Custer’s Last Stand and the Twilight of the Sioux

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The Battle of the Little Big Horn (or Custer’s Last Stand) took place on June 25th and 26th of 1876, 132 years ago this week. When I was a boy one of my cousins had a huge painting on the wall of his bedroom depicting some artist’s rendition of Custer’s Last Stand. I didn’t visit there too often, but I was always fascinated by the picture, and would spend a long time studying it each time, moving out from the main action — Custer standing tall in his buckskins and with saber raised in one hand while the other held his pistol reversed like a club — to the other desperate confrontations that spread edge to edge across the canvas; Indians swarming and shooting, soldiers falling, some already stripped or being scalped. It was a rendering from the artist’s imagination, of course, but it obviously fired an interest in me for the history of the battle. Something about the desperateness and the inevitable defeat also had an impact on a young mind that until that time had seen only glorious images of warfare.

Later when I was in college I took a series of elective courses “taught” by author, poet and historian John G. Niehardt. Niehardt had been dead for a few years by the time I took the classes, but the University of Missouri had filmed his lectures and used these and his books as the source material. We read his classics, Black Elk Speaks and When the Tree Flowered, and his epic poem, Twilight of the Sioux (nearly 300 pages!) which included Indian accounts of the battle of the “Greasy Grass” and later the messianic millenarianism of the Ghost Dance movement. It was a fascinating diversion from my other studies and while I didn’t (and don’t) embrace the attractive mythology of the “Noble Savage” as some might have, it did help me picture the humanity of the Sioux and other Plains Indians, with all the good and bad that comes with that.

A few years ago my family took a two-week, multi-state driving vacation across the West and I at last had the opportunity to visit the famous battleground in Montana. After having heard and read (and seen so many bad movies) of the battle I was expecting to be a little underwhelmed by the reality. Instead I was mesmerized by how well the area had been preserved and made into a national park. You can follow a road from place to place throughout the battlefield, easily following the course of the battle across the bluffs and ravines of the valley of the Big Horn. The 7th Cavalry soldiers were buried where they fell when the other troops arrived two days after the battle. When the bodies were recovered a few years later for re-burial, individual markers were placed for each, in some cases even providing the name and rank of the man who fell there.

Because the battleground is so preserved you can understand how manageable the size of the Indian camp (obscured by a stand of trees) may have appeared to Custer from his initial vantage point, and experience for yourself (almost) the shock Reno had to of felt when he led his force along the river and around those trees only to suddenly see thousands of teepees. Besides the soldiers’ markers, historians have also been able to survey the battleground in detail after a massive grass fire cleared the area down to the ground in the 1980s, revealing artifacts and human remains and even making it possible to track individual weapons (identified by their spent cartridge casings) as they moved around the field. You can follow the main body of Custer’s troops after the initial attack as they fought their way westward along a ridge (individual markers along the way) to “Custer Hill”, the site of the the famous “last stand” where they fell to the last man.


The last stand on Custer Hill. Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s marker is the one with the black background.

The day we were there it was incredibly hot; the car thermometer registered an outside temperature of 105 degrees. My wife and daughters were more interested in staying in the car than in understanding the place. Frankly, I could feel the sweat rolling down my face and between my should-blades as I stood at various locations, but I couldn’t help but feel the weight of the history as well as I slowly turned my head to scan each panorama, picturing myself in the midst of the markers, seeing nothing but roiling clouds of dust and Sioux surrounding me. It’s mind-bending (or it could have been incipient heat stroke). I highly recommend making the stop if you’re ever in the vicinity.

I’ll also recommend the video below. The song is “The Song of Crazy Horse” and is from an album that I had in college. The ballad itself took up the whole first side of the album, and is only excerpted in this video, though it was obviously created with some love by the YouTube submitter. The song has always stirred me, even though some of the lyrics aren’t up to the caliber of the story. The imagery, however, and certain musical passages have long been grooved in my memory. It’s certainly not one of the better chapters of our history (and I don’t mean the battle itself) but it’s certainly worth remembering, even 132 years later.

Gone into the night

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by the Night Writer

When my wife became a police chaplain we knew we could expect some tense calls in the middle of the night since chaplains are commonly called on for death notifications. We didn’t expect that the first call she received would be for someone we know.

