The Trip

I am sitting here tonight listening to my old records and got to thinking about my mom and dad and how much I miss them. This story is about a day several years ago as Caleen and I headed out from our house in Chico to Gram’s place. It helped me as I sit here tonight as I see what was and what changed in my life and how I should take the time to listen a bit more.

The Trip

The children were all ready to go.  The car was loaded, gassed and warming up in the cool of the early morning.  “If all goes as planned, we’ll be on the rock by this afternoon at the latest”, I said.  As I looked out the window, I saw the almond blossoms falling like snow and with a strong pang of nostalgia I was transported to my parents yard, 43 years ago.  The sights, sounds and feelings that spread through me felt like the warmth of our fire.  I felt myself gliding through time finally coming to rest when I was young, about the age of my son.

My dad used to take us on trips.  He was a great one for trips; we would pile in the truck or the car, head out on the road and drive for hour after hour.  Many times we would eat in the car; very rarely did we eat in a restaurant or truck stop.  “Ring of red and a loaf of bread”, sandwiches put together with care by my mom as we careened down the road heading “on a trip”.  It wasn’t like my dad didn’t care if we ate; he just didn’t like to stop once he got rolling.  It was sort of like his drinking, it was easy to start rolling but hard to stop.  I remember that we surely were rolling during those days. 

Once we headed into Mexico “to fish”.  We drove all day in our ‘59 Chevy pick-up, we being 

my mom, dad and me.  My sister hated these trips almost as much as I loved them.  She didn’t like getting dirty, she didn’t like camping and she sure wasn’t going to eat a baloney sandwich made with “buzzard puke”.  My dad loved to say “buzzard puke” because he loved to see the reaction he got from all of us.  This concoction, one of great mystery to me, consisted of mayonnaise, pickle and some mystery ingredient all mixed together into the sandwich spread used on all our “trip” food. 

Anyway, we laughed and joked for awhile and ate our sandwiches but then the silence of the “trip” over came my dad and a somewhat isolated nature overtook him.  All he did for the miles and the hours that it took us to reach the border was drive.  No conversation, no nothing, until we reached the border and then a change and he was himself again, laughing, pulling Camels from their pack and chain smoking them, pointing things out through a bluish haze that smothered us in that tiny cab.

I remember the things he pointed out, birds, animals, and trees.  Anything and everything that didn’t “belong” in the picture he showed.  I remember on this trip to Mexico, once we were heading into the this foreign land, my dad stopped the truck and asked “did you see that?”  I looked and looked and could not see what he was pointing out.  Over and over again I looked, seeing but not seeing, until I felt like saying that I did indeed see something out there.  Finally, my dad said “Never mind it’s gone.  Come on, get in and let’s go!”  God, I felt like such a dummy, why couldn’t I see?  Why couldn’t I track what my dad saw?

My Dad drove on a bit and, I think, for the first time saw how not seeing things affected me.  I think that on this trip he saw that I wanted so very much to be like him, to be able to do things, see things, track things like he could.  I think he felt what I was going through because he pulled off the road again and while my mom looked out at the ocean, we walked a little ways from the truck and sat down.  My dad then proceeded to show me how he saw things.  He actually spent time, worked with me, pointed out different things that I, at first could not see, but soon was able to more quickly identify.  I felt like a part of my dad at the moment.  I felt like I was seeing the world through his eyes, like I was on the top of the world.  My dad had actually taken the time to show me.  I learned the way of picking out “what doesn’t belong” in the picture.  I was able to look, at a landscape, tree line or whatever and see the bump that was the tiny head of a chipmunk, or the outline of a deer laying in the tall grass.  I was and became able to spot a person hiding in a tree or an eagle flying in the late afternoon sky just off the surface of the river.  This didn’t happen right away mind you but as I matured and practiced what I learned on this trip I found it easier and easier to do.

“Are you okay?”  My wife had come up and touching my arm, brought me from the side of my dad back to the driveway of my home. 

