6/5 HASKELL UNIVERSITY [Lawrence, Kansas]

This was not what we needed, today. We were put up in an auditorium, which really only empahsized the fact that virtually no one showed up. The few who did show up were staff members, and they refused to say anything other than glowing praise for their employers.

I don't really have anything to say about this stop. Don seems positive enough -- we got our message to a few people -- but it felt like a waste of time, to me.

Also, the auditorium was full of bugs and the spotlight window was nailed shut.

In a memorable final touch, they brought in someone to make us lunchmeat sandwiches; she charged us $3.50 a sandwich. I felt unwelcome. There were only some ten people who ate -- it was only yesterday (Sequoyah) were there some 50+ people and everyone got a chicken-fried steak.

Concho, Revisited

Concho, a few stops back, was apparently a site of greater interest than I realized at the time. Of all the places, it's particularly known for being haunted. Don stopped there once before, and he talked about how the traditional two 'camps' set up at night -- men and women -- refused to be separated. Everyone shared a camp for that one night, and that one night only; that particular Journey was over 100 days. Several people reported hearing cries at a great distance, and Don said the camp specifically moved during the night to get further away from the bathrooms. All night long, the toilet paper dispensers could be heard spinning noisily.

What's particularly odd is that stories started appearing during the ceremonies for the next few days. It seemed like everyone in the area had some weird story about Concho.

The police, apparently, are sick of the school. They get regular reports about children breaking in to the abandoned building and playing noisily. When they get out there, there are no children and no signs of a break-in.

Do I believe this? Maybe. It's not really a part of my worldview, but I'm able to see the truth in the famous quote: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I guess the "Horatio" part doesn't really apply.

6/4 SEQUOYAH HIGH [Tahlequah, Oklahoma]

Sequoyah is a still-operational school, so we were braced for a difficult day. If we've learned anything, it's these three things: schools that are still operational are defensive and will usually try to use their time in self-promotion; coordinators make or break the day; the first person to speak sets a tone that almost never changes afterwards.

We started nearby at the newest school building, with plans to march some three-quarters of a mile to the site of the old school. I talked a little to a guy from the local news station who was filming our set-up (for some reason). He seemed nice enough to me, but other people later reported that he was pretty weird to them. Apparently, like many people, he held a lot of anger inside; but, unable to channel it in a useful or valid direction, it internalized and spurts out at odd moments. "I don't get it. Who needs an apology? If you ask me, you're just wasting your time -- the government has apologized a million times -- and whining isn't going to fix anything." Since the apology is really a minor component of our goal, it's pretty noteworthy how the thought of forgiveness set him off. To consider forgiveness requires acknowledging things that happened, and it's safer and easier to attack us, for him. Poor guy. I bet he's pretty unhappy. He and I only discussed cameras, so I missed that whole tirade.

The walk itself was complicated, as I made the silly decision to run ahead, take some pictures and video, run back, get in the van, drive up to the back of the procession (as there was no room to pass), park, run ahead, take some pictures, run back to the van... In hindsight, I've decided to never do that again. The trick would have been to walk along, just like the girl carrying Brandi Jo under her arm and (if you look closely) rocking out to her iPod. Kids will be kids, they're just higher-tech than they used to be.

A choir welcomed us to the school, which was nice.

We also heard several songs from Mitch Walking Elk, who will probably donate a few songs to use in the documentary. Overall, it was the most modern music of the Journey.

At the end, we had a second procession, this time out to the graveyard. None of the graves were labeled, but they were nicely kept up with stone markers and a little rock path. To end the day of music, a woman sang a traditional funeral song. I should know her name, but it escapes me at this second... Cecilia?

The Only Solution

I've decided, today, that there is only one answer: cannibalism. It's time to start eating the other people on the team. I'm starting with Marlin.

In other news, I think they've started reading the blog. Now they'll see all the things I don't understand or got wrong. Hooray for open information!

Blog Strangeness, Part 2

I've heard from two people that the ability to leave comments has been disabled. I'll see if I can solve it today. Here's a picture!

Blog Strangeness

I'm not quite sure what's going on, but the posts have started appearing out-of-order. And just tonight, "Anadarko" and "Jesus is Magic" have switched places with each other twice.

I wasn't able to write for a few days -- everything I didn't add tonight is still in place, except the notice about Tigger, which is floating towards the top for some reason. Strange. Hopefully things settle down.

Here's this picture again. We haven't seen it lately.

Rest In Peace, Tigger Winky

It may seem odd, even slightly selfish, to interrupt my examination of a hidden world of human anguish and suffering to focus on a simple housecat, but Tigger was my friend and companion for well over fourteen years.

He passed away tonight after a sudden and unexplained illness. To me, he was far more than a pet; he was family.

Tigger was a cat of amazing size; although he dug deep in the food bowl, and it showed, he was also powerfully built and hid layers of muscles under his soft, pudgy body. To watch him walk across a room was to watch his ancestors prowl the jungle, confident and dangerous. Even at his ripe old age, and with dull plastic-tipped claws to boot, his lightning reflexes taught the new puppy a thing or two about whose rear it was acceptable to sniff. FedEx Guy: Okay. Big, Fast Cat: Not Okay.

Although powerful, Tigger was far from mean-spirited. It took Patrick a few months to grasp the concept of "gentle touch on the kitty" when Tigger was newborn -- as a result of his unintentionally rough-and-tumble upbringing, Tigger became the most tolerant and easy-going cat I have ever known. Push him over, he'd just get right back up and come on over to say "hi." Drape him over your shoulder, he'd enjoy the view. Hold his paws for a miniature macarena re-enactment, he'd drift off in a daydream of mice and sunny spots.

That's not to say he was merely passive. On the contrary, he was as sociable and friendly as one could ever hope for. He loved a warm lap, but was usually also happy just to sit on the same couch as someone, perched in such a way as to let his belly rest in the crack between the back of the couch and the front cushion. If you made the mistake of going to bed before he did without inviting him to join in, he'd sooner or later jump up next to your head and very delicately lift one paw. He would repeatedly tap the edge of the blankets, or your face, very softly until you got the idea and lifted up one corner -- he'd happily spend hours lying lengthwise next to a sleeping person, warm and happy under the covers. Or, he'd find a way to work his way in between your side and arm, putting his head and front paws up on your shoulder to peek out from under the blankets.

He had a deep, rumbling purr that spoke of some massive machine wrapped up in all that fur.

He had an insatiable appetite, and had a lifelong fascination with cans. For the first year or two, we attempted to put cans of cat food in a number of different places to keep him away; eventually we settled on a hiding place behind the door of the wood box. This was not because he couldn't find them, or because it was effective in any way; it simply provided the most hours of entertainment for him. He'd walk up the side of the box with his front paws, then fish around in the dark space for as long as it took to hook the rim of a can with a claw. Four or five attempts later, he'd have it all the way to the edge of the wood, at which point it would fall to the floor and he could stop balancing on his hind legs. This never, not once in almost fifteen years, actually resulted in a can becoming opened.

Oorto, his sister, will likely take this hard. They were very good to each other, and probably have never spent a full day apart since they were born. Whenever some new box arrived, it was Oorto's job to figure out a way to get inside it and hide, while Tigger would stretch to full length to peer over the top and find her, or to walk back in forth on the lid until Oorto fled in annoyance or fear of his mighty weight. Then they would help each other groom.

They each had their own cat beds, but every morning, they would always be found sharing one of them, a warm pile of fluff and happiness.