Joe was the kind of guy for whom guardrails were invented. Life had thrown him a few curves and he had a tendency to get a little wide through these at times, drifting out on the edges where the traction can be treacherous. The same age as me, he was whippet thin and had a look about his eyes that suggested a dog that had been kicked too many times. There was no doubt he had been.

Kick a dog, or a man, often enough and he can get mean. That wasn’t Joe. There was still a level of optimism, trust and forgiveness in him despite all that he had been through. Some of it was the rub-your-neck admission of the things he knew he had brought on himself, and some of it was a faith that things were inevitably going to get better. He loved his wife, he loved his kids, he loved riding his motorcycle.

His father left home when Joe was two; he didn’t see him again for more than 30 years. Once when he had had the opportunity and inclination to do the same thing he pointed his bike toward the open road, but couldn’t, wouldn’t do it. Bad company and bad choices had often been his reality, but there had also been a share of good choices when he said, “I’m turning around.”

Including that most important time, that time when he looked into Hell and said, “I’m turning around.”

Monday night was a lovely night for a ride, and one of the few things he could afford right now. He and a friend set out into the darkness and at some point he found one last, non-metaphorical guard rail. His shattered wrist watch said 12:15. Our phone rang not long after. Another chaplain had received the original call-out and gone to the house, but when he arrived Joe’s wife had asked for Marjorie.

Today a wisp of a song played through my mind, over and over. An older song, sung by someone who shares my name, called “Midnight Wind”.

There are dreams that fly in the midnight wind
Souls that cry in the midnight wind
Lovers who try in the midnight wind
You and I in the midnight wind

Sometimes…you can see, feel the edge coming. And sometimes it drops away from you without warning. You, and I, in the midnight wind.

Whoa-ooh here it comes: The Manival #9

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Wouldn’t you just know it, it’s the shortest night of the year and I’m hosting Manival #9. What does the summer solstice have to do with anything? Well, since I’m the Night Writer, that means this is the shortest window of opportunity for me all year — and there were 36 entries into this week’s carnival to be read, reviewed, accepted or rejected!

I’ve tried to make it easier for readers to sort through these by organizing the posts into categories and providing a brief description of each article (or maybe just to prove that I read them all). There are 22 linked here; the ones that were excluded were also interesting and well-written but were eliminated for one of two reasons. 1) Multiple submissions from the same blogger (I didn’t know until I hosted that the Manival limits you to one post per person per week). 2) The topic was interesting, but not “manly” enough; that is, the topic was general enough to be relevant for a large audience, but not specifically geared toward men. That sounds arbitrary (because it is), but hey — my week, my call.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
I was having a tough time picking a favorite from so many worthy entries but, wouldn’t you know, the last entry under the wire blew me away. Man Up: Power by Corey at The Simple Marriage Project. Read it first, or read it last, and see if you don’t agree.

PARENTING
On the parenting front, David B. Bohl examines The Difference Between a Dad and a Father on his Slow Down Fast blog.

Tony Chen gets “in the zone” with Tiger Woods and I are Pretty Similar over at SavvyDaddy.

Charlie Kondek goes from Thomas the Tank Engine to “Infinity and Beyond” in examining how his son is learning to distinguish good and evil in Daddy, What Does Evil Mean? at Virile Lit.

Totally Consumed is totally touching in Father to Son: an open letter on leadership.

Dad of Divas offers the thoughtful post Time In a Bottle, reminding us that no one has yet figured out how to get that time to stay in the bottle.

Babbo examines the dark twists on the path to enlightenment in his post Was Buddha a Schmuck? over at Daddy Brain.

Oh boy, just in time for the Solstice, Derek offers 10 Things To Do With Your Kids This Summer from the Man Page. (The article link works fine, just don’t try to go directly to his blog’s home page because the stupid Bill Engvall audio file will crash your browser – or at least it did to mine, repeatedly. But I’m not bitter. Update: Derek fixed the site, click away).

Inspired by these, I’ll link to one of my older posts about a painful, but valuable, lesson my daughters and I learned in Duty is Ours. Results are God’s.

