Fw from Jyri: An idle personal note or two

Always very good -- and very interesting -- to hear from Jyri.  I plan to write him at length in a few days.  Here are substantial excerpts from a long letter he's just sent.

We-all in Idaho are fine. Snow and some ice hit us these past few days, and it's been cold by Pocatello standards, but a far, far cry from that with which people back East have been hit.  And North Dakota -- well, that is indeed Something Else.  

Christmas is an increasingly pleasant challenge --  with the multiplication of grandchildren (and one great grandchild via Thomas and Mimie.)  
  
The hostile stuff from ill-wishers that characterized our last summer seems to have evaporated, at least for the present.  However, the "special" postal mail hold/ check regarding us obviously continues.  Why it  remains so is very mysterious by any rational measure. Our mail "take" could hardly be more dull.  But postal surveillance in our case has gone on for a long, long time.

Jyri mentions a challenging and youthful farm labor experience.  I had an strenuous experience with that when I was 15.  If anyone is interested, this link will take you to a website page where the "bottom section" discusses that:
http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm

Can't resist posting this:

There used to be a saying in Arkansas:  "Thank God for Mississippi.  If it weren't there, we'd be at the bottom on everything."

So, Thank God for North Dakota and its weather.


Best, H


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jyri 
To: [email protected] 
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2013 10:19 AM
Subject: An idle personal note or two


Hunter, 
Hope this finds you well. The extraterrestrial episodes that you mentioned have given me a thing or two to think about. The initial unthinking knee-jerk reaction to these things is “what the hell”, but there are so many experiences of these things by so many trustworthy people out there that an open mind is the minimum requirement. Hence, yours truly professes an open mind. The quick healing of cuts etc. that you mentioned is truly interesting, and the possible connection with the Lupus episode. I have the material you sent me earlier in safe-keeping.

I remember working on my late uncle’s farm during the winter holidays when I was in high school.  He used to send me out into the forest with a hired hand and a horse and sledge to learn basic logging work, which I still like. Valuable lessons for a city boy, especially when my uncle taught me to handle the horse and drive the sledge with the timber in the snow. That went OK, but learning to ride the animal was a completely different experience – I remember climbing up into the saddle and, afraid that I’d fall off, I pressed my heels into the side of the beast and off we went – very fast. Literally learning to gallop before learning to walk. Uncle said I was like a Don Cossack. Fortunately nothing happened, but I haven’t been much in the saddle after that.

Nine more days to go before the Winter Solstice and we’re waiting for snow to lighten up the place. I have plenty of work, and I’m gradually getting my taxes in order. I’m also waiting for our new online “paperless” medical prescription system to deliver my blood pressure medication (runs in the family). In this new system if you need to renew a prescription you just phone the local health-care centre, give them your identity (social security) number. The renewal request goes to a  doctor who enters the prescription  online in a nationwide system allowing you to pick up the meds anywhere in the country. No paperwork. The problem is that it takes from a week to ten days to complete. Before, I’d go to health-care place with the old prescription, make a proper nuisance of myself at the counter and pick up the renewed Rx within a couple of days. But now that is only for acute situations, and as the lady said to me on the phone, “Can you prove it’s acute?” Under the old system, I once speeded things up by drinking almost a pot of strong coffee and walking briskly to the health care centre while smoking a cigar. The pulse and blood pressure were both at levels high enough to merit some attention. A good system but you have to know how to deal with the bureaucracy.

Till later,

Jyri

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org  The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

SHOOTING LUPUS --  Driving this oft-lethal deadly 
disease of mine back into its genetic cave and into
impotency in an eight year war:
http://hunterbear.org/shooting_lupus.htm

See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See my  new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," 
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual: 
 http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm   

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)