On the Cusp of Spring

People here say we've had a colder winter than usual, and that it's lasted longer. The entire South has had an unusual winter, but our corner of the country has, for the most part, been a weather oasis. Sure, it got down to ten degrees one morning, and yes we had to close the road to the Chisos Basin a couple of days because of icing. But when people arrive at the sunny Persimmon Gap Entrance Station here in Big Bend National Park, they're usually telling of snow, sleet, ice or rain to the north.

Many folk arrive with license plates from the really frigid places - Minnesota, Michigan, Alaska, Ontario. A few Mainers trickle in, too - from Whitefield and Augusta most recently. Lots of Texans, who may drive 12 hours from Houston or Dallas to get here. I keep checking Maine weather, and shudder at the little squares on the NOAA website with snowflakes all across the board, and zero temps. Then I type on our zip code, 79834 and get a much more pleasant forecast.

With the first frosts in late November or early December, the oaks in the canyons turned gold and held the leaves until the big windstorm in early January. The grasses are bleached manila and burnt orange, but the prickly pear still poke their green pads above it all. One species, the purple prickly pear, turns a lovely violet color at the onset of cold weather, sometimes stopping you in your tracks to see what kind of tree that must be blooming on the far hillside.

We got snow one day, which for most of us is an incongruous sight in the desert. Employees made tiny snowmen (well it was only a little dusting of snow) and took pictures of the cactus and ocotillo rimed with the white stuff. A park ranger and our 2010 Calendar photographer in the Basin, at 5400 feet elevation, sent some of the photographs he'd taken of the wild hoarfrost up there, and I was insanely jealous. I had to work that day and could only take a few snapshots on my way to work at the lower elevations, which really wasn't that dramatic. A few weeks later we had an ice fog in the mountains, and my friend Shanna - a Southerner not used to winter drama - made several trips with her camera and Flip video to record the inch-thick frost crystals coating everything. I had to work that day, too, and again I was insanely jealous.

Hoodoos in light snowstorm

Just when we think winter might be over, we get another "blue norther." Thursday's storm brought us a huge clap of thunder, a bit of rain, a smidgen of tiny hail, and dramatic ground fog that flowed westward while the broken clouds above scooted east.

Ground fog and thunderhead (above) and closeup of ground fog below
To see the dramatic front side, go to Doug's blog (I'm insanely jealous)
http://desertratdiary.blogspot.com/

Then yesterday we had a huge moon. It was 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than usual because we were at the moon's perigee - its closest point to earth on its elliptical orbit. I photographed it on my way home from work, rising like a beachball behind the Deadhorse Mountains, and this morning on my way to work caught it setting to the east of Persimmon Gap. Mars was close to it at two o'clock, not looking as red as it had several years ago.

Full Moon Jan. 29, 2010 - Deadhorse Mts.

The small hands of bluebonnet leaves are already clumping in the desert and we know these rains will help give us a spectacular wildflower display. Cactus will bloom soon as well, and the shirtsleeves will be short as we hike, and we will see young critters and hear more of the birdsong that is just starting to ring out in the creosote chaparral. We are on the cusp of Spring, and we are all awaiting happily.

The gratuitous sunset thrown in for good measure - Deadhorse Mts.

How to Tick Off a Park Ranger

Now Boys and Girls... (picture the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live)

One would assume that coming to a national park implies a certain amount of respect for the park resources, and that respect means following the rules. Fortunately, being Way Out In the Middle of Nowhere, Texas, Big Bend National Park doesn't attract as much riff raff as some of the other parks situated near large population centers. However, there's always that handful of folk that make you wonder about the human race.

For instance, TP Cairns. A cairn is a little rock monument built to mark a trail. Sometimes people build them just because. TP Cairns are those little rock mounds attempting to hide evidence of one's bowel movements or bladder relief, complete with wads of toilet paper peeping between the rocks. Eeew.

People who hike a lot generally know to carry out used toilet paper in a plastic bag (we don't allow burning in the park) or to dig a deep enough hole to deposit one's, er, deposits. If one must use a rock for a lid, at least avoid the TP cling-ons.

