Reznjun

i went to mayetta’s pioneer day yesterday. i wanted to get a picture of alvina wamego who was the honored elder of the parade. i have known her all my life.  it is always a pleasure to visit with her. she waved at me while i snapped her picture. another tribal member, meeks, was the honored elder last year. it is nice that mayetta includes our people in its history. our histories are interwoven. the town sprang up on  the  border of our rez.  the railroad even came thru eventually. it shut down years ago, but the small town remains. i have always called it my hometown. most people had never heard of it.

the town of mayetta has garage sales during pioneer days. we got up early to look for more canning jars. we bought about 30 quart jars. some one that arrived there earlier already bought up the pint jars. some stands downtown were selling canned goods. i bought a jalpeno mustard mix. mary bought a sweet relish. we have learned to appreciate the work that goes into canning. i also found some spray for fruit trees. i will use it next year on my peach and plum trees.

i had breakfast at one of the churches, they served bisquits and gravy. while eating i visited with many of the ladies sitting there. they spotted my mayetta high t shirt. that opened up conversation. most were mayetta alumni. we swapped histories. we discovered that many of the people we knew were gone. after breakfast we went home to can a dozen quarts of pears. they sure look good. we finished in time to make it back to town for the parade. we had a late lunch at a stand ran by tribal members. we had a ndn taco. it was good.

they had a stand that caught my attention. it was called poultry bingo. they had a big fenced in board filled with about a hundred numbered squares. you could buy a square for five bucks. then they would set a goose inside the fence onto the board. then where ever the goose dropped its load, who ever had that numbered square won a hundred bucks. after that, the main event was a chicken doing the same thing for one hundred and fifty bucks. the gambling nature of a  few indians drew them to this event. we were all laughing and cheering for the goose or chicken to go on our number. crazy indians were trying to score some money to go to the casino with.

i visited with many people during the course of the day. i took a few pictures too.i visited the antique shops in town. first time i had been in some of them. i bought a few items. i also bought a t shirt from another stand of one of our tribal members. it had potawatomi – keepers of the fire  on it.  it was a fun outing. we needed a break from our harvesting and storing of our gardens produce.