GUY STUFF & MANLINESS
Looking to beat a manly retreat from the hustle and bustle of daily life? James Hills has a series of posts on “Man Trips” or “mancations”, including a review and interview regarding a Stogies and Sticks golf package at the Arizona Biltmore, on his Man Tripping blog.

Dr. Awesome keeps the Male Bag, I mean, Mail Bag, open with another advice column, this time on the topic of what qualify as manly Careers. (Advance warning, male hairdressers may want to start calling themselves “hair wranglers”.) You can check it out on To Every Man a Manswer.

I think you can expect Russ to fully accept any bouquets or brickbats that might come his way from his Accepting Responsibility post over on Escaping Enlightenment.

Doug Rutter asks a question: do you want to “have” kids or “raise” kids in his post Koke has Man Shoes on his self-named blog.

Kevin submitted a couple of good selections for this week’s Manival, but I chose his tribute to Tim Russert, not because of it’s timeliness but because the inspiration Kevin received is timeless. (While you’re on the Return to Manliness blog you might want to look around for his “Top 10 First Date Conversations.”)

With a blog named Stormbringer’s Thunder, and his own straight-forward manly name, you can be sure Bob has little time for sissies in his post What About the Guys? (Bob seems like the kind of guy who never got in touch with his feminine side, probably because of a restraining order it took out on him).

Dustin at dBlogit gave me two posts to choose from and I selected Why Men Hate Chick Flicks And How to Avoid Watching Them. Though some of his criticisms of chick-flick cliches could also apply to more manly buddy-type action flicks, the clincher is he also offers great escapes for when a chick-flick appears inevitable.

There’s a reason the classic TV show Home Improvement featured tools prominently: tools are manly. Andrew from Primer magazine submits a list of the 10 Tools Every Man Should Have, so make sure you’ve got what it takes.

MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIPS
The Manival has a fine tradition of including “How To” posts. This week Cory Huff has some great advice on “how to shoot yourself in the foot” with The Ultimate Guide To Winning An Argument With Your Spouse at A Good Husband.

A wise man I know often says, “You can be happy, or you can be right.” Hayden Tompkins carves a trail for you over similar ground in How to De-Escalate Your Marriage at Persistent Illusion.

I beg your pardon; may I suggest you read Use Your Manners by A Husband on the I Am Husband blog? Thank you.

OTHERS
Andrew Scotchmer has to literally walk the talk (or talk the walk) as he uncovers the benefits of becoming bilingual in Do You, Parlez-Vous? at Complete Kaizen. (And no, GSL – Grunting as a Second Language – doesn’t count).

GP offers a great photo and a reflection that dreams — and grace — do come true in a post entitled Zen of the West.

If you’d like to be part of Manival #10 submit your blog article using the Manival submission form.

The zero lottery

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by the Night Writer

A few weeks ago my wife and I were playing golf with some folks from New Jersey, lifelong East-coasters enjoying a little of the Midwestern experience. During the round a tornado siren went off, startling and somewhat confusing our guests, who wanted to know what the siren was for.

“It’s either a tornado warning or lightening in the vicinity,” I said, as I matter-of-factly dialed the clubhouse on my cellphone to get more details since the day was still clear and sunny. Ultimately it turned out that this warning was related to the storm that delivered a deadly tornado on the town of Hugo, MN, a dozen miles away from where we were. As we played golf we saw the skies darken and the ominous clouds coming, remarkably, from opposite directions. It was pretty much standard summer fare for my wife and I (we didn’t know until later that evening of the net effects of the storm), but our friends from Jersey seemed to find it rather amazing that people live in a place where deadly storms are a routine part of your existence.

Of course, Nature (as far as we know) hasn’t sworn to wipe us out.

I thought of this example the other day as I read Yaacov Ben Moshe’s post from Breath of the Beast entitled Welcome to Sderot.

Sderot is an Israeli town within range of Hamas rockets and the victim of the leadership policies of both the Israeli government and that of Hamas that requires a macabre calculus of acceptable losses that keeps both groups of leaders in power … while killing Jewish civilians. Hamas knows that launching rockets on a slow but steady basis, but killing only a few at a time will maintain its political power base with the jihadis, satisfy its foreign sponsors, while not seriously exposing itself to all out countermeasures from Israel.