Another way to tick off a park ranger is to ignore all the No Pets on Trails and Pets Must Be On Leash signs. Especially if it's Ranger Cindy's day off and she has to be the one to tell Fido and Fifi's humans (nicely) that they must remove the free-roaming dogs from the trail and put them on leashes when in approved areas. And then she has to call Dispatch because the dog's owners have ignored her, since she wasn't in uniform, and they feel entitled anyway.

Park rangers manning entrance stations get really ticked off if you don't stop at the stop sign right outside their window, if you blow past - coming or going - despite the speed limit signs, or if an employee or park resident impatiently zips around the booth (into the opposite lane) because he or she can't wait an extra few minutes for the visitors to be processed in. Heck I feel like this Taco Stand needs a row of sand-filled barrels like those that protect toll booths on the interstates, the way some people drive.

Also if you know you're coming into a park, and you stashed your Senior or Annual Pass in the trailer you're towing behind you, and have to hold up the line running back to rummage through it so you can get in for free, entrance station rangers work hard to be "warm and enthusiastic" when you do that.

Being loud and noisy on a hiking trail is likely to tick off a park ranger (on duty or off), because we are often birding, hoping to see a panther or a bear, or enjoying the peace and quiet. It's not unusual to hear entire conversations from a quarter mile away on some of the popular trails in the park. Of course, if we are in the group that is having a good time, that's different.

And if you see someone photographing a bird or an animal, don't just blow past them and then say "sorry" after you've scared the animal off. Do you know how hard it is to get a Bewick's wren close enough and in good lighting? You could have stopped your headlong rush for a moment until I was done photographing it, couldn't you?

Another way to tick off a park ranger is to leave your Most Important Name etched on a prickly pear pad or a Texas madrone tree bark, or on a stone next to Indian petroglyphs or pictographs. I'm making a photographic collection of this kind of graffiti, and will make a voodoo doll and conjure up spells upon Kevin and Lacey and Gunther and whomever else so blatantly disrespected nature and park property.

This park ranger in particular is ticked off when passed by a vehicle driving 10 to 20 mph over the park's 45 mph speed limit. Having had many near misses with cottontails, jackrabbits, deer, and birds, I can't help but think an extra 10 mph of speed would have resulted in roadkill, especially at night when people think they are safe from the law under the cover of darkness. Once I was passed by three high speed vehicles in a row. Imagine my delight when 20 minutes later I saw Law Enforcement had pulled one of them over. Yes! (The excuse given for speeding was "Everyone else was doing it.")

Of course, even park rangers don't always do things the way they're supposed to. And when I do something ignernt or stoopid, that really ticks me off.

Kids Know More Than Me

Working as a park ranger (yes I will have to stop being shy about it, since my badge does say "National Park Ranger") I get asked all kinds of questions. If I can't answer them I usually refer the questioner to someone who can. Or, like one of the guys here says, I make up an answer. Not really. Well, maybe...

I've been humbled twice now by questions about dinosaurs. One adorable five-year-old sat in the back seat of his parents' car as it pulled up to my entrance station window. Dad rolled down the window and the boy, with a book in his lap, asked me if we had any "Piscacaddyquoddymongasaurs" in the park. (Nods to Garrison Keillor). Whatever the real name was, I had never heard of it. He also wanted to know if we had a paleontologist in the park, so I sheepishly referred him to our geologist.

Couple weeks ago I was roving at Ernst Tinaja, which is a little gem of a rock pool on the rugged Old Ore Road. Roving means I'm in my park ranger uniform, being official, roving around the park. That excites some folk, who tell their kids, "Hey, there's a park ranger!" And I answer, "Where?" and look around. Ha ha. Or they'll say, "If I fall in this pool we have a park ranger here to help me out." Ha and ha.

A family with young children was there and the boy, I'm guessing seven years old, asked brightly, "Are the fossils in these rocks from the Cretaceous Period? That's when the dinosaurs roamed."

I blinked. "Uh, maaaayybeeeeee." I said. "Ask me about birds, why don't you?" Geez what is it with kids and dinosaurs? Fossils are DEAD for pete's sake. Why aren't they studying birds? Learning their names? Buying binoculars? Reading bird books?

I told my supervisor of my humiliating lack of geologic/paleontological knowledge. He said I could use the next dinosaur question as a segue into birds. After all, when I was nine years old I knew the archaeopteryx was the "first bird," and studied a photo of its skeleton - both reptilian yet with the first evidence of feathers. I even wanted to be an ornithologist, and looked up all the bird names in the dictionary and made a list. So maybe I can ignite a little bird craziness into some of these dino-crazed kids.

