Reznjun

there is an old pink floyd song that says ‘have a cigar, you’re gonna go far.’  dont know bout all that but i did have a fine cigar. i enjoyed a cuban i acquired.  it was a smooth mild smoke. alot better than the cheap ones i am used to. it was worth waiting for. probably will be a while before i can score another one.

today i was thinking of something that happened years back. i was at a feast sitting with a couple of old guys. the old guy at the head of the table would pick up a bowl and pass it and say sengo. the next old guy would hand it to me and say squirrel. the first guy would then pass the next one and say kojesuk. the next guy would then hand it to me and say beans. it went on a while. then the second guy turned to the first old man and said ‘ttumokman’ referring to me like i didnt understand him.

 he was acting smug cuz he was interpreting indian for me i guess. he didnt realize that even if i couldnt speak a word of potawatomi i could still look into the bowl and know what it was.  then they passed some candies the first guy called juju. so i handed it to the next guy sitting by me and i said juju-uk. the first old guy then looked at me and kinda smiled. like they say history is spun by the ones left to tell it. both of those old guys are gone now.

tomorrow is the k u game. selby will start for the first time. lotta expectations for the kid. he will live up to alot of them. i have tickets for the next game after that. i wanted to wait til he gets some experience in before i went to a game. the rest of the team will come together. i dont think there will be a distraction at all like the talking heads on tv predict. sometimes i think one of the qualifications to be an sports announcer is to be an idiot. its rather obvious most werent english majors.

i replaced my stove pipes. i clean them out several times a year but they still get dirty. the stove would smoke so i just replaced the old pipes. that seemed to take care of it. i dont like to take chances with wood stoves. i have had good luck the past 26 years burning wood. glad i get wood when i get it. i know that we will still have some cold weather coming this winter.

this is another short work week. got no problem with that. i will get paid for half a day but not the next day. that aint right.  most contract workers agreed with me on that. thing is they cant say anything or they get fired or something. they work under some form of tyranny. cant think. cant speak. i hate to see natives treated that way. too bad others dont support their brethen. tough world, we just gotta look after ourselves. we lost something in that. anyway…short week.

happy birthday niece

had a short work week this week. that was okay with me. i went to the  christmas dinner for all tribal employees on monday. i didnt know half the employees we have, even though i lived on the rez most of my life.  scored a free ham and a 25 dollah wal mart gift certificate. that was righteous. will cook that ham this sunday.  

then we had a christmas dinner for all health center employees yesterday. it was at the casino. they served migo food. i got my fill. i went home after that to pack an overnight bag. my gambling must caught the attention of someone at the casino cuz i got a free room at the hotel. i checked in for the night.

it was the first time i had stayed at the casino. we have some real nice rooms. mary made reservations (no pun intended) at the steakhouse. we had dinner there. the kc strip was real good. what i couldnt finish i put in a doggie bag for my doggie. after dinner i gambled the night away. i was 60 bucks down and was ready to call it a night. mary said to try one more slot. i hit 165. that was enough so i went to bed. we got the bestest casino in mayetta, maybe the whole county. most likely the whole state.

this morning we got up and had breakfast at the longhouse buffet. the chef there makes some fine eggs. i got in some more gaming this morning. didnt do that well but i ended up only 15 down for my whole stay. that was worth it. i enjoyed a fine room, a good steak dinner and gambling. then breakfast and more gambling. when i left i seen there was no sleet the weather guy predicted. that was nice too.

our family not really big into the christmas thing. we try to be giving to each other all year. not just for one season. i try to help people whenever i can. i am glad my wife and kids are the same way. we wish all of you a merry christmas and happy new year.

had a great weekend at our winter ceremonies. the food is always good there. loved the singing and dancing . really enjoyed the company of our members. all of that carries me a long time. wouldnt have missed it for anything.

after the dance i went to my sons’ apartment in lawrence. i didnt get to watch the k u game. they recorded it so i watched it the next day. i wanted to see our new player selby. he is good as advertised. our team hasnt gelled yet. they will be better yet. glad i have tickets to another game. it will be the first time i will have gone to 3 games in one season.

i havent been anywhere since i got my per cap. i have heard of different ones that have their index finger calloused from hitting that button on a slot machine. even one that got carpal tunnel syndrome in their index finger from hitting that button too many times.

i got a form letter from fish and game department. it is to renew my permit to legally possess eagle feathers. the law has changed so that now the permit will be for a lifetime. i wont have to renew it again. the letter even says that i can reapply for more feathers if necessary. that would entail a few years wait. i dont think it is right that if you want them for ceremonial use, you have to wait several years so dancers can make outfits out of them. seems like ceremonial use should take precedence.