She will be very lonely.

And so will I; home will be a much emptier place from now on. Tigger was a constant; he was always there, he was always receptive to a quick scratch behind the ears -- or, if I wasn't in a scratching mood, he'd simply sit nearby on the head of the couch and watch the world, sphinxlike and happy to be a part of the family.

After all those years, I'm sorry I wasn't there in the end, buddy. I feel like I let you down, somehow; but you put up with so much over the years I'm sure you'd good-naturedly forgive me for this, too.

I'm going to miss you a lot, big guy. Rest in peace.

Jesus is Magic

Before I write about Anadarko, or about what an awesome name it has, I'm going to swerve back to the subject of religion. It comes to mind again particularly because of a man in Albuquerque who took the microphone just as the ceremony was coming to an end and quoted more-or-less random scripture verses to the crowd for a half-hour. I'm sure this was news to most people, but apparently you can be saved by believing in Jesus. Thanks, guy.

I mulled this over for quite a while in my head. Luckily, we have entire days of driving where mulling is a perfectly acceptable option. He was saying good things, but he still felt offensive and unwelcome to me; I think it went deeper than just the facts that he made us wait another half-hour, that he was off-topic, and that he was oblivious to the hostility in the room and made no attempt to address the damages done to the people in the room by other missionaries.

So here's my newest thought on religion: the biggest problem Christianity has faced is the belief that "Jesus is Magic." It seems that many people -- including many very corrupt people -- have been comfortable throwing up an unthinking "Jesus-shield" whenever their actions are called into question.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light.
I Believe in Jesus.
I Am Saved and Thus Morally Superior.

The problem, here, as I see it, is that I don't really believe God's plan for the spiritual well-being of mankind is "Believe in Jesus" in the sense that most people seem to interpret it. What does "believe in" mean? Believe He existed? We have concrete proof that a man named Jesus existed and was crucified. That's not even slightly in question; the records exist. Does this knowledge make you a better person? I think not.

When we're called to "Believe in Jesus," I think that means to believe in what He taught, in the quality of life He led, and in the lessons He shared with us. The important fact about His life is not that he existed -- lots of people existed -- but that he came to give us kinds of wisdom we'd never had before.

But many people seem content to use Jesus as no more than a talisman, disregarding what He did and said, relying entirely on a meaningless "I Believe Jesus Lived." That's what I mean by a shield, or by magic. If you disregard the lessons of His life, but still justify your actions by your faith, your faith is nothing but a hollow shell for hiding behind. Maybe your bumper sticker says you believe in Jesus, and you probably do. What good is that if you don't pay any attention to Him?

These are the kinds of people who can molest children, safe in their own sense of moral superiority. These are the kinds of people who can live lives of secret degradation and still look down on their neighbors for not going to church. These are the people who can "stand up for life" by murdering doctors. These are the people who ran the boarding schools. And we have far, far too many of them; I'm ashamed of their presence in our society and in our history.

So let's set aside our get-out-of-jail-free "magic make-everything-okay" Jesus and take a look at gaining a belief in what He taught us and in what He stood for. This is so much harder, but it's what I believe is the path to spiritual wholeness and what God always intended. As always, the things that are truly valuable take some work; the easy no-effort version gets you nowhere.

I make no claims of being a Bible scholar; my best effort got bogged down in the Old Testament and I never even finished reading it. I did, however, attend nine years of Catholic school, and I feel like I have a decent sort of moral compass. Those are my only credentials.

But here's what I understand of Jesus, in list form:

Be Humble. God's in control; he wants you to succeed and may give you gifts to help you along the way; but don't let it go to your head. Jesus was the Son of God, and he washed people's feet.

Be Thankful. There's a lot of great, great stuff in the world. Those are blessings. Acknowledge them and give thanks. If you have difficulty finding the time, try setting aside Sundays.

Judge Not. Only God really knows, and it's His prerogative to make moral decisions. We have no business second-guessing Him. And, seriously, stop stoning people. Mary Magdeline was a prostitute, and she got the second-best song in the Andrew Lloyd Webber play. Think about that!

Love Your Neighbor. God loves your neighbor. Don't presume to know better than Him. Besides, all us little people are in this together. Jesus loved his neighbors, and even gave away his last two loaves and fishes. Things still worked out okay, and there was a little more love in the world than there was before.

Love Your Enemy. This is the hardest thing to ask, but it's important to realize we're all just brief little specks of life in a big world. We're small and we're all loved by our Creator. We're all loved! Learn to forgive; we're better off helping each other out a little bit than we are by hurting each other.

God Loves You. In some ways, this is the only lesson. If you really understand that there is an all-powerful creating force, and He loves you, I think you're inexorably bound to humility, thankfulness, and being decent to other people.

These Things Are Simple, Hard, and Rewarding. Sometimes you have to fall in the ocean a few times before you can walk on water. It's not easy to do, however simple it sounds -- "Just step out of the boat and join me." The real reward comes to those who step out of the boat, not those who stay seated but smugly point and say, "Yeah, I can see that guy over there. I believe in Him."

Jesus came to Earth to tell us these things. What we're looking at, in these boarding schools, was a race of Native people who already believed these basic lessons, and tried their best to live their lives according a system of humble praise and love for each other. Then, along came a whole army of people who only made it as far as "Believe in Jesus." The Native Savages didn't believe in Jesus, so they were systematically eliminated.

The nauseating irony here is overwhelming. By acting only on a belief in Jesus, the invaders disregarded every kind of belief in what Jesus meant to the world, and killed off a people who already believed in the things that Jesus taught. True, the Indians attributed those lessons to the Earth, or to the Trees, or to the Animals, but they were the same basic lessons.

God abandons no one. The lessons of love and respect for the divine were passed on through different channels, that's all. We're all God's children. We've all been given the tools we need to lead good lives.

Jesus is not a magic shield that makes you moral. You still have to work at it, every day, the same as everyone else. He meant something, and it's the height of disrespect to ignore that.

---

Two disclaimers: I'm tired and don't have the time I'd like to polish my argument or even really review what I've written. I'm really hoping I didn't say anything too blasphemous. My heart's in the right place, I swear.

I also don't want you to think I'm slapping on the rose-tinted glasses when looking at Indian history. They were real people, too. I'm sure they failed those lessons an awful lot, same as any other group of people. They had wars with the neighbors, they fought with their spouses, they probably coveted stuff once in a while. We're all just people, in the end. If I seem to be idealizing them too much, it's only to save space and focus on my real argument.

6/3 RIVERSIDE [Anadarko, Oklahoma]

The school was technically called "Riverside," but I'm going to use the name of the town (Anadarko) from here on out because it's cooler, and because we've already had more Riversides than I can keep track of.


I'm not entirely sure if the sunrise ceremony happened or not, because I was in a muddled daze for most of the morning. I miss sleeping. Also, it was very cloudy; and it rained a little, off and on, for the bulk of the day.

I do remember rushing around in the morning setting up speakers, microphones, and cameras. All of these things turned out to be useless because the electrician went on vacation and there was no power.


I should mention, at this point, that we were in a field. The school refused to let us onto their grounds, so we took over a nearby field. During the opening procession, where the Hoop and things are ceremonially marched up to the front, the police showed up to make sure we didn't cross the line. We needed to stay where we belonged.


Unfortunately, this picture was snapped over my shoulder in an effort to be clandestine and not draw attention to myself. The police car is just off to the left -- I missed it. I'm going to see if someone more daring than myself got a clearer shot. You can see the barricades, anyways. There was also a staff guard on duty. Someone said there were rumors that we were going to riot. We did not riot.






