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Years ago, when I was a teenager, I lived in Laramie, Wyoming.

I've always remembered it as a mean town, uncommonly mean,

a place of jagged edges and cooled people, where the wind blew so hard, it actually whipped

pebbles at you, actually pushed trucks off the highway. Laramie stood at an elevation of more

than 7,000 feet and got so socked in by winter storms,

it felt like we were trapped, like there was no way out.

My family moved away before my senior year in high school.

I never wanted to go back.

The town's only high school, Laramie High, was grim even by normal high school standards.

One of my classmates killed someone, other students killed themselves.

Some boys were held down and branded with letters, like they were livestock.

Coaches who caught guys fighting in the hallways made them fight for real,

in a makeshift ring.

Laramie wanted to raise its men as macho cowboys.

Weakness wasn't tolerated.

And the girls had to look a certain way, act a certain way,

...