In Honor of My Native American Heritage

My grandma, who was 1/2 Chinook and 1/2 Quinault Indian, used to recite this poem to me every Thanksgiving:

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
And on the bank an Indian stood
And said, "There goes the neighborhood!"

I sincerely hope no one is offended by this, but each year, I smile as I remember her and this little poem. You see, those of us who are younger don't really remember a time with such blatant discrimination as my grandma experienced. I don't know exactly what year she was born because she lied about her age so much that none of us really knew (Go Grandma!), but if I were to guess, I'd say she was probably born around 1915 or so. I know she was divorced when my mom was five, and then she married my grandpa sometime around 1955. He was the President of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA), a labor union with regional offices throughout the United States and Canada.

Each year, the union had a convention in one of its five regions, three in the states and two in Canada. Shortly after my grandparents were married, a convention was scheduled for the southern states region. Sadly, there wasn't a hotel anywhere in the southern states that would allow them to stay because my grandma was Native American. My grandpa was a true pioneer in his search for social justice, not to mention his authority as President of the union and his love for my grandmother. He told the southern region that the IWA would not hold a convention there until this atrocious discrimination ended. And so it was.

I wish I knew more details. I wish I'd listened better when these stories were told. But I was so young. My grandfather recorded his life story before he died, and I have a copy. I think I will dig it out and read it again. Meanwhile, indulge me the luxury of thinking about my sweet grandma today and remembering her reciting this funny little poem.

Thankful

Several of my Facebook friends have been posting as their statuses each day in November something they are thankful for. Though I don't do this myself, I have enjoyed reading them. Some nice examples:

Rachael is thankful for sunshine. Of course I think sunshine is highly overrated, but I'm glad she likes it. She is also thankful for vaccinations. Me too! People in many third-world countries would give just about anything to have the protection for their kids that we do because of vaccinations. And she is thankful for Sundays. I used to like those a lot more before this primary calling, but the good news is that no calling lasts forever, and each Sunday that goes by is one Sunday closer to when I'll be released!

Elisa is thankful for her two sons who have grown up to be fine young men. I can say the same thing about my three oldest sons (Seth is still growing...) and, of course, my beautiful daughter. Elisa is also thankful for electricity. In Billings, we would often have power outages. We really have no idea how much we take the miracle of electricity for granted until we are left without it.

Sandra is thankful for friends who call, take meals, and keep her kids when she is sick. This has been an extremely difficult pregnancy for Sandra. Of course, it will all be worth it once this beautiful little girl finally makes her way to earth, but in the meantime, she is making her mommy miserable.

Anne-Marie is thankful for her mom, "the best mom you could ever ask for," she writes. Enough said.

These are just a few of my favorites. So what am I thankful for today? Let's see.

I am thankful for mild Salt Lake City winters. Goodness, by now in Montana, I was already freezing, and I wouldn't get warm again until May.

I am thankful that Eli will arrive on the Salt Lake Express shuttle tomorrow at 9:30 p.m. Can't even tell you how excited I am to have him home for five days.

I am thankful for Christmas decorations in the mall. My spirits are lifted just walking through the door.

I am thankful for the traffic jams in the mall parking lots. I know, right? But you see, I just love "everything Christmas," even traffic jams.

I am thankful for Christmas music playing on two radio stations here in Salt Lake City, so I can almost always find a song I like. The one exception was a day last week when one station was playing "Santa Baby" (ugh!) and the other was playing "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus" (double ugh!). But this is not the norm. Generally, the problem is deciding which of the two songs I like better.

I'm thankful for our lovely home and for the Webster-Monsons who live right downstairs. It is a dream come true.

I'm thankful for a 40-pound Boxer puppy, who thinks she's a lap dog and who, no matter what, is always crazy excited to see me.

I'm thankful for my students at LDS Business College. This past week has been a killer in terms of essays to grade, but now that they are finally done, I can once again be thankful for this job.

I'm thankful for Kneader's Restaurant and Bakery, both for their incredible French Toast and for the pies they will bake for my family this Thanksgiving. What a help they are to people like me who don't know how to make pies.

I'm thankful for the healing power of the Atonement, which makes possible what seems impossible.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Legacy

I have never thought of our family as having much of a legacy. We don't have a pioneer heritage. As adult converts to the Church, neither Gerald nor I can trace our ancestors back to the Saints who so courageously pulled handcarts across the plains in order to escape persecution and to seek the religious freedom on which our nation was established. As far as I know, we don't have any relatives who did that. We are first-generation Mormons, the first members of the church in our respective families. I've thought, on occasion, that perhaps we, ourselves, are the pioneers. Maybe it's our mission to lead the way for our posterity. But a legacy? I've never felt we had that.

