Bear, Coyote, Raven and Some Sweet, Sweet Berries: A Chumash Story Told By Alan Salazar

Long, long ago when the animals were people, Bear did not like to share the black berries that grew down by the creek. He would chase off anyone that tried to eat even just one of those sweet, sweet berries.

Now one summer morning coyote went down to the creek to get a drink of water. He drank some of the cold, cold water and noticed that the berry bushes were loaded with thousands of sweet, sweet berries.  He looked to his left, then his right and he did not see Bear. Coyote knew that Bear would chase off anyone that tried to eat even just one of those sweet, sweet berries.

Not seeing bear any where, Coyote thought it would be really, really cool to get a few of those sweet, sweet berries. Coyote slowly crawled over to the berry bushes. Just as he was about to take a berry,  Bear who was on the other side of the berry bushes stood-up on his big old hind legs. He was 7 feet tall and weighed 500 pounds, super duper heavyweight size. He roared so loud that it scared Coyote so much that he jumped 5 feet straight up. He hit the ground running faster that he had ever run before.  Bear thought that was really, really funny and he laughed as Coyote ran away. Then he went back to eating those sweet, sweet berries.

Coyote ran all the way to the top of a near by hill. He was out of breath, so he laid down under a big old oak tree to rest for awhile. As he was resting  and catching his breath, he heard caw, caw, it was Coyote’s friend Raven.

Raven asked Coyote why he was breathing so hard. Coyote told him how Bear had chased him away from the berries down by the creek. And that all he wanted was just a few of those sweet, sweet berries.

Raven said, “Ya dude, Bear hoards all the sweet, sweet berries for himself. I tried to get just a few of those sweet, sweet berries and he swatted at me with his big old paw. That’s not nice at all dude. He should share them with everyone, dude. You know Coyote, we should teach that dude a lesson.

(It was Raven who started the dude thing)

Coyote agreed and the two friends began to plan their revenge. As they planned how to trick Bear and hopefully teach him a lesson, they could see him down by the creek. They could see him eating and eating those sweet, sweet berries all day.  Coyote napped several times resting up for his big adventure later that day.  Coyotes nap a lot.

Bear would only stop eating those sweet, sweet berries to get a drink of that cold, cold water from the creek.  Raven and Coyote  had watched Bear eat not a hundred berries, but thousands of those sweet, sweet berries.  His big old belly was so big that it almost touched the ground as he walked to the creek.

Just before the sun was about to set Coyote trotted down to the creek.  Raven flew down, circling high above Bear and Coyote.  When Coyote got down to the creek he boldly walked up to the berry bushes.  He quickly grabbed a few of those sweet, sweet berries, popped them in his mouth, swallowed them, then howled as loud as he could.  It scared Bear for a second, but just a second.

Then Bear charged through the berry bushes and started chasing Coyote around the bushes. Coyote ran as fast as he could. They must of went around the berry bushes ten times.  Bear was breathing very heavily because he had ate so many of  those sweet, sweet berries.  But, he was really, really close to Coyote, so close Coyote could smell Bear’s berry, berry breath. Bear thought he was going teach Coyote a lesson. But, just as Bear swatted at Coyote with his big old paw Coyote jumped straight up.  Raven flew down and grabbed Coyote, lifting him up even higher. As Bear fell flat on his big old belly, Raven dropped Coyote.  He landed right on Bear’s back. He wrapped his front paws around Bear’s big old neck and his back paws around Bear’s big old belly. Well, half way around that big old belly.

Bear took off running and bucking trying to get Coyote off his back. Coyote held on with all his might.  Bear was pawing and clawing at Coyote.  He was bucking and pawing, bucking and clawing at Coyote. Raven flew down and pecked Bear on his big old head. Bear  could not get Coyote off his back.  After a few seconds, eight to be exact, Bear fell down flat on his big old face and big old belly.  He was exhausted and was gasping for air.

Coyote jumped off of Bear,  dusted himself off and trotted over to the berry bushes. Raven flew down to the berry bushes.  They each ate a few of those sweet, sweet, sweet berries. Coyote put a few berries in front of Bear, he did not want Bear to be too mad at him.

As Raven and Coyote left they both said to bear,” We just wanted a few berries, there are more than enough for all of us, if we all just share,,,,DUDE!”
   
