The Summer Sun Arises

It was 4:30 AM on the first Sunday of the Summer Solstice and my friend, true to her word, was there to pick me up for our trip across the river to Cahokia Mounds and the viewing of the sunrise celebrating the return of summer. Not much traffic eastbound across the Mississippi compared to the westbound flow at that time of the morning. Hmmm, wonder where everyone is coming from.

I had never visited Cahokia Mounds during my brief thirty-four year stay in the Metro area. I knew that Indians once settled there and that the area is not only a National Historic Landmark but also a World Heritage site, but I never realized nor appreciated the significance of it all. After all, I originated in Chicago which meant “smelly onions” to the Indians of that venue.

When we arrived, our guide for the celebration, perched on a ladder in front of an assembled group of 25-30 fellow insomniacs, provided information about the Indians, the Mounds and Woodhenge. Woodhenge? I seem to remember a Stonehenge and their celebration the previous day, but I never heard of this Woodhenge. So I looked around and it suddenly dawned on me as the dawn was breaking, that we were standing in the middle of a field where posts outlined the perimeter and a large post stood at the center of the circle. Two of the posts, red cedar trees, mark the points of the sunrise of the summer and winter solstices, while a third aligns due east with the major mound and the spring and autumn equinox.

We stood at the center post, which at one time might have been the observation tower of the sun priest, looking at the sky and waiting for the sun to rise over the designated post. As I stood waiting for the sun to peak over the trees, I couldn’t help but think how sacred this land and this time were to those standing at the same location hundreds of years ago. Our generations have advanced from horse and buggy to cars, airplanes and space shuttles. Our engineers armed with technological savvy have moved us from the day of telegraph to radio, television, world wide cell phone usage and the wonder of instant retrieval of information over the Internet. My friend so sagely summed it up with a simple thought: back then, they just figured things out.

The weather cooperated this morning and we were rewarded with the sight of a brilliant fireball rising in the sky where the Indians said it would over 900 years ago. The trip was well worth it.

" If It's Sunday..."

Sundays may never be the same. My friend, Tim Russert, host and moderator of “Meet The Press” died last week.

I spent many early Sunday mornings with my friend. No, not at some fishing hole or local coffee shop, but in the comfort of my living room. We never exchanged the gossip of the week past as most friends do at least not in the literal sense. I was one of the many million friends he had. Friends unknown to him, filing into the auditorium each Sunday morning to hear him query the guardians and would be guardians of federal and local government waiting to hear answers to legitimate questions . His questions were fair and nonpartisan meant to illicit a response providing information to enlighten us, shape us as a Nation, unlike many of his colleagues who claim to be journalists who base their popularity on ratings derived through sensationalism

He lived by the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” for he always was one or two steps ahead of his guests armed with verifiable information and quotes. Woe be it to the unprepared. It wasn’t that he was laying in wait to pounce upon the unsuspecting guest execution style for his questions and comments were upfront and designed to give everyone a chance to reconcile. But those who back pedaled or side stepped found that they had been given enough rope to hasten their own political suicide.

To simply say that he was the epitome of what a journalist should be would be a gross injustice to his legacy for aside from his professional endeavors he exemplified personal attributes of an uncommon variety. A humble man and loving proud father. A loving and proud son who was unashamed to let the world know in no uncertain terms that his father was his strength. A devoutly religious man.

I watched the Sunday morning broadcast. The empty chair where my friend sat for 16 years. The tribute paid by friends and old time guests and like them, I had to choke back the emotions.

The show will continue on and a successor will step into my friend’s shoes. But he or she will never fill them. I'll miss him.

A History Lesson On The Day We Skipped Class

I remembered the other day that when I was six years old I was made an honorary Indian chief. I was named Chief Tonka of the Sioux Nation at a Christmas party hosted by the VFW hall where my mother and friends played bingo on Wednesday evening . I remember the Indian Chief in charge of the event displayed a stone tomahawk that he claimed carried the blood of many “white men.” I told him it looked more like finger nail polish and the audience roared with laughter. We engaged in more frolic and banter as we went along, but I was firmly convinced at the end of the charade, that I had received a great title. Yes, Tonka meant “great’ or “big” to the Sioux, but it also meant toy trucks to Hasbro and while I owned a few of them I didn’t note the relevance at the time. But in the neighborhood cowboy- Indian games, I played the role of the redskin and my friends played the more prestigious buckaroos. I became quite proficient with those rubber suction cupped arrows.

Why should this come to mind a half century later? Maybe, it was something I read recently that clenched my soul, begging me to reach out to new thoughts and ideas that have surfaced in my mind. There are and always have been a multitude of Indian tribes. From the Alaskan Inuit to the Florida Seminole; the Yana and Yuma of California to the Wabanaki nation in Maine; Cherokee to Comanche; the Ojibway of the northern woodlands to the Choctaw of the lower Mississippi all shared a common spiritual premise.

Big Thunder of the Wabanaki nation once said, “ The Great Spirit is our Father, but the earth is our Mother, She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us…” Tecumseh, a Shawnee, stated, “The sun is my Father, and the earth is my Mother, on her bosom I will rest.” Like other cultures, Native Americans had their myths to account for the origin of the cosmos and life. Unlike some other cultures, Native Americans, or Indians if you prefer, viewed all animate or inanimate, as we would view it, life as having a spirit of equality. Native American myths had a more whimsical quality than other ancient cultures often dwelling in a cartoon like atmosphere, a childish quality, where beavers, chipmunks, spiders and ravens held center stage in the formation of the universe. The food of the earth, grains and cereals , were as sacred as the mountains, rivers and forests. The spirits of the hunted animals, buffalo and deer, held no animosity as long as the hunter ritually respected the value of the animal in providing food and clothing. Wonder why we didn't learn from this.

Ho hum, what laborious thought. Today, rivers and streams are polluted in the name of progress and landfills overflow. Natural resources diminish . Slaughter houses and packing plants only survive with the aid of marginal ratings granted by a bureaucratic regulatory scheme. “Big Oil” stands by twiddling their thumbs and whistling a happy tune as the price at the pump goes up . Retailers purchase from abroad; corporations outsource in the same manner. Developers rape the land, to build commercial ventures. We engage in wars for less than reputable reasons . Our humanitarian efforts are rebuffed by tyrannical regimes and we simply turn away.

The Indians had it right, but we didn’t hear the message. All we have is sacred to life.