Houston, Texas. My father lives here. I never planned to visit Houston; in fact, it was the last place on earth I ever would have gone. But, for reasons I cannot yet fathom, I changed my mind and my carefully planned itinerary, and took a long detour and drove to Houston.
I was born and raised in Chicago, but spent a good part of my “formative” years in Houston. You know, the really pleasant teenage years….bad cloths, loud music, rebellious. I was a willful and stubborn kid. Its possible I had some positive qualities too…they were just hard to come by given my preoccupation with asserting my independence and wearing a sort of “smarty-pants” attitude on my sleeve. No doubt it was a real challenge living with me. But the real problem in our household is that there were two of us…nearly mirror images of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Physically, I look more like my mother, but I think and act a lot more like my Dad. As sure as the sun rises every morning, there would be a clash between my Dad and me. “A clash" is of course an understatement, friction eventually came to define our relationship. As the child, I was the recipient of my Dads often harsh and immovable positions. At the ripe old age of 17, I packed up my bag of hurts and left home. I finished high school, became a single mother and put my self through college…all the while stoking my internal drive with the mantra of “I can do this...he'll see”. I was hoping to earn some love and respect.
Fast-forward 30 years. I now have a great family of my own, my career took off, I live in a charming town in New England, I traveled all over the world, and have a circle of friends whose company I truly enjoy. I love my life. The only thing that has slowed me down is the weight of that damn bag of hurts I keep dragging with me. It actually got a bit heavier over the years. Over a relatively short period of time, I lost my mother, my younger sister Cindy and one of my older sisters, Linda. I stuffed all that tragedy in the bag too. I keep that old ugly bag mostly hidden away in some dark corner of my soul. I think no one knows about the bag...but I'm not so sure.
I wasn’t sure what I would find once I got to Houston. I hadn’t been back in over 5 years. Silly me, I was even a bit nervous. For moral support, I called a few of my old friends who still live there and made plans to visit with them. I even looked up a friend I hadn’t seen in 20 years and also made plans for a visit. As I drive down the street where I used to live so many years ago, I thought the place looked great. The trees were much bigger, lawns and gardens more mature…it was all very pleasant. I made my way to the cul-de-sac where I saw my Dad waiting for me. I was pulling the trailer and he was there to help guide me up the driveway (hopefully without taking out a mailbox or tree). My Dad looked the same, yet different. He was older….86 years old now. He’d had back surgery a couple of years ago, which didn’t do much to alleviate his back problems, and he limped a bit. Time was marching on for my Dad. As I considered this, I realized time is marching on for me too, and my time with my Dad. He walked me through the house and the yard. A hurricane had recently visited its wrath on Houston, and we surveyed how well his property had survived…a few branches down, and part of a fence in ruins, not bad, not too bad at all. When we went into the house, well that was another story. It looked like the hurricane had hit the inside, with a vengeance. It hadn’t, my Dad just doesn’t like to waste his time on housekeeping. A vacuum cleaner stood in the middle of the family room as testament to an attempt to tidy up a bit. My Dad opened the door to a spare bedroom for me to use and then winked at me and said “this was your room, wasn’t it”…yes, indeed. Memories flooding in like the falls I’d seen in Yellowstone several weeks earlier.
Dad, Tony and Family 10/2008
I won’t take you through a blow by blow of my visit. I was only going to stay 3 days, and I stayed a week. I found a mission in returning my Dad’s home to some sort of order (I’ll admit, this required professional assistance). My husband Scott, flew to Houston to join me and was promptly put to work on mending fences. My Dad delighted in all the fuss. I got him his first cell phone..he loved it as he loves all new gadgets. We had dinner with my sister Linda’s son Tony, his wife and children. My Dad hadn’t seen Tony in quite some time, so it was a bit of a reunion…for all of us. I met with some of my Dad’s friends and watched as he held court, taking center stage and entertaining everyone…something that used to drive me nuts as a kid, I now found pleasantly endearing. One evening, as we sat on the sofa to watch TV, I observed that his favorite things to watch were also mine….science, nature and the arts. What started out as mission or obligation, unexpectedly became a labor of love.
