Work Update

I take a lot of pride in going to work everyday and try hard to do my job right.  But one day in my early morning reading of the local rag somebody quoted Charles de Gualle, of French fame.  He said the "graveyards are full of indispensable people." So I said damn I better take a few days off - 3 to be exact.  Some call that a mini-vacation.  I didn't go to any exotic location, hell I didn't even go to Topeka.  I stayed home and caught up on some work in my yard, garden and did some carpentry work.  In my old age I'm trying to build things.  Some turn out right, others not.

I also slept in.  I woke up a 5:45 a.m. every morning.  Lazy, huh? I mowed my yard which is my number one priority in the summer-time. I got a lot of those weeds out of my garden, and picked new tators for immediate consumption.  I build some new steps in my workshop area and a small wall and put in a door.  Being a wanna be carpenter is hard work and time consuming.  And after this spurt of manual labor, there was  a mess to clean up.  It took several days to do these projects, but now I freed up some time in the future for some small woodworking projects.

On Saturday night. we had a rain storm and boy did it every come down.  This is the most rain I seen come down in such a short time.  In fact, the creeks were almost overflowing the banks.  I've never seen that much water in the creeks for a long, long time.  My daughter and two of my grandchildren had gone to a movie in Topeka and narrowly missed getting hit by a tornado, just south of of the casino on Hwy 75.  I'm glad somebody was watching out for them. It was strange because there were no warnings and this tornado came out of nowhere.  Our weather has a tendency to be unpredictable.

It turned out that my work place went on without me so it's true being indispenable is only a figment of the imagination.

Potawatomi Golfer

Golf sure isn't an easy game which may explain why I don't get out there much.  In fact, I've gone once in three years, but this isn't true for every Potawatomi.  Steve McDonald has  made the time to get on the course and has done well lately. He is on the verge of realizing his life-long dream of playing more on the pro circuit.

He recently qualified as the 1st alternate for the U.S. Senior Open and will likely get to play in this prestigious event.  Getting to this point for Steve has been hard.  He played in many tournaments over the years winning some and losing some but now if he does well in this tournament it could mean big things for him.  These guys at this level by doing well attract the big sponsors.  This means he won't have to struggle getting to tournaments, will have the pick of all the new technology and get more exposure. You never know - if he puts together some great rounds...I hope he does well!

Steve is the golf pro at a local Topeka golf course and comes from a family of athletes.  His dad John played the golf game for years.  His brother Mick was a big guy on the softball fields and now shoots in the 80s in golf.  His son Alex recently made all-city in golf and his daughter Emily was all-city a few years before and it earned a golf scholarship.  The game goes on. 

Steve is a Prairie Band of Potawatomi tribal member and once gave me some sound golf advice.  He asked, after seeing me play golf,  if I would consider working more on my yard and garden, so I took his advice!

The Day the Music died in Indian Topeka

Maybe you’re getting old when…you look around and do a head-count and suddently realize that a lot of your friends have died. Some have died young, and others were too old to die young. A case in point is the Potawatomi song-maker Gary Cooper. He died today. I knew Gary every since we were kids. His Dad Walter Cooper taught school in Delia, Kansas and they had a house right down the street from the school. We went to school there only briefly, but that was the first memory I had of him playing in that front yard.


Over the years, my brothers and I would run across him at different events. He was a friendly guy and became a life-long friend. He was a cousin to one of our old friends Vernon Yazzie. Vernon went to the same school as us and we stayed at each others homes and this was how we would often run into Gary Cooper in our excursions into t-town.  In revisionist history, they are called excursions.Vernon was one of those guys who died young.

Gary started a band and played in every honky-tonk in the area, sometimes twice. He must have made a decent living at it because he played right up until the bitter end, but truthfully our chosen hobby doesn’t’ pay the bills, so Gary did some roofing work with his dad in a day job. They had a house in North Topeka. We grew up on the reservation and he in the big city. Our paths crossed many times over the years, but as it happens in life, we rarely saw each other in the last few years because my focus changed to family and family type events. Gary never did marry and stayed close with the guitar.

The last time I saw Gary was the Potawatomi Gathering held here last year. He played up on the stage and I dropped by to see him and when I was leaving he said “I’m going to dedicate the next song to Gary Mitchell.” He did that to a lot of people beside me and it made us feel good for a second or two. He was in a wheel-chair and his health had steadily declined over the last few years, but he did what he liked until he couldn’t anymore. Around these parts there were few Indian bands, but there was a song-maker once, his name was Gary Cooper.

Old boxing stories

I ran across an old clipping from the Holton Recorder and this guy named Jim Hoy wrote an article called: Jess Willard was the Pottawatomie Giant. According to the story Willard was the World Boxing Champion from 1913 to 1919. “As a fighter, he was variously nicknamed the “Kansas Giant” or the “Pottawatomie Giant, but whether this latter sobriquet came from the county he lived in or from the Indians with whom he traded horses on the reservation in neighboring Jackson County, I don’t know.”

