who wants to be re wired?
I was a child, my life was before me and at the time I really had no concept of the Future. Living with a good Christian family for a time and season away from the Reservation and all it's dysfunctional attractions fueled by drugs and alcohol.
I was a child that felt safe living on the farm.
Early fall it was when Dad sent me over to the North pasture with a small metal bucket of oats.
Seems that a young mother cow was out there with her young calf.
Dad needed to feed her something other than grass and hay.
So I set out on foot with that bucket of oats, or was it grain?
Time erases the details but time sets into motion things that make us what we are Today regardless if we are in motion.
Looking back on this moment, the trip for me wasn't 1/2 mile and yet I seemed to walk for hours.
The small mountains to the West would soon be snow covered and from them the whole Valley would get water from the runoff in the spring and throughout the summer.
I walked past the irrigation ditches that Dad and his older son's had dug up to water the pastures north of the farm.
Dad had put in a series of pipes throughout his farm to water the crops.
Trenches were dug, big water main lines were placed in and covered and at varied intervals along the perimeter of each field as well as through each field, were smaller lines.
It took about 2 summers to complete the job.
And certainly every construction site has it's central project or investment.
Further south and to the west was such an eye opener for me to marvel at.
Dad had built a huge above ground "mobile" water delivery system.
The huge 24" pipes were connected out from a central water main and at the base of each section were rubber wheels. The pipes were about 15' off the ground.
Sometimes I would go out to this "Rain Master" and watch the slow steady march of the wheels. Each wheel would move a few inches starting from the center of the circle and move out to the end of the line.
This whole water irrigation project cost some serious coin and manpower from my older foster brothers and sisters. On occasion I would be tasked to move the small stuff as my Dad and brothers welded, bolted-on and connected various pieces that would later make up the "Wheel Lines"
These "Rain Bird" wheel lines were smaller versions of the central pivoting Rain Master.
Think of a long row of 6' diameter wheels spaced about 20' apart with a central 4" pipe running through and in the middle of that row is a small generator engine that-when fired up and activated, would move the entire wheel line over to the next water main riser.
Just connect the wheel line to the water main and turn on the water for about 24 hrs. Repeat the next day.
But the only thing I recall with detail is moving those small aluminum handlines that sprinkled the crops with water. Every one that grew up in Idaho recalls having to move those handlines at one time or other.
Those handlines were about 3" in diameter, each section was 20' long and you just disconnected a piece, carried it over to the next interval. Connected it to the previous piece and went back for the next pipe.
You slowly marched from one end of the field to the next and after a week or so, you turned around and moved the handlines back to the other side of the field. Each field was 1/2 mile to 3/4 mile long.
Life was good back then. But it's the animals that I remember taking care of the most and so it is that I was sent to the north field to feed mama cow as she tended to her baby.
As I walked I reached a small creek not 15' wide.
In the middle of the creek was a small island or sand bar.
If you could call it that because everything wasn't as big as it once seemed.
But to me, a child, that creek was a raging river. I managed to get my feet wet crossing over to the small sandbar and I went no further.
Mama cow was just ahead 100' or so and she saw that I had a bucket with me, she knew what I was there for and she stamped impatiently as her newborn calf lay in the grass.
I wanted to cross the small creek but was frozen with fear.
Stuck in the middle and nowhere to go. Help me!
One of my brothers eventually came along and his presence emboldened me to action.
I crossed the stream and went to mama cow and poured out the oats upon a clean patch of ground. I returned back to the farm with my foster brother.
Those few short years I spent with this Christian foster family was one of the best times of my life. I didn't have to worry about alcohol or violence. I went to bed on time, woke up at a set time and had a stable home life.
My siblings and parents at the time were White people. They were kind enough to accept me into their home. I am eternally indebted to them and their race.
Sure we had our quarrels and I was mischievous at times. But we were all innocent back then, us kids. And Mom & Dad were the world to us. They led and we followed.
One time at school some of the guys were teasing me about my Indianness, about the vitiligo (patches of white skin on my hands). In short, I was just being picked on.
Dad would tell me to not worry about other people's negative comments, to just let it roll like water off a ducks back. He was right.
And not only did Dad's advice apply to my small problem back then but I still hear his voice today. I see a stern looking white man with a handsome rugged face.
