Reznjun

today is the birthday of my two older brothers gary and larry. we had a lifetime together. we grew up on the rez when it was a poor place to live. we didnt have running water, electricity, computers or cell phones. that was b.c. ( before casinos). we didnt know we were poor. we had a rich life. we spent our early years with each other. we got sent off to boarding school where we were put thru a brain washing process. it didnt work with us. we were still renegade indians. we went to high school together and played sports. football was our favortie sport but we played them all. we used to play baseball in a hayfield with hub caps as the bases. sports were fun. they allowed us to be on the same team. we pushed each other to be better.

after and during high school, life took us on separate paths. larry went to viet nam. we used to play cowboys and indians as kids. war wasnt a game. gary stayed near home. larry and i went where ever the road took us. i did the military thing a while, went to job corps. larry and i went on the government relocation thing. that was a program to take the indian off the rez. thing is it couldnt take the rez out of us. we always got back together over the years. we worked together on many jobs. friends come and go but a brother is forever. we always knew where the others were at. even when larry was in viet nam we knew where he was stationed. he got wounded there but didnt tell anyone until later to save us the grief.

we lost larry a few years back. during the funeral i was pushed to the back. didnt really matter. we had been thru so much together. i dont think the others knew larry as well as gary and i did. we could finish each others sentences. we were alike on alot of things. we were all writers of sorts. we wrote differently. gary did a book on history. larry did part of his life in a book, and had a blog. i did the blog trip for awhile too. i slacked off because i got too much hate mail. some people just cant handle someone else having an opinion that didnt jive with theirs. i am still working on my book. i have to join my brothers in being published.

we all got married and had kids. but we still looked at one another as family. i miss larry alot. we would chat on the computer several times a day. whenever an event happened we would compare notes on our take of it. gary and i do alot of ceremonies together. our mother taught us part of her beautiful language. we use it to help people. we do it because not many people want to mess with that part of our life.

even though larry aint with us physically anymore he is still our brother. we never forget him. happy birthday brothers. we will play ball together again in the land where our people go.

winter brought us more snow. dont know how much but more than what the weather guy predicted, but not enough to be a problem. the roads are passable. more snow is expected. we should have plenty of moisture in the ground when it is time to start gardens again. that aint that far off. i am already looking forward to that. i am looking at seed catalogs. i saved my own but am wanting to add some heirloom plants to my garden.

k u basketball on again today. cant top last week when we beat missouri and k state in the same week. the only thing better than that is to win the national championship. i will be watching the game as i usually do. i havent kept up with pro football but will watch the superbowl tomorrow. i dont have a favorite team since being disappointed by the chiefs so many years. i do like that song ‘when the saints go marching in’. and i liked the city of new orleans the few times i passed thru there. but the colts will be tough. i want to watch the commercials. i dont care for the aging stars they bring in for the halftime show. will spend that time eating i guess.

i am finishing up a multi-colored green roach. it looks good even though it is not shaped yet. i still have the outside row of deer tail trim on the outside to do. i was working on it when i got a call from a lady that bought a roach from me previously. she said she had a son that needed one to match his red and black outfit. i told her i had one already done. she came by to look at it, then wrote me a check. that made my day. now i got some cino cash for my road trip. oklahoma is full of indian casinos. my index finger will get quite a workout pushing that little button.

i like the use of words. seen where our state lawmakers lost 17 milion dollars. they “accidently spent ” it when it was “inadvertently funneled” into an appropriation bill. how do you accidently spend 17 million? thats why our country is in the trouble we are in. i seen another article where a movie actresses’ death by misuse of drugs was ”accidental”. when poor people die from the same thing it is cause for reform. and an actor while drunk broke into a bank armed with a gun and it was a “mistake”. poor people do time for the same thing. we can use words to twist the meaning of anything. a guy i worked with said his wife was kinda pretty. another guy replied pretty damn ugly. guys working together say anything to pass the time.

gotta get busy finishing that roach before gametime….

heres a picture of my niece kek who danced at dewey last month. i wanted to post some video on my facebook but my computer wont recognize my camcorder. thats happened before, i will fix it whenever.