So, anyways, there was no electricity and all that setup was for naught. My final solution was to charge one camera at a time in the cigarette lighter of the van -- a necessary annoyance because this trip has destroyed my lithium batteries' ability to hold a charge. A full charge, once good for an hour and a half or more, now lasts no more than 15 minutes.

As far as sound, everyone just had to shout. It was a real shame, because these were some of the best stories we've heard so far.


There were many of the same kinds of stories mentioned before: a lot of hurt and anger that runs right down to the core. We're also getting a lot of stories about growing up in families that never said "I love you" and limited physical contact to handshakes. A lot of adults are still wounded by childhoods with distant, cold, parents and they had a chance to speak.

One woman, who seemed very sweet and maybe a little simple, told a bitter story about going to school in Anadarko. She was ostracized by the other students and spent the first part of her childhood alone. Then, what seemed like more teasing suddenly spun out of control -- she was gang-raped until she lost consciousness. She never reported it, but someone reported it for her: she was called into the office and beaten for "being out late." That was the only action the school ever took.


Another woman worked for Sherman (California). She witnessed some older boys sodomizing a younger boy. When she reported it, she was fired. On her way out, she saw the older boys and a staff member taking the younger boy into another building; the older boys all carried baseball bats. She was unable to get anyone interested in hearing her report, and eventually had to move to Oklahoma to find an Indian school that would hire her.

One of the most touching moments for me was a lady who said that her father had told her to be here today. He was at one of the earlier stops, somewhere on the coast, and had called her to tell her about our Journey. Crying, she admitted that this was the only time in her life that her father had ever called her, for any reason.


A local minister stood up and gave a very moving apology for the crimes committed in the name of Christianity. This felt more natural to me than the apology in Albuqurque; as a minister, he has some authority to speak on behalf of Christians. Or, maybe it just says more about me that I need to look for that authority. However, it was a heartfelt and well-delivered apology; I felt a little misty-eyed at the end. There's no doubt that we have blood on our hands -- Christians have done some great evil against the Indian people; I feel the guilt and grief starting to weigh on me more heavily.



There was another filmmaker there, a very nice young lady named Erin. She also runs a filmmaking business, and is working on a documentary about race relations and the clashes that occured in Oklahoma for their dodecatennial (or something). Apparently, the state sponsored good-tyme historical reenactments for the whole family (now with 35% more parades than real history!), but neglected to mention the local tribes. Or any Indians at all. Anywhere. In any way. This apparently ticked off a few people, who protested this historical whitewashing. So, if a movie about this topic comes out as filmed and directed by Erin Someoneoranother, go check it out.

Marlin teased me about the time I spent with Erin for several days afterwards. We only talked about camera equipment. Seriously. I can't help it if she happened to be particularly attractive. Such things happen, no one's fault.



One of the neater moments of Anadarko was when the mayor stopped by. He read something for a while -- that part wasn't so interesting, and I kinda tuned him out. But then he finished and summarized it into a useful soundbite. Basically, he said Anadarko was honored that we'd stopped by; and declared that forever after, June 3rd would be a holiday in town -- everyone would remember that we came and then they'd talk about forgiveness for a while.


That's pretty freakin' awesome. They made us a holiday.

The Mayor Reads

So, Anadarko was a step forward for the Journey. It was good energy, was full of good people, and we got the support of the local governement despite being shut out by the local school. On the other side of the coin, the filming was terrible because there was no sound and most of my more useful filming tools require electricity. So, you may just have to take my word that this was a good stop.

Oh, and we also avoided tragedy. One of the chairs collapsed at one point and a rather large guy fell backwards and skewered himself on the big metal tent stake. In all seriousness, this could have been very, very bad. He's a lucky guy that he walked away from it; we're lucky, too.

Pretty name, "Erin," don't you think? What? What? I'm just saying...

Messin' with Texas, A Non-Event in Concho

Driving north, I came to a startling conclusion. Texas is boring. Really boring. As far as I can tell, it's North Dakota with worse weather and the Bush family. Also, the girl in the diner spoke some English-Klingon hybrid.

I'm not sure what I expected; maybe buildings shaped like cowboy hats or something.

I did see a tumbleweed and a dust devil, so that spruced up the otherwise uneventful hours and hours of driving straight north.


One full day of driving later, we arrived in Oklahoma, the only state named after a play (After Othello became part of Michigan). We left the wastelands of Texas behind us, and met up with Don once again. Instead of driving across the Forbidden Zone with us, he had taken a plane to Wisconsin, where he gave 4 lectures in 24 hours, then flew back in time to meet us in Oklahoma. He seems a little off his game, and looks more tired than I've seen him look so far. Still, you've got to admire his drive.

Since all I really do is drive, eat, sleep, drive, sprint for nine solid hours of filming, sleep, eat, drive, eat, and drive, followed by another nine-hour marathon, my basic plan is to end this trip in the best physical shape of my life -- while at the same time weighing 400 pounds. Marlin doesn't have the benefit of the nine-hour sprint, so he's decided to eat two meals a day of nothing but oatmeal and fruit. Today was the first day of the diet, and we wished him well. Breakfast: we went to a "Waffle House," thinking that would be a safe bet. They don't serve oatmeal. Pork chops were substituted. Lunch: a Breakfast-Served-All-Day Diner. "Grits" were the closest thing they had to oatmeal, and those were pretty sugared up. Some kind of chicken substituted. Dinner: Red Lobster. Diet abandoned.

The important thing was that he tried, or at least retained his good humor through the rigors of the diet.

I made the mistake(?) of deciding not to order anything at Red Lobster, and instead just eat basket after basket of the delicious biscuits they serve. It was almost certainly the best meal I've ever had, although I've been sick to my stomach for two days, now. Probably just coincidence. I hope we stop at another Red Lobster soon.

The event of the day (June 2) was officially a "non-event;" or, less diplomatically, a "drive-by." Essentially, we planned to rip through El Reno (Spanish for "The Reno"), jump out of the car, say a prayer, and be gone before anyone even knew we were there. This is not how it worked. We must have needed to be there, because the universe started bending in at the corners to make sure that we went there and stayed there. Before we were even there, we had all just accepted that this would be a much more developed event that we'd planned, even though we didn't know what it would actually be. Somehow, we needed to be there.

Here's what we found: a group had walked for 98 miles to reach this site. They asked if we would join them for the last two miles; we accepted, and unpacked our sacred objects to be carried along with. Somehow, the walk took a full hour, all the time we had originally allotted to El Reno. Once we reached the site, a little bunker about the size of a grade-school gym, we waited for another hour. Nothing was happening that I could see, but leaving just wasn't an option. We still needed to be there.


She very, very clearly thought she was in a parade every step of the way.

Eventually, Don got up and addressed the walkers, praising their commitment and then talking a little about what we were doing. The walkers then got up and addressed the rest of the audience, talking about what it was like to walk that far and what it meant to them to be here. The comical aspect is that the "rest of the audience" consisted of Don. I was filming in a corner, and the other three were occupied with something else, so the entire group was essentially talking to one person. Even so, they stood at the front of the room, passed the microphone back and forth, and the whole bit.

I filmed everything, as usual, although I doubt it will be worth anything. The room had no padding of any kind whatsoever, and as a result it echoed worse than an indoor pool. Someday I'll do this kind of work on a controlled studio, and life will be so much easier.

