My Trip to the Res – Part One

Well, I’m back from Indian country.

It seems with airline seats getting smaller, me getting larger and my hernia vying for autonomy, the only good thing about travel is that is might kill me before I have to travel the next time. My oldest has learned one of the great truths in life: If you bring a potential trip up every week for a year, eventually, you will find a weak moment where I will agree to it. Then, I never hear about it again. After I’d agreed to go, I had the same feeling one gets after buying a time-share…

I’ve been a member of the Wyandotte tribe for about fifty years. It was easy to prove my lineage because my grandmother came off of the reservation in the 1930’s. Back then, the casino was a lot smaller: Just a guy with a half-dollar in his hand standing in a vacant lot who would tell passersby to “call it”. Now, we have a cultural center, gymnasium, housing, a casino and, for a short time, we had a medium-range tactical nuclear weapon the tribe had picked up at a garage sale in Belarus. Sadly, we used that missile on the Pawnee after a dispute over a shawl-dancing competition… proving the old adage, “The Pawnee Ruin EVERYTHING”…

The flights were uneventful; in fact, we were crammed in so tightly that any event that might’ve happened had to be postponed until we’d deplaned and could move our arms again. Pre-flight, I got in a line for the security check and, when I got to the front, I found out that there was a special security check line for people who qualified and I also found out that I wasn’t qualified. I got in the right line and when I got to the front, I found out that I’d never gotten my boarding pass. So, I went to the desk and got the boarding pass and got into another security line and found that it was ANOTHER special security line. After another wait in the normal line, I got the usual x-ray, wanding, groping and explosives check. What I like best about the groping is they talk to you the whole time as if they are on a sex line. “Okay, I’m squeezing your buttocks, now. Moving down your legs. You are SO turned on right now. What do you want to do to ME?”…

My two boys had been at the reservation for the previous week and the Green Corn Ceremony. Green Corn marks the beginning of the harvest of corn, which American Indians call “Maize”, moonshiners call “mash” and the really confused call “Paul”. I had to choose between that ceremony and the Pow-wow. I chose to attend during the Pow-wow because there would be shawl-dancing and fewer radioactive Pawnee.

The problem was getting to the “rez” from the airport: Lately, I’ve developed an almost Jerry Lewis-like ability to screw up practically anything… Let’s just say that no one says, “Hand me that saw” more than once. Where I achieve almost heroic status is in getting lost in places I’ve never been. I try using my phone but it is a flip-phone and almost useless for navigation although I still insist it has value as a sun-dial. My son wasn’t answering his phone so I got my bearings from the setting sun and started traveling what might’ve been South.

When my son called me back, it was dark and I was in full panic-mode. Think Lou Costello on a runaway tractor. Most of our conversation went like this:

“Okay, I’m on 43. What do I do?”

Son: “What’s the cross street?”

Me: “Mul… something or another”

Son: “Okay, you can turn right-”

Me: “Too late, I passed it”

And, so on. Oddly enough, I was on the right road the entire time. Eventually, I calmed down because he told me that I’d just have to turn west on another highway and the reservation would be down that road; and, I saw the welcome to Wyandotte sign so I felt like I was almost there. After a few miles, I saw the “Leaving Wyandotte” sign and panicked again. I called my son, who didn’t answer, so I turned around and went the other way… oddly enough, just a couple of miles before my destination. But, anything worth doing is worth turning into a baffling ordeal, I always say.

My oldest got me to the casino/hotel, eventually. He even checked me in. I am definitely NOT used to that kind of treatment from my boys. I think the “revere the elderly” message that the tribe espouses penetrated too deeply and he’s started to believe it. Anyway, a few minutes later, I had the truss off and was sitting in my room in my skivvies talking to my boys.

My oldest son will be teaching the beginning class in the Wyandotte language. Wyandotte will be the fourth language he’s learned. His ambition is to move to the reservation despite the fact that it is in Oklahoma. He is scholarly and inquisitive and he aspires to one day be the most pedantic person in North America. My youngest looks like what Santa Claus would’ve looked like as a young biker. His cheerful attitude is a reminder to all of us that he probably doesn’t know what is going on. I was too tired to beam with pride at that time of night, but I did get a nice glow out of one of my ears…

I had a rough sleep but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing, all night long, that the bright lights in the parking lot were working. I got up once to close the curtains but they turned out not to be the kind of curtains that closed. There was a hidden FOURTH curtain that closed that my youngest demonstrated the next day. The rooms were pretty quiet for a casino… a lot of families with children, most of whom didn’t gamble.