In the meantime I did brush up on some of the fossils discovered in the park, and can speak a little more knowledgeably about the Alamosaurus (like brontosaurus), the Quetzalcoatlus (huge flying reptile), and the 50-foot long crocodiles that roamed here. But don't pull rank on the Mesozoic, Triassic, Cretaceous stuff - it all belongs in that mush pile called"prehistory" in my mushy brain, try as I might to make sense of it.

As to whether or not birds actually descended from reptiles, as we were taught, or had actually existed prior to the flying reptiles they supposedly descended from, is a matter of dispute in the science world. Here are some articles on the topic:

Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-Bird Links http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm

Ancient Birds Flew On All-Fours
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060922094617.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/25/birds.dinosaurs
Birds descended from T. Rex

Some scientists even refer to birds as living dinosaurs.

So kids, be warned. Ask me about dinosaurs and you'll get a lesson on birds. Like it or not!

PGap Goings-On

Coyote

On my drive to or from work four days a week, I usually encounter wildlife of one sort of another. Two coyotes were in the road once, and three times now I've seen the coyote with an injured back leg scamper into the brush. Last night (Dec. 19) a gorgeous mule deer 6-point was ambling across the road, completely oblivious to my headlights, and if I hadn't braked he would be venison. At some point he came out of his reverie, realized he was in danger, and bounded away.

Jackrabbits and cottontail bunnies, javelinas, deer, and various birds often feed at the roadside where the grass is more lush. Twice at the entrance station I heard a faint but haunting melody of coyote song in the distance, a weird cacophony of yelps, howls, and barks. Pure wilderness.

George (or Gracie) fussing at a doe

There was a rattlesnake in the maintenance shed before I arrived in the park. I've yet to see any snakes at all here, and I've only seen two tarantulas in the housing area. I haven't had the courage to pick them up, although I know they are sold as pets (maybe a different species) and rarely bite. At home in Maine I won't kill a spider. I pick it up with a tissue and, like Pee Wee Herman rescuing the snakes from the burning pet store in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," I scream "EEEEEEEE" all the way outdoors. The tissue and spider both land outside, lest the creature actually crawl on me. Spiders are good, I tell myself. They won't hurt me. Eeeeeee!

Out here in the Texas desert, brown recluse and black widows could be lurking, and those I would kill if I saw them, as they are poisonous. As a kid growing up down South, I learned to turn my shoes over and shake them to dislodge any brown recluse that might be lurking there. It's an OCD habit I have to this day.

At the Taco Stand, the canyon towhees and rock wrens sometimes glean dead bugs from my van's fender and wheel wells when I arrive in the morning. Reminds me of those birds that pick ticks off the backs of rhinos in Africa. Glad I could be of service, little ones.

Canyon towhees on my van

We also have the resident ravens, which Doug has named George and Gracie, and Gary calls Heckle and Jeckle. (You'd have to be people of a certain age to know both sets of characters.)They usually pay a visit mid-afternoon, with one sitting on the roof and croaking at me, as if to say "don't you have any goodies for us today?" Uh, no feeding the wildlife, remember?

George (or Gracie)

"That's right, women are smarter. Smarter than a man any day" - C. J. Chenier

And strangest of all, we have the locoweed birds. Those are the ones, males all, who continually bash their reflections in the visitor center windows. They all think it's another male in their territory, and will go on for fruitless weeks with this. The resident curve-billed thrasher, who I named Locoweed, particularly loves the west-facing picture window in early evening, protecting his Missus from the invincible intruder. I think the thrasher taught the cactus wren how to do this, too, as I saw him watching Locoweed curiously one evening. The next day Mr. Wren was in on the act, too, "thrashing" away at the audacious duplicate, teacher and student side-by-side.

Curve-billed Thrasher

One day, after I had finished up and sat in the visitor center watching the sun go down behind the distant mountains, Locoweed was doing his thrasher thing when the Missus flew to the ledge beside him. Their sweet cooings and chatters went on non-stop, and she had a calming effect. Occasionally he'd make a feeble stab at the "intruder" and she'd give him a little peck as if to say "Grow up, Dodo Head." They appeared as if they would roost right there for the night. It seemed rather exposed should a great horned owl come prowling. But what do I know? They were still cooing to each other when I turned on the alarm and left.