El Reno, for those who are interested, is composed of a mix of Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians. On a completely shallow note, this is one of the best-looking groups of people we've worked with. That's the kind of detail you aren't going to get in the press release. Arapahos are attractive. You heard it here, first.

Two interesting notes: when we drove up to El Reno, the skies opened up and buckets of rain came down. When the walk actually started (for us), the rain stopped. When we first opened up the vans to get the hoop out, handfulls of tobacco spilled out and spread out across the parking lot. Tobacco is, of course, considered to be a sacred plant; it has been the primary offering we have carried with us. Maria speculated that, for whatever reason, the prayers it represented needed to be here in this community.

So, when all was said and done, why did we need to be here? Why did we do this? Why did the tobacco need to stay behind? I don't know. I don't have any good idea what we accomplished here. However, something must have happened, because we changed our schedule without really knowing why and spent the whole afternoon there. Something got accomplished; something changed, or someone listened. I'm just not sure what happened, myself. I guess I don't really need to know.


Oklahoma City was noteworthy mostly for its ridiculous combination businesses. Maybe real estate is at a premium there, but I was particularly impressed by "Awesome Care: Veterinary and Lasers." That sounds like a great place to go to get your Weokie groomed. We also drove briefly on Garth Brooks Boulevard.

That night, we met up with the coordinators for the next day's event at a buffet. They seemed organized and genuinely excited to have us there, although we managed to tap a barely-hidden pool of rage just below the skin of the main lady. She was glad we were here, supported what we were doing, but flat-out refused to even consider the possibility of forgiving the U.S. government. Her anger was palpable, and cast an odd tone on the meeting.

It's pretty clear what Marlin means when he says that being angry is like pouring acid into your body. The U.S. government has never heard of this woman before; and if they had, they wouldn't give a second thought to her fury. She, on the other hand, wakes up every day angry. She goes through her day hating the government. She goes to bed fuming at their injustices. She's poisoned herself and done no damage whatsoever to the target of her frustration.

She apparently had just lost a battle with the other coordinators; they wanted an American flag to be posted with the state flag, the tribal flag, and the MIA/POW flag, she refused. This seems likely to cause P.R. problems for us... we'll see how it plays out.

We slept that night at a Super 8. Everyone had to enter by the front door; the side door was off its hinges and had been put back in place with packing tape. I was slightly scared to be alone in my room. It smelled like... a Super 8.

The alarm went off at 5 AM -- we've got to be present for a sunrise ceremony in Anadarko.

Red Native American Indian Natives

An interesting tidbit, which I will try to remember to verify later.

Fact: Virtually everyone so far has been Indian. They're proud to be Indian, and their communities and businesses are Indian.

Almost nobody has even mentioned the term "Native American." It's just not part of the vocabulary, and a few people have scoffed at it each time it has come up.


Unverified Fact: One guy said that "Native American" comes from a specific group on the East Coast, and they're the primary supporters of the term. As for himself, I quote: "Native American? Pffft! I'm INDIAN!" (Fist hits table).


When I make it to the East, I must remember to listen carefully to see if "Indian" starts fading out. Also, as I start heading East, I must remember to listen carefully on each reservation to see what the appropriate phrase is. That could land me in some hot water if I mess it up, potentially.

I seem to remember being taught in school that "Native American" was the only correct term; I wonder if that was just some 1990s-era political correctness nonsense rearing its carefully-groomed head.

Pictures

I sorted a whole bunch of pictures. They're still behind-the-times, so I'm not going to try to work them into the current chronology.



A smudging ceremony is performed, Nevada.

The stage is set in an auditorium, California.

A prayer is offered with a gift of tobacco, Nevada.

Lunch was awesome, Nevada.

We deeply impress the crowd, Wyoming.

Elder Hutchinson speaks, Wyoming.

Marlin sees some nature 'n stuff, Wyoming.

We move to the old school grounds, Idaho.

Elder Axtel speaks, Oregon.

I looked up the information for this caption, then deleted it accidentally. I'll guess is was probably, I don't know, California or somewhere.

5/31 ALBUQUERQUE INDIAN SCHOOL [New Mexico]

This was a good example of the community "making it their own." We provided a loose sort of framework, and an excuse to gather, but the event was both orchestrated and controlled on the local level. This is, on the whole, a good thing. As I said early on, marching into any community, particularly an Indian community, and saying, "We decided what's going to work for you" is a recipe for disaster. That said, the extent to which the event was controlled was a little surprising to me, as were the many aspects that were completely unique.

The venue itself was nice, with long banquet-style tables set up facing a small stage. Every three chairs, there was a pitcher of ice water, and two or three uniformed waiters would occassionally clear glasses or refill the pitchers. Another striking feature is how different each location has been in that respect: from uniformed waiters at a banquet hall, to high-school principals speaking in the gym, to tents set up on a lawn with extension cords coming in from half-a-block away, to a cement cellar where they didn't really want us to be there (Hi, Wyoming!).

Three things stand out in my mind. There was a general aversion to being recorded that was pecularly strong. Too bad there were a total of 6 video cameras run by 6 people. (I ran two... I can't remember why they had an extra person.) (I wish I had an extra person.) This is the only location so far where I've had to sign something to set up a camera. Wayne was pretty busy with stuff, and didn't let me read what I signed. I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me later.

There was an extra ceremony, their idea, which I still can't decide how I feel about. A circle was made up front with 4 Indians and a white couple. Taking turns, the white couple listed the faults of Caucasian America and then begged forgiveness; the woman going so far as to say her entire piece on her knees. The apology was accepted, with one woman saying that this is the first documented apology of any kind from a white person to the Pueblo people as a group, ever. The experience was powerful and a little dizzying (not sure what that means, but I don't think I was the only one who felt dizzy).

The reason I feel uncertain about the event is probably tied to my lingering uncertainty with the entire issue of forgiveness. At its very heart, I feel that what we're doing is ultimately pretty pragmatic. One forgivess because the act of forgiving helps yourself. When you let go of your anger, you heal.

There's something a little disingenuous, a little theatrical, about two white people speaking for the entire white race from the last 400ish years. Realistically, they don't have that authority. That's a lot of people to speak for, including a lot of long-since dead people, and these speakers are just some couple from New Mexico. Not a couple of elected officials, even, but probably people at pee-wee summer baseball volunteer coach levels of authority or less.

In a different sort of way, that same problem looms from the other side of the coin. Although the shadow unquestionably looms into the present day (and looms obviously enough that this is, admittedly, less of an issue), the majority of the people most directly hurt by the boarding schools are not here. In fact, the people hurt the very worst aren't here because they were murdered. Can anyone today really forgive that? What gives them the authority? And who can accept that forgiveness? Many of the individuals simply aren't present, and we're left with the vague enormity of institutions, ideas, and far-flung decendants.

That's why I feel, ultimately, that what we're really dealing with is an intensely personal sort of experience. When we ask people to forgive, we're asking them to let go of their own personal anger; a process which will benefit themselves more than anything or anyone else. Looking at it this way, it can't be done at a level larger than "individual." Which anger they are letting go, and who exactly it was directed against, are concepts that could be seen as basically unimportant. There is certainly enough anger to go around -- against the government, the military, the Church, specific abusers, those who stayed silent, white society, a crumbled parenting system, the influence of alcohol, and who-knows-what-other aspects of the boarding school nightmare. It's too big for anyone to forgive or anyone to take responsibility for. What people can do, however, is learn the story, understand the horror, and then release their own personal anger through forgiveness. This is healing, but it's all personal and it's all internal.