Simultaneously, Israel’s government tacitly accepts a handful of deaths as being below the threshold of requiring dramatic and deadly response, knowing that it will be pilloried by foreign public opinion and seen as the aggressor if it does so. Ben Moshe cites JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) Report 781:

“For Hamas, the key is to keep the rocket attacks below an understood threshold and Israel’s response will be tolerable, precise and produce minimal collateral (Palestinian) damage. The Hamas pattern is to fire one, two or three rockets at Sderot. Wait a few days and do it again. Injure two, three, four Israelis. Kill one or two, but not more than that – this week. Increase the range and accuracy of the rockets incrementally. Hit Ashkelon, but just once. Then wait. Hit a shopping center, but if no one is killed, the Israeli response is unlikely to threaten Hamas rule. If Israel does retaliate, the world will probably be more annoyed by the “disproportionate response” than the original rocket attack.”

Ben Moshe continues:

As I was reading, though, something was bothering me. I was still stuck on the seemingly more limited issue of the terror involved. Who are these people who are being killed by the rockets? How do they live knowing that, only if some, unspecified number of them of them are killed and maimed, will their government be moved to do something about the terror under which they live? This dangerous and painful situation is only partially a product of the Arab/Islamist dream of annihilation of Israel. It is made possible by a combination of ruthless internal enemies (e.g. the far left peace movement), clueless dupes (e.g. Olmert, Livni, et al) and shortsighted erstwhile foreign “friends” who do not understand the reality of the threat. This motley assortment of fools and instigators hold Israel’s defense establishment, her regard for her own citizens and, indeed, her very moral, civic, ethical and intellectual integrity hostage.

His point, or part of it, is that the Israeli government has decided that the greater good for the country, or for itself, is to sacrifice a few for the perceived benefit of the many. Ben Moshe’s thoughts as he dwelt on this lead to a chilling analogy:

When Shirley Jackson’s famous short story The Lottery was first published sixty years ago in the June 26, 1948 edition of The New Yorker magazine, it set off the most violent reaction the magazine had ever experienced. In the story, the reader is gradually drawn into a nightmare- as what seems to be a “normal” American farming village gathers for some sort of annual community gathering. There is a lottery involved and little by little it becomes apparent that it is a “selection process”. The reader’s curiosity gives way to bemusement as the author quietly seeds in ominous details that build a sense of foreboding. Then, near the end of the story there is a sudden shift to horror when we realize that the “slightly too” nonchalant dialogue and mysterious references have been leading up to the revelation of a sacrificial rite. One person in the community is chosen by lottery to be stoned to death- sacrificed for “the good of all”.

It is little wonder that the story caused the explosion of controversy that it did. A scant three years after World War II, the cataclysmic battle against totalitarianism, here was a story that hinted that the enemy was not dead, but could lie ever so close beneath the surface in the most unlikely of places. Is this lottery totalitarianism? I think it is. It is a society that holds itself hostage in a suicide pact. The eerily believable rationalization that the lottery must be carried out because the welfare of the group is everything- the individual is nothing- is the brutal signature of fascism.

The weird, unconvincing quality of the “reason” that stoning one member of the community to death is “for the good of all” is also a dead giveaway. It is true that an oblique reference to the sacrifice having a good effect on the corn is made but there is a dispiriting vagueness about it and nobody seems to endorse it convincingly. In fact, the agricultural pretext is really irrelevant. The central drama of The Lottery is the absence of individual human value. In my post about Islamofascism, I quoted Louis Menand (ironically, writing in the New Yorker), “official ideology can be, and usually is, absurd on its face, and known to be absurd by the leaders who preach it.” This is another hallmark of totalitarian systems. These lottery victims are the moral equivalent of suicide bombers, human shields and hostages. They have no power to achieve anything. Their own genuine emotions and aspirations are anathema to the system in which they live. Only their annihilation is of value. Every one of them is a martyr- most of them just aren’t dead yet. They are, in every sense imaginable, dead men walking.