Last week a coyote sauntered lazily past the Taco Stand (photo at top of blog) and up the road, and several days later I saw him in the visitor center parking lot. We haven't seen Locoweed the crazy curve-billed thrasher lately, so I hope he didn't become the coyote's meal.

Doug once videotaped a roadrunner bashing himself against the front door. Its long tail wagged to and fro in its frenzy, making a comical scene. Somehow I can't see the Warner Brothers Roadrunner acting that silly.

Here are some photographs a roadrunner behaving properly.

Roadrunner

More critter updates as they become available.

Life at the Taco Stand

Blue-gray gnatcatcher

My art show experience set me up perfectly for this job.


The Taco Stand is about the same size as my 10x10 foot art show canopy, and there are periods of little traffic interspersed with a mob. I'm selling fees and park passes instead of art, but I don't have to worry about the booth blowing away in the wind or collapsing in a deluge, which is what happened to me after a six-inch downpour in Lafayette, LA one April. I hit the road in the dark to open the stand by 8 a. m. and drive home in the dark this time of year. And I answer the same 10 questions and give the same spiel all day - with a smile.

House finch

There's heat and air conditioning in here, plenty of light, a great view, and I can even shut down for lunch and eat in peace. In between tending to visitors, I brush up on the fee collection regulations, the uniform regulations, the park regulations, and anything else that looks official and informative in here. I also research things on the computer (yes we have internet in the Taco Stand) that visitors ask me about, so that next time I will have the answer. For instance, "how many national parks are there?" Fifty-eight, with a total of 391 units managed by the National Park Service. That includes National Monuments like Devil's Tower, National Seashores such as Cape Cod, National Battlefields like Gettysburg, and a whole bunch of other National This's and That's.

Rufous-crowned sparrow

I also research the identification of flowers and plants I've photographed, using the numerous books I checked out of our natural history library. And of course, I write the text for my blogs, one or two sentences at a time between "Welcome to Big Bend. The Entrance Fee is twenty dollars,"and the various other chores.

Rufous-crowned sparrow

The mesquite tree in front of my picture window is sometimes decorated with birds, as if they all decided at once to become impromptu Christmas ornaments.

Verdin

There have been verdin with their yellow heads, sassy cactus wrens, drab rock wrens, quiet canyon towhees, inquisitive rufous-crowned sparrows, and just as I wrote this, a male pyrrhuloxia which alighted long enough for a splendid photograph. (Of COURSE I keep my camera handy!) As you can see, these birds are related to the familiar cardinal.

Pyrrhuloxia

A cactus wren found a feather under the mesquite a couple weeks ago and carried it in its bill for a few minutes before realizing that it wasn't nesting season after all and let it go.

Cactus Wren with feather

The resident ravens, George and Gracie (or Heckle and Jeckle depending on who you're with) show up mid-afternoon and we have a little chat. They most likely have a territory they cover, looking for road kill or live food, or dried berries or whatever strikes their fancy. At night they often roost on the vigas of the maintenance shed behind the visitor center. I'm never sure just which one's George, since they both look alike.

George and Gracie lovebugs

Yesterday I saw six desert bighorn sheep on the tall mountain outside the Taco Stand. I told Gary at the Visitor Center and he put a scope on them. The visitors were tickled to see them. Later that afternoon there were 14. Some of the rams would butt horns, and it took two seconds for the sound to carry. (Okay schoolchildren, if sound travels at approximately 1125 feet/sec. how far away were they?) Now I know if I hear a sharp "crack" in the distance to look for the dueling bighorns way up high.

The "Taco Stand" and the bighorn sheep mountain

Mule deer often come close, too. Mulies don't run so much as they bound, almost as if they are on a pogo stick. Whitetails run, their tails high so the white flag will flash a warning. We have a species of smaller deer in the Chisos Mountains called the Carmen Mountain Whitetail Deer, which often show up at the lodge, as do the javelinas.

Mule deer buck across from Visitor Center

And once, a gray fox with its extra long tail crossed the road while I watched from the Taco Stand.