I think that's why it struck me as so odd for anyone to try to take responsibility and offer an apology for a system so entrenched, long-lasting, and massive. All we can really do in situations like these, I believe, is to apologize for our own personal failings, and forgive individually -- forgive whomever or whatever we choose for ourselves to be the focal point of our anger. No one can really accept that forgiveness, because no one has the right to do so; it's really only the forgiver's action that is important.

I'm pretty tired as I write this. I hope it came out clearly, and I hope I didn't say anything that will get me kicked off this journey. I don't think I'm too far off, though.

The third was a chilling story about the school. Apparently, there was a teacher who had a favorite method of punishment (having a favorite method should immediately disqualify anyone from working with children). When students misbehaved, he was known to take them into the basement, handcuff their hands around a ceiling-mounted steam pipe, and inject them with Thorazine to keep them from struggling. When they were sufficiently burned, they were released. The year was 1969.

1969. This is modern-era.

The fourth thing (out of three) that struck me was how difficult it was for me to be in-the-moment. It could just be an off-day for me, but I think it ties back to my beginning to back-up tapes. I don't remember if I mentioned it, and I'm not going to look now, but I started storing the footage I've shot so far on an external hard drive. Something about that process starting whetting my appetite for making this movie -- it made the movie-making part of the journey more real. Now I'm a little frustrated that I won't even be able to start for another month, but I want to sink my teeth into it now. Everything else I shoot is just pushing it farther back, and making the editing harder, too. Let's hope that wears off. There's a whole lot left to go.

Congratulations

Congratulations, Patrick.

The Waiting

We're all set up in Albuquerque and waiting for things to get going. Yesterday was, effectively, another "off" day as we only had to drive about 90 minutes and there was only one short meeting, which I skipped anyways. Our hotel is, once again, amazing. I spent most of the evening backing up tapes -- I'm now into Fort Hall. I think this means I will never, ever actually catch up or finish.

Right now we're in the meeting room of the Pueblo Cultural Center; which, according to its billboard, offers "cultural history" and "discount cigarettes." Seeing that almost made me drive off the road on the way here.

There's a second film crew here today, and I'm pretty intimidated by them. They seem like nice folks, but there's a crew of five and they have better cameras, bigger softboxes, and two studio monitors. Maybe "intimidated" is less accurate than "jealous." Horribly, horribly jealous. .

They've got their lights set up, so there's not really anything I need to be doing right now. There's been some confusion about what is appropriate for me to film, according to Pueblo custom, and I had to sign some kind of contract-thing to even set up cameras. Let's see if I step on any toes today.

Wayne just brought me a sandwich. Nice guy. Signing out.

Finally Caught Up!

Santa Fe was our 'off' day. The one day where there was no driving, no ceremonies, and no meetings. In celebration, we got rooms in this nice motel right near the center of "The Plaza," and were encouraged to get out and explore.

The motel, instead of being built normally with the backs of rooms facing each other, was built so that the back of each room faces the street. The result is that all the doors are accessible via a little "hollow" formed between the two rows, making them seem more secluded and private than they actually are. Plus, the hollow was decorated with cobbled walkways and large bunches of dried peppers handing from the railings. It looks like a peaceful street in some sort of central-American / Mediterranean hybrid, and it's a great idea.

The room itself is one of the nicest I've ever been in, which is lucky since I didn't really leave all day. The city was worth exploring, but what I really, really needed was a day of dark, quiet, rest. As an added bonus, this is the first time I've ever made a post about the current day. I'm all caught up!

To clear off my notepad entirely of notes, here's everything that's left over:

Still haven't filmed that 10-minute news update. Doubting it will happen, now.

Tried backing up videotapes in the car. Too bumpy for camera. Must do it at night in the hotels. Pain in the butt.

Several former schoolchildren have complained about being used to test vaccines. I think Stewart was one of them.

Stewart apparently now also houses the department of prisons, which like every other building there, looks like it would fit nicely into either New England or Itasca Park.

Don often gets "eaten" at these stops. He's a powerful and influential guy, and people swarm his every free minute looking to be recognized, have their picture taken, shake his hand, and so forth. He's often unable to eat lunch, and has a hard time even making it to the bathroom without being physically blocked by someone who smiles, sticks their hand out, and says, "I bet you don't remember me!" He looks very tired sometimes.

Nevada reminds me of an egg carton: huge, flat 'bowls' surrounded by a ring of mountains on all sides. Make it through the mountains, find another 'bowl' on the other side.

Remember to make other posts: ceremony order, people wandering, sitting in back, religion and me, more photos. Remember to sort photos so you can upload them.

Done.

Travel, Again

Breaking with tradition, we stayed an extra night in Phoenix instead of getting directly in the car after the ceremony finished. This was apparently the plan all along, but I must have missed hearing that -- I'd already checked out of my hotel room.

Once that was sorted out, Wayne and Marlin and I (Marlin came back, by the way) went out to dinner and had our fifth consecutive chicken meal. Chicken seems popular out here, and we'd all missed breakfast that morning. As chickens go, the meal was pretty good. After that we wandered around Phoenix a little bit -- it's nicer when the sun sinks a little -- and hit up a DQ for some frozen goodness. We talked about the friendly lady at the Al-Anon booth, how getting good opening speakers makes a world of difference, and of our plans for the next few days. On the way back, something odd happened. We passed an AA meeting that was happening in one of the Phoenix branches, and both guys decided to stop in.

I know that these meetings are available for all AA members, but it struck me as very odd that they would want to 'swing in' to a meeting in Phoenix full of strangers they'll never see again. The thought rattled around my head for the next two hours as I re-packed my van and cleaned some of my equipment before it finally stuck to an idea.

As is well known, alcoholism is rampant in Indian country. The fight against it in an individual's life is a psychically draining, wrenching process that makes people stronger, wiser, more complete human beings. It's almost impossible to do alone, and requires the support of communities like AA, building lifelong bonds and creating a powerful shared experience between all recovered and recovering alcoholics. That shared experience is strong enough that my companions had no doubts about stopping in to a room full of strangers to say hi for the evening.

And maybe that's a problem.

This titanic personal struggle has become so common in some communities that it starts to look like a rite-of-passage. Drinking provides a social boost twice: once when you're young and fit in to all the parties, and once when you're a sober adult and can form instant social connections with other sober adults. Trust and comfort can normally take years to develop, but suddenly there's this shortcut where you can say, "You've done one of the hardest things to do in your life. So have I, and I know where you're coming from." Then it's okay to cry and share stories. This is a good thing.

However if you've always been sober, you've got neither of those social boosts. There are no instant friends in strange towns where you can just stop by and be greeted with open arms. You're just another passing stranger, a nobody. Then, when you go home, what if all your friends and neighbors share this bond that you don't?


I hesitated about posting this for a long time. AA is an amazing organization, and overcoming
alcoholism is a brutally difficult thing to do; I don't want to dismiss either of those or diminish them in any way. I suppose my real point is that when a community, as a whole, becomes saturated with alcohol, even removing the alcoholism doesn't fix everything. Strange community problems still linger, even in the solutions, and the sober ones aren't exempt.


After a good night's sleep, we set off on an entire day of traveling east, some 12 hours or so. I had a few thoughts about the scenery. First, it's amazing how quickly the ecosystem can change. From flat nothing, to flat green, to sudden hills, to cactus forests, to mini-mountains, to dry mini-mountains, back to flat nothing... in the space of a mile everything about an area can change, and sometimes the change is even more abrupt than that.