Until today.

Today was the Primary Sacrament Program in our ward. It was Seth's eighth and final Primary Program. Did you hear that sigh? That would be me, lamenting the fact that in another year, I'll no longer have any children left in primary. No, I'm not ready for that, not at all. But ready or not, he will turn 12 in June and be ordained a Deacon and rightfully take his place in the Young Men's Program. Today, though, he was still a primary kid. Thank goodness!

Seth's part in the program came near the end. He gave a talk on the subject of missionary work. He did a lovely job; all my kids are good speakers. He talked about his oldest brother, Luke, who served in the Oregon Portland Mission from 2006-2008. He talked about his "newest" brother, Mathew, who served in the very same mission at the very same time! And he talked about his big brother, Eli, who is currently working on filling out his papers in hopes of submitting them next month in preparation for his 19th birthday in March. Finally, he talked about answering his own mission call one day in the [very distant!] future.

As Seth spoke, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for these great examples in our family. I began to think that perhaps we do have a legacy after all, or at least the start of one. We have begun a legacy of honorable missionary service. How many more missionaries will come from our family and our extended family? I have no idea. Many, I would guess.

So though we may not have a pioneer heritage, I am thankful for the personal legacy we are building. Thank you, Seth, for your talk today which reminded me of this.

Two Words

Two Words: Christmas Music

Playing

On

My

Car

Radio

TODAY!

Okay, I understand that many people, maybe even you, don't like Christmas music this soon. "It's too early," many people feel. We should wait until at least Thanksgiving. Otherwise, perhaps Thanksgiving will be over-shadowed entirely. I get this. Really, I do. I understand. But this year, well, it's been a tough week. I'm really tired. I'm stressed. That makes it hard to sleep restfully, which makes me even more tired. Vicious cycle. And I just love Christmas music. So much. It brings me so much joy. So today, when I got in my car after teaching my Friday classes and jumped on the freeway into horrific traffic, imagine my excitement when I turned on the radio and found continuous, glorious Christmas music! It was exactly what I needed. I am thankful to 106.5 here in Salt Lake City for pretty much making my whole day. This lovely music will continue all the way till Christmas.

Add to that the extra hour of much-needed sleep we get this Sunday night, and I feel better already.

Halloween

I almost titled this "The Worst Halloween Ever" in honor of Seth's sentiment two years ago here or last year here. Seth loves Halloween. I love it because he loves it. This year, I'm pretty sure he had an equally wonderful holiday as the previous two years, and for that I am grateful. But for me, it was just a terrible day. Seriously. Sucky. Day. In every way. I almost decided against blogging the holiday at all; generally, I try to be positive in these posts, lighthearted, happy, upbeat. It's difficult right now to be any of those things. However, I've read criticism of what is lovingly known as the "Bloggernacle," a group of blogs by LDS women (mainly), who write about their lives, their families, and their faith. The criticism is that their blogs are just too happy. No one can be that delighted all the time, especially with the mundane circumstances of daily life. While I don't exactly think of this blog as part of the "bloggernacle" (I write about religions topics only occasionally), I wouldn't want to be accused of sugar coating my life in these posts, never dealing with anything less than perfect.

So here I am, two days after what was probably the worst Halloween ever. I'm struggling. It was even hard to keep my spirits (pun intended) up long enough to be "scared" by Seth's Scream mask with the blood circulating through the face, or to walk with him throughout our neighborhood as he collected a pillow case full of candy. It was hard, but I did it. And he had fun, and that's what counts.

In attempt to end this post on a happy note, may I tell you a non-Halloween story that will make you laugh? Last weekend, Shulamith and I kidnapped Seth and took him to Las Vegas for the live show featuring last season's finalists from his favorite show "America's Got Talent." Yes, I hate the grammatical construction of that show's title, but I enjoyed the performers, and Seth followed the show regularly all season. After the performance, we were sitting at Planet Hollywood waiting to order our very late dinner, when Seth returned from the bathroom. He declared: "That bathroom was so weird; it didn't have any stalls. It only had kernels. "

It took us a second or two to make sense of his comment, but once we did, we could not contain our laughter. Are you laughing already?