His adam's apple rises and falls on occasion and when he reaches out to embrace me or to shake me when scolding me I see that his arms and hands are hairy.
He is Dad. Not biologically but literally a Dad to me. He gave me his time and taught me good things. But what I remember most is what he didn't say. His actions of being a man in the truest sense spoke loudest to me.
Mom and Dad will always be with me. My siblings, that farm, that calf who's mother I set out to feed that one day will always be with me.
I remember where I played on the Farm, where I stashed my toy cars and action figures. I recall the cats and puppies that we raised. I'll never forget the horses that we rode when doing cattle drives or just to ride as I had my neck and back adjusted from falling off a running horse several times.
Back then I was being taught in public schools and in LDS Church.
I was taught in a good home how to be later on in life.
Perhaps it was in those cold winter evenings,when we would drive the beatup farm pickup to get hay for the cow herd and drop the hay through the field for them to eat, that I learned a sense of duty and commitment to things in my care.
I like to think that I was being wired inside. That all those people and the many experiences in life, at that time, were building me. Shaping my brain and making varied connections throughout my little body to the circumstances around me, the ebb and flow of the various group dynamics in Family, school, church.
Sometimes in my depressed moments I think to myself, that I don't want these trials and problems of adulthood. But eventually I get happy again and life goes on.
I realize that I truly have been blessed in life by moving off the Reservation and seeing the great white world. It's messed up in some spots and crazy at times but the World is what we make it to be at the time.
I am also blessed to be Native. I am Hunkpapa Lakota. We are more than a proud warlike people. We were civilization too at one time.
I have my Ancestors to thank for them passing onto me their genes, their life experiences and memories. They too have a hand in how I am hard wired today.
These last few years I have embraced the Warrior side of my heritage and channeled that into a noble profession. I lived in theVillage and worked as Public Safety.
A part of me wishes to see the children and youth experience some farm life. To help raise up crops, to drive farm machinery. To feed livestock and learn responsibility.
But these people around me chose to be born and to live here.
They chose to be as I chose to be long ago. For I believe that each of us had a say in where we would be born upon this earth and we chose our family, friends, parents, acquaintances.
These experiences for the people around me also set in motion their childrens future.
As I, in turn, make experiences and character for My childrens future.
Life is good.
theSam!!
I was a child that felt safe living on the farm.
Early fall it was when Dad sent me over to the North pasture with a small metal bucket of oats.
Seems that a young mother cow was out there with her young calf.
Dad needed to feed her something other than grass and hay.
So I set out on foot with that bucket of oats, or was it grain?
Time erases the details but time sets into motion things that make us what we are Today regardless if we are in motion.
Looking back on this moment, the trip for me wasn't 1/2 mile and yet I seemed to walk for hours.
The small mountains to the West would soon be snow covered and from them the whole Valley would get water from the runoff in the spring and throughout the summer.
I walked past the irrigation ditches that Dad and his older son's had dug up to water the pastures north of the farm.
Dad had put in a series of pipes throughout his farm to water the crops.
Trenches were dug, big water main lines were placed in and covered and at varied intervals along the perimeter of each field as well as through each field, were smaller lines.
It took about 2 summers to complete the job.
And certainly every construction site has it's central project or investment.
Further south and to the west was such an eye opener for me to marvel at.
Dad had built a huge above ground "mobile" water delivery system.
The huge 24" pipes were connected out from a central water main and at the base of each section were rubber wheels. The pipes were about 15' off the ground.
Sometimes I would go out to this "Rain Master" and watch the slow steady march of the wheels. Each wheel would move a few inches starting from the center of the circle and move out to the end of the line.
This whole water irrigation project cost some serious coin and manpower from my older foster brothers and sisters. On occasion I would be tasked to move the small stuff as my Dad and brothers welded, bolted-on and connected various pieces that would later make up the "Wheel Lines"
These "Rain Bird" wheel lines were smaller versions of the central pivoting Rain Master.
Think of a long row of 6' diameter wheels spaced about 20' apart with a central 4" pipe running through and in the middle of that row is a small generator engine that-when fired up and activated, would move the entire wheel line over to the next water main riser.
Just connect the wheel line to the water main and turn on the water for about 24 hrs. Repeat the next day.
But the only thing I recall with detail is moving those small aluminum handlines that sprinkled the crops with water. Every one that grew up in Idaho recalls having to move those handlines at one time or other.