Secondly, cactuses are really weird. They're way taller than I expected, and go from being shriveled, highly-ribbed posts in the dryer areas, to bulbous, nearly-bursting growths in the damper areas. Plus, their 'arms' are so randomly placed and look for all the world like new, cancerous cactuses spilling out of the main stalk -- some cross between the parasites of "Alien" and mutation science gone wrong. Seriously, though, they're tall. Like 10-15 feet straight up.

I was the only one who ate dinner, mostly because Wayne was so upset that the diner we stopped at only served two kinds of hamburgers (I don't know, ask him), and it gave me an unfortunate stomache-ache. When we pulled in late at night in Santa Fe, I fell asleep immediately after nearly tearing the roof off my van in a stupid parking garage. I had no more patience that day for careful parking. Sleep came quickly.

5/27 STEELE [Phoenix, Arizona]

After finishing in Sherman we drove all night, as per usual. The night before, I had dropped out of dinner and some planning stuff, and slept for nearly 15 hours. The ability to do this was a Godsent, as I would have been in a world of hurt, otherwise. I could feel my body wearing down, between the stairs and the sunburn and the never, ever sleeping, and the constant driving -- without that break I would have probably have been physcially unable to go on soon.

As is, however, I'm feeling just fine. Hello, Arizona.

We entered the city via exit 133A, which is an awfully nice way to enter the city. Because of the labyrinthian road system, this particular exit makes a truly huge arc over a tangle of roads, and provided us with a flyby view of the lights of the whole city. It was beautiful. The lights were mostly pinpricks, of course, as it was nearing 1AM by that point and most things were closed.



I was dreading the day's filming (bright and early start!) because my sunburn was just starting to heal. Luckily, I guess, the thermometer spiked at 102 degrees and everything was moved inside. Blessings can be funny like that.


The room they put us in was just lovely. It consisted of a medium-sized white wood auditorium, with an extra few rows of seats above in a glass-walled balcony. I cordoned off the balcony, and used it as my personal camera mount and equipment storage. It ended up working out really well, both for me and for the event: this forced everyone into tighter quarters down below, which helped create a community feeling that had been absent from Sherman.

The downside of it being so nice was that they banned the use of tobacco, sage, and anything else that is used by burning. This ruffled a few feathers (so to speak) and sage, particularly, is an important part of the ending ceremony.


I suppose I should more clearly define how these days are conducted... someone remind me of that soon. For now, just know that sage is needed.


As a minor rarity, the opening speakers were great. Too often, the opening speakers have either not understood what was going on, or had an ulterior motive like re-election, promoting rennovation, or expressing some unrelated political opinion. As a result, this seems to give people permission to ramble, themselves, during the open-mic period. These speakers were focused and on-topic, and everyone who spoke after them followed their lead. As a result, we had lots of time for some amazing stories to come forth, a few of which I will paraphrase here.

One middle-aged woman (50ish) talked about her family's relationship with boarding schools. Her grandparents' history is unknown, but they feared the schools greatly. When agents came for their son (her father), they had him hide in a basket. When the police started ransacking their home, they tied the basket down, strapped it to a horse, and sent the horse racing off into the night with a hard smack. The boy was five years old.


Through tricks like this, they kept him out of school. When he grew up, however, he was not so lucky. Agents took away his eldest daughter, age 8, to 'civilize' her. The remaining family would often think about her, imagining how she was learning skills, becoming educated and successful, maybe making friends. In truth, she died almost immediately after arriving at the school. The school was a hotbed for smallpox; no measures were taken to curb the disease. It was assumed preventative measures were hopeless, because Indians just had naturally deficient immune systems. This just sped up the natural selection process. Her family didn't know she was dead until 4 years later. Her body has never been found; it's unlikely she was given a grave. Her younger sister was the one speaking, and her rage and grief were clearly still a daily burden for her. 4 years of dreaming and wondering.

One can hardly wonder, however, that no one bothered to contact her family. The teachers probably didn't even know who had died. This was a planned, carefully executed strategy employed at virtually every school: dehumanize the students by making them unrecognizable. This was accomplished by regulation uniforms, government-issued boots, and identical bowl haircuts. In nearly any picture, the students are virtually indistinguishable. This allowed the teachers to do their work with less risk of attachment or emotion.

Kneeling was a common form of punishment, both here and elsewhere. It was mentioned more often here, though. Straight-up kneeling, no matter for how long, was unlikely to be satisfactorily viscious, so it was often varied based on age. Young kids would get a few hours kneeling on rice. A little older: that would add another hour and wood chips, instead of rice. The oldest kids would have to kneel on a broom stick. One would be tempted to say that the older kids should have known better, except -- oh, that's right -- the punishments were handed out randomly as a way of keeping the students psychologically timid and unbalanced.

Clothing was not only regulated during the day, but at night, as well. Suitable clothing for girls consisted of a nightgown, and only a nightgown. Some nuns had the job of going into the girls' dorm during the night and randomly stripping the sheets off of a sleeping child. If the child was found to be wearing underwear under their nightgown, she was forced to strip naked immediately and was then whipped.

This may sound terrible, but isolated. It's not. Steele is the SECOND school so far where women have talked about being whipped for wearing underwear at night under their nightgowns. Since it's only the seventh school we've been to, and it's been brought up unprompted both times, those numbers put it pretty close to "general practice." As I'm sure everyone is thinking it already, I won't bother to put in a paragraph about the nuns following up these nightly raids with sexual molestation.

These children are now adults. This isn't distant history. Anyone else feel nausious?

Towards the end of the day, an elder stood up and told about her daily ritual at Steele. Once a day, class would be put on hold, and everyone would line up along the side of the classroom. One-by-one, each student would be bent over the teacher's knee, spanked, and told, "you're filthy and you stink." This happened every day. She then broke down completely into tears and apologized to her adult children in the audience: "The teachers were my mothers... I was only just learning how to be a mother with you." There were few dry eyes in the audience.

Another woman talked about how, for generations in her family, children would go off to school (mostly Carlisle) and vanish. It was family custom to never speak of them again or say their names. Today, she feels that's had a strong negative impact that stretches down to current day.

Also, somewhere during the day, someone talked about how the teachers would send you to Confession if they could you wearing mocassins. There, you had to confess to wearing mocassins, and you would be given a penance to make up for your "sins." How stupid.

Like every place, Steele wasn't entirely without some scrap of virtue. During the 70s, it was the only place for miles around that would give a high school education to pregnant teens. That's worth a little something, I suppose.

In all, it was a powerful and satisfying day, maybe the best so far. I appreciated not having quite so many stairs to deal with, and being out-of-the sun was great. We opened up a lot of wounds, but we left with the feeling that that's exactly what they needed to heal. Today we did good work.


Marlin uses a wing to "wipe the pain away" from a woman.

(edit: It occurs to me now that "Steele" is a fairly recent name. When it was actually in operation through the 1980s, it had a different name. I think it might have just been Phoenix Indian School, but I could be wrong.)

5/26 SHERMAN INDIAN SCHOOL [Riverside, California]

I guess this is somewhere in the vicinity of Los Angeles, insofar as there was a clearly defined smog line stretching through the desert that we had to drive through before getting to Riverside.


