Native Americans
“Fearful
1
Part of Speech: adjective Definition: alarmed
Synonyms: afraid, agitated, anxious, apprehensive, disturbed,
frightened, intimidated, panicky, scared, shrinking, timorous, worried,
yellow”
This partial
list for the word “Phobic” from Roget’s Thesaurus, First Edition,
is a fairly good description of how I have always felt about writing.
Many of the dismal
memories of writing have disappeared with time, but a few continue to
remain clear. Thirty years later the “Native American” assignment is still
with me.
My Mother and I had
moved to California the summer I was 13. This move was to try one more time
to make it work with the head jerk, a.k.a.- the stepfather. I missed my friends and relatives,
especially my Grandmother. I
will never understand why my Mother thought she had to give the jerk chance
after chance.
The winter prior to the
move to California something happened that changed things for a while. I
had come in from playing outside; it was about 20 degrees below zero. I was
taking off mittens, muffler and hat and was dumping the snow out of one of
my red rubber boots. I glanced
in the window of the storm door leading to the interior of the house. “The
Jerk” was screaming, standing in front of my Mother with both hands around
her neck, and shaking her. She had hardly enough air left to talk, and her
face was turning magenta. Her
veins were standing out and her tongue was protruding from her mouth. I yanked open the door as she
gasped out in a whisper, “Go get Mrs. Gillespie.” I waded across the snow
drifts in our yard, ran across the snowplowed road, and again through
drifts in Mrs. Gillespie’s yard, with only the one boot. I remember running around Mrs.
Gillespie’s house screaming her name, and wondering if she would understand
and come. She must have seen
the fear in my face because she didn’t even put on her coat or ask what the
problem was; she just ran. Both of us plowed back through my previous
trail. As we reached the front
porch, Mom met us at the door. “Thank you so much for coming”, she said to
Mrs. Gillespie, “Everything is all right now, just a little
misunderstanding.” I felt like
such an idiot standing there with my sock frozen to my foot. The result of this,
“misunderstanding” was that the stepfather moved half way across the
country to Los Angeles.
At the time of the
“Native American Paper”, I think they had just gotten divorced. I had
recently had some troubles of my own, and was going to a new school.
The “Native American
paper” was an assignment from my History teacher at the new school. She was
a young, soon to be credentialed, teacher. She tried to find interesting Social Studies assignments
for us; I’ll give her credit for that. She was the first teacher I had ever had that taught
Current Events. The topics
were individualized. She
assigned Martin Luther King to the guy who was going to be a preacher, like
his Dad. She gave this football jock, the escalation in the War in Vietnam;
maybe she thought he would be going.
To me, she said, “I know you are interested in the Native American
protest at Alcatraz.”
I actually had thought
it was kind of cool when we talked about it in class. My Mom had said, she
thought I had Indian Blood on my Dad’s side of the family. This was hard to verify. I had never seen my biological
father and Mom said she didn’t keep up with anyone that knew him.
Anyway, the 100 Native
Americans, about 80 from UCLA, had taken over the island of Alcatraz. The Native Americans wanted the
government to quit trying to get them off their reservations, the deed to
the island and a cultural center and museum. I wished them well. It sure didn’t seem like there was much hope.
I remember thinking,
Kennedy and King get assassinated, I work door-to-door for Robert Kennedy
one weekend, and then he gets shot. Nixon gets voted in. What were people
thinking?
My friends at Whittier
College told me that Nixon ran for student body president, and lost. I remember thinking at the time
that the Whittier College students had better brains than the Republican
Party. I marched with the
college students to protest the Vietnam War and for the War’s
moratorium. I got my picture
plastered on the front page of the Los Angeles times because Nixon was from
Whittier and so were we.
Unfortunately, the principal of the new school also read the L.A.
Times. I got suspended for ditching.
Back to the Native
Americans and their fight for the rock. My teacher had told the class that the Native Americans
were losing believability in the press by reports of their in fighting and
drugging. Well I knew how they
felt. I had previously run into some believability issues of my own.
I should not have taken
that roll of downers. (Sedatives to you not of the 60’s) At the time I thought I had to eat
them or they would be found on me or in my locker. Maybe I was just paranoid, but I
remember thinking I didn’t want to get busted selling drugs at school. On any other day I probably would
have been o.k. My friends were
doing a good job of keeping me out of the view of the teacher. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get
out of running in P.E. class because it was President’s fitness test day.
On the second lap of the 330, bam, I ran into the basketball pole and
knocked myself out.