Each Day - A poem

EACH DAY

If I awake each day with a song

Each day with a song

Then what should I sing?

Should I sing to the Creator

To the Creator

If so what should I ask?

Should I ask for Guidance

For guidance

To guide me where?

I find myself floating at times

At times

In a fog of Confusion

The confusion leads me in circles

Circles that lead me back to the Creator

Who guides me to ask for a song

Each day

The Day After

Well we all apparently dodged the bullet...another 9/11 day of mourning put to bed yesterday and no attack on the country again.

Pleased to see the Washington team beat the Cowboys.  Not that I like either one, but Turner Classic Movies always shows Cowboy and Indian movies where the Indians get whipped.

Heading into Monday lets remember to keep a positive attitude, be happy for your families and friends and say a prayer for those in harms way around the world... not just on "our" side of the flag but for the other side as well.  I sometimes wonder what would happen if death really took a holiday and no combatant or civilian died. Do you ever think about that?

The "Franken-fish" issue is going to have to be addressed.  As soon as I can find it, I will post the picture that Cheri did of this elusive and dangerous critter so you can see what we are facing. In the mean tine visit some of the petition sites that are involved and read up on this GMO issue.  It is getting to the point where nothing that is of "true native" stock will be left...it will all be hybridized, mutations of the originals that will, eventually, come back to haunt us.

Getting ready to head to DC for a day and a half (not on my dime) so I may not be on line but remember that I appreciate all my friends and those of you who stop by the bunkhouse for these few minutes each day so have a good evening, a great Monday and a swell week ahead.

September 11, 2010

Lots of stuff written this week and today about the towers and the folks who were responsible etc.  Not much written about the actions of leadership here and there, national day of mourning and all.

I add my words for the people lost that day and for the rescue people who are dying today because of the effects of the toxins they breathed in looking for survivors, then remains, then evidence, then general clean-up of the site.  Not much mention of these folks in the memorializing of the towers.  I hate to think that we will lose more of the brave people who went in after the collapse and now face uncertain futures than were originally lost in 2001.

America seems to like memorializing things, remember the Alamo, Remember Pear Harbor, remember this or that, it doesn't really matter what it is, we just want to remember and then get pissed off all over again. The folks, not even those who lost someone at "ground zero" (and let me tell you there have been a lot of ground zeros), are up in arms about a Muslim center planned for that area.  I have seen people likening this to the Japanese building a shrine or center at Pearl Harbor...like the Japanese haven't already done that...just look around Oahu folks. They are so up in arms in fact that one guy wants his church to burn the Muslim bible...that'll show 'em, because as we know it was ALL Muslims who took the planes and crashed them...yeah right..all of one faith, race or whatever was responsible so we will burn their book to prove a point - They won't do that again.

I get tired of watching the news so I switch to cartoons and you know what? The cartoon people remind me of the Limbaugh's and Hannitys and Blitzer's and Sanchez' of the world.  They get a bug up their collective butts and just have to pick and poke at it until everyone is up in arms, or like me, disgusted by watching them dig at their butts like they have worms until we switch to the cartoons.

I like John Stewart on the Daily Show, he talks about the news the way I do, looking at the absurdity of the situation that has been blown way out of proportion or buried in so much bull sh=t that you can't tell what the original problem was. But, like Stewart, I always remember that there were injuries and hurts and harms that need to be remembered.  Remember Pearl Harbor, remember the Alamo, Remember 9/11..this is fine but remember the results of and actions that lead into and out of the situation, look with clear eyes and don't repeat what caused the action by burying the future in the dirt you used to bury the dead of the past.

I hope that you spent the day in some reflective mood and that this isn't a downer for you so I will close with a joke:


A Rabbi, a Priest, an Imam and a duck walk into a bar - and the bartender says "What is this? A Joke?"

See you tomorrow.

Just the other side of nowhere...