The next morning Coyote and Raven went down to the creek. Bear saw them and stood up on his big old hind legs. Coyote and Raven held their breath and were kind of scared.Then Bear said, “I thought about what you said yesterday. And you are right, there are enough berries for all of us, if we share.”

From that day on Bear shared those sweet, sweet berries with all of the animals. He turned out to be a good dude.
   
Now Coyote did not realize that day what he had done. He did not know that he created the very first rodeo event, yes rodeo event— Bear back riding.


Copyright © Alan Salazar. All rights reserved. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 
Alan Salazar writes, "I have worked in several different areas in my life. I am a Native American traditional storyteller, a traditional paddler of Chumash tomols (plank canoes), a Native American consultant/monitor and a juvenile institution officer. I have also, been a journeyman plaster since I was a young man and have been around construction most of my life. My family has traced our family ancestry to the Chumash village of Ta’apu, now known as Simi Valley and the Tataviam village of Pi’ing near Castaic, Ca.  We are Ventureno Chumash and Tataviam. My ancestors were brought into the San Fernando Mission starting in 1803. And I continue to actively protect my ancestors village sites and tribal territories.

I have been actively involved with several Native American groups. I am a founding member of the Kern County Native American Heritage Preservation Council and the  Chumash Maritime Association.  I am a member of the California Indian Advisory Council for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.  I have been a community  advisor with the Ventura County Indian Education Consortium for over 15 years. And I am currently a member of the Environmental Review Board for the city of Malibu. 

As a member of the Chumash Maritime Association I have helped build the first working traditional Chumash plank canoe in modern times and have paddled in this plank canoe for over 15 years.  I have also been involved with teaching youths about Native American cultures. I have been involved with protecting Native American cultural sites for 20 years.  I have been a consultant/monitor on sites in Ventura, LA, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties.  I am one of the few consultant/monitors that has taken college classes in archaeology and has worked as a field archaeologist, to help me better understand the field. There are several other groups I have also been involved with as an adult.
      
I have self published the first ever Chumash coloring book featuring important Chumash animals and the Chumash language.  I am currently working on self publishing a small book of traditional and modern Chumash stories.  Chumash stories that I have told hundreds of times to thousands of children at schools in southern California. I will release that book in late 2014. I also, make Chumash seaweed rattles and Chumash clapper sticks (musical instrument) to help teach students Chumash songs.
     
A storyteller in the Chumash culture is a teacher. My stories educate and entertain. I share my joy, love and respect of my culture when I tell my stories.  As a young boy I enjoyed listening to my Father tell us about being a Marine in WWII in the Pacific islands.  And having milk and cookies with Mrs. Taylor,  an older widow lady who lived three doors down from us in Hanford, California. Mrs. Taylor would tell me stories about Hanford in the early 1900’s.  I was only 5 or 6 years old, but I loved learning from these stories.  So, sharing my stories is something I learned from many elders in my life, and not all of them Chumash.  Being a traditional Chumash paddler of Chumash plank canoes and helping to bring back our Chumash maritime culture is also, very important to me.  But, storytelling is my way of connecting to people of all ages.  It is extremely important to me.

I have also, worked as a Juvenile Institution Officer for approximately 20 years at Juvenile Facilities in Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, Ca. At the Juvenile centers, besides supervising young people, I dealt with people in difficult situations on a daily basis.  Counseling at risk youth was a large part of my job. Motivating and inspiring troubled youth is something I have strived to do most of my adult life.

It is not easy being a proud California Native American. Misinformation about my tribes is still out there. And we have many obstacles still to overcome.  But, I was raised to be proud of my Native American heritage. I take pride in being a positive role model and a respected Elder.  And I believe by sharing my knowledge about my Chumash/Tataviam cultures, I am saving these rich Native cultures."

Educational Programs For All Ages

BEYOND BUCKSKIN: Project 562: Changing The Way We See Native America


Cathedral of Leaves

By Linda Boyden

Grandmothers sit
around a small table;
above their silvered hair
oak boughs weave
a cathedral of leaves,
for shade and secrecy.
Grandmothers sip tea,
the clink of their cups
pepper their thin voices
as they spin Forever Stories
to soothe or amuse
or guide a troubled child.
Grandmothers quilt
a patchwork of words;
stitch the bliss of a first kiss
onto the death of a language;
hem a baby’s first smile
on the memory of a massacre.
Grandmothers spark stories,
their pale voices bloom
under the cathedral of leaves,
where remembering
becomes a sacred thing.


