More Pictures Around Portland

VET

When I was a kid, I used to think that the words "vet" and "veteran" were abbreviations for the profession of "veterinarian." I used to think there were a heck of a lot of animals doctors around and how come I didn't know any considering the vast amount of people taking up that particular profession. I don't know how old I was when I realized that a veteran was not an animal doctor but a fella who had been in the military and that the term "vet" could refer to an animal doctor or a person who had been in the military.

When I was 17 or 18, I seriously thought of joining the military for four days. On the morning of the fourth day of my consideration I thought, "why would I want to fight for the same nation that has tried to wipe my people off of the face of the earth and continues to do so, though with a different sort of violence."

Knowing that I'm not the only person in the world and that my conditions were not the only conditions in the world, I never faulted anyone else who had made the decision to join the military. I'm no leader. I'm no god. I have no right to judge. I knew that many Indians lived in poverty and many of those Indians who joined the military were looking for a way out of said poverty. I also knew that there were many reasons other than that for folk to join the military as well. There is no one reason as many would prefer to think.

I've known and worked with many Vietnam Veterans throughout my life.

One did a lot of the tunnel rat work. He talked of pouring gasoline down those tunnels and setting them on fire, going down there with a pistol to clear it out, etc. He talked of a sawed off shotgun type of weapon that could blast a forty foot hole in a fence (exaggeration, I don't know). He was an alcoholic.

Another vet was a Marine who talked of his best friend dying in his arms. How he killed a lot of Vietnamese. How he got shot in the leg at the Battle of Hue and told the doctors that if they cut his leg off he would kill every one of them. He, too, was an alcoholic, though sober most of the time I knew him.

Another was in Army Intelligence. He told me he killed over two hundred people that he knew of and that they came to him every night so he only got about three hours sleep each night.

One of my aunts was a nurse in Vietnam. The story goes that she flew in the planes that would take the wounded from Vietnam to Japan.

I have an uncle who is a Vietnam Vet who was in the Airforce and a member of a helicopter crew. They had a rotation in which one man of the crew was always left behind. One day when he was that man his crew all got shot down and killed. I remember missing him when he lived in Vancouver, Washington and was away from his family.

I lived with a Vietnam Vet whom I used to ask a lot of questions. He yelled at me one day to "stop asking me questions about that shit! There are things I would much rather forget." He was in the Navy and used to go up and down the rivers in PT boats. Since then, I'll let vets tell me their stories if they want. I don't ask.

I've known many vets who have not seen combat and still have a special brand of military dysfunction in civilian life.

It was a vet who introduced me to sweating, the Inipi ceremony.

I used to sweat a lot, but haven't in a long time now, years I think. The second time I sweated with this one tall Vietnam Vet he collapsed on my lap and cried for I don't know how long. I comforted him as best I could.

I met one Vietnam Vet friend who was a Marine when at a slide show offered by a mutual friend. He got up and talked without looking at the audience. He said he had a hard time "not wanting to solve all of his problems by killing people." I thought that I didn't want to get to know that guy, but when I did, I found him to be one of the kindest people I had ever met. I used to sweat with him a lot.

I knew another fella who was in the Navy in Vietnam. He told me he had written down all of the horrible things he did over there and showed it to his wife who came close to leaving him because of that. He, too, was one of the kindest people I ever met. What the heck?! He used to pour water at some of the vet sweats I attended.

I used to help at Vet sweats quite often, helping with the fire mostly. They would always invite me in, which always made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't feel uncomfortable because I wasn't a vet so much as I feared they could see something in me that I wasn't totally aware of...because...you see, I've had a lot of dreams of having been in war.

Once I woke up on a battle field where hundreds of wounded and dying lay all around me. I was one of the wounded. I was in such horrific pain. I managed to lift my head enough to see a large hole in my stomach. I tried to raise my arms to cover the wound with my hands, but the pain was so excruciating that I couldn't lift them. I could see hundreds of dead and dying all around me. I made myself wake up.

