Pow Wow

In every dream I can smell the Sweetgrass burning
And in my heart I can hear the drum
and hear the singers soaring
and see the jingle dancers
and still this love goes on and on
Still this love goes on.

Still This Love Goes On - Buffy St. Marie

That's the song I listen to during the coldest days of winter, thinking about the hot days of the Oneida Pow-wow, imagining the pounding drum, the wild voices singing, and the jingle dancers.

Today, Gary and I went to the pow wow, to watch the grand entrance at 1:00 p.m.  But first we had to go to the Bear Clan stand and have an Indian taco, made with taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese over fry bread.

It's the kind of thing that could give us a heart attack, so we only have Indian tacos once a year, at pow wow, and we split the one in the photo.  

When we heard the drums starting, we were ready.  Instead of finding a spot on the bleachers or sit on the bluff looking down on the parade grounds, we stand beside the drums and singers and let the sound wash over us with a power we can feel in every part of our bodies.  It is rock music multiplied. 

Then the dancers come into the grounds.  The first in are the color guard made up of veterans of every war from WWII through Vietnam and Iraq.   

The Oneida have a warrior society and are proud of their soldiers.  After the Vietnam Conflict, many segments of society were terrible in their treatment of the veterans.  Not so, the Oneida who welcomed them back into the community with honors.  Every pow wow includes a ceremony honoring the men and women who have served the United States in every branch of the services.  

Dancers, male and female, come from all over the United States and sometimes beyond, in colorful traditional costumes.  Eagle feathers are very important to the tribe, so when one was found laying on the grounds, two boys brought it to the chairman of the event so the owner could be found.  I've found them in the national forest, dropped by the eagles, and am told I am not to pick them up but to notify the rangers immediately.  The feathers are carefully saved and turned over to members of the tribes who are on a long, long waiting list. 

I particularly like the jingle dancers, women with bells sewn to their dresses who twirl to make a joyful noise. 

And yes, as we walked around, we could smell the sweet grass burning.  

We finally left but when I got home there was a phone call. I had won a drawing at the art show. I drove the six miles back and picked up a bag full of this and that, coupons at the casino, a penny bank, an electronic meat thermometer, an insulated drinking cup, and so on.  

As long as I was back on the grounds, I picked up something Gary forgot to buy, a bundle of white sage.   Its used to drive evil out of a home, while sweet grass welcomes good spirits in. Gary was almost out of sage and was keeping evil spirits at bay with just a stub.  I guess we're safe now. 

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Yesterday I posted the last of the "Love through the Decades" short story series at Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com  This brings the story of Sheila to an end, though I may go back to the Forties and Fifties to revisit her earlier life.  I am looking for comments and criticism because I am thinking of putting the collection into an e-book by October.  

Reunion

This afternoon, I was coming out of the library dressed in grubby garden clothes when a van pulled up, driven by a middle aged man with a couple of older women dressed for a party.

"Colleen, aren't you going to the reunion?"

Darn, I had forgotten all about that. I meant to lie low and avoid my old classmates.

I got the notice about my high school class's 50th reunion a year ago.  I immediately e-mailed my two friends from high school to find out if they were going.  Nope.

Norma went to a reunion long ago, maybe the 25th.  She didn't have a good time. She was trying to talk to people but the organizers had loud music from the 50's and when she finally got into a good conversation, the ex-cheerleaders came over, all chirpy, and said, "Come on, you have to dance!" Sue went to another reunion.  She didn't have a good time either.  They had no intention of going to this one.

The Seymour class of 1962 was not a close one.  There were cliques that ran the class and did their best to make those of us who were not fashionable feel inferior. College was such a relief.  

I don't like social events all that much to begin with.  Give me a mountain trail and I am in heaven.  Put me in a crowd of people who are all trying to impress each other while getting tipsy and I plunge into a depression.
Add to that from my observations of those of my class in the area, and too many turned into Tea Party types. I am not the kind of woman who can keep quiet about politics.