been busy sorting porky hair for the past few weeks. i have 3 roaches done and about to finish my fourth one this week. i am getting a bunch of them together for a stand sometime. maybe the gathering and a big pow wow. i get inquiries all the time about 24 inch roaches with a double row of 10 inch hair in front. i really dont do that. i am saving my long hair. i have one to do with viet nam colors and i will use lots of my long hair for a roach for myself. people dont realize it is hard to get enough long hair to make big roaches. it takes at least a pound or two of hair. the ones you see at pow wows are what roachmakers do for themselves or their relatives. so far i have sorted enough hair for about 10 roaches. i have also dyed alot of deer tails for the trim. seems people like alot of color in their roaches.

i ordered two hand drum frames from some place in wyoming. i have ordered from them before, i like their frames. i still have two deer hides that i have to get to when the weather permits. they are froze right now. then i still have an elk hide i have to do. i will put part of it on a 49 drum frame that belongs to my nephew. then will use the rest for hand drums. a friend of mine was gonna help me make some frames from hickory but we havent gotten to it yet. i will need to cut a hickory for some ball sticks before the sap runs. still time for that.

i have a otter hide that i have to get to also. i will make me a fur turban with that. i am finishing an outfit to dance in. i really dont get into the competition thing. i just dance for the hell of it. i think  one should dance for fun. sometimes at pow wows it looks like some are bored. it shouldnt be like that. dance is meant to be fun.

weather man says we will get more snow. some of what we had didnt all melt. the big piles have shrunk in the ditches. i have enough wood to last me a while. i cant say enough for the tribal workers that supply the seniors with wood. i just cant do that myself any more. my arthritis makes me pay for any physical stuff i do. i have enough pills to make a pillhead envious. the doc put me on a new one the last time i went in for a check up. this one is for high cholesterol. it shouldnt be a problem if i take care of it.

i got in a few walks after the weather warmed up some. i have logged 14 miles so far this year. gotta do it for my health. if i dont walk then my back really bothers me. if i do then it doesnt act up as often. i dont feel old but it is hell aging. the mind never ages.the body slows down. even making roaches causes my back to stiffen up. i have muscle relaxants that fix me up. the work aint physical, just monotonous. doing the same thing over and over.

got another road trip coming up. heading south again. my wife has business. i am just going along for the ride and to visit people i know there. its a good thing my boys work weekends. they can watch the old home place. i am up for some road time.

last night was the first full moon of the year. rather than just call it that, it is called the wolf moon. it is suppose to appear to be bigger than other full moons of the year because it is actually closer. legend has it that native americans called it that because wolfs would howl at it during the cold of winter. last night when i took this picture i didnt hear any. i did notice that it did have a ring around it though.  i guess if you want a legend to sound plausible you attribute it to something native americans said.

when there is nothing on television i watch educational shows now and then. i seen a program about the pyramids they have down in mexico. i was fortunate enough to have climbed a couple of them. the take of the show i watched was that the natives couldnt possibly have built them. therefore it was aliens that come from somewhere in ufos and built them. then they left. now why is that easier to believe? someday they may say that indians couldnt possibly have built casinos so it must have been aliens.

the people at espn fired a blogger that hails from these parts. the guy wrote an opinion that they didnt agree with. irregardless of what the guy said, he should be entitled to write what he feels. freedom of speech and all that. blogs are opinions. some people just dont get that. no one agrees with everything written. it dont take a genius to figure out if you dont like what you read then dont read it. fairly simple.

i may have some company coming.  i invited him to stay here. he is from one of our other bands.  we should open our homes to guests. that is one of our teachings. company is what blesses a home. we will have a good visit. a time to share with one another.

when i was down south last week i noticed they had some garage sales. i went to one with my brother and sister who were down there also. around here garage sales shut down for the season. the first garage sale around here is one of the first signs of spring. too early for that.

tonight is the big basketball game between k u and k state, the other team in our state. i have some buffalo wings marinating in some hot sauce i made. i am up for this game. i never doubt our team. they will win easily. k u will feast on them wildcats like i will on them wings. cant wait.