Gray Fox


Mockingbird

That's all folks!

I are a Fedrul Imployee

Disclaimer: what follows are not the views of anybody else but me. I do not speak for the National Park Service. I just work here.

From former park ranger and environmental rabble-rouser Edward Abbey:

As a one-time employee of the Park Service, I was always impressed by the high esteem which the general public seems to hold for Park Service rangers and naturalists. Impressed and a little puzzled. Most of us most of the time feel toward the uniformed functionaries of the state, especially police and quasi-police like rangers, no more at best than a grudging tolerance, as of a necessary evil. Why should the Park Service enjoy a special privilege in this regard?

Now, today, it seems to me that I have hit upon the answer. Maintaining the national park system is almost the only nice, decent, friendly thing the Federal Government does for ordinary people. Nearly all of its other activities, carried on at our expense, are for the benefit of the rich and powerful, or for the sake of secret, furtive, imperial causes that can inspire feelings only of shame and dread.

But the national parks belong to everyone. To the people. To all of us. The government keeps saying so and maybe, in this one case at least, the government is telling the truth.

--from Appalachian Wilderness, 1970

I'm not as cynical as Edward Abbey, may he rest in peace, although I did harbor those exact feelings when the Bush regime was in power.

Living Way Out In the Middle of Nowhere as I do now, the only radio stations my elderly radios can pick up are the AM talk shows out of Oklahoma City, Dallas, and New Orleans. And then only at night. And then only barely. I keep switching the presets as one fades out and another becomes more audible. But mostly I prefer to keep the radio off, as what I hear on these talk shows, interspersed with lengthy commercials, is mostly invective and twisted right-wing diatribes against what is good about our government. It's as if their mission statement prescribes anti-government rants no matter what the issue, which of course, is almost exclusively anti-Democrat and anti-Obama.

The Bush regime never did anything wrong, according to them. Bush and his puppet-masters never started an illegal war, allowed free-for-all financial gambling in the housing and stock markets, ran up the national debt, revealed the identity of a U.S. spy out of vengeance against her husband who dared to speak the truth about yellow cake uranium, and a dozen other atrocities that Obama now has to fix.

These talk show extremists must have a large following, as they dominate talk radio across the country, particularly in the South. Last night Neal Boortz ("America's most under-rated and over-paid radio talk show host") was railing against the increase in the number of federal employees who make six-figure salaries since the current recession began. He was deeply offended that the government, which bailed out financial and auto institutions to the tune of a trillion dollars or more, wants to cap these companies' executive salaries and bonuses. These are the execs who caused the recession that has one in ten Americans jobless, and probably an equal percent underemployed, and has cost millions their homes. ***

Okay, so maybe a federal employee was making $99,000 and his/her salary went up to $100,000. Technically that's a six-figure salary. Yet that pales in comparison to the millions - yes MILLIONS - of dollars a financial exec makes a year in salaries and bonuses. So Boortz's ravings make the federal government seem like it overpays its workers and sticks it to the private industry. According to USA Today, in the article that inspired his rant, and which of course he neglected to add, "federal employees make on average 26 percent less than private workers in comparable jobs." Which proves the adage, tell a lie loudly enough and often enough and enough people will believe it.

What started Boortz's rant was the USA Today article* that stated "When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000." I'd like to know if those salaries were $168,000 or $169,000 to begin with. What's the point of that kind of fact without the whole picture? And then Boortz twists that story to say that only one DOT employee had a six-figure income and now 1,690 do - a gross and outright lie. The story I heard last night isn't even on his website as I write this, even though the others I heard were. Shame, shame, shame - in the words of the illustrious Gomer Pyle.

Teachers are government workers. So are postal employees, municipal garbage collectors, water department workers, administrators of Medicare and Social Security (don't you TOUCH my Medicare and Social Security, dammit), Centers for Disease Control lab technicians, soldiers, sailors, Marines (don't you TOUCH my national defense, dammit), and thousands of others that try to keep us safe, secure, and educated. Most of these people make much less than people in similar positions of authority and importance in private industry.

Everybody knows teachers' salaries are poor to middling considering they are college-educated, and must keep taking courses to keep up their certification. Heck, the GS-4 park service salaries start at around $27,000 a year where I work in a temp job, which isn't great if you're not in a two-income family.