I have had a recurring dream where me and a friend are stepping up onto a small dirt hill of about three or four feet in height. We had just finished a battle and we had killed a lot of people and were just feeling the glory of such a horrific bloody victory. I never saw the killing directly, but I knew I had killed many that day.

Maybe, just maybe, there is something more to me that those fellas could see that I can't, and that makes me feel kind of uncomfortable.

Many years ago I interviewed Philip Red Eagle who authored a book of two short novellas called "Red Earth." Philip is a Vietnam Vet who was in the Navy. On the cover of his book was the painting called "Scream" by Rick Bartow, an artist and Vietnam Vet. The painting is troubling and amazing. Phillip signed his book for me and did so in a special manner using stamps with red ink. The book is an amazing story of time travel back and forth from the Vietnam War to the present (as it were at the time of its publication).

About six years ago, I worked as a driver for a thrift store. One of the fellas that I worked with lived with his best friend whose name I have since forgotten. He told me his friend was a Vet from the war with Afghanistan. He told me the story of how, while on patrol, his friend stepped on a land mine. It was one of those mines that explode after you raise your foot. All the rest of his platoon got a safe distance away, and he surrendered to the fact that he was gonna die. He lifted his foot to discover that it was a dud.

I gave that man that book, "Red Earth," and a few other things in one of my many life purges. I believed it would be good for him.

"What did you do to him?" my co-worker asked a few days later.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Last night, after reading that book you gave him, he unloaded the pistol he keeps by his bed and put it away. He always slept with a loaded gun close to him. This is the first time I had seen him do that since he got back from Afghanistan."

I have met folk like Ishmael Beah, who was a boy soldier in Sierre Leone. He wrote a book called "A Long Way Gone," about his experiences. He committed and witnessed many acts of brutality during that civil war. After I interviewed him, I gave him a hug, and realized he was a few inches shorter than me and rather slender. This human had killed a lot of his fellow humans and here he was, again, one of the kindest folk I have met.

Once I had an internet battle with some folk who said that if I had compassion for these vets, what about the vets that killed the Lakota at Wounded Knee. I told them they were racist as they could have asked the question in a different manner but instead chose to bring it up in terms of my race. Made me mad. I apologize to those folk now, as I could have handled the situation very differently and maintained a good peace between us...live and learn. One thing I do know, however, is that many "Indian Fighters" became friends with Indians afterward, some of them even preferring Indian company over white in later years. Which makes me think of a funny story.

I worked with a fella who was a Vet of Iwo Jima. Big Jim Easley, I think his name was. I didn't hear any of his stories, but knowing he was a vet of that battle motivated me to watch a documentary about a reunion of the folk that fought that horrific WWII battle. As one American Vet talked with a Japanese Vet through an interpreter, the American was telling him how he had a Jap bullet still lodged in his body. The Japanese Vet told him, "It's probably mine. Sorry."

If folk who were so intent on killing each other at one time could stand face to face and enjoy each others company, I think we all have the capability of doing so without ever having taken up arms in the first place.

"...huge...tracts of land."

I listened to an interview with Marlo Thomas on NPR recently talking about her new book, "Growing Up With Laughter." Heck, I didn't even know Marlo was still alive, let alone having written SIX books. I guess she also conducts interviews with comedians. Isn't that funny, the things one grows up with can still have hidden surprises when one no longer pays attention. I remember the "That Girl" TV show. I remember her dad, Danny Thomas. I remember my dad enjoying the laughter from the show "That Girl," and from Marlo and her dad Danny.

Even though life wasn't exactly ideal growing up with my parents, my dad had a great sense of humor. He had all sorts of jokes he had collected on paper. He loved funny books. He laughed out loud while reading the comics in the news papers. He loved humor. He loved a good laugh.