When I thought about going to the reunion I simply felt depressed.  It wasn't worth the money I would have to pay for a meal I didn't want to eat.

Why don't reunion organizers just plan a picnic where people could get together to chat without the loud music and expensive meals?

At any rate, I told the two women in the van that I wasn't going.  Why not? Because I didn't want to. If someone actually wanted to talk to me, they knew where I lived.  Then I promised I would go to the 60th reunion.   I lied.  

Moving Air

This is an old house.  When Gary moved here, he wanted central air conditioning installed, but found out that after great expense, it would still only cool the downstairs.  We make do with two small air conditioners, one upstairs and one downstairs.  One cools the living room and one a bedroom upstairs.

On a steamy day like today some of the rooms would be unbearable, but Gary is an expert at moving air to keep the rest of the house cool.

First of all, he makes sure that every window is closed tight, blinds pulled down and heavy curtains pulled across. We sit in darkened rooms, doing our work at our respective computers, me in this office, him in the living room.

He sets the air conditioners at 75 degrees F., no lower since we don't waste electricity.  Next he strategically places oscillating or box fans to pull air from one room to another.  He does tend to get carried away.  This morning, I found four fans in this office.  One did just fine so I removed the rest.  

There weren't any doors to close off the second story, so he installed a folding door in front of the stairwell.   This closes off the part of the house that we aren't using, so we only have to run one air conditioner at a time.

Today, we were mostly homebound with the day so torrid we couldn't bear to walk or garden. Luckily, Wisconsin is never that hot for long.  By tomorrow, we can dispense with all of this.

Plans

In a couple of weeks, Gary and I will set out on a circle tour around Lake Superior.  We'll be gone about two weeks. I have seven performances in Minnesota and Ontario but we'll have plenty of time to explore bays, rivers, lighthouses, and villages. I began working on that tour in January.

In October, I am meeting two high school friends at Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois for a mini-reunion. None of us are going to make the 50th high school reunion this weekend, but the three of us will get together and re-hash the 1950's.   Last month, I started the process of getting work for another mini-tour to help pay my expenses.  I can usually find enough work to go wherever I want to go.

Two days ago, Gary played a song on his computer while I was walking by. He gave me the link to the song, Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross".  www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw9gLjEGJrw   

I kept listening to it, and remembered the first time I saw the Southern Cross.  It was at a party to celebrate the end of sheep dipping at an Australian station.  At the end of a day of competing in goofy "Olympics" games, we sat under the stars having a real Aussie barbecue and suddenly there it was, the Southern Cross, the star formation on the Australian and New Zealand flags.

I've been playing the video ever since, thinking of southern climes in February and decided I need to start planning for a third trip.  I don't see going out of the country next winter but I do see going some place warm or at least warmer.  I got out the map of the United States and realized there are two southern states I have yet to visit, South Carolina and Mississippi. I've set my goal, so starting next week, I will begin contacting libraries in the two states.

These trips don't always work out but they do enough to keep me on the road.

Garden Friends

As I work in the gardens, two friends stop by to visit, Koala and Mittens.  Koala is a Siamese and Mittens is a fluffy gray and white cat.  They live next door.

My neighbor Elaine's children have always brought home pets and most of the time they have been kittens.  The children leave home but the cats stay.  Poor Elaine is left with feeding, litter tending and vet bills.  Worse, she is allergic to cats, so must take medication to survive.

Elaine is selling her house now to move into an apartment that doesn't allow pets.  That means Koala and Mittens must find new homes or go to the pound.  Both are sweet kitties, but Mittens is everybody's favorite.  He sits next to me and purrs as I weed. From time to time he rolls over to have his belly scratched.  Koala is usually nearby.

Mittens loves everyone.  When the children pass by on their way home from school he rushes out to greet them.  Any visitor warrants his attention.