I remember talking to Maynard Potts, who at the time was in his 90s, about Willard. Maynard had a great memory and could tell some great episodes of Potawatomi life.  He said there used to be a store on the southwest side of the reservation and Willard was just starting out in boxing and the Indian boys from around the reservation would go down there and try him out, but would always lose. This was a funny story.

All is quiet on the home front

Around here everything is quiet on the home front. The Pow-Wow has come and gone. The rains come and the heat stifles the air the next moment and the rains come again, but that’s the way it is in the summer time. But those conditions can only help our gardens. The tribal elections are getting closer. The expectations are low so it’s not that exciting. The Potawatomi Gathering is coming up in August but that is in Oklahoma, a place hotter than here.

So we have to cross the borders of this reservation to find some real excitement. In Missouri, a farmer put up a sign in his field that said “Democrats – Party of the Parasites,” and although it is in an area of Republicans, somebody took exception to his yard art and set it afire, not once but twice. Funny! But there is more to this guy's story: He received more than $1 million in federal crop subsidies since 1995.  Around here, they don’t put up political signs –yet, but they could get burned too.  Who really knows? While we are on the Missouri topic, the Royals are not in last place but pretty damn close.

Tiger didn’t win the U.S. Open but the poor guy still ended up with a pretty fair paycheck of $300,000. They say part of his game is gone and maybe it will come back, maybe not. I personally wouldn’t count him out just yet. A lot of people couldn't care less what happens with some of these pro athletes because of their feelings of entitlement and their attitudes of being above others, but this is Sports America.

In the Deep South, first they get a horrible hurricane and now oil is going everywhere ruining their environment and seashores. Some say it’s the price you pay for a view but it also is affecting their livelihoods and that isn’t good.  The politicians will make some empty promises and soon will forget them.  Yet, that isn't good for the people who depend on the sea or the fish-consumers of the world either.

On a sad note, we lost three people here: Mike Jensen, Dale Thomas and Wesley Begay. Age or cancer took their lives. Death is an inescapable truth here and everywhere. I knew all three men and they each made their own marks on this life. Life does go by fast, make the most of it.

Busy Weekend Again!

In many parts of the country, there are oil spills, storms and flash floods causing extensive damage and deaths to wildlife and humans alike. Here there wasn't anything of that magnitude, but there were challenges. On the Prairie Band Reservation the 2010 Pow-Wow survived some heavy rains and some hellious humidity, but between rain-falls the pow-wow was completed in its entirety.

There were people from all over joining the celebration and vendors everywhere. It was all good. I’m glad they had a good experience coming to our reservation. The most important thing that these pow-wows can do is highlight the progress the tribe has made over the last few years. The only real drawback is that everybody can't win.  Some make big money, others don't.  That's the way of the pow-wow.

I missed parts of it because I attended my nephews wedding. I’ve been around Willie Potts since he was a baby and now he’s 35 years old and married. He asked me to come to the ceremony and say a prayer in our language and I’m glad I could help him out. I also count his parents as long-time friends. I don't have many of those so its important to keep the ones you have. Why?  You'd want at least a few people at your funeral. An old coon-hunter told me once after I told him I was getting into the frying pan of tribal politics 20 some years ago:  "now you will find out who your friends are,"  and I've found out his words were true. There was a lot of hard work planning the wedding and everything went well. The company was good. The food was good. I imagine that day will be a positive experience for both Willie and Tracy. After it was over, we went home to rest and later we caught the evening performance at the pow-wow.

On Sunday, I stayed home and did some work. I figure the pow-wow would go on without me and it did. My daughter told me that the work could wait until after the pow-wow.  True, but I just can't tell my inner self that yet. I was able to get most of my yard mowed and did some more organizing in my workshop. I told my wife that I will get organized before I cash in the chips and I will. I put up a new mailbox that my sister-in-law gave us. It came from Canada. I just hope the young hoodlums who go around  bashing mailbox’s will leave this one alone, but with that said they probaby will do just that.  My neighbor gave up and rented a post-office box to get his mail.

We packed in a lot this weekend and by Sunday night I was fairly tired. I slept so hard that I didn’t hear the storm outside and I guess there were tornado warnings everywhere. The rain was good for the garden. It rained close to 4” here.  Now the Potawatomi Gathering is next, but we are not sure we are going yet.

Michelle Obama meets a Potawatomi girl

My granddaughter Tara was able to meet the First Lady, Michelle Obama.  Her husband Dawson was part of the Marine Corp security provided for the First Lady in her visit to San Diego.  Tara was able to sit in one of the front rows.  Ms. Obama made a visit to encourage the Marines and their families.  Tara said she "felt pretty blessed to meet the first African-American First Lady.  She's a beautiful and wise woman." This happened today at Camp Pendleton.