…The people of Sderot listen for the sirens all day and all night 365 days a year and all must wonder if today is the day that a rocket will come through the ceiling in a busy dining hall or a kindergarten classroom or a high school auditorium and finally be “enough” to force the government to use the power it has always had- but may not always retain- to eliminate the threat. They wait for the government to act. They pray for the rest of the world to recoil in horror. They face each day with bravery and hope. Just like the people in Jackson’s story, they are hostages.

Ben Moshe goes on to remark on Muslim mathematicians having developed the concept of zero, observing with grim irony that, “…at least under the most fundamental application of their religion-as-political-system, zero is the human condition.”

If there was outrage in 1948 over the publication of that short story, how could there not be outrage today when an Israeli government dares Hamas to kill one more Israeli and see what happens and when they do, dares them to kill another one. Over and over again the children of Sderot draw lots and when one of them is torn apart by ball bearings or has a leg blown off, what happens? Is it somehow “for the good of all” that they suffer?

Is it too far a leap to suggest that, of all the grim ironies, the most insidious is that of the West’s blindness to its own willingness to trade blood for peace, to cutting off fingers and feeding them to dogs under the table so as not to upset the place-settings?

Do you believe that it is about The Nakba or The Occupation or The Settlements? Do you allow yourself the fantasy that there is a way to stop the madness- a sacrifice big enough to satisfy this ravenous cult?

Then what did the innocent victims die for on 9/11- or Madrid- or London- the Darfur? This is part of the same grotesque lottery that has been going on for 1500 years. In spite of the sacrifice of the innocent victims of 9/11, it is all too easy for us to deny that we are hostages too, but those “zero beings” from the Islamist void will not be happy to delete only Israel. They have “selected” them for annihilation first but it is nothing personal, you understand, just a sacrifice to prove there is no value to human life. There is no value to anything that does not affirm the spiritual vacuum of Islamism. It is not because they worship Allah, nor is it is that they believe Mohammed was a prophet. It is that they believe that he was the only prophet, that they know the absolute truth and that it is their mission to ignore (and destroy) all evidence to the contrary. If you believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they will not rest until they destroy you too.

The Jihadists are not interested in cease-fires or peace. They are happy to tell you what they want. They want the world to live under Shari’a law. They believe that anyone that doesn’t want that is sub-human and deserves to be killed. This is nothing less than another confrontation with the evil of fascist, totalitarianism, and that is a beast whose hunger cannot be sated with souls, nor can its thirst be slaked with blood. The lottery they are holding is to determine not if you will be destroyed but when you will be destroyed. We are all citizens of Sderot- its just that most of us don’t know it yet.

This type of post is hardly my forte. Grasping the political, economic and military realities of this situation is something my friend Jeff Kouba does much better than I. I know, however, that Yaacov Ben Moshe is hardly an unbiased observer, or without his own agenda. Even discounting for his perspective, I still finding myself counting my fingers.

Something Manly This Way Comes

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I’ve been asked to play host to Manival #9 next week. Use the link here if you have a post from your blog that you’d like to share that has insight, humor or edification (or all three!) on the ways of men. You need to send these to me by Monday, as the Manival rides on Tuesday!

I’ve found a lot of new and interesting blogs by participating in this carnival. It’s been surprising and encouraging to see how many men are using their talents and keyboards to inform, entertain and encourage other men and women. Apparently I’m not the only one that has noticed. The Pioneer Press ran an article this week about The Art of Manliness
Dad Gone Mad
Gunfighter: A Modern Warrior’s Life
A Good Husband
The Man Page
The Simple Marriage Project
DaddyBrain
To Every Man a Manswer
I Am Husband
Stormbringer’s Thunder
Manmail

Adventures in railroading, #2

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Okay, Wednesday night I had to stay late at work. A couple of big projects that are due, another project that had started to come down around my ears, AND I have to have my office packed up by the end of this week for the move to the “summer residence” while our normal space is remodeled. So I was checking emails and chucking stuff into boxes and keeping an eye on the post-rush hour LRT schedule, when the train starts to come every 15 minutes.