I spent some time visiting with my old friends. Whether we were reminiscing about the past or talking about the here and now, it was as though the years disappeared and our camaraderie was as easy today as it was 20 years ago. I was having a really good time, my first in many, many years in Houston. Thank you Barbara, Kelly, and Greer...you guys are great!
During my last night, I talked (and laughed) with my Dad until 3AM. It was unquestionably the best conversation I ever had in my life, with anyone. It was filled with the really important things; our life together as a family and our relationship, the will to leave a lasting legacy, the importance of friends and being the best person you can possibly be. Forgiveness and generosity in all things were visited...frequently. It was honest, raw and filled with the wisdom and reflection of two people who have walked many paths, too often without each others company. I will never forget our talk, not in all my days.
When the time came to leave, I dawdled about…finding things to do to delay my departure. The truth was, I didn’t want to go. Still, I packed up the car, kissed my Dad goodbye and pulled out of the driveway. I looked at him in the rearview mirror and saw a man that I loved and respected….he was always there, I just never looked with my eyes completely open before.
I checked in on the old bag of hurts, it weighs a lot less….
Wounded Knee, South Dakota. I saw many things in South Dakota that were truly magnificent..the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse monuments, the eerie landscape of the Badlands and the mystical beauty of the Black hills. Nothing in this entire trip has affected me more however than my visit to Wounded Knee. It’s a place where you must turn and face the falsehoods of childhood lessons, where the terrible toll of bias and bigotry is still being played out. and lastly, where the rights and liberties spelled out in the American Constitution that “we hold to be self-evident” were systematically taken away from Native Americans.
Wounded Knee "Monument"Wounded Knee is not an easy place to get to. Once there I drove around in circles for 20 minutes looking for a Memorial, a Monument, something that would mark the place that is so symbolic of the conquest of the West. What I found was a dilapidated h
and-painted sign, a cemetery in ruin atop a charred hill and a “visitors center constructed of a few poles and pine boughs. As poor a monument as all of this was, there was an invaluable “richness” is the history of the area and the present day life of Native Americans provided by two volunteers at the visitor’s center, Mr. Elk and his wife Jerilynn.
Mr. Elk proudly showed me his driver’s license, which indicates he is a full-blooded Lakota Sioux. He and his wife showed me hand-drawn maps of the area from the 1890’s,
positions of soldiers, artillery, and the Indians during the massacre. They told me stories of the survivors and their
Mr. Elk...100% Sioux
families, and finally they told me of the hardships of living on a reservation, their determination to keep their culture alive, and the continued bigotry that dogs their attempts to find employment.
Before coming to South Dakota, I read “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown and “Crazy Horse” by Marie Sandoz as well as a few others. These well -researched books stood in stark contrast to my lessons in school about the American Indians as well as the prevailing attitudes of the time. Remember playing Cowboys and Indians? The moral of that game was that the cowboys were good and killing the savage Indians was the right thing to do. All the great old western movies promoted the same sort of story. One of the few positive portrayals of an Indian was Tonto, as the Lone Rangers lackey. I was taught that Wounded Knee was a battle, but that was revisionist history, here is what really happened:
Chief Bigfoot of the Sioux finally gave up his long struggle to have his tribe live as free Indians, when the last of their lands was taken. The remains of his tribe, some 120 men and 230 women and children were starved and hungry from running and living in hiding to avoid being placed on a reservation. They were also cold, it was December, 1890 in South Dakota, and many did not even have blankets for cover. Chief Bigfoot decided to bring his tribe to Pine Crest (an Indian reservation) as a last resort as they would surly not survive the winter. Enroute to Pine Crest, on December 28th, four troops of cavalry approached the tribe. Big Foot immediately had the white flag run up over his wagon. Major Samuel Whiteside, Seventh U.S. Cavalry informed Big Foot he had orders for his arrest and that he would be taken to a cavalry camp on Wounded Knee Creek. Big Foot remarked that he was going in that direction, anyway as he was taking his people to Pine Ridge for safety. Big Foot’s tribe was marched into the Wounded Knee Creek cavalry station, and ordered to make camp in the center. Surrounding