Here's another citation from the USA Today article: "The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker's pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector. " Uh, maybe that's because the feds don't pay $6.50 an hour like the fast-food joints, or have as many $8 an hour GS-1 positions as do the burgeoning private health care fields, or retail stores, or non-union labor. Factor all of those jobs in the private sector and hell yeah, federal jobs pay more. It's called a LIVING WAGE. Shame on USA Today for not explaining that. Hell I'm just a flaky artist and fedrul imployee. I guess I must have had a damn good government education in critical thinking skills to figure that out for my ignernt self.

Matter of fact, private contractors working for the feds are more likely to pay their employees a poverty-level wage of less than $10 an hour (20 percent of workers) than the government itself (8 percent.) ** Plus they tend to have fewer benefits, including health care. Forty-three percent of people who do the government's work are actually employed by private business as contract employees! So aren't we slamming private enterprise when we say the government is too big? And aren't we costing the government when these under-paid private workers qualify for food stamps and heat subsidies? You'll never hear anything about that from the Boortzs and Limbaughs either. Laissez-faire - leave private business to its own affairs, and the government has to subsidize the low wages anyway.

Also you'll read in the article that Bush's Congress authorized federal pay hikes of 3 and 3.9 percent respectively in 2008 and 2009, while Obama's pay hike, respectful of the current recession, is only 2 percent for 2010. I'll bet you didn't hear Boortz point that out.

Well, from here I could branch out into two topics. One is Hate Radio, and the other is how we have come to accept poor wages as our due, when in the 1960s the minimum wage was meant to support a family on one income. And in those days families were larger than they are today. Minimum wage today means you share housing with strangers or live with your parents, and qualify for food stamps and heat subsidies. But both are topics for another blog.

Back to working for the National Park Service. Ken Burns' series "The National Parks - America's Best Idea" on public TV two months ago inspired in many a greater respect than ever for the men and women of the Park Service. It was illuminating to realize that we are still fighting the same battles against privatization and destruction of public lands that were fought during the establishment of the earliest parks. Greed and self-interest will always be with us, just as Jesus said the poor will be.

I fell deeply in love with the young African-American park ranger, Shelton Johnson, in the series who told in a most poetic way of his own love for the wilderness he protects. Having been to many national and state parks across the country in my half-century I am thankful for the foresight and dedication to this ethic of preservation. I now wear the uniform of the National Park Service with pride, hoping I can be a good ambassador to the visitors who have both loved Big Bend National Park for many years, and to those who are discovering it for the first time. It is rewarding when someone stops on their way out of the park and tells me how happy they were that I recommended the Lost Mine Trail to them.

As for that uniform, it needs a little taking in, as I'm shaped like a sack of potatoes and I think (I hope) I'm losing weight. I also need to wear my hat right, according to the Director's Order #43: Uniform Program, but not everybody's heads allow the precise tilt of the ranger hat required by DO #43. At least I don't refer to the uniform as a "monkey suit" like we did the Army fatigues worn in the mid-70s. I'm aiming for "sharp" like my associates and superiors here.

Visitors sometimes take my picture, as if I'm a "real" park ranger. I feel like a big fake. Go take a picture of Ranger Rob or Ranger Bob (either one) or Ranger Natasha or Ranger Jennette, I think. But I'm the one they see, so I try to look sharp.

I did point out the desert bighorn sheep on Persimmon Mt. this afternoon to those who brought binoculars through the Entrance Station. That's what my uniform allows me to do, even compels me to do. To share an "interpretive moment" with the people who have come here to experience the very things that excite me.

Just let Boortz or Limbaugh and the other crabapples take potshots at THIS federal job. Dammit.

*http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-pay-salaries_N.htm?csp=34&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+%28News+-+Top+Stories%29

**http://www.epi.org/page/-/pdf/20090212_gov_outsourcing_pr.pdf

*** One in every eight Americans is now late on a payment or already in foreclosure as mounting job losses cause more homeowners to fall behind on loans, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aE_j_CA8fCao

Indians and Me

There's a gal in Waldoboro, Maine who gave herself an Indian name. She's not Native American, and her distant relatives immigrated from Germany and stole the land from the Abenaki tribes who already lived here. But she's crazy about Indians, the romantic notion of them anyway.

