MUSINGS AND RAMBLINGS AMIDST THE SAGE AND JUNIPERS (VARIOUS KINDS OF STUFF)

MUSINGS AND RAMBLINGS AMIDST THE SAGE AND JUNIPERS (VARIOUS KINDS OF STUFF)  HUNTER BEAR  DECEMBER 27 2013


First, apropos of a Redbadbear discussion: It strikes me that Mikhail Kalashnikov, of Russia, whose passing Ken Hill posted, was a person who was well worth visiting (even if I don't like his AK-47 invention, at least for any civilian use.)  A person full of that many years (94) would have a number of things to say.  But my strong rifle preference always remains "Western style" big bore lever action rifles -- those developed by John Browning of Utah and John Marlin of Connecticut.  And I have several of those.

Christmas here was a great success -- especially with youngest daughter, Josie's, little ones present. Conspicuous consumption incarnate: toys and kiddy-books.  Their wild and happy glee softened the winter season which, right around here, has actually been very moderate -- almost atypically so.   Fifty or so miles north of here, it's been rougher -- with some power outages.  But nothing currently in the Gem State can compare with the disasters in the Northeast.

Fine Christmas dinner, thanks to Eldri and Maria.  Wonderful ham and Eldri's special egg/potato mix plus sweet potatoes.

Lots of gifts to and from family members here and far and away.  Lots of C-phone calling back and forth.  Almost alone in our large family, I have no cell phone.  (They're not traditional enough for me -- at least not yet.)

While all of this gift giving and taking may be a boon to capitalism -- profit-wise and even philosophically so -- I take Christmas, or whatever the special Day may be called, as a most signal event with powerful spiritual foundations and context.

My main Christmas gift, an XXL (Sizes 7 7/8 - 8) Mountain Sky Stetson arrived late yesterday afternoon via FEDEX, as originally scheduled. (We've always found UPS and FEDEX to be dependable.)  The hat is brown, a favorite color of mine.  White Stetsons (and other hats) deflect light and heat to some extent, but don't stay clean and unblemished, especially if they're out in the wilds.  Black Stetsons absorb light and heat and don't show dust and dirt.  But I don't like black hats, especially since some TV individuals use them to sharpen their often unpleasant personas. (Of course, many good folks wear them as well.)  Brown Stetsons, or qualitatively comparable wide-brimmed hats (Akubra, Resistol), have usually been my choice.

It's been my observation that most traditional Navajo men -- and traditional would be the greatest majority of men on that vast reservation -- much prefer darker wide-brimmed hats, usually brown, occasionally black.  Lots of wind, dust, sometimes sand, and rough weather generally in their setting. (That's true, of course, of much of the Southwest.) As I've written earlier:

"The legendry of the Navajo, as with any tribal nation, is rich and
enduring.  It was in that context -- that of the Dine' [Dineh] -- that I was
privileged to largely grow up and our ties with that vast Nation remain
close to this very moment.  It was Changing Woman who, impregnated
by the Sun and a waterfall, gave birth to the Hero Twins:  Monster Slayer
and Child of the Water.  In due course, the Twins traveled the Rainbow to
their Father the Sun -- killing many mortal adversaries along the trail.

But several monsters still remain:  Hunger, Poverty, Dirt and Old Age -- and
the Battle, with the Hero Twins much to the fore, continues."

I never have my hats "cleaned" -- i.e., dry-cleaned.  I'm convinced that weakens their resilient, tough, and just generally high-grade felt, often mixed with beaver. The brown Stetson that I bought at Babbitt's Hardware at Flagstaff
when I got home from the Army early in 1955 and 21 years old, is still very functional. That hat has been briefly in jail a few times (for good causes).  But, in those days, my head/hat size was 7 5/8 and that great old hat, sweat-stained from hard work, a veteran of my hunting and exploring expeditions, and with a couple of burn spots from forest fires, really doesn't fit me anymore and hasn't for a very long time.  It's now a proud wall-piece.

Once, jailed in Pima County, Arizona, with a couple of friends, for being physically demonstrative during a rough inter-union dispute, my Stetson became separated from me while we were being booked.  But, shortly thereafter, an obviously sympathetic deputy unlocked our cell door for a moment and, smiling, tossed my hat to me.

In the older Western flicks, as Sam Friedman mentioned, black and sometimes even brown hats signaled villainy and white hats meant good guys.  (From my favorite Western film, think Shane with his white hat and Wilson, the imported gunman from Cheyenne, with his jet black one.)  That dichotomy faded as many Western films became increasingly complex, sometimes almost psychiatric -- usually too much so for my liking.

The challenging winter weather brings back memories -- some deeply engraved in my mind.

A long time ago, a good friend and I were driving in early April from Salt Lake to Denver. Our route took us to Berthoud Pass -- high and tricky and full of winding roads and sharp switch-backs. I was at the wheel and my vehicle was a Chev quasi-station wagon.  In those days, snow tires were barely coming into the picture, virtually no one (including me) had seat belts, and 4WD for conventional vehicles was far into the future.  Around midnight, with no snow in sight, we stopped at a motel at the high up summit town of Fraser, Colorado.

When we awoke around 8 a.m., everything was covered by snow.  Traffic on the highway was very minimal with seasoned drivers waiting two or three hours for things to melt.  But we were young and, despite our respective past vicissitudes, quite convinced of our earthly immortality. With me at the wheel, we headed down the winding Pass road toward the still 'way off Denver region.

We hadn't gone far at all before we realized the highway was extremely dangerous. I drove very slowly.  In due course, we rounded a bend.  And not far ahead of us was a car, that had slid into a guard rail and was half jack-knifed out into our fast up-coming route.  Right across from it was a second vehicle which, apparently attempting to steer as far to the side as it could to avoid the jack-knife, was in a ditch. The people involved were standing in a little group by the in-ditch vehicle.  Our hopeful "window" through this was, frankly, pretty narrow.

My conscious mind partially turned off and something "deeper" took over.  Calmly enough, I gently moved the steering wheel just a little back and forth; touched the brake even more lightly.  For a moment, I glanced at my companion.  His face was impassive, outwardly calm.  As we approached the area of very possible and heavy complications, I saw that the expressions of the people standing were those of frozen shock.

But, missing the jack-knifed vehicle by only a very, very few inches, we made it smoothly through the Window.  I looked at my buddy who was looking at me.  He grinned and, at that point, quietly uttered only one word:

God.

And before long, faithfully smoking our cigarettes, we were safely below the snow line.

Nature trumps -- and we considered ourselves very lucky.

A couple of weeks ago, an older lady in a town close to Pocatello, died of Systemic Lupus after an eleven year struggle.  I didn't know her but I do know that which she went though.  SLE remains a frequently lethal genetic disease, still no cure.  Ten years ago, when I had entered the pits of Lupus, our family here had a big Christmas which featured many presents for me.  Though no one said it, there was obviously concern that that could well be my last one.

But it wasn't. And now my Lupus is gone. And I think, and have for a very long time indeed, that these close brushes with disaster and their happy resolution -- that I've had seen I was a Teen -- aren't just luck alone.

The world continues to be a massive and often hideous tangle that makes the extremely thick and thorny Manzanita stretches in Arizona, and the even thicker and oppressive jungles of Kudzu vines in Mississippi, look like cultivated gardens in Massachusetts.

But the Sun continues to shine on the water (or ice) -- and for me that always refurbishes my strong optimism and my hard-rock conviction that all of us, and Life itself, have much, much more than simply a fighting chance.

Our very best wishes to All -- for the season, and far, far beyond.

Hunter Gray (Hunter Bear)

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)