Copyright © Linda Boyden. All rights reserved.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 
Linda Boyden, author, storyteller, illustrator and poet


"The Blue Roses" from Low Books 2002, winner New Voices Award, Paterson Prize and Wordcraft Circle's Book of the Year, 2003

"Powwow's Coming" the University of New Mexico Press, 2007.

"Powwow's Coming" is included on Reading Is Fundamental's 2011 Multicultural Book List!  http://www.rif.org/us/2011-multicultural-booklist.htm?mid=5459710




"Giveaways, An ABC Book of Loanwords from the Americas", written and illustrated by Linda Boyden (University of New Mexico Press), 2010

"Giveaways", winner of three Finalist awards from the 2011 International Book Awards, two Finalist Awards from the 2011New Mexico Book Awards and included in 2012 California Collections form the CA. Reading Association. 
  
Linda's 4th picture book, "Boy and Poi Poi Puppy" from Progressive Rising Phoenix Press. (2013). 

Saboulet

By Michelle Pichon

I remember you
like the only shooting star
I ever saw
streaming across the eternal Texas sky
vibrant and magical
Your fingers long and rough
Camel Turkish blend
unfiltered
burning at the tips
chilled Budweiser
in a can
sweet on your breath
That’s how I see you
Legs like a blue heron
crossed at the knee
sitting in the swollen air
the backyard that once was
nothing but bayou
under the shade of our
family tree
telling me about
birds and baseball
You ask me
if I still play the piano
and I wish I did
because that would give me
something to say
I could learn some
big band jazz
and play for you
like the Duke
But I quit playing the piano
like everything else
I don’t like it anymore
I say
eyes on the thirsty ground
my voice like
caterpillars chewing on leaves
 And now
I imagine you’d say
The piano is like baseball
Shah, you got to saboulet
or don’t do it at all

* saboulet is a Louisiana Creole baseball term meaning hit the ball as hard as possible

Copyright © Michelle Pichon. All rights reserved.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR  
Michelle Pichon is a Louisiana Creole with roots in Slidell and Isle Brevelle, Louisiana. Teaching English at Northwestern State University is her bread and butter but poetry is her chocolate cake and Sauvignon Blanc at the end of the day. She has previously been published in Country Roads, Xavier Review, and Louisiana English Journal. She is co-founder of Down River Art Gang (DRAG) where she and her friends put on killer multi-cultural, multi-genre art shows and other events. 


You can follow Michelle on Tumblr at http://mpichon.tumblr.com

Ghost Dance

By Chip Livingston


I think I’m going crazy when I see my reflection in the camera’s lens.  I’m surrounded by the dead.  Jimi, Marilyn, Joan — face covered in cold cream, hand holding wire hanger high above her head.  The Halloween Parade has paused for television crews in front of The Revolver on Duvall Street in New Orleans.  I duck inside for a drink, take the elevator to the thirteenth floor. 
I walk inside the club without ID.  Tonight I don’t need it.  Tonight I’m invisible.  I pass witches, goblins, boys dressed like ghouls.  Once we were two of them.  Once we both joined the annual masquerade.  But tonight is different.  Tonight I don a plain white sheet with ink.  Circles traced around holes cut out to see through.  Another hole through which I drink, from which I breathe.
I wasn’t coming out tonight.  Didn’t plan or purchase a costume.  Wouldn’t wear one hanging in your closet.  What led me to the linens then, to quickly cut a cotton sheet into a kid’s uniform?  What drove me to this?
Beneath this sheet, your medicine bag hangs around my neck, the tanned leather pouch you made me promise never to open.  This is the first time I’ve worn it.  But no one can see it.  No one can see me.
I finish my drink, scotch neat, with a gulp, sing the invisible song you taught me, set the glass on the black wood rail, and, still singing, step onto the dance floor.
Beneath this sheet, I imitate you dancing.  My feet, awkward at first, soon find your rhythm, and my legs bounce powwow style in the steps we both learned as kids.  The steps that never left you.  I dip and turn between, around the fancy dancers in their sequin shawls and feather boas.  I shake my head like you did when your hair was long, the way you flipped it, black and shining, to the heavy beat of house music.  The music hasn’t changed much in case you’re wondering.  I dance in your footsteps; sing the invisible song; close my eyes.
When I open my eyes, I swear I see Carlo.  Impossible right, but he’s stuffed inside that Nancy Reagan red dress and he’s waving at me, sipping his cocktail and smiling.  He’s talking to Randy, who’s sticking out his tongue that way he always did whenever he caught someone staring at him.  I start to walk over but I bump in to Joan.
She’s glaring at me.  Or it may just be the eyebrows, slanted back with pencil to make it look like she’s glaring at me.  She reaches past me and grabs Marilyn by her skinny wrist and pulls her away, but Carlo and Randy are gone.  Where they stood are faces I don’t recognize.  Faces dancing.  Masks I realize.  Faces behind masks.
The DJ bobs furiously with pursed lips, headphones disguised as fiendish, furry paws, in the booth above the floor.  He introduces a new melody into the same harping beat, and I remember to dance.  I remember you dancing.  My fingers slide across your sweaty chest, and I find your necklace.  The sheet clings to my body in places.  The new song sounds just like the last song but I’m suddenly crowded by strangers.  I can no longer lift my legs as high as I want to, so I sway in place, shuffle with the mortals on the floor.
Behind me someone grabs me, accidentally perhaps, but I turn, violently, jealously.  There are too many people in this equation.  Twos become one again and again, and ones become twos.  All around me real numbers add up to future possibilities.  Imaginary numbers.  It’s why we’re here dancing. 
A cowboy nods his hat in my direction.  But he can’t be nodding at us.  We’re invisible.  I think maybe he is a real ghost; he’s peering intently into the holes cut out for my eyes.  He looks like Randolph Scott, blond and dusty, so I look around for Cary Grant as Jimi lifts the guitar from his lips and wails.  Randolph Scott is coming this way and I turn my back and dance.
I want you back, Elan.  I want you back dancing beside me.  I start chanting this over and over to myself.  I want you back.  I want you back. 
You taught me the power of words.  I believed you.  I can even smell you now.  Sandalwood oil and sweat.  I turn and expect to see you. 
Not you behind me. 
Not you beside me.
Not you in front of me.
Not you anywhere around me. 
I make my way to the bar, but the bar is too crowded.  The barman’s face grimaces over hands holding folded dollars as he tries to keep the glasses filled. The air is thick with smoke.  It’s hard to breathe.  I make my way to the door, notice the cowboy trailing me.  In the elevator, I go down alone.
Into the rain on Duvall Street, we walk out together.  One set of footprints splashes our muddy way home, then, turning, I realize we are not going home, but passing more pagan tricksters decked out as holiday spirits. 
            The bells in the clock tower tell me it is midnight.  Squeaking from its hinges, the door to morning slowly opens and it’s All Saints Day, the Day of the Dead, and I am walking toward Boot Hill, to where you are buried.
We’re alone in the cemetery, and the wind lifts the rain in a mist rising up from the wet earth that is claiming me.  I remove my sheet in front of the cement memorial that holds your body up above the boggy ground.  I remove my shoes.  I strip off everything except your leather pouch around my neck, and I dance for you.  My legs are free and I whirl and sing.
I’m dancing for you now, because you loved to dance.  I want you back dancing.  I want you dancing now. 
I’m dancing for you now, because you loved to dance.  I want you back dancing.  I want you dancing now. 
I’m dancing for you now, because you loved to dance.  I want you back dancing.  I want you dancing now.
I’m dancing for you now, because you loved to dance.  I want you back dancing.  I want you dancing now.

Ghost Dance, was first published in Boulder Planet  and is reprinted from "Museum of False Starts" by Chip Livingston (Copyright 2010). Reprinted by permission of Gival Press.



Chip Livingston is the mixed-blood Creek author of two collections of poetry, CROW-BLUE, CROW-BLACK and MUSEUM OF FALSE STARTS, and a collection of short stories, NAMING CEREMONY, Lethe Press 2014. Chip has received fiction awards from Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Writers and Storytellers, and the AABB Foundation. Chip grew up on the Florida-Alabama border and now lives in Colorado, where he teaches writing online, and is a faculty mentor in the low-rez MFA program at Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. 