Here’s a difference between being able to walk out to your car and having to fit a precise schedule: I was about ready to leave, with enough time to walk to the station for my desired departure, when it occurred to me that I needed to do one more quick thing; it would only take a minute. Well, two. Out I hustled, walking briskly to the Nicollet Mall station, only to see the south-bound LRT pull up to and depart the station as I was crossing 4th St. In honor of a movie coming out any day now I’ll say, “Missed it by that much.”

Oh well, it was a pleasant evening, still light out and so I took the latest Sue Grafton mystery out of my briefcase and sat down on the skateboard-resistant concrete ornamental barrier for my fourteen and a half minute wait.

Can I get an Amen?

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I’m teaching this weekend at Inside Outfitters, so I’ve got to do some work on my message. As such, no posting tonight other than to let you know that Manival #8 is up and running over at The Man Page.

Some of this week’s contributions include a post on How to Have Toe-Curling Sex; Decreasing Your Likelihood of Being Hit by a Meteor; Golfing Your Way to a Promotion; and What Parenting Has Taught Me About Copywriting. There’s also a post from a blog called “Dad of Divas” that you just know I’m going to have to check out.

You should, too.

Adventures in rail-roading

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I’ve pretty much worked out the logic behind converting my commute to a Park & Ride/LRT combo (see last week’s post). Unfortunately, I can’t get out of my parking contract until the end of July, even if average global temperatures jump 10 degrees. I decided, however, that before I jump through that flaming bureaucratic hoop I better make sure I’m committed.

Now I have a pretty good imagination, and I’m far from inexperienced when it comes to using public transportation on a regular basis. The fact is, however, that I haven’t used the bus for years. The possibility remains that there might be some noxious experiences on the LRT that I haven’t imagined or anticipated that might make the overall cost savings seem ultimately insignificant. Hence, I decided to take the LRT every day this week to further field test my new plan before giving notice of canceling my parking at the end of the month.

This morning: everything was fine and dandy. A beautiful, soft morning in June.

This evening: There were plenty of seats to choose from when I boarded at the Nicollet Mall stop. I chose one of the somewhat elevated seats and proceeded to dig out my newspaper from my briefcase. Two tattooed teenage girls got on and sat in the seats diagonally behind me. One had some music device that was playing hip-hop loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the car. I thought the current fashion in music devices was to wall yourself off in a socially autistic manner inside your iPod earbuds. This was definitely audible, however. Perhaps it was indeed an iPod, but cranked so loud it could be heard outside the ‘buds. She may have turned it up so she could hear it over the volume of the conversation she was having with her friend. It was not a comely conversation. Everyone else, however, seemed to be pretty much ignoring it, so I tried to create my urban shell around myself and do the same. I had a strong hunch these young ladies were on their way to the Mall of America which, unfortunately, was past my stop. As it turns out, my stop was indeed before theirs.

As I got out up to disembark it crossed my mind to say something mean to our would-be entertainers. Based on their grammar, their language, and the nature of what they were listening to, however, I decided their lives were already going to be hard enough without me piling on.

I can’t wait to see (or hear) what tomorrow’s commute bring.

Some things I just don’t understand

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[Closed circuit to the Reverend Mother: this is one you’re not going to want to read.]

This is a pretty grim topic, but I saw a stunning story on CNN today about a man who beat a toddler to death as onlookers tried unsuccessfully to get him to stop; ultimately the man had to be shot and killed by police called to the scene. Further details from later reports indicated that it was a 27-year-old Turlock, California man who beat, kicked, shook, threw and stomped on his two-year-old son.

The first people who came upon the scene were an elderly couple in their 70s who couldn’t physically intervene though they tried to confront the man. Another man who drove by on the rural road was a 52-year-old volunteer fire fighter, who said he was pushed away by the father. Someone called the police and a helicopter happened to be already in the air in the vicinity and it landed in a cow pasture near the assault. Unfortunately the chopper landed on the wrong side of an electrified and barbed wire fence. A deputy who got out of the helicopter was able to get within 10 feet of the attacker and ordered the man to stop. When the man gave the deputy the finger and continued to kick the boy the deputy shot him in the forehead.