Riverside, like most of the towns in southern California we've passed through, has a clear "oasis" look. The town itself is very long and winding, rather than radial, no doubt closely following some little stream or spring. Everywhere throughout the town are dark green lawns, lighter green trees, and tall skinny palm trees that keep all their leaves and fruit on the very highest peak.
Everywhere else, there are no houses, no greens, no signs of life. Just flat, tan, dry desert, with one torn green patch of life surrounded by nothing.


This was expected to be a particularly wrenching ceremony, as Sherman is pretty famous, as boarding schools go. However, in the end, it was something rather anti-climactic. I have to admit that I didn't follow the ceremony very closely, because of the painting. I should explain that sentence.


The halls were being painted white that day, so my path between my two cameras took an extremely roundabout route that involved no less than five flights of stairs. I didn't want to walk through the ceremony, or through the paint, so I got the most extreme workout I've had in a long, long time. During the nine hours I was manning those cameras, I have no doubt I walked many, many miles in stairs.


Three days later, my calves are still killing me, and they complain vocally every time I stand up after sitting down for more than 30 minutes.


One story I did hear, however, was from a local man probably in his 60s. When he was young, his older brother drowned in the nearby creek, and his body was swept away. Or, at least, that's what they thought. His family believed that for almost a month, before discovering that he hadn't actually been in the creek: he had been kidnapped by missionaries who put him in Sherman 'to get a good education.' In the meantime, however, his family had dredged the river, held a funeral, and mourned the death of their child.


There were also two people who confirmed that one of the government's tactics to get children was to round up nonconforming families and lock them in Alcatraz. Yes, that Alcatraz. They would only be released when they broke down and told where their kids were hiding. By the time they returned home, their children would already be gone.


Oh, but as far as "anti-climatic" goes, the ceremony as a whole didn't have the energy we expected. People still got into it, and there were still lots of tears and prayers, but there was a defensiveness that was pretty apparent. Some people didn't want Sherman's good name (it's still open) tarnished. Also, the auditorium offered too many ways for people to spread out, so it always looked kind of empty, despite a decent turnout. It's amazing how driven people are to sit in the farthest back corner -- the back row was pretty full even though the auditorium was divided in two and we turned out all the light for the back half. It was darned dark back there, but you could still the occasional glint from the glasses of someone hiding in the shadows. Finally, there were one too many speakers who lost track of what they were supposed to be talking about, and just took advantage of the chance to be listened to. I'm going to devote a post to that phenomenon soon.


So, rambling speakers addressing an empty-looking room, interspersed with Sherman supporters who wanted to remind everyone that maybe these things happened, but today we've got an all-star track team. Go Sherman!


It was still good to be there, it just wasn't what was expected.



Picture Below: People line up to say prayers and offer tobacco to the Hoop.

Kill the Indian, Save the Man

I mentioned this phrase a few posts back without thinking about it. Just to be clear, "Kill the Indian, Save the Man," was an official government objective, written out by the originator of the boarding school system, a guy appropriately named Pratt.

It was a widely accepted and adopted saying for many years.

Here's the quote it first came from:

A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.

The Days Inn

The Days Inn chain is a strange one, in that it appears to be up to each individual branch owner to decide how they’re going to run their business. There have been two great Days Inns so far. This, it turns out, is not one of them. I don’t wish to be a complainer, but the tub was separating from the wall. The lights in the bathroom couldn’t be turned on without also turning on the fan, which was broken and fought violently to escape from the ceiling. The “laundry room” consisted of a single washing machine from the 1970s, which I broke immediately by trying to make it start. At least six people tried to use the machine afterwards (it was right by my door), with no luck.

The walls were pretty thin, and someone was yelling all night long.

5/24 STEWART FACILITY [Carson City, Nevada]

Don't you just get a warm, fuzzy feeling from this sign?

This was our first outdoor event. That led to a whole lot more excitement and bustle than I needed first thing in the morning, but ultimately went off pretty much flawlessly. The school there was midway through its renovation into a museum, and it lacked things like, oh, electricity. So, we found an electricity (just the one lonely little electron, but he was a trooper), and turned their nicely manicured lawn into a veritable deathtrap of hidden extension cords. All of my extension cords (3 of them) got used up trying to get power into one of the buildings, and we had to use one of our lifelines to get a local to bring about 10 more cords.

Nevada, like expected, is mostly brown and tan, and very dry. In a few select areas, however, little rivers run – the riot of growth exploding away from the water is stunning. Rich greens of grasses and trees bleed away from the rivers as far as they can stretch, then fade back to the flat tan of the rest of landscape. Life thrives where it can.

It’s also, you know, sunny. I burned to a crisp, prompting the rest of the group to spend the next two days teasing me about becoming a red man. If any word of protest escaped my lips about the pain, someone was bound to shake their head and solemnly declare that “forced assimilation” always hurts.

As always, see the White Bison site for a more complete report. One thing that stuck out for me, however, was a story about punishment. If you did something wrong, you had a three-part punishment. First, you dig a trench. Then, you haul water to fill up the trench. Finally, you walk back and forth in the wet trench all night long. Nevada nights are cold. The speaker’s father underwent this punishment; he marched back and forth all night next to a fellow student who died of pneumonia a few days later.

I think people need to know how much anger is running through these communities. Don says that the alcohol and drug abuses that are so common are just a symptom of the real problem; there’s so much resentment just below the surface it’s frightening.

Imagine if the trench story was at a military training camp. There’d be an investigation, a scandal, a bunch of newspaper articles. Imagine it took place at ANY OTHER SCHOOL in the nation. The school would be shut down immediately: these are the only schools at any point in history that are allowed to simply ignore student deaths.

Or, in some cases, actively encourage student deaths. Marlin talked about his grandmother; when she was 8 years old, her best friend was killed by a nun in front of the student body to set an example. In the nun’s defense, she probably didn’t mean to actually kill the little girl. In the defense of all that is good and decent in this world, however, killing 8-year-olds is so far beyond damnable that, even if some portion was accidentally, this still qualifies as an all-out atrocity. All the little girls in the school watched their friend die, “to set an example.”

To set an example.

Wouldn’t you be angry? How could you possibly manage to not pass that anger on to your children?

It’s possible to end the pain; but it’s unbelievably hard, and it’s one of the things White Bison is trying to teach people now. Please pray for them.

This was another difficult stop, as Stewart is half-way through rennovation to become a commemorative museum. The coordinator has spent years getting the place preserved and is now on the cusp of being able to show the world the amazing piece of history she has saved. I think just about everything we said was a surprise for her, and not a pleasant one, either. She looked pretty bowled over by the end of the day. Some of the people showed up with aching hearts, and others showed up ready to wave their flags and cheer. Those goals don't mix together well.

That's not to say that both aren't, to a degree, right. Some good came out of some of the schools. They weren't all consistently, with no exceptions, hellish. The problem is how often the worst is ignored, and how often it's not even known about.

I feel we're doing good work, and necessary work, but it's harder to get excited when you leave behind someone completely dispirited.

On an unrelated note, the closest hotel we could find wasn't in Carson City, it was in Elko -- which is, apparently, in Japan.

The Turin of the Screw

This motel appears to have been decorated by the ghost of Henry James. It's clearly some kind of lush Victorian nightmare, except with running water. Running water that tastes kinda funny.

Actual ghost of Henry James may differ from that pictured.





In a looong stretch to tie two ideas together into an unnecessary pun, I will now speak of dinner.