When I first saw "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," I was about 12-years-old and I didn't think it was very funny. I walked out of the theater kind of dumbfounded and thinking the film made no sense. When I got older and understood the humor, loving humor as much as I do. I have watched the movie dozens of times and laugh harder each time. There is a scene from the movie which I'll use to preface the following narrative:

Price Herbert, played by Terry Jones, is having a conversation with his father, played by Michael Palin, about his forth coming nuptials. Alex ("Herbert")...Herbert doesn't want to get married. He wants to sing (que music). ("Stop that! Stop that! You're not going to do a song while I'm here!") Where was I...oh, yeah...Herbert doesn't want to get married, but Father does his best to convince him that he damned well better, even stating that the young woman has "huge...(shaking hands in front of his chest in the male sign language that a woman has rather large knockers) tracts of land."

My father used to tell me stories about how funny his brother Douglas was. Things like: stopping at a local gas station in Reedsport, Oregon, and asking the quickest way to New York, or when getting asked directions saying something like "you can't get there from here." My father, having joined the military, told me how, after three years away from home, he was amazed to come home and find that his younger brother, Douglas, had grown something like a foot taller.

Somewhere around this time, my father informed me, it was discovered that my uncle Doug (whom my middle name comes from) got leukemia. My father told me how my uncle Doug would be strong and healthy one day, then be so thin and weak he couldn't even lift himself out of bed.

My grandfather, it was said, had a rather large amount of timberland. How much, I don't know. I had rarely heard about this from anyone other than my dad. I wonder how strongly he was connected with it. Why, prior to my cousin Doug getting ill, he didn't sell the land and use up the money. Did he feel a connection with the land like Shusli does to hers?

The story goes that my grandfather sold all or most of his land to try to save my uncle Douglas. The story also goes that he hired one of the foremost doctors in the field of leukemia to try to save my uncle. I'm told my grandfather flew this doctor over from Germany, and even this doctor was unable to save my uncle, who finally succumbed to the disease.

My father would sit, usually in a drunken state, at our dining room table some 30 years later, and tell me this story and often cry at the loss.

A handful of years back, my sister was told by a woman she met at my mothers family picnic that my grandfather still had some land left. She gave my sister an address to write her at. My sister never did, so I wrote the woman and never heard a thing back.

If my grandfather hadn't sold off all of his land, it was only because my uncle Doug passed away before he could.

Some 10 years ago, Reverend Goat Carson wrote a song called "Redskins," on his CD called "Simmerin'." People were always asking him about the name Redskins, so he decided to write a song about it. The story is so terrible that he had to balance it with his mother's favorite song, "You are my Sunshine."

I guess I wrote this story in the same manner. My uncles passing so many years ago. My grandfather selling off his land. My father telling me the story in a state of drunkenness and crying. All mixed up with laughing and humor because the laughter and humor helped us survive. All of my family loved a good laugh.

Helpful Hints from Auntie Joan

Women,

do you have a hard time

getting men to

LISTEN?!

Well,

Auntie Joan

has a helpful

suggestion!

Food Chess, Not Unlike Chess Boxing

I love to eat. I realize this more as a delivery driver for a food distributor. I get to see what goes on in the kitchens of many different restaurants and get to understand the workings of grocery stores.

One restaurant I delivered to in Springfield, Oregon, Giant Burger, is a long standing burger joint established in 1947. They will be featured on September 22 on a food show on Food Network called "Meat and Potatoes." A few weeks ago, I didn't get a chance to make myself a lunch and when I delivered there rather late in the day, I purchased a burger, fries, and a shake from said restaurant. Honestly, THE BEST BURGER I EVER ATE.

I used to watch a lot of Food Network some years ago, and since Shusli and I don't watch a lot of TV nor do we have cable, we only see what is going on on said Food Network when visiting family who do watch television. Thus, recently, I watched some of the Food Network and it was a little overwhelming to me. Lots of glitz and fast paced movement seemed a little too much. But then again, television anymore is a little too much for me.