The story is certainly bizarre in terms of the savageness of the attack, but there are other unusual circumstances as well. The place where this occurred was on an a rural road, late on Saturday night. Police said it was unusual so many cars drove by the rather isolated spot, and I have to wonder how common it is to have a helo already up and in the area when the calls came in.

I think just reading this has to leave you shocked and outraged so I have to imagine that those on the scene had to be especially off-balance and sickened by what they were seeing. I want to be clear that I place no blame or criticism on anyone but the “father” in what happened, but I also can’t help but wonder what could possibly have kept me from rushing in and using whatever force I could muster to stop such an onslaught. Of course, most of us will never know how we’d react in a sudden and desperate situation unless we were suddenly dropped into it. I know I’ve been in my share of scrapes and physical confrontations in my life in which I’d gotten pretty angry, but nothing near as dire as this. I know I’d been in a crisis situation before and had kept my head, but never in circumstances so evil.

When it comes down to it, I can’t say what I would have done in this situation. I know what I would have liked to have done, however.

Scenes from a weekend: how a MOBster celebrates Fathers Day

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This was a very full weekend. It started off with my family getting to meet a new-to-us family member, my grandmother’s great-niece (not sure what the proper term is — 2nd, 3rd, 4th-cousin?), and fine young woman named DeShae who is spending the summer in Minneapolis with the Youth Works ministry. This has been a season for meeting extended family, as my wife’s cousin from New Mexico has two grown daughters currently in the Twin Cities as well who we’ve enjoyed having over to the house. We’re hoping we can have all these lovely young ladies over at the same time.

That will be a good-sized group but still small compared to the crowd that turned out for the first annual Father’s Day party hosted by Chief. Besides the opportunity to see many of our MOB friends it gave us the opportunity to give Kevin Ecker his birthday present. Somehow or another, Kevin had gotten the crazy idea that my wife had bought him a howitzer.

Admittedly, that would have been pretty cool, if a bit difficult to gift wrap. Instead my wife had picked up something that made her think of Kevin the moment she set eyes on it.

Unfortunately we couldn’t stay late at the party because we had to head up to to Brainerd Saturday evening in order to be on hand to conduct the chapel service during the opening weekend at the Parker Boy Scout Camp. Instead of staying at the camp we stayed at my brother-in-law’s nearby lake cabin. It’s quite cozy, but surrounded by hordes of hungry mosquitos. We grabbed our bags from the car and made a mad dash to get inside but a couple of dozen of the little blood-suckers made it in the door with us. It could have been a long night, but my daughters decided it was a suitable time to give me my Father’s Day gift: the bug bat I had said I wanted a little while back. It looks like a badminton racket, but in place of strings it has wires that you can electrify by pressing a button on the handle. What a fly or a mosquito (or perhaps a parakeet) and ZZZZZTT! — instant crispy critter. I, of course, got to try it out first and if you think my maniacal glee was a bit effusive you should have heard the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly! “Hahlo, I am the Mall Diva, you bit my sister. Prepare to die!” I christened (actually, you shouldn’t get it wet) the newest addition to our arsenal as “Old Sparky”. This morning we again had to run the gauntlet to the car, during which many more skeeters tried to come along for the ride. The Diva was on the job, however!

The chapel service went great, though we were almost late due to having to take some unexpected detours. The Reverend Mother had planned to do a specific message for this morning, but with the news of the scout camp in Iowa getting hit by a tornado last week (killing four scouts), she decided on a different approach, including a special song by the Mall Diva. She once again was able to work the flash paper into her short message and it went over famously, as always. Afterwards two of the scouts even came up to us and, in unison, shouted “Best church ever!”

After that it was time to come home and complete the Father’s Day assignment given by the Mayor of the MOB, King Banaian, in his decree, that being to grill meat. Since we know King is a vegetarian, however, we (Ben, the Diva and I) felt we needed to prepare a special course in his honor:

Finally, it was good that we had so much to do throughout the weekend since it kept me from dwelling too long on the meaning of the holiday. It was the first Father’s Day for me without my father, and there were a a few tough moments throughout the weekend when things that happened would remind me of him. I expect this will be an ongoing experience in years to come. There was another first this year as well; I got my first Father’s Day card from prospective son-in-law Ben, something I also anticipate more of in the coming years!