Orange Dream

By Wang Ping

Orange trees have roots in the earth
We migrants have roots in our souls

When the autumn wind blows across the Three Gorges, the hills along the Yangtze River light up with ripening oranges. They have been hiding behind leaves like shy girls all summer, but now they burst out shamelessly, filling the valley with their sharp citrus fragrance and flaming color.

And the peasants get busy. First, they repair the road from the orchards to the villages, from the villages to the highway and the river. All the roads are narrow dirt roads. All zigzag along the river cliffs. They get muddy after a few rains, and are often washed away by landslides. But no matter, it’s the only way to carry the golden harvest off the mountain slopes in bamboo baskets, out of the villages and Sichuan Basin in boats, ships, trucks, planes.

Next they clear the yards to make baskets. Oranges are fragile, easy to bruise and get moldy. Bamboo baskets are the best and cheapest containers. Since each family has about ten to twenty thousand jin of harvest, they’ll need hundreds of baskets. The villagers buy the raw materials, and hire bamboo smiths to make the baskets. Bamboo smiths come as a family, husband and wife, children, cousins. They work from six o’clock in the morning till midnight, taking breaks only when they eat. For each basket, they make two yuan, and a good smith can make about thirty-five baskets a day. And the peasants pick oranges, pack them in baskets, carry them down the steep hills, sell them to buyers from Chongqing, Chendu, Shanghai, Beijing...Orange price fluctuates according to the market demand, traffic, weather, and the whims of the wholesalers. There are times when they can’t sell at all. When late fall comes rolling with rain, the fruit rots in the mud. Even pigs won’t touch it.

This has been the way of life for the peasants along the river for two millennium.

The oranges from the Three Gorges have been known since the time of the Confucius (551-479 BC), Warring States (475-221 BC), Qin (221-207), Han (206 BC-220 AD), Tang (618- 907) dynasties, during which orange production was just as important as the salt industry, if not more. There were salt officials as well as orange officials managing the trade and farming. At 15, Du Fu (712-770) got his first government job to take care of 40 mu of orange groves and 100 mu of grain fields in Fengjie, where he wrote many of his great poems and made the place known as Poetry City.

The orange harvest was used as a symbol for the rise and fall of China. When an emperor chose the right way to run the country, there would be a good harvest and oranges would ripen with the right taste, color and texture. That was because the Three Gorges orange was the best of all fruit, and would serve only the true heavenly son. If the throne was usurped, oranges would turn sour, or refuse to grow at all. Peasants regard oranges as lucky symbols because of its shape, color and sound. Ju (orange) is close to the sound of good luck—ji. A peasant bride would hide an orange cake, rock sugar and a mirror in her bra on her wedding day, hoping they would give her a good, sweet and bright life.

Dried orange skin is called chen pi. It cures gastric pain, clears phlegm, and revives the faint of heart. Oranges soaked in 65 degree liquor are served with hot fondues. It’s fire upon fire, burning the toxin out of the body. And the sweetest oranges grow on ancient graves. Beginning from the Three Gorges and down the Yangtze River, oranges form China’s citrus belt—Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang. Away from the belt, they change flavor, color and taste. The farther away from the river, the worse they fare.

Most migrants no longer grow oranges. Those who moved 100 meters above the hills have lost the land and climate suitable for the citrus bush. Those who crossed the river sit in high-rise apartments with a big mortgage and little hope for a job. Those who moved to Shanghai, Fujian, Guangdong, and Shandong are struggling with different dialects and cultures, with dire opportunities for jobs or schools. They’ve been farmers for many generations, and growing oranges and fishing are the only skills they have. Many old and middle-aged migrants can’t stand the homesickness. They steal back to their old homes and live with their relatives or friends illegally. Many men have joined bangbangjun—the army of porters on streets, and girls become “goddesses” in hair salons, hotels, dance halls.

The orange—soul of the Three Gorges. It haunts the dream of every migrant. Even those who have made it in their new places aren’t exempt. Almost every migrant said they missed the orange fragrance, its color and taste, missed climbing the steep hills along the river to the orchards, missed the backbreaking season of the golden harvest.