Those handlines were about 3" in diameter, each section was 20' long and you just disconnected a piece, carried it over to the next interval. Connected it to the previous piece and went back for the next pipe.
You slowly marched from one end of the field to the next and after a week or so, you turned around and moved the handlines back to the other side of the field. Each field was 1/2 mile to 3/4 mile long.
Life was good back then. But it's the animals that I remember taking care of the most and so it is that I was sent to the north field to feed mama cow as she tended to her baby.
As I walked I reached a small creek not 15' wide.
In the middle of the creek was a small island or sand bar.
If you could call it that because everything wasn't as big as it once seemed.
But to me, a child, that creek was a raging river. I managed to get my feet wet crossing over to the small sandbar and I went no further.
Mama cow was just ahead 100' or so and she saw that I had a bucket with me, she knew what I was there for and she stamped impatiently as her newborn calf lay in the grass.
I wanted to cross the small creek but was frozen with fear.
Stuck in the middle and nowhere to go. Help me!
One of my brothers eventually came along and his presence emboldened me to action.
I crossed the stream and went to mama cow and poured out the oats upon a clean patch of ground. I returned back to the farm with my foster brother.
Those few short years I spent with this Christian foster family was one of the best times of my life. I didn't have to worry about alcohol or violence. I went to bed on time, woke up at a set time and had a stable home life.
My siblings and parents at the time were White people. They were kind enough to accept me into their home. I am eternally indebted to them and their race.
Sure we had our quarrels and I was mischievous at times. But we were all innocent back then, us kids. And Mom & Dad were the world to us. They led and we followed.
One time at school some of the guys were teasing me about my Indianness, about the vitiligo (patches of white skin on my hands). In short, I was just being picked on.
Dad would tell me to not worry about other people's negative comments, to just let it roll like water off a ducks back. He was right.
And not only did Dad's advice apply to my small problem back then but I still hear his voice today. I see a stern looking white man with a handsome rugged face.
His adam's apple rises and falls on occasion and when he reaches out to embrace me or to shake me when scolding me I see that his arms and hands are hairy.
He is Dad. Not biologically but literally a Dad to me. He gave me his time and taught me good things. But what I remember most is what he didn't say. His actions of being a man in the truest sense spoke loudest to me.
Mom and Dad will always be with me. My siblings, that farm, that calf who's mother I set out to feed that one day will always be with me.
I remember where I played on the Farm, where I stashed my toy cars and action figures. I recall the cats and puppies that we raised. I'll never forget the horses that we rode when doing cattle drives or just to ride as I had my neck and back adjusted from falling off a running horse several times.
Back then I was being taught in public schools and in LDS Church.
I was taught in a good home how to be later on in life.
Perhaps it was in those cold winter evenings,when we would drive the beatup farm pickup to get hay for the cow herd and drop the hay through the field for them to eat, that I learned a sense of duty and commitment to things in my care.
I like to think that I was being wired inside. That all those people and the many experiences in life, at that time, were building me. Shaping my brain and making varied connections throughout my little body to the circumstances around me, the ebb and flow of the various group dynamics in Family, school, church.
Sometimes in my depressed moments I think to myself, that I don't want these trials and problems of adulthood. But eventually I get happy again and life goes on.
I realize that I truly have been blessed in life by moving off the Reservation and seeing the great white world. It's messed up in some spots and crazy at times but the World is what we make it to be at the time.
I am also blessed to be Native. I am Hunkpapa Lakota. We are more than a proud warlike people. We were civilization too at one time.
I have my Ancestors to thank for them passing onto me their genes, their life experiences and memories. They too have a hand in how I am hard wired today.
These last few years I have embraced the Warrior side of my heritage and channeled that into a noble profession. I lived in theVillage and worked as Public Safety.
A part of me wishes to see the children and youth experience some farm life. To help raise up crops, to drive farm machinery. To feed livestock and learn responsibility.
But these people around me chose to be born and to live here.
They chose to be as I chose to be long ago. For I believe that each of us had a say in where we would be born upon this earth and we chose our family, friends, parents, acquaintances.
These experiences for the people around me also set in motion their childrens future.
As I, in turn, make experiences and character for My childrens future.
Life is good.
theSam!!
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