my number one daughter returned home from a trip to mexico. she brought me back a cuban cigar. i cant wait til i can light it up. i quit smoking the cheap ones for the past 2 weeks. but i knew that cuban was coming. so i smoked a few during our winter dance. i know i shouldnt have but i did anyway.

i am trying to stay up tonight to view the lunar eclipse. i want to take some pictures of it if i can. it is a bit cloudy out now. wont know what it will be like later. i fell asleep watching antiques roadshow. so i should be rested. may still be awake when the eclipse starts.

got a short work week. i wont be disappointed in that at all…

todays per cap. i think that is a good thing for our people. they get to share in the wealth of the tribe equally. every adult member gets a taste. that is not always true of many of our programs. i have heard some say ‘we make the money for you’  like that empowers them.

reality is there would be no casino, no tribal government, etc if our people had not held onto their trust land. that is the basis for everything.  if our ancestors had sold out then we would be in the same boat that many other indians are in. no casinos etc.   many of our people have no land for whatever reasons. so then if we are to feel ‘grateful’ someone is making us money, then they should be equally grateful our ancestors never sold out. now pass the per cap.

there were reports that many didnt show up for work today. so whats the news in that. many others did have to go to work. i know i went in. still havent spent a dime. i was heading to town after work then seen some ice on the windshield. i said hell with it and turn around. no law says you gotta be broke the first day. our people have to learn how to make the most of our new found wealth. pick up a history book. you will see that if someone wants what we got, they will take it. we always say that will never happen again. who knows. maybe it will be our own people that take it from us.

kinda waiting for the snow to fly. there were a few flurries but they didnt have a measureable amount. i want to go rabbit hunting. i know that you just dont see that many rabbits anymore. i still love the taste of rabbit. i remember when i was young i would walk all day hunting. sometimes i would have a good hunt. other times nothing. had to take what i could get. or not get.

we having our winter ceremonies coming up. i know i will enjoy that. like being around our people that go.  we take care of business but have a good time doing it. dont know what the weather will be like but that wont matter. after dance i s over maybe i will go per capping….

the calendar year is slowly winding down. winter is setting in. it has been cold the past few days. or at least cold in comparison to what we are used to. other parts of the country would think this is hardly cold at all. the other night a couple of hunters came by and said they had a present for me if i wanted it. it was a deer. i was watching the k u  game and it was cold. it was like 17 degrees outside. i said thanks but no thanks. i just couldnt see missing my game and cleaning a deer in that cold. then the other morning someone else was gonna give me a wild turkey he bagged. again i had to pass. i was getting ready for drum doings. i appreciate that hunters think of me like that. it is nice that they want  to give wild game to people that use it. i still have to get to the deer hides i got. that will take some time.

its almost per cap time. i tease people and tell them they better talk to me now. cuz i aint got no relatives when some coin hits the bottom of  my pocket. just kidding. but i had friends like that. they would always be glomming on to our action. then would skate out when they had money. that may be the reason i never really stayed friends with them. them burnouts still trying to shake people down.

dont know what i am gonna squander my per cap cash on. my wants are simple. i could use me a new lambskin jacket. this country njun be looking good decked out in that black leather. will donate my old coat to anyone that wants it.

almost forgot an old news item. seen where they busted willie nelson for some smoke. damn that is real detective work. lets stop willies bus and see if we can bust him. jeez leave the old guy alone. hell hes almost a hundred. so what if he wants to get high. go after some criminals like the politicians that are fleecing our country. they can work together to help the rich but not the rest of us.

my contract is winding down too. it expires at the end of the month. i am undecided if i will renew it. cant see being treated like a second class citizen in my own land. i made my program better. and can still improve on it if i come back. for this i get a 35 hour work week. no leave. when the tribe takes off for every little thing under the sun i dont get paid. i have to clock in while others come and go as they please. i worked hard while some just jacked around. i cant see my own kind treating me that way. hey some of them tonto injuns didnt even want to be injun til the money came. i dont want to take a back seat to anyone. this is where i come from. will see what happens.