Marlin had gone back home for his son's graduation -- he'll be back shortly. That left myself, Don, Wayne, and Maria to find some food. Before the food showed up, I made some comment about being sad about how religion is being defined by its worst examples -- I was thinking of the many, many stories we've heard of sexually abusive priests, bloodthirsty nuns, and the spiritual doctrine of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." Surprisingly, they disagreed.

This led into a discussion lasting over an hour of the many, many abuses of the Catholic church (particularly). This list is no doubt well known by most people, and stretches from the murderous, money-driven Crusades to modern-day abortion clinic firebombings. Of course, particular emphasis was given to their actions against the Indian people; besides the boarding schools, there was the infamous Council of Bishops to determine if Indians were human beings, secret Church funding of boarding schools after the government backed out (this funding continued in some places until the 1960s, and 'saved' some of the worst schools from closing), and the current-day 'grassroots movement' of dutiful Christians who host bonfires on reservations and encourage the locals to burn their feathers, beads, and historic art.

Most of this I was aware of, and nothing they said surprised me much. Catholicism, as an organization, is beyond humongous. In any organization larger than about five people, there's always going to be someone who misuses power, uses the group to validate their own personal faults, or somehow behaves like a jackass and reflects poorly on the rest of their companions. The Catholic Church, being one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the world, has their fair share of abusers in dusty corners. That doesn't make the 'whole' bad.

If a violent crime occurs in Wisconsin, does that mean that Americans are bad? No, it means one single American was bad.

But what really shook me, during this conversation, was another perspective I hadn't considered. Corrupt individuals hiding behind a label don't make the label bad; that's clear and, I think, beyond question. But if a violent crime occurs in Wisconsin, the American police come in and stop it. That's what keeps "Americans" from being a negative -- the governing power fixes its mistakes, or at least tries to. The Church, on the other hand, protects its fallen. If a priest molests his congregation, he is shipped off to a new congregation in the middle of the night. Abuses occur ed in boarding schools, and much of what went on is still secret, thanks to Church interference.

Individual bad seeds don't bring down the Church; but what does it mean that the Church refuses to purge those seeds, and continues planting them along with the good? Even if they're not defined by the actions of individual members, they are defined by the fact that they support those individual members and enable them to act again.

This shook me badly. I didn't eat that night, or sleep particularly well.

The Catholic faith works for me, and its what I have in mind when I say my prayers. There's a lot of good in there, and a lot of good people. But other religions have good points, too, and their powers-that-be don't support the very worst members.


The others were calm, rational, and factual: the three hardest traits to argue against. They give every impression of being good, spiritual people; but they simply have no patience for a hierarchy that actively steps in to shield molesters, murderers, and psychopaths who hide behind the name of virtue.

I don't feel well... I don't feel well at all. This wasn't where I expected the conversation to go, and I think I might throw up unless I lie down soon.

Putting the "Journey" back into "Really Long Journey"

Done in Wyoming, our new goal was to get to Nevada. These, sadly, are not adjacent states.
As we got to Nevada a little earlier than expected, I was able to start writing this blog. See how slowly I’m catching up? One little step at a time. One little step.


Don pulled me aside as we started this driving segment to say that he’d like to do a video update to post to YouTube – a little State-of-the-Journey for people following along from home. I thought about ways to best do that, but we were all too tired by the end of the day. (Also, the guy at the motel said if we were going to film in his motel, we should prominently feature the sign out front.) It got put off for other reasons for the next few days, and actually still hasn’t happened yet. We still talk about it once in a while.


We pretty much sped straight through Utah. It was a strange state in that the land itself reminded me of Christmas. The plants that grew sprouted it up in deep, rich green. Big cuts into the land revealed baked red clay and earth. Completing the effect were miles and miles of salt flats. It took me hours to figure out what I was looking at; it was baffling to see. At first I thought it was shallow, pale water. Then I was convinced it was some kind of weird, low-altitude snow. Then I was thinking a very white plant. Then I decided it was probably lakes with unusually bright sunlight on them. I was wrong. It was unearthly levels of salt, just spread across miles.


Salt Lake City has extremely high walls lining their freeways. I saw almost nothing of the city. I guess they are a secretive people. All I really ever saw of Salt Lake City was the occasional billboard, most of which were for fast food or exotic dancing. That’s what I’m going to remember of Utah. That and Christmas.



Utah is a predominantly Mormon state, with low precipitation and a staunchly conservative image. It’s no wonder, then, that their road signs feature whipped-cream beehives.

Catchphrase

At one of the earlier stops, the Chief was asked to get up and say a few words. He appeared to be a politician, and coated everything with a layer of community spirit. That has its place, but this might not have been it.

"My time here was just great. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a way to instill a good work ethic; I learned everything I need to know and gained the discipline I needed to help make this community great. Etc. Etc."

Then one of his classmates was asked to speak. He got up, looked at the mic, looked at the Chief, and looked at the mic again. He started off in a different direction with his first words:

"I hated them su-HUNS of BICH-es!"


Of course, now everytime anything goes wrong on the journey, someone is bound to say, "su-HUNS of BICH-es!"

I could write a deep post about denial, community pride versus community trauma, and historical whitewashing, but I think I'll leave it as a funny catchphrase.

I suppose I could also write a post about how we're facing so much pain and hurt that we have to shield ourselves by turning the expression of one man's lifelong anger into humor... but, no. I don't think I'll do that, either.

Su-HUNS of BICH-es!

5/21 ST. STEPHEN'S HIGH [Riverton, Wyoming]

The first of many stops that have a name including “River.” I will eventually mix them all up hopelessly and require outside assistance to sort it out. The White Bison page is currently down, but I'll track down the real name as soon as I can.

This stop was an odd one. At each stop, we have a local coordinator who is in charge of making sure everything is ready for us and in charge of local advertising. We couldn’t get in contact with our coordinator as we pulled in late at night; but of course it was late. Stranger still was that we couldn’t get in contact with our coordinator the next morning, while we waited around trying to figure out which building we were supposed to set up in. To cap it off, no one at the school had ever heard her name before.

This was a bad sign.

Eventually, someone at the school let us into a dark little basement beneath the church. The feeling was instantly oppressive; combined with everyone’s confusion at our presence, I had a strong feeling that we were not supposed to be here, or that there was something we weren’t supposed to stir up.

The four walls were, at last, decorated festively. Apparently, the night before the church was used for a celebration: the Jesuit order which had presided there for 125 years had decided to pull out, abandoning the church and focusing their attentions on some other community. Last night was their last community celebration.

The Jesuit priests were in attendance, apparently having no further regular duties left to do in this place. One, an older man, stood up to speak during the day and came within a hairsbreadth of apologizing for the Church’s abuses. Then, he either became frightened or simply distracted, because his mind wandered off in new directions and he spoke for several more moments before running out of steam and sitting down. Much time was spent in the cars afterwards debating if he had intended to apologize, and about what stopped him, if so.

After lunch, the feeling in the basement started to get better, and I no longer felt so unwelcome. Keeping busy helped, too. This was the first time I needed to set up the PA system I had borrowed in Minnesota, and there was a certain amount of frenzied, hidden trail-and-error involved. Sound has never really been my forte (hehe) and there’s a lot for me to learn. For now, however, I just need to get it working and sounding not-awful with little time to spare.

Predictably, turnout was very small. I don’t think many people knew about this.

One woman, looking very, very pained, said something interesting. She said she loved the Jesuits and all that they’ve done; but maybe, (hard swallow), “it’s time for you to go.” It was clearly a difficult thing for her to say, and I ran it through my head many times while driving to the next location. I had a long time for it to run.