When I came to in the
nurse’s office I had this huge lump on my forehead that looked like a
turkey egg. I guess she knew
what taking eight seconal pills looks like. I wondered later, do they have
a class in that at School Nurse’s school? How to tell what drugs students are on? Or do they just know?
I was surrounded, my
counselor and a cop were yelling at me and asking where I got the
pills. I was so sedated I just
made up any name that I didn’t know.
Wouldn’t you know they found some guy with that name and accused him
of selling pills? They thought
I was a fink. I was expelled
and on probation. What a
bummer that was.
That was why I was at
the new school with the “Native American” assignment. Mom thought all that week that I
was at the Library working on that paper. Yeah, right. Mom was an English Teacher, how could I have hidden from
her that I could barely read, and couldn’t write at all.
Two nights before the “Native
American” paper was due, I took this new girl, Sherry, and had a friend
pick both of us up from the Library and take us over to his brother’s
house. I remember the older brother was the only person I knew that had his
own pad. It was decorated with
multicolored painted tables made out of old telephone spools. Huge pillows
were on the floor and one old saggy armchair. You usually left the place with a sore throat because
there was so much smoke of various kinds in the air. I remember hearing Janis Joplin and
Hendrix and the Jefferson Airplane; I remember the music better than I
remember the people.
I asked them about the
Indians but all I had gotten was blank stares. Finally someone said, “Why don’t you ask the connection?
He’s from San Francisco.” “The
Connection” was this guy they bought drugs from. He said he wasn’t real clear about what was going on up there
because he had to keep a low profile.
He said, ”The rumors on the street are that the Indians had spray
painted slogans on Alcatraz like, “Custer deserved it” and “Bureau of
Indian Affairs for Whites” but that they were not running out of dope, so he
didn’t have any reason to go there.”
He said you could see the teepees from The City. I didn’t think this was what the
teacher wanted in the paper.
Sherry and I called them
from the Library the next night and some guy answered and said the guys were
tied up, but we should come over.
I had told Sherry that I couldn’t, as I had to look up these dang
Indians. Sherry couldn’t get a
ride, got mad, and left for parts unknown.
The teacher had said the Native
Americans were protesting for self-regulation and the right to educate the
Native American Kids in their own tribal languages and cultures. The
Librarian was about 100 years old but I remember she tried. The only book we could find on
Indians was, Indians, the Mound Builders, about some prehistoric
Indians in the Ohio River Valley. They made mounds of dirt that stayed
forever for some unknown reason.
I tried to find part of the book I could copy for the report. I had always either not done the
assignments or copied. I
remember thinking it sure doesn’t seem to have much to do with the Native
Americans the teacher was talking about; but I had to hand in
something.
I remember thinking Mom
would have been really unhappy if I didn’t pass that class, and at that
point I had a D. The first
hurdle was that I was reading at the fourth grade level and not really able
to write at all. The next
hurdle was that the paper had to be typed. Man, typing class was really a drag. There was this girl in the class
named Bobbi and she could type 100 words per minute. I had to get up to 25 words per
minute or I wouldn’t pass typing class. At that time I was such a dyslexic
klutz I typed maybe 15 wpm and couldn’t memorize the keys, bummer.
Good thing Sherry
couldn’t get that ride because they all got busted that same night. I guess the cops really thought
they were a comedy team when they told us on the phone that the guys were
all tied up. Sherry’s parents
had sent her to the new school because she kept running away, doing drugs
and probably sex. I think they were probably right, from all I remember. I
remember she told me she just wanted somewhere to crash that night and then
she was going to hitch back up to Hollywood. What a mess!
The next day at school, there I was in the principal’s office with
her parents, cops and the school principal all yelling at me because I was
supposed to know where Sherry was.
I didn’t know where she was. I had only known her about 3 days. I guess she was probably with that
dude she met in Hollywood. I
told them she was probably in Hollywood; they wanted to know where. How was I supposed to know
where?
I hated writing about
the mound building Indians.
I knew it was terrible; the original book had not even been very
interesting. I felt horrible. I would have gladly committed suicide rather
than turn that paper in, except I didn’t want to do that to Mom. Can you
image a paper about some prehistoric Indians that left mounds instead of
Native Americans and the cause?
The teacher looked
really disappointed when she handed me back the paper with a D-. She said she knew I could do
better. I remember wishing I
knew I could do better. This was just one of the times I realized just how
phobic I was about writing. I remember thinking I probably shouldn’t ask
the teacher what happened to the Native Americans.
I really wondered though.
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