cant believe how cold it was not that long ago. the snow was in drifts several feet high. it will be in the 40s all week. much of the snow has melted already. the drifts have shrunk in size. the weather will lull us into thinking it is spring then hit us with some more winter. i have walked twice this month and will get some more miles in this week.

i just finished reading  a friends manuscript. it was a good read. its rare to find books written from the native perspective. this guy lived the life. a real indian. the guy even mentioned me in it. that is a bit humbling, to see your name mentioned in someone else’s book. reading his has inspired me to get back into writing more on my book. it is hard to write. i guess if it was easy there would be lotsa books written by natives.

i finally seen the show avatar. a writer friend of mine asked me what i thought of the movie.  she said it was stealing the story of indians. i didnt know because i hadnt seen it yet. at first i felt a little silly wearing the 3D glasses. after awhile i was liking the technology. the effects were something. it kinda reminded of some stuff i took back in the early 70s. then i felt like a perv cuz i wondered how someone like selma hayek woulda looked in 3 D.  i got into the story line in no time. it was like indians. they had something someone else wanted. and the bad guys or the good guys i dont know which, went after what the blue people had. and they went after it with all means available. in the end the blue people (indians) won. it dont happen like that in real life. some parts of where they were showing how the natives acted was a bit hokey. but overall it was good entertainment. even for the bucks they charged. it was cheaper than say a trip to one of the local gaming parlors. i enjoyed the movie.

i was given a picture someone took at haskell. some guy was taking pictures of his room and sent it to his people back home. they asked who the little girl in the picture was. he looked again and seen a ghost image in the back ground of a little girl in 1880s dress. the guy couldnt explain it. many stories have been told of how haskell is haunted. might have something to do with them just burying indians anywhere when the families had no money to get their loved ones home back in the day.

i watched the kstate-texas game last night even though i dont follow them.  i was hoping texas would prevail so they would keep their number one ranking. then the hawks could smack them down. but k state ruined that scenerio. the hawks will slap them silly too. rock chalk. my support for k u never wavers.

i must be a gambler. the other day i was tipping someone. i checked my bills over. i kept the crisp ones cuz they have no problem being fed  into  slots. i tipped with the torn and crumpled bills. damn…

i finally got to go walking again. i took my faithful dog konugish along as i always do. we should enjoy temperatures that are warmer compared to the past few weeks. the snow is slowly starting to melt. the crick is still froze over though. winter is not over yet.

we finished up the last funeral today. small crowd but that is kinda expected. the family really appreciated what our members did for them during their time of need. they wanted to give a monetary gift to someone to show their gratitude. i told them we dont get paid for what we do. they insisted so i told them to make a donation to our building fund. our religion is responsible for all our bills. we pay electricity, insurance, water and propane. so their gift will be greatly appreciated. its rare to get a thank you, even  rarer for someone to make such a donation to our religion. we have to hold raffles to raise money for the up keep of our building.

each year someone has a word of the year. last year it was to “unfriend” someone, as in dropping someone off your friend list on the internet. thats crazy how use of the internet creates new words. sort of like what texting does with its own lingo. one of my nieces got a new phone. i told her all she need to know was lol, omg. k, lmao…etc.  my other niece added a few other equally inane abbreviations they use. i have heard of kids sending over 10,000 texts in a month. i have only went over my 300 a month limit twice. once cuz i was running some world series pools. i couldnt imagine 10 thousand.

yesterday i read that the company that owns the local newspaper is going bankrupt. this is even after they upped the price of a daily paper to 75 cents and the sunday paper up to 2 dollah and 50 cents. we are paying more but getting less. the average daily now comes in two sections. and thats it. i suppose i could just read online but i like having a hard copy in my hands.

if it werent for the local paper i wouldnt read about things like the new fake drug k2. it is sold legally as an incense but has the effects of marijuwanna. the po-leece say it is more potent that thc.  the cops are getting concerned about the widespread use of it. i dont know if its use causes one to consume a full box of cereal though. or to laugh hysterically at something that aint even funny.

