alaska and met my long-lost Uncle Buck.

The real destinations are the stories that the photos bring to mind.

Before Dismissing Democratic Socialism, Ask Why It’s Growing

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Every time the phrase “democratic socialism” pops up in a political discussion, someone inevitably reacts as if a Soviet submarine has surfaced in the neighborhood swimming pool.

For many Americans, especially those who grew up during the Cold War, the word “socialism” comes with a lot of baggage. It evokes memories of school drills, the Iron Curtain, and endless warnings about communism. To some, the term sounds less like a political philosophy and more like a 1962 emergency broadcast.

Before dismissing democratic socialism outright, it might be worth asking a simple question:

Why is it growing?

The answer has less to do with Karl Marx and more to do with rent.

Younger voters aren’t advocating for government ownership of everything. Most aren’t spending their weekends debating nineteenth-century economic theory. They’re looking at housing costs, healthcare bills, student debt, stagnant wages, and wondering why the American Dream require a six-figure salary and three side hustles.

For them, democratic socialism serves as shorthand for a belief that the economy should work for more people, not just those at the very top.

Whether that diagnosis is correct is a matter for debate, but the concerns themselves are real.

The conversation becomes more interesting when demographics enter the picture.

Every day, roughly 10,000 Americans turn 18 and become eligible to vote. Every day, roughly 10,000 Americans also turn 65 and enter retirement age. One generation is stepping onto the political stage while another gradually exits it. That’s not a criticism of older voters. It’s how time flies. Elections are always a contest among the past, the present, and the future.

Political parties ignore these demographic shifts at their peril.

The emerging electorate is more diverse than any generation before it. Demographers project that by around 2045, the United States will become a “majority-minority” nation, meaning no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of the population.

Whether that development excites or worries people, it represents a profound demographic change that will influence politics, culture, and public policy for decades.

In that context, the question are why young voters are embracing new ideas and why anyone would expect them not to.

After all, every generation rebels against the assumptions of the previous one.

The Baby Boomers challenged the norms of the 1950s. Generation X questioned institutions. Millennials entered adulthood during economic turmoil. Generation Z inherited housing prices that make Monopoly look affordable.

Given those circumstances, it shouldn’t be surprising that younger voters are exploring alternatives and asking questions about wealth, opportunity, and economic fairness.

Critics of democratic socialism argue that expanding government programs increases taxes, create inefficiencies, and weaken economic incentives. Supporters argue that today’s economy has produced a widening gap between those who have accumulated extraordinary wealth and those struggling to keep up with the cost of living.

Both sides make points worth discussing.

What gets lost in the shouting match is that many of the policies associated with democratic socialism already exist in America. Social Security, Medicare, public education, unemployment insurance, rural electrification, and public libraries were all controversial at one time.

I remember a political cartoon from the 1950s of a Russian truck dumping wheat in the ocean to prop up prices. The U.S. government subsidizes ag businesses the same way.

Today, most Americans view them as normal parts of civic life.

This doesn’t mean democratic socialism is right. It doesn’t mean capitalism is wrong.

It means the debate is more complicated than the labels.

For older Americans, “socialism”still conjures images of Cold War adversaries like Joseph Stalin’s work camps . For younger Americans, the term means affordable healthcare, attainable housing, stronger worker protections, and a chance to build a stable life.

The disconnect is less about ideology and more about vocabulary.

Before dismissing democratic socialism as a relic from another era or embracing it as the answer to every problem it’s worth listening to what its supporters say.

Political movements rarely grow by accident.

They grow when enough people feel that something isn’t working.

The label isn’t the story.

The story is why a growing number of Americans, especially younger Americans, believe the current system needs repair.

If that many future voters are asking the question, both political parties might want to pay closer attention because if something keeps surfacing in the political pool, it may be less useful to shout “submarine” and more useful to ask what’s driving it to the surface in the first place.