I was born July 10, 1955, at the old log St. John’s Hospital in Jackson, Wyoming, to Maryjane and Paul Hanson, who had moved here a few years earlier from Seattle, Washington. My Father, who had Summered in the Region (Cooke City Mt.) before the War, was shopping for business opportunities in the wake of World War II, and had chosen Jackson Hole, for its beauty, but with the knowledge, that the projected rededication of the expanded Grand Teton National Park, with a paved highway all the way through to Yellowstone would bring myriad of vacationers. This was a ready market for a Jewelry and Souvenir Shop, since the booming Peacetime Economy of the fifties was putting millions of Americans on the road.

Paul Hanson Gifts

High School Sophomore Yearbook Portrait

The tourist business flourished, and his retail stores (Paul Hanson Gifts and Jewelry - pictured above, The Colter House, and others through the years) provided a major source of Employment for Jackson Hole residents. Since he also had started a small Jewelry Manufacturing business, there were even jobs through the then lean Winters. I had two siblings, a brother who was killed in a 1983 automobile accident, and a sister, who currently lives in Park City, Utah. From 1960 to 1972 I attended the schools of Jackson Hole, under strong encouragement by my teachers, to leave High School early , to attend College. This I did, leaving here for Eugene, Oregon in the Fall of 1973, where I initially attended Lane Community College, afterwards attending the University of Oregon, with a major in Creative Writing. I studied under Poet, John Haislip, as well as such Scholars as Dr. William Strange (English Romantic Period), and M’sad Zavarzedeh (Contemporary American Literature)

All through my youth, I enjoyed as many of Jackson Hole’s outdoor activities as I could, having always been an ardent hiker, skier, and fly fisher. Under my current circumstances with M.S., when I look back, for example to my many hikes in the Grosventres and the Tetons - at least I can say I was there, and can picture the experience like it was yesterday.

I returned to Jackson in 1978 to help my Father in his expansion, as he purchased the old Jackson Trading Post (now Jack Dennis Sports), a 13000 sq. ft. store, so a formidable task. After my Brother’s death in 1983, the family’s fortunes deteriorated along with the local economy. After the sole owner of the one bank in town, sold the bank, many bargain seeking investors saw that they could capitalize on the large number of irregular loans (this was still basically a rural economy, with no Winter tourist season - “seed money in the Spring, with a Summer pay back) and force the sale of several Jackson businesses. My Father’s got caught in the “land grab”, and although there was a law suit (settled for a very small sum), and a series of small T’ Shirt shops, the family never recovered, my Father contracting Encephalitis, and spending the nineties at St. John’s Living Center until his death in 2000.

Although I had been suffering symptoms since 1984, it wasn’t until 1987 that I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and though I continued in the remnants of our business, the slow progression of the disease stripped me bit by bit, of my mobility. In 1996, with the help of the Wyoming Dept. of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR), I returned to school in Oregon, and added a study of Computer Science to my academic career. As the funding ended, and employment was not readily found, I turned my interest in, and apparent skill with computers, to design and programming for the then nascent, World Wide Web. I did small contracts for some of my professors, and as I was an English Graduate, the Professors I worked with were mostly in that somewhat impoverished department as well, and could not bring me enough work to sustain my consultancy.

In 1998, I returned to Jackson Hole, with a position as a Perl Programmer for a small Internet Software Company, that was located here. I was still able to walk fairly well (albeit with a cane - I could be found walking Flat Creek, every Sunday in August), however the writing was on the wall. By 2001, Command-O software was almost gone, and I continued to do Web design, this time for small Jackson businesses, whose emphasis was on the arts. A major exacerbation of the M.S. in September, rendered me to a wheelchair bound status, and the concomitant disabilities kept my job opportunities few, especially since I was becoming increasingly invisible to the ever growing, and ever changing Jackson business community. A fundraiser was held, and that got me over the immediate hump. I have many friends, and I pride myself on having few, if any enemies. The turnout was highly flattering, and my gratitude was immense - to the point of effusive, as the Editor of the local newspaper emphasized when he published my letter of appreciation.

The last five years have found me continuing. The symptoms of M.S. worsening, although not as aggressively as I could fear. Unfortunately my income has again plunged to the point where - to my mind, considerable personal debt is about the only supplement to my meager Social Security, that is available, since I am again more or less invisible to the employment market. I still maintain a small consultancy - Grosventre Information Technology Assistance, but that barely sustains my life, not to mention my other projects.

Many of those may be seen on my web site www.tetonpeaks.org and they include, as a free service to the people of the region, a Mac OS X Dashboard Widget, that makes available the entire collection of WYDOT highway web cams, under a simple Dashboard interface. My James Joyce Concordance is also there, which I established as a free service to the community of Joyce Scholarship Since the site is more of the nature of the “Home Page” of the early days of the internet it also acts as my sandbox for the testing of new Applications, and a platform for my writings, including the memorial area I set up after my Father’s passing. Everyone is welcome to check it out, as it probably will reveal far more of my life than this brief sketch.

Michael Hanson’s Fiftieth Birthday Party, Flying Rocking J Ranch - Victor, ID 07.10.2005 L to R - Michael Hanson, Dennis Miller (d 2006), George Scarlett, Greta Procious, Daki Brazelton, Alex of Gilford, ,Kristi Davidson, Melissa Davidson Photo: Julia Meno-Fettig 2005