maybe i shouldnt make fun of these kids trying to get high. in my younger day i was around the abuse of illegal substances myself. i left those days behind. but maybe thats why i still have a christmas tree up. i like to look at the lights. probably should take the tree down. someone might think i am a cheech and chonger.

i seen previews of a movie bout someone throwing coins in a fountain. i remember when i was a turisto in rome. i stopped at the fountain of trevi like any other tourist. i read you were suppose to throw a coin into it for good luck. so i threw what coins i had into it. i had some that were the funny euros and some good old usa coins. i dont know if our coins were granted more wishes or not with the exchange rate. after i tossed mine in  i sat down and watched the turistos. i seen some turn with their backs to the fountain and tossed their coins in backward. i thought wtf. no one told me you were suppose to do that. it was too late. i was out of coins. maybe thats why my wish didnt come true. then i thought maybe that was kinda sacrilegious to have such thoughts in rome. who knows.

this week is almost over…wonder what next week will bring. we will see.

this morning the trees were  frosted over and there was a fog out.  sun dogs were visible for several days in a row. some say they predict a change of weather. no surprise there. the weather changes constantly in the land of oz. the temperature will be in the 40s this week. a heat wave compared to what we have had recentyl. i imagine that most of the snow we got will melt.

yesterday was the first day in about two weeks that the temperature wasnt below freezing. i may get to walk this week. i havent in about a month now. i seen the road and bridge guys clearing the shoulders on our road yesterday afternoon. we have drifts on some roads that are a few feet high. other roads arent as bad. a few road were reduced to one lane traffic. the roads that ran north and south were the ones that drifted because we had westerly winds. we still have more winter left this season.

i have been helping at another funeral. we had several in a row now. we barely get by sometimes. some just dont like to help others. i say the least we can do is give our people a proper send off. the snow and cold didnt stop us.

i had time to watch the kansas jayhawks get beat for the first time this year. its rare when someone goes undefeated. the hawks are still one of the best teams in the country. i never give up on them. they will be there in the final four come march. and win it all.

i had my quarterly lab tests done yesterday at our clinic. i always like it that most of the nurses are home girls. i greet all of them when i see them. the doc will tell me how the tests turned out in a few days. he asked me how i was. i told him it is nice to live without pain. i dont have to take pain pills, muscle relaxants or the one for a pinched sciatic nerve. i just take my arthritis pill. it will never go away. my back hurt for years. i was in constant pain, so long that i didnt think of it as pain-just something that was there. the doc said he cant take credit for that. i know walking helps, though the cold has stopped me from walking the past month. i did go rabbit hunting a few times.  redoing my basement had me making countless trips up and down the stairs. keeping the fire going does the same thing.

i told people that the clinic asked me if i wanted a swine flu shot. i jokingly told others i replied ’why do i look like a f%$#*&g pig? not really, i was just teasing people. i like to make people smile. i did tell the nurse i would pass on the shot.  i said our country likes to keep us in fear–of terrorists, of a depression, of the swine flu. predictions were that over 50% of our country would contact the swine flu by this past october and many would die. it didnt happened. many did contact it, and others have died but it wasnt the epidemic they forecasted.

i seen where a local library had a book sale. they sold 5000 books in 90 minutes or so. they sold a bag full for 5 bucks. i may have to donate some for next years sale. i want to get rid of my books. i  have over 1000 of them. i bought them so my kids would have them in case they needed them for school. they are about done with college now, so no need for them. i read the ones i wanted to read. i need the room for storage. my daughter said she would take all my classics. i will keep the ones on tribal history and a few others that are my favorites. i have some rare ones that are out of print. i will keep my brother larrys book too.

well now to see what unfolds this week……never a dull moment on the rez

yesterday we got another 3 to 4 inches of snow. we still have snow from the last two times it snowed. half of my cornfield has only the tops visible. luckily the grader came down our road and cleared a path. just dont know how long it will stay open with the wind blowing. add some cold to that and its winter. last night it was 20 below. almost as cold as a general council meeting. or almost as cold as the reception you get when you ask the tribe for something.