them were Whiteside’s Cavalry as well as two Hotchkiss guns placed on a rise overlooking the camp. Later that evening, the remainder of the Seventh Cavalry arrived to join Whiteside’s troops. Colonel James W. Forsyth, commanding Custer’s former regiment now took charge. Two more Hotchkiss guns were placed on the ridge. The guns were aimed at the Sioux encampment. The Hotchkiss was a rapid action weapon capable of hurling explosive charges for more than 2 miles. In the morning, after issuing hardtack rations to the Indians, Colonel Forsyth ordered the Indians to be disarmed. All weapons were stacked in the center of the camp. The cavalry was not satisfied with the number of weapons surrendered and so went from tepee to tepee in search of more weapons. They brought out bundles of axes and tent poles and hunting knives, these were stacked next to the surrendered weapons. Still not satisfied that they’d gotten all the weapons, the soldiers ordered the Indians to remove their blankets and submit to personal weapons search. Two rifles were found and when one of the Indians argued saying that he had paid great deal of money for the gun and it was his, the shooting started. As the Indians ran for cover, the Hotchkiss guns rained down on the Indian camp. The flying shrapnel shred tepees, men, women and children. Some of the Braves fought back with whatever they could pick up off the ground. They were no match for armed soldiers however. A number of women and children running for their lives headed for Wounded Knee Creek. They were shot in the back multiple times. When it was over, Chief Bigfoot along with nearly 300 of the original 350 men women and children were dead. The cavalry lost 25 soldiers, most struck by their own bullets or shrapnel from the Hotchkiss guns. Several soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their “heroic” deeds during the Battle of Wounded Knee. Lets face it; there was no battle, and certainly nothing heroic in the brutal massacre of these people. As for the Indians, their bodies were left on the field, frozen in grotesque shapes.
History shows that we made many treaties with the Indians, every one of them was broken, most before the ink dried. Our belief that there was not enough land to go around and a fear of what we did not know or understand led to the deliberate extermination of the Indians way of life. Everyone wanted a big slice of the American dream, and believed the only way to get their share was to take it from the Indians. There is precious little left of this once great culture.
The land that comprises most of the Indian reservations is generally some of the most
Modest homes on S. Dakota Indian Reservation
useless, barren land in the US. Today, Indian reservations remain among the poorest counties in the lower 48 states. I’ve driven through quite a bit of North America during this trip, it’s a bountiful continent.
While I was standing at the very place where Big Foot and his people were massacred, I reached into my pocket and found the
small wooden Indian “dream box” I’d bought when visiting a reservation in Canada.
Big Foots Marker I bent down and scooped up a small amount of earth from that place and put it in the box. I normally do not do things like this…but I was very moved by the scene and the history. I also wanted something to remind me of the terrible things we do and the human misery that occurs when we think there's not enough "pie" to go around. There always is you know...slice it fairly.
I've just passed this monument. It was made famous in a movie about aliens. A better clue lies in the Indian myth about how this strange formation came to be...here goes:
7 girls were playing happily, when suddenly, a giant bear came bounding out of the woods. The bear began to chase the girls. The girls ran as fast as they could, but the bear was getting closer and closer... They 7 girls saw a flat rock and quickly climbed up on it. They realized the bear would still be able to reach them and so began to pray to Wakan Tanka for help. Because their hearts were so pure, their prayers were answered. The rock began to grow and rise up into the air. The angry bear, scratched and clawed at the rock trying to reach the girls, but to no avail. The rock continued to grow until it became a tower that reached a heavenly height. Then, the 7 girls, being of pure heart, were transformed into 7 bright stars, which together form the big dipper.
If you're stumped....here is another clue. Just over the boarder from this formation lies a town also made famous by Hollywood. But, before Hollywood a man with a reputa
tion as a gun fighter, lawman, stagecoach driver and generally a fearsome dude made his home here. He was shot and killed while playing poker in this town, allegedly holding what became known as the "dead mans hand"...a pair of aces and eights. He lies buried in the town cemetery, next to Calamity Jane. Who is he, and where is the town?
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