Navajo Cadillac isss

My schedule is this...
 I am no longer driving will be walking along the road hitchiking here and there
can't afford the gas the trading post prices are too damn high
$4.50 a gallon
look for me on the road
otherwise will be sitting at home
until two weeks from now when I can afford the gas...
so won't I won't in Gallup or anywhere else for a little bit
so will have to wait for lunch just waiting for gas to hit $5.00 a gallon...

Sent from Minnesota

An email from Minnesota came to me, it from a Navajo who is married up there to a Swiss girl now they have 5 children and he told me this story... "...So I traveled every corner of this country as a salesman for eight years. One day I found myself standing in a church saying, "I Do." A sweet Swiss girl from Minnesota trapped me in her web. So now I am living just north of Minneapolis as a husband and a father to five beautiful children. Now this leads me to this little story I would like to share. Last month, I was driving through Minneapolis. I came to a stop light at an intersection. There I saw an Indian woman standing in the frigid cold weather panhandling. My thought was how would someone slipped to the point of begging for small change and I am sure loads of humiliation to come out on the streets with a sign. I was thinking she probably is a mom who got into a desperation situation and this is way she saw to bring happiness to her child or children. At that point, the light turned green. I quickly got two twenties out of my pocket and handed to her. Her eyes showed the emotion of unending gratefulness and she said thank you very much sir I told her to get out of the cold weather and found a shelter to get warm. She smiled and said now I can do that as she was waving the twenties Two weeks ago my wife and I were in downtown Minneapolis driving on the way to the airport. I saw the same Indian woman hurrying along the street with a little girl. They were not dressed for the cold and windy weather. I quickly told my wife about what happened at the intersection three weeks ago. We stopped and yelled at her if they needed a ride. They ran across the Street and the woman said they are going over to Burger King, which was about four blocks away. We ended up eating with them and we got to know more about her. She is from South Dakota and they came to Twin City to earn some money and get to San Francisco. Her husband got a job in sheet metal working and he dumped her and the little daughter after his second pay check. She didn't know what happened to him. She was determined to find a way to California. My wife and I talked to her that we might help them if they're willing to accept our offer. After getting pass her pride, she said she will noted be able to pay us back and she doesn't know enough words to thank us. We told her not to be foolish, so we took her and her little beautiful daughter to a Marshall Fields store where they picked jackets, hats, gloves and a pair of shoes. That evening we putted them on the plane to San Francisco. After all this I ended up missing my flight to Chicago....my wife and I laughed. There is always another time for Chicago. Merry Christmas and the happiest New Year to you and your family." sent from Minnesota I got this yesterday in my email and after asking the writer about posting it they said it was ok so long as they remain anonymous. I am thinking maybe there is still some hope for humankind out there...rustywire

Saturday Morning

It is Saturday morning and I've been listening to the oldies on the radio, some good ones on today... been thinking about things...wondering what the world is like out there today... how would it be to walk along the ocean at sunrise... to eat breakfast at a greasy spoon along the interstate somewhere in Oklahoma... to be sitting in Toadlena on the Navajo Rez, my home and feel the dew drops on the cedar... the early morning smells of a new day, to hear the blue birds sing and look across the horizon, clear blue skies with just hint of a cloud. Listening to the sound of someone far off chopping wood smelling the smoke of a breakfast fire of cedar and juniper... tanding there with a cup of coffee mixed with a little cream and sugar to turn and see my father standing down by the corral to hear the sound of my grandmother laughing to hear the philco radio tell a story about how three lost sheep were found wandering around Farmington, and the police spent two hours trying to chase them down... Shimasani-my grandmother used to say, why do those people iust grow hay? that grass...just to cut and throw it away... Yahdahlah, she would say... in the distance I can hear the children laughing as they stand by the wash watching small twigs float down the stream. My mother would be coming in and telling me to check the truck, it is town day and we have to head to Gallup... a chance to maybe go to a movie, to walk around and see what is new... maybe to eat some Kentucky Fried Chicken or just to see what is on the road today... and in a blink of an eye it is all gone I am far away from there... where was I...ah yes standing outside in the early morning light... feeling a light breeze and thinking of a time long ago...

lightning and thunder have you seen it...

I wonder if there has been any thunder or lightning yet somewhere on
the rez...I am wondering if it has come and gone... for us this time marks the change of seasons, the stories of winter are put away and the things of summer come…it has always been so with First Thunder…

I wonder because I remember one time a long time ago, maybe by Agathla Peak by Kayenta or Cedar Ridge, or maybe by Grand Falls, or was it over by Borrego Pass way before there were any Beliganas (White Men) in the area, there were two brothers who travelled across this land called Dinetah.