I wish I could take the cats, but my cat Rascal at nineteen is too arthritic and cranky to allow them.  Besides, Gary and I have plans to travel more and finding cat sitters for one cat is trouble enough.  

So I can only worry about my feline friends and hope that they find a new home with someone that will love them.   

God's Will

When Chris was little, we didn't go out to eat much, not even to fast food places. We didn't have that kind of money. The exception was for frozen custard at Storheim's and then only if the flavor of the day listed on their sign was so good I couldn't resist it.  I would tell Chris it was "God's Will."  My favorite was chocolate fudge almond, though a caramel pecan flavor was a close second and merited the Deity's blessing.  As soon as he could read, Chris looked for those signs.  

Once I was driving Chris and some of his friends to Green Bay for some event when he suddenly began shouting, "It's God's will, it's God's will!"  I bet his friends thought he was having a seizure...or a vision from above.  No, the flavor of the day was chocolate fudge almond.

Last week, Gary and I had to go to DePere shopping.  Across the road there was a Culver's, another frozen custard restaurant.  We couldn't see what the flavor of the day was because the sign was blocked by a truck, so I had to walk over to find out.  It was indeed God's will, my favorite.  I got a big cone and the day being hot, custard dribbled all over my shirt, arms and hands so there was no way of hiding it from Gary when we met in the store. It was worth it.

Tomorrow, we have to go back for more hardware.  I could stay home and work in the garden, but I checked Culver's on line menu and found out that flavor of the day will be turtle delight.  If that isn't a directive from heaven, I know know what is.  

It is so useful when God's will and my will coincide.  

Birds

Whenever I see Dan, our city's handyman/janitor, working on one of the civic buildings, I stop for a chat, because he knows what is going on nature-wise in the area.

This week, I had something to tell him, because as I was walking downtown, I looked to the east and saw some large birds winging their way over Seymour.  At first glance, I thought it was a flock of geese, but then I stopped.  A couple of fellows who had just parked their motorcycles in front of Frank's Den almost bumped into me. I pointed up, but they, too, reckoned those were geese and looked at me like I was crazy.

But those birds did not have the steady wing beats of Canada geese and any attempt to form a flying V never worked out.  I waited for them and sure enough, they were white birds with black bands on their wings.  They were pelicans, not something I'm used to seeing in Seymour.  I first saw one when I was an adult and that was over at Green Bay.

Dan had news for me, too.  There were bobolinks over on Cooper Road.  I last saw a bobolink five years before, near Fence, near the Michigan border.  When I was a child, we saw and heard them on the farm, but DDT took its toll.  I loved them not so much for their song or their appearance but for their name.  You can't say "bobolink" without a smile.

Bobolinks are making a recovery.  Today, Gary and I took a drive to Cooper Road, which runs off Highway 54 east of Seymour and west of Oneida.  Dan had said they were by the buffalo, and he was right.

The Oneida tribe has a bison farm on Cooper Road.  In 2006, they built a buffalo viewing stand. After Gary parked the van, we walked up the path when a killdeer began to squawk and ran away from us dragging its wing.  We watched where we stepped until we spotted the well camouflaged eggs in the middle of the path.

Dan was right.  There were birds everywhere.  We saw bobolinks on the fence wires. Tree swallows flitted here and there, red wing blackbirds whrrrrred at us, and a solitary cowbird watched the buffalo wander through the pastures. The cowbirds used to follow the buffalo herds across the Midwest catching the insects the big beasts stirred up, but in time switched their allegiance to cows and horses. This bird was going retro.

At the pond we found an avian bonanza. A pair of geese paddled across followed by their eight goslings who were growing rapidly.  In only a few weeks they would all be ready for their migration south.  In addition we saw a great blue heron, a great egret and a pelican. You seldom see any of these big birds, and here were all three in one pond.  

It was the first time I visited the buffalo stand, but we intend to visit it often, especially during spring and fall migrations. Thanks to Dan.