News: some conventional, some good, one dimension very sad

I have been, unavoidably, away from any discussion groups for the last few days.  The reasons are varied and range from several medical matters within the family to snow shoveling and clearing water from the fuel line of our Jeep Cherokee. Eldri remains hale and hearty and I am in quite good shape.  All of the situations, save one, have either been well resolved in positive fashion or are definitely pointed toward that.  That one, however, remains in very sad limbo -- and a little more on that in a moment.

Thomas, our grandson/son, now finishing his fifth year of residency at the University of Iowa Hospital, has been a most valuable medical consultant.  This summer will see he and his spouse, Mimie, and their new baby, Willow, relocating to Rochester, Minnesota, where Thomas will join the Mayo's staff (psychiatry and internal medicine) and Mimie will join that staff as well, in the capacity of a Physician's Assistant. Willow, our first great grandchild, is a large and active baby.  And, of course, we have eleven grandchildren as of now.

Alice Azure has several pieces of her poetry in an emerging book on Wabanaki prose and poetry.  Its editor is Dr Slobhan Senier and the book, entitled Dawnland Voices, will appear via University of Nebraska Press at some point this year.  (Alice has also created an excellent Mi'kmaq hooded cap.) Hearty congratulations to her on all fronts.

One of her pieces, a kind of mini-mini ballad, is entitled Repatriation Soliloquy.  This focuses on the odyssey of a very large painting, Micmac Man, and thus to some extent, on myself.  The artist is my youngest brother, Richard, and the work was done in 1979.  Alice purchased it and cared for it over many years.  Eventually she donated it to a high quality Native educational project at Chicago, of which she was an officer.  In time, the project faded and the painting, carefully preserved, wound up in the organization's surviving cellar.  Early in 2004, she asked several other Native ladies to recover it and send it to me.  They accomplished the recovery in the dead of night and, very carefully packaged, conveyed it to our Idaho door.  It resides on our wall, here, flanked by an equally large portrait of my father, which Richard also did and sent directly to me.

The very sad news is this:  Richard (73) is very close to death.  The causes are pneumonia, failing kidneys, blood clots and perhaps more.  Members of his immediate family are with him.  We are in contact with our people there but avoid bothering them with much questions or comment -- though we do send supportive messages.  His physical survival possibilities are extremely slim. (At this point, I would rather not comment further -- it's painful -- but I may have a little more on this in due course.)  Our belief system holds that individual personality survives physical death and continues on forever.  Should he pass on, Richard remains with us through rich memories and, in addition -- in our case -- the great portraits on our wall.  But it is tough to see the leaves fall.

This is a link to Repatriation Soliloquy.  A small photo of the portrait, Micmac Man, is immediately below the poem.
http://hunterbear.org/special_tribute_page_for_hunter.htm

Yours,

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)