One brother while camping with the other was introduced to relations, an old man, one they would call Che, explained to the boys that the Mountain Rising to the East, a mountain with black streaks was not a good place to visit, that it was not a safe place to go.

This in the days when Holy Beings followed closely the people, the Dine' living within a place where it was bordered by Four Sacred Mountains. They came in many forms to teach, to talk and to warn people on how they should live. This was done through song, ceremony and teaching. An old man told these two young boys to be careful and that this mountain was not a place to be.

When the boys sat in camp, they talked about going different places to visit the Arrow People, where they lived at the Head of the Earth. The one brother left that way on his own and the other sat around the fire, as he sat there he made bread by throwing the bread made from what is now called drop seeds and fashioned this into a cake and placed it in the ashes of the fire to cook. The wood used as juniper.

They were taught to use juniper, because scientists now days would
find that the blue ash given off is a form of calcium that can only be found in this way, juniper ash and when it coated this bread it provided a needed nutrient to these people. It was not written then, but they were told to do this and so they did.

This young man thought about going up on the mountain and the words and said to himself..."I wonder why they told me not to go up there?"

He sat there and thought about it to himself. "I wonder why they told
me not go up there? It is a mountain like any other"

He sat there and thought about it and said, "I am young, I am strong, I am fast and I know more about these things. Those old people don't really know anything, they are superstitious. I know more. I don't
under stand them, I don't need to....so I will go up there and see
for myself"

He went to sleep and slept under the stars and the Wind whispered
to him, because the Wind was a carrier of messages, that is why the
Navajo have the Windway Ceremony. Anyway, he went to sleep and when
he woke, he could hear the sound of thunder, rolling from the East,
then the South, then the West and then to the North. He got up and
rubbed his eyes and after gathering himself set out for the mountain
he was told not to go to...."

As he went he picked up some arrows and pointed them down to the
ground as he put them in his quiver, and that is when his trouble
started....from this he went on his way and would learn about Bear Man, the six beings who were not destroyed by the Twin Heros, meet a young maiden who was not what she appeared to be and many more things which are told in a certain way at a certain time…so it goes"

The stories, myths and legends of these people called Navajo with
funny names for places have some truth in them, it is through storytelling that some things are taught. I am no expert on the Navajo Way, but some things I remember. johnny rustywire

Yesterday morning I spoke with a young woman
Who sat and cried that her Che was gone

I went over to see them as he was someone
I had known for some time

Did I tell you
your grandfather and I went
to Boarding School together

Yes many of us went there a long time ago
It seems it was just the other day

Early this morning in the early frost I got up
It was twilight the time before dawn
In the stillness the years of my life came to mind
To all those that I have known

When I was a child I played on red sandstone
And ran at my mother’s feet
it was just over there
and just a little way away
my father called me and I answered

In school I sat next boys and girls
You know them it was the same for your
You will know them all of your life

Getting on a bus to go to school
Far from home without family
Just indian kids to find our way
To sleep on bunk beds in old buildings
To talk English and stand in line

To eat at the dining hall all year long
Waking up this morning
We have all gone different ways
Some never to be seen again
Others who live just a stone throw away

We shared many things,
To run and play and yet sit quietly
We used to laugh with each other
In the summer to play in the sand and to gather wood
To follow the sheep on hot days and cool nights
We ran to distant mesas and walked these reservation roads

I got up and sat there in the dark
I could hear these thoughtsfrom years ago
These things come to mind all your life
Where will I go
What will I be
Will I go to the moon
To live in big cities and see the world
That is what I heard, the sounds of youth

We really didn’t go that far
Just over the mesa
Just down by the wash
to the second house
With the red roof

To live, to find a life
Just beyond the sage
To hear the wind blow through
Junipers and cedars
To hear the sound of sheep bells

To go out and find life
This boy I knew started from here
Just over there beyond the mesa
Their place was there

In time he met someone
She was from that place
They call it where there is a circle of trees
Teec Nos Pos

Some said they were crazy to get together
They are a too young
They have nothing but really what it is there
Just a pocket full of dreams, a few clothes
But the gleam in their eyes
You see that is better than gold
For their lives where cast in the dawn
Where life grows and is renewed each day

Time has shown they made a good choice
Little children laughed at their place
Now they are all on their own

I remember one day he got up and was alone
She had go to see where it is that lies beyond the dawn
His step as a little slower and he was quiet
But he loved the laughter of children
And had an easy smile and something to say
To everyone that was his way