i had to get thru a snow drift in my back yard to feed my chickens. i cleared a path previously but the wind drifted it closed. so i have to climb over the drift  until it warms up enough to clear it again. cold or not my chickens still have to eat. the same with my dog konugish. at least he is staying in the house i built for him. it is on the south side of my house in a corner. it is blocked from the north and west winds. i put a thick layer of straw in it. he is out of the worst part of the cold and wind. its the wind chill i am worried about.

got a call earlier bout a possible funeral. no details yet but they may call on us to take care of it. cold, snow or whatever we will have to do it if they ask. its a good thing they come to us instead of the bureaucrats. we dont get to close for snow or cold. gotta do it.

i watched the k u basketball game last night. i watch every game i can. it was close but i didnt have any doubts. i believe our team will come thru one way or other. we have so many talented players, one will step up. even when we dont play up to our expectations we pull off a win. that is the mark of a good team. i think an undefeated season is possible. after we dispense of texas there will be no doubt. the media loves the coast teams, particularly back east. they dont think the hicks in kansas can play some ball. our team just has to win on the court, not in the press.

the other D-1 team in the state made it to the top ten in basketball. thats the first time in a long time. so it will be real disappointing for them when the jayhawks smack them down.

one good thing about being kept indoors during the bad weather we have had is my basement is finished. got it all demo’d, sheetrocked, taped and painted. it looks nice. just have to clean up down there now. having a fire going in the stove made it easier for everything to dry out faster. i just hope my wood holds out. i am about out. they just bring me a small load so i have to call for more often. they didnt get me any before this snow and cold hit. i probably have to wait til next week now.

a friend of mine sent me his manuscript for a book. he asked me to read it and give some feedback on it. so i now i have some reading to do. i read alot anyway. we never stop learning. so i gotta get to reading..

i went to eat and play bingo yesterday at our old bingo hall. imagine that using the hall for actually playing bingo. every year for the past several years family and friends get together just for the sake of getting together. it has now become a tradition. usually it is done around christmas. we had our winter dance and heavy snow this year so it was put off until yesterday.

we start off with a pot luck dinner. everyone brings something. so there was lots of good food. we have some great cooks.  so much for my new years resolution. i probably gained a pound or two. then we play bingo. everyone brings prizes.  when you have a bingo you get to go pick a prize from the table where they are all piled high on.  play continues until everyone wins something. since everyone wins its not about the prizes though there are good ones. lotsa K U stuff. everyone visits and has fun.  good natured teasing goes on back and forth. i took  many good pictures. i like this one of my great niece madwekwe. she always has a hug for me.  i posted some pictures on my facebook. even got a few compliments on them.

it has been almost a year now since i started this new website. it was intended to showcase my roaches and other crafts i do. the internet allows me enough exposure that i can be picky. i make them when i feel like it. and i can avoid virtually giving them away as some want. some assume since i am indian i should sell my art cheap.  i am a trusting soul so i get ripped off alot, like this past year. i never learn, i believe people. i do know that not all people are like that. good people make it all worth it.

this site lets me blog. i like to write.  i am working on a book. i started it years ago. it is something i want to leave my unborn grandchildren. you dont read much written from the native point of view. some authors study our culture a few years then are considered authorities on it. i want to tell a story of what i have experienced. i dont have to study up on what i have seen.

writing is a hard thing to do. blogging gives me practice. i just write about anything. i sorta stay away from politics. that would be too easy. i dont believe in an ‘us vs them’ mentality. i dont think blogging is the cause of the problem nor the solution to it. i have gotten anonymous hate mail because i dare to put my name to something i write. i dont pay any attention to it, since they arent willing to put their name to it. hating on me doesnt change anything. i have gotten some nice comments from people. others tell me they read what i write. that makes me feel good. they are who i write for. not the haters. if someone dont like what i say, its really pretty simple. they just dont have to read it.  dont take a genius to figure that out. i will keep on writing because i like to. some people have read my writing for years. i hope they continue to read what i have to say.

i dont know what this next year will bring. we never do. that is what makes life fun. i am sure i will enjoy this next year.