They sing “Orange Tree” to the tune of the popular song “Olive Tree.”
Don’t ask me where I came from
My old home is far far away
Don’t ask why I keep roaming
Roaming in this strange land
For the birds wheeling in the sky
For the gibbons calling from the riverbanks
For the fish that swim upstream to spawn
I’m roaming, roaming
For the orange tree in my heart
For the orange soul in my dream

Copyright © Wang Ping. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Wang Ping was born in China and came to USA in 1986. She is the founder and director of the Kinship of Rivers project, a five-year project that builds a sense of kinship among the people who live along the Mississippi and Yangtze rivers through exchanging gifts of art, poetry, stories, music, dance and food. With other artists and poets, she has been teaching poetry and art workshops to children and seniors along the river communities, making thousands of flags as gifts to bring to the Mississippi during 2011-12 and to the Yangtze in 2013.

Her publications include American Visa (short stories, 1994), Foreign Devil (novel, 1996), Of Flesh and Spirit (poetry, 1998), The Magic Whip (poetry, 2003), The Last Communist Virgin (stories, 2007), All Roads to Joy: Memories along the Yangtze (forthcoming 2012), all from Coffee House. New Generation: Poetry from China Today (1999), an anthology she edited and co-translated, is published by Hanging Loose. Flash Cards: Poems by Yu Jian, co-translation with Ron Padgett, 2010 from Zephyr. Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China (2000, University of Minnesota Press) won the Eugene Kayden Award for the Best Book in Humanities, and in 2002, Random House published its paperback. The Last Communist Virgin won 2008 Minnesota Book Award and Asian American Studies Award. She had two photography and multi-media exhibitions--“Behind the Gate: After the Flooding of the Three Gorges” at Janet Fine Art Gallery, Macalester College, 2007, and “All Roads to Lhasa” at Banfill-Lock Cultural Center, 2008. She collaborated with the British filmmaker Isaac Julien on Ten Thousand Waves, a film installation about the illegal Chinese immigration in London. She is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council of the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, the Bush Artist Fellowship, Lannan Foundation Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and the McKnight Artist Fellowship. Visit her on the web at www.wangping.com/



Kinship of Rivers
http://www.kinshipofrivers.org/

Driving Toward Yes


By Dawn Downey

The desert wind whispered yes as it blew across Dad’s brow. In the summer of 1964, he and three of his teenagers (my older sister Michelle, younger brother Bill, and me) waited impatiently at the edge of the Mojave. Our road trip interrupted, because our family cat was having kittens in the back of the station wagon.

Five days earlier, at age forty-three, Dad closed up Bill’s Body Shop, his car repair business. He waived goodbye to relatives and friends, and drove away from Des Moines, leading a four-vehicle caravan down Route 66, off to California in pursuit of dreams.

Only a high school graduate himself, Dad insisted his kids would go to college. He had five children, number six on the way, and no means to finance all that education. But he’d read the University of California was tuition-free for the state’s residents. The fact that no job awaited him in the golden state—he’d work that out later.

He drove the station wagon and pulled a U Haul trailer. Michelle, who’d earned her driver’s license two weeks before, drove a second car. She towed a VW Bug, which Dad planned to sell in California. Bill and I rode shotgun.

A water pump or two broke along the way. An eighteen-wheeler mangled the trailer hitch. And Dad and Michelle parted company for a while—he following the arrow on a detour sign, she driving around the sign and heading toward Canada. But the four of us ended up together at the edge of the Mojave. While waiting to cross it in the cool of the night, we watched Cass birth her kittens, while the sun painted the sky pale pink, then navy blue. As we fussed over the cat and complained about the heat, Dad towered over us, as big as the desert.

Early the next morning he delivered his brood—three kids and five cats—to Pasadena. (The kids went on to college; the cats did not.)

Long before our cross-country trek, my father had outgrown his life in Des Moines. Between pounding out fenders, he’d written his first novel on a legal pad. A year after the move to California, the Santa Barbara News Press hired him, on the strength of an article he submitted. He was their first African American reporter. He walked into the interview straight from his job as a mechanic at the local Ford dealership, his muscled six-foot frame stuffed into a pair of blue coveralls.