So the dawn is still in the east, I am ready to move and now wait for my traveling companions to get up and get ready.
The coffee tastes good as I sit here alone in the bunkhouse, looking over the piles of mail and messages that came in while I was in Oregon.  I have two choices today: I can get some stuff out of the way by culling through the letters and chucking the ones that are just a PITA, thereby saving me time later to deal with the ones that are important, or I can type this blog entry which by my calculation, will allow me to procrastinate a bit longer.  Hmmmmmm...what to do what to do.

I feel like I am on the other side of nowhere sometimes because I see the good that my colleagues are doing; films produced or at least filmed and ready to edit, books and thesis' written, trips made and actual people who can make a change visited with, community meeting held where the communities care enough to come out. Of course I see the dumb-sh*t things people do as well.  Case in point -

I read the paper (on-line version) about the "preacher" in Florida who wants to burn the Muslim bible, then decided not to because he "was promised" by a person who probably did not have the juice to promise spit to this guy, that they would move the proposed mosque/community center away from "ground zero" in New York (not Florida by the way).  He later learned that this was not the case so he "may go ahead and burn" the q'urons anyway.  This bunghole is playing with a major can of gas that may explode in the face of you and me. And, as I sit here on the other side of nowhere, wonder how in the frak did a little preacher man become such a catalyst for destruction?  Are there really that many people in America who just can't get enough of gloom, doom and destruction that they have to court it? And are there really that many lemmings who will blindly follow this goof off the cliff?

Being here in the bunkhouse allows me time to reflect on the crap that swirls around outside and I am worried.  We are headed to Sacramento today for a meeting with one of the politicos we bother now and then to drum up support for a salmon restoration project and a freedom of religion issue.  We will also deliver some "newly-used" clothing to our friends in the Indian Health center there.  The visit to the center will, I hope be appreciated, the other may be a bother to our host but necessary.  At least we aren't threatening to burn any books (although that might get us an audience with folks up the food chain).  Nah, can't do that but it is tempting some time - apparently a threat is as good as an action to stir up some emotion.  Maybe that's what I can do here, stir up your emotions and cause you to react, but in a positive way.

Either way, I'll look for you when I get back from the other side of somewhere - have a good day, I'll be looking for you tomorrow.

Another opening another show.........

I am going to try a new approach to my "blogging" activities.  As some of you may remember, I am the author of the "Winnemem Journey to Justice" or some such named blog that carried news from the Winnemem Wintu tribe and news of a personal nature to me and my immediate family.  Because that blog was being used as a vehicle for tribal information, I was reticent to get into pissing matches with people who thought they knew what I meant to say, or questioned what I said in any fashion. Tribal business is just that - business.  Things of a personal nature, such as talking about my parents and family who have passed, or stories from my youth and stories I have written that carry some measure of moral messaging or the need for reflection in action were what they professed to be - personal.


So I now will write to this blog - titled "Mark Franco's Bunkhouse Diary".  There can be no mistake in the authorship of this blog - it is Mark Franco - me.  Bunkhouse is where I work and live most of the time (as I still work on tribal issues from our tribal headquarters here in Redding), and Diary is by this definition "a record of events, transactions, or observations kept daily or at frequent intervals : journal; especially : a daily record of personal activities, reflections, or feelings.."(Merriam-Webster definition).  
I can not guarantee daily posts, but I will post, that I guarantee.


There are so many things to talk about and I will talk about them: q'uran burning, police shootings, violence in the streets, the failings of governments and the pillage and raping of the earth at the hands of greedy bastards who are worse than the carpetbaggers who vexed the South following the war.


I am a fan of music and of composers both classical and contemporary; I am a fan of theater and a fan of life and laughter so I will talk in those terms as well.  Another opening, another show - words from Irving Berlin's "Annie get your Gun".  Ethel Merman is singing in my ears as I write this and I am happy, knowing that we may have the start of something big, and fun, and pithy and worth reading/writing.


More later, take care my friends and I will see you in the funny papers.