…is give peace a chance.  lyrics from john lennon. he was shot on this day several years ago. back in those days song writers like lennon and bob dylan actually made statements. there was meaning in their words that a whole generation listened to. now the closest we come to making a statement is posting something on facebook. but then cancer hasnt stopped because women posted the color of their bras. now we are conditioned to think supporting war is patriotic. we dare not think of peace. actually we are not suppose to think. just go along with the program.

i have long hair because of the beatles. i wore it semi long back then cuz they did. i was actually kicked out of high school by a crew cut red neck principal who thought i “set a bad example for some young guys who might look up to me” because i was the star quarterback.  i was told not to come back to school until i had my hair cut. i was a senior in high school that wanted my diploma. so i went back 3 days later. that dude asked me if it took 3 days to get a hair cut. i said yeah. we really didnt like each other. later the red power movement came along. aim guys started wearing long hair. mine was already getting long cuz of rock and roll so i fit right in. i probably will never get a hair cut again in my life. today i gotta play a few tunes of john lennon.

normally i am a scrooge kind of guy but i put up a small christmas tree. i am not really into the holiday spirit. i just like to see the lights turn on and change color on this particular tree. that may be another holdover from the days when i used to smoke that funny stuff. gotta have some visual aids.

speaking of holiday cheer. the tribe will get two days off. probably not the clinic though. and i hope someone is watching those contract workers to make sure that they wont get paid for the holiday. seems like we should be more concerned with getting some work out of ones getting full benefits and a righteous check that arent doing anything to earn it. again..dont think..just get with the program. all we are saying…

text messaging was at a premium today. word was out we getting 1228 for per cap. so that amount was texted around potawatomi country. i had bout 6 texts in a few minutes. we treat it as a state secret but most people know in just a little while. per cap is kinda a sacred cow. people raise hell bout lotsa things but not so with per cap. no one will question why is the amount is down 400 from the last per cap. one would indeed be a heretic if money was brought up.

while avoiding the subject of money i wonder bout casino cash tickets. i went to the casino the other night. i had a cash ticket for about 11 cents or so. i put it in the machine. nothing happened. like someone burned out on drugs i put it back in again. nothing happened again. then i read the ticket. it says it is only good for 30 days. then the 11 cents becomes total profit for the casino. i wonder why is the ticket only good for 30 days. we sovereign or something. seems like we could make them payable for a year like lottery tickets.

recently i purchased some equipment. i  noticed that all the instruction manuals were partly written in spanish. i wonder why is that. we (this country) did our best to stamp out indian languages but make spanish instruction available everywhere. i noticed a fortune cookie  was written in spanish on one side. then there is not enough money to help tribes retain their own languages. i wish tribes could see their own languages that much.

at work we are adopting a few families. i can get behind that. i chose 5 gifts to buy. i can see buying things for fellow tribesmen that really need the help. hate to sound like a scrooge but i dont see the gift exchanges like one of our workers wants. why buy gifts for people that can afford their own. in the true spirit of giving it is better to buy gifts for those that can use them. i witnessed some bad deals on gift exchanges. one of my bros was given a jar of hard christmas candy. it still had the price tag on it. another was given a fifth of screwdriver. another was given an iou for a gift. it was never collected. most people take the time to buy something thoughtful but others just blow it off. there is always someone that gets ripped off. when it comes to gift exchanges i say bah humbug. i do agree with buying for people that need it though.

i still havent had a cigar. havent been away from them long enough to say i quit smoking them. and still way too early to feel any benefits from not smoking. i suppose if a real fine cuban cigar came along i  would think twice bout that. right now though im content not to smoke. a real test will be coming up. we will have our winter ceremonies. when i smoke pipe that makes me want to smoke. will see what happens.

must be winter. we keeping a fire going in the wood stove. cant beat the heat from a fire. i was talking to someone i went to high school with  recently. they said it was easy to tell who the indians were. they smelled like wood smoke. damn thats country injuns for you….

i went to the language meeting the other night. i had already been to one before but i really support the cause. the turn out wasnt bad, bout 30 people. i do think tho that more should have gone to it. 4 of our tribal council showed up, as well as members of the rez community. during the presentation i did offer my opinion that the language was every potawatomi’s responsibility. whether the language is saved or lost is up to every one in the tribe. many make excuses why they dont bother with the language. it was brought out that there is only one fluent speaker left among the prairie band potawatomi. we cant wait much longer to get started in learning.  there will be one more meeting. it will be an opportunity for tribal members  to  offer their input or ask questions.

i went to a get together the language program had. we had an exercise where we took turns saying a word in potawatomi. it went around the room several times. then we went to phrases and sentences. i had to think a few times. i dont get to use the language much. just at ceremonies. it was nice to hear others using what they knew of the language.

last night i went to k u’s basketball game with ucla. it was a good game. i think k u is getting into the cruise mode they got into last year. that may or may not be a bad thing. it was last tourney time. i dont think k u has even scratched the surface yet in how good they will be this year. they are talented. shelby will make a good team even more talented. we will see how far that takes us this year. i am a fan all the way.  late in the game when k u got the lead back,  allen fieldhouse went wild. the decibel level reached 103 according to the scoreboard. that is loud. one of the best home courts in the country. thats why i like going to k u games. i have been going to at least one game for the past 10 or 15 years. sometimes more. this year i want to go to one more game.