I understand the appeal. In my crazy years (my mid-life crisis) I was drawn to Indians and their ways, too, at least the traditional holistic views of nature and relationships. I was also drawn to the dark eyes of an Indian man I had no business with, but that's another pathetic tale of unrequited passion.

In the process I made several friendships, only one of which was true and real and lasts to this day (Sheila). I realized that today's Indians can be just as dysfunctional as the rest of us, and that I'm just as proud of who I am as they are of their heritage. Their ways are not my ways. I am curious, outgoing, gifted with the ability to write and make photographs, and sometimes call a spade a spade. I was told outright by a self-proclaimed medicine man that those qualities made him and many others uncomfortable. I needed to be demure, quiet, unquestioning, and pretty much invisible to "fit in" according to him and some of the others who are put off - and often rightly so - by white ways. "That's so white" is a favorite put down my friend Joann used to use.

Joann was half Indian, raised white, and had recently begun connecting with that part of her heritage the rest of her family wanted nothing to do with. She was on a path of self-discovery and fit in well, even though she also had those white gifts of self-actualization, organization, self-confidence, and self-awareness. She took me under her wing and we had many wonderful experiences together. We attended the winter dances in eastern Washington held in someone's home, and ate traditional (bland) foods, and prayed and danced. We attended retreats with Catholic Indians, a healing Mass by Father John Hascall, and belonged to a talking circle run by a Native American/white Methodist minister. We shared the joys and heartbreaks of our own journeys. But the rift in our relationship came when I realized she wanted to mold me in her image, and did not respect my gifts and "whiteness." It was then that I was no longer lost. I could claim ME back. She could not accept that truth and we parted company.

Once I ascended a pointed peak overlooking Mount Baker in a stupid and desperate "vision quest" to purge myself of a great disappointment. I fasted for three days and nights, and in the dark a song came to me, my own song, which helped me see more clearly the folly of my perceptions. Yet the experience was not diminished by the reason for going. It was powerful and necessary. I was visited the first night by a great gray owl, who evidently used this peak as a perch from which to spot prey. Most likely nobody, at least nobody in their right mind, had ever spent the night atop this crazy peak. The huge ghostly owl circled several times, almost within touching distance. The flap of its wings was absolutely silent. Was this my spirit animal? Did it mean death, as it does to some tribes? It returned the third night with its mate, circling silently, then leaving. Wisdom? Death? Coincidence?

I told Joann of this experience, and the song. Within a couple of weeks, she insisted on going to Snoqualmie peak to get her own song. I tagged along, with her son and his cousin merrily squashing innocent mushrooms growing beside the path. I advised them it wasn't very respectful of nature to destroy something that wasn't hurting them. Joann did not seem to believe in discipline, and ignored what I considered obnoxious (and un-Indianlike) behavior in the wilderness. She was pressed for time as the sun was going down, so I stayed behind with the brats. In a half hour she returned with her song. (Yeah right I thought.)

In my time with the Indians I also attended the Seyowen smokehouse ceremonies with the Lummis, the Sundance in Oregon, and the sweat lodges in Washington state. I even took a workshop with a Huichol shaman from Brooklyn who was adopted by a Huichol medicine man. Even though this sounds hokey, it was there that I lost (mostly) my fear of being outside alone in the dark, which I needed to conquer for my upcoming solo backpacking trip around Mt. Rainier - a vision quest of sorts in itself.

I met Sheila in a screenwriting class in Seattle. It turned out we'd had similar experiences with Indian spiritual men, and were both engaged in cathartic and artistic attempts to ficitonalize those experiences. Sheila - a hip Californian - is always seeing the greater meaning in events in her life. She's done her share of suffering, yet believes it is a way of the Universe refining her spirit. If not in this life, then in the next will she attain peace and harmony, as will we all who seek it. We may not have kept in regular contact these 16 years since I left Tacoma, but we are still friends, and true to each other being who they are, not who they "ought" to be.

To this day, my friends, no matter where in the world they now live, are people like Sheila, who see the big picture, who keep "doing good" even when others put them down for it, or misunderstand it, or question the motives for doing so. It makes encounters with the small-minded inhabitants of this planet a little more bearable, and the journey more hopeful.

Peace.