While working at the paper, he typed his second novel during lunch breaks, in the back of his camper.

He stretched the newspaper job from obituary writer into outdoor columnist. Every week, he expanded Gone Fishin’ beyond the expected descriptions of the best camping spots and the latest model boats. His readers got to know his old Uncle Russell in Ottumwa, and his brother Al, a TV weatherman in Des Moines. When Uncle Russell got sick, he received hundreds of get-well cards from all across the country. I suspected then that Dad might be more than just the guy who grounded me.

After a ten-year stint as newspaper columnist, he transformed himself into freelance writer and then again into published author, with five books to his credit. He supplemented his income by teaching memoir writing through adult education. And that’s how he became a guru. Others taught; Dad cheered, encouraged, cajoled, nudged, nagged, poked and mesmerized. One of his students described the classroom experience as a cross between a quilting bee and a revival meeting.

Repeaters were common. Many took his course five years in a row. One returned fifteen times. On the rare occasions that illness kept him home, Dad learned that his substitutes had been greeted with surly expressions and sarcastic complaints. My father had groupies.

Over the thirty years he taught, he told his students to take more risks and write to their edge. After he died, a group of loyalists continued meeting, reserving an empty chair for him.

Decades later, I feel him pushing me too. Through divorce, lay-offs and career changes, he's challenged me to take a risk. When I’m typing against a deadline in the middle of the night, I catch sight of him standing at the edge of the Mojave. And I remember Dad driving toward yes.


Copyright © Dawn Downey. All rights reserved.

Dawn Downey, an essayist, finds inspiration in everyday situations. She writes about topics ranging from her pursuit of the perfect purse* to her search for the meaning of life--with jealousy, prejudice, guilt and inadequacy thrown in for good measure. She views them through the lens of a spiritual path that has wound through the teachings of the Buddha, around to non-duality, and has stopped for a while at devotion—a kinder, gentler relationship with the sweet goofiness that makes us human. She secretly wants to be a rock star, but since she can't sing, settles for reading her stories at coffee shops, galleries and book stores, anywhere there's a microphone and an audience. She lives in Kansas City with her husband, aka groupie, roadie and driver. He spoils her rotten. She reciprocates. 

Dawn Downey is the author of “Stumbling Toward the Buddha, Tripping Over my Principles on the Road to Transformation. www.dawndowney.com

The Cherokee Word for Water

by Terra Trevor

I grew up within in a large extended Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca family. With grandparents and great-grandparents, with roots in Oklahoma. Great-grandma could fix a meal to feed fifteen of us and I loved to sit beside her coal black stove, listening to her stories. I’m the granddaughter of sharecroppers, and I was born to a teenage mother and father in 1953. When I was young, we were poor—but we had water. 

Having water meant we always had plenty to eat. We had fresh running water to rinse, soak and simmer pots of pinto beans and black-eyed peas.

In the summer when rainfall was not plentiful, since the water table was usually high, we could turn the hose on to soak the apple and peach tree and their fruit fed us in return.

There was water for pie baking, and when the sun seared overhead water to mix with Kool-Aid to freeze into popsicles. Home canned goods must be put up in hot, sterilized jars and we had water for boiling before we used them. We had water to wash our hands before pressing a tortilla on a hot skillet, and it was clean and safe to drink.

 

When no one else believed in them, they believed in each other. 


Set in the early 1980s, the story of The Cherokee Word for Water begins in a small town in rural Oklahoma where many houses lack running water. The film tells the story of a tribal community joining together to build a waterline by using traditional Native values of reciprocity and interdependence and is told from the perspective of Wilma Mankiller and Charlie Soap, who join forces to battle opposition and build a 16-mile waterline system using a community of volunteers. In the process, they inspire the townspeople to trust each other, to trust their way of thinking, and to spark a reawakening of the universal indigenous values of reciprocity and interconnectedness. This project also inspired a self-help movement in Indian Country that continues to this day.

The Cherokee Word for Water” is dedicated to Wilma Mankiller’s vision, compassion and incredible grace, and tells the story of the work that led her to become the Chief of the Cherokee Nation. The film was funded through the Wilma Mankiller Foundation to continue her legacy of social justice and community development in Indian Country.  

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