today at work i signed up to give blood. when it was my turn they asked if i would give two units of my red blood cells instead of blood. i asked what the difference was, they said that what i donated would be available for use immediately. if i donated blood, then it would be processed for four days then used. i agreed. they hooked me up to a machine that took the red cells out of my blood and returned the rest. i am 0 positive. that makes me a univeral donor i guess. i sat around after i was done and talked with the other skins that were there to donate blood. i said that was the first time i ever did that and wasnt paid for it. got a few laughs. i remember back in my wino days i would sell my plasma for some fast bucks. once when they stuck the needle in my arm all the veins in my arm collapsed. they told me to come back when i was stronger. when you on the street, you dont get stronger.  i weighed like 128 pounds or so. i was a real street person. just drank and did drugs. that was some time ago but i remembered that when i was done today. i gave my blood today to help someone. i wasnt doing it for cash to score some booze or dope. I thank God for that..

i ran out of the cheap cigars i smoke the other day. so when others were taking a smoke break, i didnt. someone offered me a cigarette. i said i dont smoke cigarettes, just cigars. i didnt buy any the next day either. so now it has been two and a half days since i smoked one. maybe i will try to stretch this to a few more days. i have noticed i got a little short of breathe a few times. i know it is directly related to them cheap cigars. hope i can give them up….life is to short to smoke cheap cigars.

had a long week last week with a holiday thrown in. i had to work 12 hours last monday because of our harvest feast. that was worth it. it was a big success and i had fun doing it.  sometimes i think ‘man they paying me to do this’. we had thanksgiving off but i worked enough hours to make up for that.

our harvest feast got some pr on the tribal website. that was nice. i think our tribe like most tribes can use the internet better. the possibilities are so vast. like our harvest feast for instance. it was posted the next day. what if every department or program was required to provide information on what they are currently doing. most programs already have a page on the tribes site but if you read them a year ago they are the same today. people dont read some pages because they havent changed. why arent they updated?  true that may cause some directors to do some work but the  benefit  would out weigh the grief this would cause them. we would be informed of things instantaneously. tribal and program news and pictures can be viewed right now. not with a 3 month delay like a quarterly newspaper. a common complaint you hear is that some people say they dont know what is going on.  most tribes in the past were afraid of keeping their members informed. those dark ages should be gone. providing knowledge is better than relying on rumors or outright lies. we probably have enough webspace to inform tribal members about every program we have. some you never hear anything about. i for one would be very interested in hearing what our programs have to offer or what they are about.  if they arent doing anything that would be obvious too.   it wouldnt take much. i can write a blog in ten minutes. we pay employees for 40 hours a week.  wouldnt it be nice to have the most informative tribal website around? the only thing stopping that is us.  we tend to create our own obstacles.                   

 the tribe needs a social network like a myspace or facebook. i know that is strictly verboten because some demi-gods thought employees would be wasting time sitting around doing that all day.  some wont do anything anyway. denying them facebook hasnt made them work.  your go getters would accomplish things in spite of it.  besides with todays cell phones many can access anything, including facebook, on the internet anyway  i get tribal wide emails advertising garage sales, taco sales etc. already. they amount to tribal spam. things like that should be posted somewhere else instead on tribal emails. i get alot of all users emails that are nothing more than a waste of time. after you open them then you have to delete them. some  require a reply even though they are nonsense.  we need another means of communication that wont tie up peoples time if they arent interested. 

recently i posted some ads on some fur trappers sites on the net.  i said i wanted to buy porcupine hair. i got a few responses. i am making new contacts to get my porky hair from. one sounds very promising. the guy has some good hair for sale. using the internet opens many doors. i am glad i found those sites.

over the weekend i helped a couple of nephews skin deer that they bagged. i now have about five hides that hunters gave me to use for hand drums. i also have meat in the freezer since my nephews gave me some. after i get a smoke house built i will make some jerky with the deer. got so many things to do. where will i find the time. i still want to try to tan a hide. i can make rawhide easy enough but failed in my attempt to take it one step further to make buckskin. will try again.

i finally got a free offer from our casino (and resort). i got some players cash, a free room and a two fer buffet pass. first one i ever had.  i am glad that i dont lose enough money to get these all the time. will be sure to use that players cash. and our buffet serves real good food. i have never stayed at our hotel. may have to use that free nights stay to see how nice the rooms are.

wonder what this week will bring. i will find out….