He had gone away for while but these dusty mesas
Call you and you listen for the quiet
You dream of soft rain and rainbows
That is how it is
To make a family and return
To Dinetah, our land

A life lived in the sticks
a hard life to haul water and wood
to get stuck in the mud and snow
way out in the middle of no where

Now the winter of many snows has come
And flecks of gray gather like dust
So we came home and live here
And from here we go on

To where the winds go
Far beyond any place I have travelled
And there I suspect she waits
The one who made him laugh long ago

To the mothers who reached out
When were were children
To the grandfathers who sang our songs
And I know they came
And offered sweet corn
And some Navajo tea

Today what we feel it is too much to bear
But something reached out and touched me
I mean the kind of feeling where someone is with you
as if you feel them with you
In all the world
there are so many places to go
but for a moment
it stops for just a little while


to know life
to taste it
to see all things
to know everything

As times goes by and you get older
Sometimes there is the longing of the heart
for the lost days of summer

but it really doesn't matter because in a moment
thoughts travel like lightning through stormy skys
and pierce the cobwebs of clouded mind
so we touch eternity for a moment

we go down our own path having known
that somewhere, some place
there are good hearts
color creed vanity and place vanish
so I take your kindness with me forever
let it be said that we stood here and go on
in the mountains, the sky and in all the things
our dear Mother Earth has given us

but in searching for this I find
that there are others waiting
They are small and still growing and have dreams
Their touch is like summer and they follow us around
to taste sweet water, and wait to dance to my song

that you might find the beautyway
How does it go...ah yes it comes....

As I go this way and that way

let me walk in beauty
so that there is beauty before me,
that there is beauty behind me
that as I look up there is beauty above me
that there is beauty to the left of me
that there is beauty to the right of me
that all around there is beauty
come my child walk this way with me

rustywire

What about those Rez Dogs?

In Fort Defiance I came home to my place late one evening just the other day and Phil who is my best friend and neighbor has a cat. Now, I have a rez dog, Swifty. Now Swifty was sitting at the front porch with Phil's cat in his mouth.

The cat didn’t look good, in fact he looked dead. I didn't know how to tell Phil about his cat, so I took it inside and thought about what to do about it, so then I washed it up, blow dried the cats’ long hair and snuck over to the back porch of Phil’s house and put the cat there as if it were sleeping. Later I saw Phil and he didn't say anything about his cat.

The next day the same thing happened, Swifty had Phil's cat when I came home. I picked the cat up and thinking on what to do now I took her inside and washed it, blow dried the fur and then snuck the cat back over to Phil’s place and put it where it was before. Later on that evening when I saw Phil he didn’t say anything about his cat.

Well the next day the same thing happened again, this time I put the cat on the front porch of Phil’s house. By this time the cat looked worse for wear. When I got back to my place and went inside I heard Phil's wife just scream so loud you could hear it a long ways off. My wife and I ran over to their house and Phil was just standing there. I asked Phil what happened.

He looked at me and said, I just don't get it, that cat died three days ago and I buried it and she keeps coming back!

Old Indian at Bee Nah

During his past week I was in Bee Nah and ran into an old friend who I hadn't seen for 13 years or so. He looked good, he has a sharp mind and in a way is a person who questions why people do the things they do and as a result can rub people the wrong way, but he often speaks for natives.

He told me he has been living in a tipi for the past five years with his wife and two sons. He is by his name given to him when he was a child by his grandmother, called "old Indian", but not in English but in his native tongue. He has a good heart, a strong conviction to the grassroots people and a traditional lifesyle. He doesn't proselytize it but lives his life quietly without fanfare and yet represents the best of our way of life.

We talked for a while and he had to leave as he takes care of his mother. He himself suffered from polio as a child and walks with a stiff gait, yet his eyes are curiouis taking in everything he sees. He talked about his son and that he has quite an imagination as they have no television. He speaks his own language.

He would be considered poor by many but yet he is not as he retains a dignity by his existence and it can be seen in his countenance. He is not afraid to speak his mind and I got to know him when he was tribal court advocate. He was effective and diligent in the way he spoke for people who could not speak for themselves and even now questions the actions of the tribe and BIA, as well county and state actions that infringe on native issuues.

I was sent a link to a new book on natives that included modern portrains of indians. I went to the site and in looking over the pictures in the book you reference the pictures do not reflect a cross section of native life, but appear to be lacking and yet I can see my friend would never pose for such a picture as it would appear to him pretentious. So it goes on the rez...