Shusli and I recently watched the movie, "Julie and Julia." We didn't watch it in the theaters because we thought it would be boring. However, it was a damned good film. I really liked Meryll Streep as Julia Childs. She did a great job!

The film was based on the book "Julie and Julia," by Julie Powell. The premise is about a blog this young woman made in making all 560+ recipes in one year from the long standing cookbook by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, titled "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." I was amazed at the determination made by Julie Powell to do this, because...

Two years ago I bought a book about chess, "The Complete Idiots Guide to Chess (third edition)," by Patrick Wolffe. This is one of the best chess books that I've read, not that I read that many. In junior high I used to be a fairly decent natural at chess. Nowadays, not so much. Three times, yes, count them, THREE times I managed to get just past page 150 and never finished. (Not to mention the fact that I bought a computer chess game that I don't play and a hand held computer chess game that I played a little of.)

Being inspired by Julie Powell, I am making efforts now to finish the book. I am past page 100 currently and am getting more from it than I did the first three times in reading it...attempting to read it. I have not set up a time frame, nor created a blog about it, but I am determined to finish the book before I read any other. (Books on CD don't count as I listen to them while driving down the road.)

Out of curiosity, I just looked up Native American chess grandmasters on google, and I don't see any reference to Indians, Native Americans (whatever?), who are grandmasters in the game of chess. Mind you, I am not thinking I will attempt to become one, I just love the game.

I even attempted to look up Native American chess players to no avail. This game doesn't seem to be (at least in reference to internet searches) a game too interesting to Indians.

So, are there any Indians out there who like to play chess? Does anyone know of any Indians who like to play chess other than me?

There are boxers who play chess. There are even boxing matches where in between rounds the fighters fight it out on the chess board. It is called Chess Boxing. Will the interelatedness of things ever cease! I certainly hope not.

FOOD FIGHT!

A COOKIE CHESS BOARD!

DAMNED STRAIGHT! I'LL FIGHT YOU OVER THAT!

CHECK MATE @#$%&* *&%$#@!

September 11, a Day that will Live in Infamy

On September 11, 1649, mass murdering scum sucking POS, Oliver Cromwell, and his gang of genocidal thugs attacked and slaughtered every living resident within the town of Drogheda, Ireland. May the rotten bastard rot in the afterlife for this cruel slaughter. May the slaughters come to an end, such as the slaughter by the U.S. in Afghanistan, America, Iraq, and worldwide. May this day bring Love and Peace. May communication be clear and disagreements solved with compassion and understanding that we are not required to agree. Bless all living, all those who have gone before us, and all those to come.

How Do You Say "DAMNED GOOD" in Gaelic?

Celtic Foods is a new food cart in downtown Portland, Oregon off of SW 3rd and Stark. You'll find it ran by Mike and Donovan.

I know what you're thinking...WHERE'S THE HAGGIS? If you ask nicely and open your wallet, you may be able to get Mike and Donovan to make you a haggis, but it won't happen on the spot.

What you'll get on the spot is some damned good Celtic food.

"I make my Limerick sausage using the old traditional recipe," Mike told me. He also informed me that he cures his own bacon.

I got the Jacobite, which was on special for the day. It was a patty of limerick sausage, bacon, and an egg on a bun with some sauce. You could "Charles Edward Stuart" (Bonnie Prince Charlie) the fare and make it twice as big for at the time, $6. However I overheard Mike tell Donovan that he will be raising the "Charles..." size to $7.

I also had sausage rolls. Limerick sausage rolled in I believe to be filo dough. DAMNED GOOD!

The food is great and and so are the prices. Celtic foods is opened for breakfast as well.

Celtic Foods hours are from 7am-3pm (sometimes an houror two later) Monday-Thursday and 7am-midnight on Fridays. I've heard tell that they may be doing some weekend business, but not at that particular location.

So get on down to downtown Portland and have some damned good Celtic Food.

Ask Donovan about the weiner dog races.