Several reprsentative responses to my PROGRESS piece

My piece of yesterday, initially named PROGRESS and then, when I sent it far beyond our lists, PROGRESS:  A MOSTLY DEEP SOUTH TALE, has struck pretty broad resonance.  This is a representative sampling of those that focused primarily on the piece itself.  Several people wrote more personal off-list messages -- all very friendly. In addition, there were a fair number of "Likes" on Facebook.

Earlier today, to Dale, I wrote a thought on creativity and mood -- and also a general personal update.  That's at the end of this sampling.  [H]


TERRY:

I enoyed this, and it makes me think of how, in my publishing days, I had the thought:  This is too slow! I was working on the Mine MIll book and Mike Solski kept calling and asking in a most morose tone, "How is the book coming along?" happening to mention that another of the old ones whose stories we were telling had died while I worked on a volunteer basis on the book, after paid work. Some people up here in Canada have got grants to put an oral history, e.g. of the On to Ottawa Trek of unemployed men in the thirties, online, but it is nice to have real, live stories come to me direct with little effort on my part, feeding me bits of education painlessly, and shedding your "rays of hope" -- your note of progress on going to Jackson.  How a handful of good people can make a difference! -- "Rays of hope" from the artist's description of the originial emblem of the Western Federation of Miners, represented by three stars for, variously, education, independence and organization (EIO!) or its three leaders, including Big Bill Haywood -- 'that they may shed their light on the bottomless pits of the Western mines'. 

Thanks be for the handful who speak up for the many (and who also get to know the many they speak for).

Terry 

MARY ANN:

Fascinating. I had some good laughs reading this. Thanks again.
WWW, 
Mary Ann

ALICE:

Hunter,
I liked this reminiscence...the way you can take something like a car and blend it with important events of the life you and Eldri have lived.  Very nice.  

Are those Idaho fires close to you?  I failed to write down the impacted areas so I could look them up in my atlas

KARI:

Hunter,


This was a wonderful recollection.  For the short week I was in the area last summer, I kept thinking of the experiences you've shared.  




Thank you for both,


SAM:

It is a great yarn indeed, in the best tradition of the genre 

DALE:

Evidence that change is possible, Hunter.  Very excellent story.  It may be my own association of the moon to  
imagination (though there is that literary echo), but the crude joke you report is very revealing of  
limitation of imagination, a perfect example.  Easier to imagine going to the moon than seeing beyond these race 
restrictions?  It's all there.  Love the contrast that comes later.  Great pleasure to read this. all best, Dale

ROMA:

I always loved every story you ever told in class, and I'm so grateful you are still telling them!

JESSICA:

i didn't realize you were married in Superior. that is in my neck of the woods. thanks as always for your excellent posts.

PEGGY:

I enjoy your stories I remember a night my ex- husband some friends of ours was coming back from memphis an getting behind bus loads of the freedom riders we were in a new pink caddy it was beautiful it was a long stretch from Memphis to Greenwood I'll leave this night mare for another day.

SUSAN KLOPFER:

(Sociologist, civil rights leader, historian and author Hunter Gray, tells a good story of how he landed in Jackson, Mississippi just as the modern civil rights movement was heating up. It's a good story! Hunter -- aka Hunter Bear, Dr. John Salter -- was hired in the early 1960s as a sociology professor by small, private and black Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., where he helped organize civil rights protests, in addition to teaching. Once dubbed "Mustard Man" by Jackson media, because of his participation in lunch counter action and a photograph published by the Clarion Ledger after he was assaulted with the yellow condiment, Salter was the perfect person to be in Jackson, at the time, with his uncanny ability to see what was really happening at the time. Hunter gives us an unprecedented look at this important U.S. period of civil rights history through his unique sociology lens. Ed. Susan Klopfer, author of Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited.) 


_____________________

Earlier today I wrote to Dale -- a kind of broad topic letter:  

Thanks very much, Dale, for such a thoughtful post.  Thanks, too, to you and all of the Poets on these lists for your fine, creative work.  When my father was in a situation, temporary in nature, where he was unable to paint, he would grow very moody.  I imagine many of us know that syndrome to some extent -- so we keep on creating, in our respective genre, that which our inner being commands. 

As I've noted, there are fires all around the region and hot and dry weather still continues.  We may be seeing something of a break in the heat but despite promises from the weather gurus, hot weather still holds on.  Our whole area has been filled with fire smoke for weeks. Up where we are there's a little less of that but down in the valley below it's heavy.

I got up at 1:30 am yesterday morning.  Had a couple of light meals during the day but, in mid afternoon, went with someone to the ER -- all turned out OK for the person -- and was there from mid afternoon until close to 10 pm. (The long waits between medics of various kinds brought to my mind many times the Old Army adage, still probably quite current, "Hurry up and wait." ) Finally home, ate a late supper and hit the sack shortly after 11 pm.  My inner and outer resources are returning nicely following the demise of my personal Lupus.

As always, wish we could hit Hardees for junk food and a long personal visit.

All the best,

Hunter


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See Outlaw Trail: The Native as Organizer:
http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm
[Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009]
Much expanded with new material in 2012.

And see the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded and with more photos in June, 2012.)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of
1962-63.  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm