Fritz Häber, 16 Months in an American POW Camp by Bernd Häber (grandson) is a remarkable document of WWII history. In it, Bernd shares the complete war diary of his grandfather Fritz, born January 22, 1910, in Leipzig (40 years in GDR). The historical assessment in the Foreword by Björn Krondorfer and the commentary in the Introduction by author Bernd Häber frame up the historic context.
Surviving on Animal Farm
In May of 1945 the war was over for the Germans. Fritz Häber, an anti-aircraft unit commander, by then a father of 7 children, surrenders to the Americans in late April. He and his comrades are taken on a miserable odyssey from one gargantuan make-shift prisoner camp to another. No shelter, no clothing, barely any water or food, no sleep. Men lost strength, muscle and mind. Some didn’t survive the torturous conditions at what can be best compared to “Animal Farm.” Eventually, the situation improved and Fritz did what he knew to do best: he made himself useful. At last, in the Metz (France) POW camp he worked as mechanic/welder/blacksmith for the American military. Whatever was thrown at him, Fritz took as a learning opportunity. Being a true-to-life socialist, Fritz also noted his reflections on the wrong turns the Reich took.
Fritz Häber, as is apparent in Krondorfer’s Introduction, lived through Orwellian times. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, he plowed through his daily responsibilities like so many. But unlike the majority, he let his heart make the call whenever there was wiggle room. He never lost circumspection or humanity.
Bernd Häber & AnnElise at the Treffpunkt
The biggest lesson we can learn from Fritz’s life story: a strong conviction may always put you on the wrong side of any regime. Fritz was imprisoned in the 1930ies for being a Communist. Paradoxically or not, the Reich wanted him as a soldier anyway. In the end, Fritz ends up judged as a Wehrmacht “Nazi” prisoner. His socialist conviction would have also been troublesome with the Americans.
Disgraced Communist
Finally, the Communist party expelled Fritz as well for having been a member of a Wehrmacht shooting squad. Even Fritz’ son Herbert, who became a prominent member of the GDR Politbüro, could not get Fritz reinstated. Herbert himself fell victim to a high-power conspiracy and lost his party position. In the end, after Germany reunited, Herbert was indicted as a Politbüro member by the Berlin courts in 1990 for being responsible for several killings at the Wall. Fritz was cleared of all charges and was fully rehabilitated. Fritz and Herbert were men of strong convictions.
Different Planets
Author Bernd Häber and myself grew up on different “planets”: he in the Democratic Republic, I in the Federal Republic. Maybe we were raised on different versions of “Mitschuld.” Krondorfer in the Foreword discusses the idea of “co-responsibility” in clear terms. I learned at my Bavarian Gymnasium about “Kollektivschuld”. That “Schuld” (guilt) didn’t go away with the Marshall Plan. We kids were prompted to ask our parents: Why didn’t you do anything? They told us at least one reason why. Even listening to the wrong radio station (BBC) could get you into a concentration camp too. And yet our parents often risked their lives by flying under the radar in the name of kindness.
What about us now? Have we learned anything? When will we speak up about nations taking all the wrong turns? We should not wait until NPR becomes the “wrong” radio station.
A Tiny Piece of Blue, cast in 1934 rural Michigan in the winter months, tells the harrowing story of a dirt-poor girl abandoned by her parents to fend for herself during the Great Depression. In the course of Silstice’s struggle for survival, she comes into her own. “Silly,” technically orphaned after her parents’ house burns down, gets on with a kind farm woman, Edna, who dotes on her but who is powerless in getting her husband on board to help the kid. One cannot fathom how crustaceous and heartless the old man Vernon is. He may not know any better, and his farm may be down the hill too.
Poverty Close Up
It’s a heart-breaking, close-up look on destitution and poverty. Penny-pinching pain. Charlotte gets into the heads of all three at-risk main characters: Silly the destitute, the kind woman, the self-righteous man—all three shine a light on the plight each from their own perspectives. The pace, the writing, the research, the sensitivity—are awesome! Charlotte does a wonderful job of bringing a critical part of American history alive in this close-up. Child trafficking adds to the wild adventure. Many lost boys roamed the country on cattle wagons during that time. That’s why Boystown came into existence.
Resilient Characters
And what a juxtaposition of characters: Silstice, the matter-of-fact orphan who struggles for survival, takes on Vernon. The tight-wad, heartless curmudgeon does not seem to know any better than to subjugate his wife. In contrast, the kind-hearted, do-gooder wife Edna, in lieu of not having children of her own, takes a gaggle of 4-H girls under her wings. As the story takes one breathless turn after another, the prospects change, mostly getting more dire and haphazard. And the characters change too. Is there yet a spark of kindness in Vernon or is he all business with the girl?
The pairing of a life-wise, hardened curmudgeon with a young girl facing the realities of life is a crafty presupposition for Charlotte’s character development. She stages her characters at a farm, a library, and the county fair at a time when the survival power of one dollar is another week.
A Tiny Piece of Blue (find out what is blue) is a wonderfully gripping read. I couldn’t put it down until it was finished. A Tiny Piece of Blue is available on Amazon.
Its rustic charm was irresistible. The Crofting Inn put forth a Hallmark lumberjack façade. The bed and breakfast in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, offers 7 quaint, old-fashioned rooms. Just what my friend, Bandanaland Princess Edda, had been looking for. She was planning to get away from the Texas heat for a summer outing to this ski resort village with her Prince Helmut.
Hostess Gail at your service
“The price was right for that amount of ambience,” Edda said. “The old house, built in 1919, appealed to me because I like historic locations.”
But they couldn’t decide on the exact days because a mouse had chewed up a wiring cable and this car problem had to be fixed for the road. “It was wonderful that the landlady was so accommodating about our back and forth with the dates,” Edda recalled. What joy, the last-minute deal worked out.
When they arrived, the door was locked. “Just type in the code and go up to your room,” the woman in charge, Gail, instructed them on the phone.
The house was decorated with an abundance of old-fashioned trinkets and antiques. The room offered plain accommodations with a bed and bedside tables, no wardrobe or storage for clothes. No TV or air-conditioning either, but the little balcony let plenty of clean mountain air in. It would have been perfect enough, except the tub looked whacky.
“No problem!” the hostess said. “We will move you into another unit.” Those showers were totally up to date.
“I also chose this Inn because it advertised a gourmet breakfast,” Edda said. She likes fancy fare in the mornings. “After a home-baked blueberry muffin and a bowl of fruit, I asked myself, what’s next.” But nothing came forth. So, the hostess served additional toast and extra hot milk to thin Edda’s coffee. On top of that, she offered advice on outings to the famous train trestle, the beer brewing company, and the elegant Lodge with its resident ghost.
Gail minded every minute request with unaffected hospitality. “She was a little like me,” Edda said. “She liked to cook but it had to go fast.” The conversation in the dining room between the different guests flowed merrily from one to the other, a fact that Prince Helmut really liked.
A couple from Kerrville, Texas, shared their discovery of mega croissants from the best bakery in the 950-souls-strong little western town of Cloudcroft. They talked with an astoundingly sprite 90-year-old woman who celebrated her birthday with a family reunion. And a good-looking couple was planning a flashy wedding.
Why flashy? Another interesting fact surfaced at this point. Innkeeper Gail and her husband, math professor Scott, got married on their lunch break, just like Edda and Helmut did. No flash at all, but the bond lasted.
Crofting Inn had many cozy corners. Coming from Bandanaland, Edda felt right at home with the rustic paisley patterns all around. The whole house was decorated with bandanas: as table cloths, as fireplace décor, and dangling from the ceiling as garlands.
“We get many guests from Texas up here,” Gail explained. “They are very fond of Western themes, in which the bandana plays a pig part.” So, she made her place extra comfy and welcoming for cowboys and cowgirls. This goes to show again that there is creativity in bandanas to no end. The sky hangs full with bandanas at the Cloudcroft Inn.
Thank you, Bandanaland Princess Edda, for the lovely photos and story
Contribute to the Bandana Book III
“Sung and Unsung Heroes” Stories deadline: December 1st
Everybody knows a hero. Could be your parents, neighbor, school mate etc. Send in your hero story, regardless of a Bandana! Heroes don’t necessarily wear bandanas, but they might suit them well.
This is archaic, I know. I should have done this on Instagram or Snapchat or at least Facebook. But here is a collection of snaps, match ups of regular people with famous people. These images from US Magazine (I am kidding) are no selfies either.
Why do we take pictures with famous people? We want some of the stardust fame rub off on us too.
I remember how cranked up I was about meeting Alice Cooper in person. As a teenager in Germany, I had his Bravo poster up on the wall, blackened eyes and all. On that day, Alice was promoting a friend’s sandwich shop. Alice Cooper, bad boy rock’n roller, is now a celebrity for saving the youth with his program Solid Rock. He has a music studio each for budding musicians in Phoenix and Mesa.He gets the youngsters engaged and off the street. I have visited Solid Roch with my student groups. A neat place!
I am certainly not a stage hog. But—The most famous picture, which I had always wanted, would have been with Elvis Presley. I was only a teenager when he died, cried my eyes out. But Gisela Solms-Wildenfels got a shot with Elvis when he was stationed in Germany. I stumbled into Gisela at a flea market in Wolfratshausen, where she was selling Hummel cups and other trinkets. She is of that Elvis generation. And this one encounter gave her joy to last a lifetime. She gifted me a copy of her Elvis picture.
Kurt Warner & Susmita
And on the story goes. I am not a sports crack, but I could pick out Kurt Warner (Arizona quarterback, 2005-2009) on our flight back from Omaha to Phoenix. We had attended a country music festival in Le Mars, Iowa. The football legend agreed to a photo with the cutest of us, Susmita. She didn’t know who we snapped her with, but it made me happy. Old reporter soul. Can’t ever switch off my scanning mode in an airport.
There are many more incidents of brushes with fame. Sometimes we don’t even realize when a celebrity passes by. I missed my chance to take a selfie with Max Raabe from the Palast Orchester. Oh, well. Better luck next time.
AnnElise arrested by TV cops Hubert & Staller (Christian Tramitz, Helmfried von Lüttichau)
Arduino co-founder Tom Igoe, remote controlled man Josh, and Priyanka Makin
AnnElise, AZ Attorney General Kris Mayes, Jeanne Devine, Randy Miller (SRP Board)
AnnElise, Kate Earley, and painter Jack Earley on Valentine’s Day in Loveland
NOTE: This poem by Priyanka, written in 2013 in high school, floored me when I rediscovered it in the keepsake box. Proud parent thinks, Little Genius in the Makin’
As I wander through the forest,
The warm sun rests on my shoulders;
The playful blades of grass reach up to my ankles.
The tall, tower-like trees stretch upward
And tickle the lonesome sky;
The sky has no friends to chase
On this cloudless day.
I see the flowers lean left and right
To get a good look at the magnificent trees;
The pine needles from above
Sprinkle down their spicy smell like fairy dust.
The mountain breeze climbs up my spine
And weaves through my hair;
He races through the trees
As all the leaves cheer for him.
A scripted butterfly lands
On the trunk of the tallest tree,
Basking in its glory;
The baby trees, standing straight and proud
In the shadows of their parents,
Know they can also, one day, achieve their greatness.
And as I witnessed the small trees
Standing as straight as can be, I thought to myself
No matter how small I start off, I can achieve magnitude.
Charlotte cherishes her blue bandana. This type of bandana is often associated with western attire, do rags and country folks. No doubt about that. But this one is truly extra special for its history.
“You ought to get rid of this ratty old thing, mom.” Carlene Davis leveled the large plastic frame that held a badly faded, formerly deep blue bandana.
The old thing was ratty with wear and tear and tears and snot from decades of overuse. A hole burned into the lower right edge was exactly the size of a 7.55 x 53 mm Mauser cartridge. The only thing not overly faded was a hand-sewn letter T in the center and a couple of dark reddish-brown stains. Apparently, the only thing holding the piece of cloth together was the smudged glass in the frame.
Carlene was a doting daughter, a member of the Southern Baptist Women’s Missionary Union, the Library Volunteers, and half a dozen community organizations in the small town of Token, Arkansas. She was 54 years old, portly in appearance and always slightly overdressed in style. Her gray hair was poorly disguised by whisps of light green, purple, and red streaked through-and-through in an attempt to recapture a youth she had never really experienced.
Her mom, Charlotte Tetrozoa, was the picture postcard image of a modern-day granny. She also was on the portly side, something she never tried to disguise. Her gray hair was pure gray, something she would never have thought to disguise either. She stopped her knitting and pointed a needle at her daughter. “Your granddaddy carried that ‘ratty thing’ into the trenches back in the Great War. Some German sharpshooter put a hole through that bandana and right into his chest. That blue rag plugged the hole and saved his life, young lady.”
“Mom, I’ve heard the story a thousand times.”
“Not enough times, I see. Your daddy took it with him all the way through the second great war.”
“I know, mom.”
“He took it to Korea.” She paused and sniffed. “That’s your daddy’s blood in the corner.”
“I know all that, mom, but it’s so . . . Well, it’s ratty, mom.”
“It’s yours when I’m gone. Do with it as you want, then.”
“Mom!”
“Enough of this. I got to fix supper. You staying?”
“Of course, mom.”
A week later Carlene burst into her mother’s home. She was practically giddy. Charlotte said, “What’s got you so agitated?”
“The university wants to expand their collection of historical artifacts and they’re really wanting stuff from World War I.” She waited for a specific response that never came.
“Mom!”
“That’s interesting.” Charlotte continued stirring her pot of pinto beans. She never looked up.
“The bandana, mom. That’s just what they’re looking for.”
“No, ma’am.”
“It’d be in a museum, mom.” Charlotte, focused on her cooking, didn’t see the rolling of her daughter’s eyes. Carlene looked over to the framed source of her grief and seemed to be imagining a paint-by-the-numbers substitute.
“That bandana is family. It’s right where it’s supposed to be.”
“They’re paying money if they like something–real money. They got a grant.”
“You don’t sell family, darling.”
“It’s an historical artifact.”
“You’re trying too hard, daughter.”
Carlene took a moment to take in a deep breath. “They have an appraiser. I’ve met him.
“I’m sure you have.”
“He’s real interested in that bandana. Can I at least bring him over to look at it?”
“Of course, dear.” Charlotte waved her right hand over the top of the bubbling pot and breathed in the earthy aroma. Her glasses fogged up and she took them off. “That’ll do. Are you staying for supper?”
Carlene showed up the next morning with the appraiser. Charlotte was waiting with a tray of coffee and cookies when she heard the knock on the door. Stedson Alborty was not exactly what she expected. Instead of a “university type,” he was a large, handsome man dressed in blue jeans and a work shirt. He wore a baseball cap emblazoned with LSU, Louisiana State University, in gold on a dark purple background. His eyes went immediately to the framed bandana.
“May I examine the—”
“Not to be rude, Mr. Alborty, but let’s chat a bit first.” Charlotte gestured to the couch and chairs around her coffee table. “Why are you so interested in what my daughter calls a ratty old thing, Mr. Alborty?”
Carlene looked away.
Alborty finished a sip of coffee. “Stedson, please. Call me Stedson.”
“Certainly.” Charlotte tended to be more formal than her nature when meeting people for the first time. She was not standoffish, merely observant.
Alborty was very polite and he made a fine and only a mildly passionate presentation. He spoke of the need for preserving history. He called it “real history,” the memories and artifacts of people who were really “there.” Charlotte eventually began nodding in agreement. Carlene nodded so vigorously that she was in danger of pulling a neck muscle. Alborty said, “I have a substantial budget. More than that, if I don’t spend it all, I’ll never get a bigger acquisition budget next year.”
“What exactly does that mean to me, mister . . . Stedsen?”
“It means I pretty much have to offer you more than top dollar for your bandana.” He smiled and scribbled a dollar figure on a notepad he carried in his pocket.
“This is quite a sum for a ratty old thing.”
“Mom!” Carlene reached over and took the notepaper. “Oh, my!”
Alborty said, “Like I told your mother, this really is a one-time offer.”
“Oh, mom, you have to. You just have to.”
Charlotte leaned back into her couch and thought for a long moment. She looked at her daughter. “This will make you happy?”
“Me. And a lot of other people. A museum, mom!”
Charlotte looked over to the bandana in its cheap plastic frame. It had slipped again and was hanging at an angle. She sighed and said, “If that’s what you want . . .”
Alborty sat up straight and seized the opportunity. “Thank you, Mrs. Tetrozoa. For me and the university. And for the people who will see this in the museum. I will be by in the morning with a check and you can hand over the bandana then. Is that all right?”
Charlotte nodded.
Alborty and Carlene stayed only long enough to be polite before leaving. As she heard them drive away, Charlotte leaned back and took in a long look at the frayed and stained bandana.
Alborty arrived at ten a.m. the next morning. Charlotte was not in the least bit surprised to see her daughter with him. When they entered the house, Charlotte was nearly frantic.
“I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Stedson. Carlene. I am so, so sorry.”
“Mom, what happened?”
Charlotte motioned them farther in and led them to the kitchen table. An old cardboard box rested on the edge. “I . . . I wanted to make sure our bandana would be, you know, proper for a museum.” She wrung her hands nervously.
“Mom?”
Charlotte ducked her head and reached into the box. “I wanted it clean and pressed for you, Mr. Alborty.” She pulled out what looked like a large white handkerchief.
Stedson leaned in for a closer look. He saw a hole the size of a WWI German bullet in one corner. A badly washed-out letter T dominated the center. The blood stains were completely gone. “I am so sorry.”
Stedson’s shoulders sagged just a bit. He took in a deep breath and exhaled. “Well, Mrs. Tetrozoa, obviously . . .”
“Of course. I understand. I really am sorry. I just wanted to—”
“That’s all right. Things happen. Your loss is our loss, but I understand how you must feel. I, too, am sorry.” He seemed anxious to leave.
Charlotte folded the white cloth. “Well, at least I still have something.”
There was not much left to say. Carlene had bummed a ride with Alborty, so they left together. When they were gone, Charlotte walked over to the wall where the framed bandana had been. She reached behind the nearby couch and retrieved a paint-by-the-numbers painting of a farmhouse on a rural road. It was something she grabbed at a neighbor’s yard sale the afternoon before. She hung it and stepped back, nodding with appreciation.
That evening before going to bed, Charlotte pulled open a bottom dresser drawer in her bedroom. She pulled out the old plastic frame still holding in the old bandana. She wiped off a fingerprint smudge, smiled with approval, and placed the heirloom back in the bottom drawer.
Once upon a time . . . or let’s say yesterday, Princess Edda, who lives in a faraway land in the remotest castle’s tallest tower . . . no, sorry, in Bandana Land on Bat Cave Road, took repose in her crystal castle. Maybe it wasn’t a crystal castle, maybe it was rather a tea house. Right, she wanted to test out her itty-bitty barn, or tree house—or did she say tea house?—for a sleepover. She was looking for adventure. It was in the air. Heavy clouds were billowing, the wind howling, heavy drops splashing, thunder rolling, and rain drumming on the metal roof. The storm roared like a lion.
And yet Princess Edda left the safety of her Rainy Castle for the tea house, cozied in her covers, pulled the blanket up to her nose, and admired the strength of the swaying trees outside. This was such a noble fortress, with Saltillo tiles and stained-glass windows and a bed. But it rattled like a mousetrap. The pelting rain noise felt like being inside a drum.
Princess Edda rolled her eyes. Why did this thunderstorm have to happen on her first sleepover in the tea house? She wouldn’t get any shut eye here.
So, she said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Angels watch me through the night, and wake me with the morning light.”
But the morning was still far away and the wind howling with no mercy. She decided to read herself to sleep. It got later and later. It got so late that it was almost early again. Yet the lightning kept flashing through the glass door, and the wind howled even worse. No use trying. So, Princess Edda decided to admire the power of God’s nature instead. This was better than a movie.
Kaboom, caramba, catastrophe! Something crashed outside. The rain still drumming on the roof. Princess Edda pulled the blanket higher. Was there a creek or river running by her side? The tea house was shaking something awful. Dorothy in Kansas? No, only Little Edda in Texas. She didn’t have visions of sugar plums in her head, but saw witches flying by on a broomstick. She thumbed her nose at them. And finally, the dawn, not the window, broke. Sigh, what a relief! Princess Edda stepped out into the sunrise, inhaling the fresh, cleansed air.
And she was still alive. A tree had crashed only a foot from her tea house. Oh, miracle and wonder! Not quite. Prince Helmut had sent his Bandana Gang to the rescue. Who else could have heaved the tree away from its fateful destiny? And so Princess Edda escaped the storm unscathed. The Bandana Guard kept watch all night.
Princess Edda looked around: Sea Shell Covid, Two-Face Janus, Old Man Woodhead, Spanish Moss Guy, Hippie Girlfriend, Hippie Boyfriend, an eclectic bunch. Princess Edda bowed to her protectors. No knight in shining armor on a noble steed could have accomplished this: distract the lightning. He would have been roast inside his armor. But Prince Helmut’s wooden guard withstood the storm and saved the princess.
Helm_TurbanGuy_small
Helm_SpanishMoss_small
Helm_MidEast_sm
Helm_girldfirend_small
Helm_boyfriend_small
Helm_Covid_sm
Helm_WorkerDude_small
Helm_JanusOther_small
Helm_bird_sm
Helm_KamaSutra_small
See, I told you so, there is still nobility in sacrifice. The Bandana Gang kept watch for Princess Edda.
Environmental Day at the Capitolearlier this year, struck my memory chord like a gong chiming in my head. Activists from all corners had gathered on the Arizona Capitol grounds in Phoenix to lobby for water protection measures and have a word with their District reps.
Water rights are a hot topic in Arizona. All the Southwestern states’ livelihoods depend on their secure water resource, mostly the Colorado River share quotas.
The Colorado River is so dammed up that none of its waters reach the Gulf of California any more. Lake Mead, in 2023, was at its lowest since the Hoover Dam (1 of 15 Colorado River dams) was built. 2023 was another heat record year with 50+ days over 110F. It’s a damn’ dry situation. For many Native Americans, Navajos included, water has always been scarce.
My friends took me to Gallup. More precisely, a rural lot outside town on the Navajo reservation. I had been cautioned: there is no running water. So bring a pallet of bottles. For that part, there would also be no royal flush. I got it. Outhouse. No worries there. I had grown up on a farm with a Plumpsklosett.
A couple of miles on the north side of Gallup, my GPS turned me onto a dirt road. I made it across the narrow bridge, but was soon stopped by a curious horse in the middle of the road. Anyways, the rainy spring had made the road rutted, but after I got the hang of it, the tracks became quite passable.
It was a beautiful scene out here in the afternoon. The horizon started to take on an amber glow, the boulder mountains toned into a warm ochre, the blue zenith sky darkened to let the stars out, and the scarce pine trees poked their spiny arms into the fresh air. All was quiet out here, except for the dogs.
My friend’s house had a warm, cuddly, welcoming air to it. It was very much ranch-style in its decor with blankets, Native art, and the occasional antler. This was a much privileged outing for me, because a group of strong Native women shared their time and space with me. And I finally would get to see Window Rock, the Navajo capital, as well.
We had the most comfortable picnic with fine mattresses to sleep on. We were glamping on many things, television included. However, there was no running water. And you feel that right away. The kitchen had two large water containers by the sink, but, unlike rare wine, the water in it had not improved its taste since its delivery. It was only old and best used for washing dishes. And still, it seemed to be too precious for that as well. We used paper plates all the way through.
I learned fast: keep the hand sanitizer and wipes on the cabinet by the entrance for the bathroom trips, don’t drink too much, so you don’t have to go too often, and save your paper plate for the next meal. I learned to brush my teeth with bottled water and spit each mouthful into the desert bush. I had this urge–when preparing breakfast, making a sandwich, getting sticky fingers–to go to the sink. But the sink had no water. A long time ago, when the family still lived here, they carted in their water on a truck to fill the tank outside. But that was the old days.
Many Navajo families have no water lines going to their houses. Imagine, any and all water has to be hauled over long distances and bad roads. Imagine how hard it will be to maintain proper hygiene. Imagine how health-compromised individuals might suffer. Or what about elder and infant care? Staying well and healthy requires a reasonable amount of water.
Yes, on the second day I felt the dearth of water. My armpits got stinky. I wetted a Kleenex and went to work. But what about the long range? How would I keep clean, wash up, brush off the dust? I don’t think there was a creek nearby and many hopes for rain in the Southwest are in vain. All you can do, really, is drive to the next truck stop on IH 40 and use their public showers.
I wasn’t ready to do that just yet, but on the third day I hit the pedal to the metal to get home to my own comfort.
Back to the Environmental Day. One Native organization, Tó Nizhóní Ání (“Sacred Water Speaks”) from the Big Mountain community on the Black Mesa Plateau in NE Arizona, protested the industrial abuse (hydroelectric project) of water: The Black Mesa Pumped Storage Project.
Pumping groundwater to the top of a plateau to make it generate electricity—a questionable project. It would seriously endanger the aquifer. As of this February, three of such proposed pumped storage projects were fortunately denied. A remarkable victory for the Navajo environmentalists.
Native activists are fighting for the Earth and US ALL. Water is so precious. We think we know that. But that’s not enough. Someone needs to make us FEEL its preciousness.
Therefore I propose a universal
No-Water-Running Day
Switch off the water main in the evening and see how the next day goes. And touch no faucet at work or school either. Toilet included. Don’t flush. How will you get through the day? You will be allowed to prepare for the water emergency by your own design. But don’t forget: No water will run for you on tap. And why should it? Water needs a break too. It runs all the time.
Kreuzfeuer in Texas (Crossfire in Texas), a Western, is based on a true story. It happened during the Civil War (1861-1865) in Fredericksburg, Texas, Gillespie County. The German settlers, who had arrived 15 years earlier with the German Adelsverein emigration project, were against slavery. Therefore, in 1861, almost all Fredericksburg citizens voted against secession and for remaining in the Union. That was the beginning of a calamity. Immediately, all immigrants had to swear an oath on the Confederacy or be hanged, the Union Loyal League was disbanded, the young men sent to war, the old men recruited for the home defense. And the Comanche kept in check by the Frontier Regiment. Worst of all, in August 1862, a group of 61 German Unionists was slaughtered by the Nueces River on their way to Mexico. Their remains weren’t buried until after the war. Germans were afraid to draw more wrath on themselves.
Vereinskirche in Fredericksburg, TX
The hunt on the Germans was on. Self-declared partisan rangers pressed the settlers for money, food, goods, and valuables. Fredericksburg was terrorized by the Hängerbande for years. The top rabble rouser was a certain Captain Waldrip. He led especially vicious attacks on German citizens. In February 1864 the teacher and merchant Louis Schütze is murdered. His brother Julius Schütze reports that incident and the events following the murder in his 1886 Texas Vorwärts account “Meine Erlebnisse in Texas”. Julius initiates the prosecution of the murderers, which spawns off the Grape Creek massacre. I read Schütze’s account while researching German history in Texas. It made such an impression on me that 25 years later I decided to make a novel out of it.
Engelbert Krauskopf
We kept as close to the story as we could. My coauthor Georg Unterholzner and I introduced several Native American (Comanches) characters to the mix. They spruced up the points of view in this murderous tale of redemption. The real life model for our protagonist was the pioneer Engelbert Krauskopf. He was a pioneer, gun maker, business man, explorer, and master of many trades, as well as a community leader. He also kept friendships with Comanche chiefs.
Here is the Kreuzfeuer story: Eberhard Kohlkrug, the gun maker of Fredericksburg, is an ordnance officer for the Frontier Regiment. But he rather delivers his percussion caps to the Germans and their home defense. The Major presses him to produce more ammunition, his wife Rita becomes wary of their Comanche maid, the Indian raids are increasing, but Eberhard always plays it safe. Until his friend Louis is abducted. Eberhard gets his friend Matasane involved to recapture Louis. Too late. Louis body is still warm when they cut him from the live oak.
Julius Schütze rides up from Austin. He demands justice for his brother. The wolf pack does not like to be dragged in front of the judge. Now the events take a dramatic spin for the worse. One of the Waldrip gang, Gibson, threatens Eberhard several times about his ammunition, raids his shop, and rapes his Comanche maid. Eberhard is a reluctant hero, but Gibson had it coming. From this point on, Eberhard’s life spins out of control. Done with playing it safe.
Eberhard swore three oaths in his life: never again to make a coffin, never again to shoot a man, and to do away with this scumbag. He broke all three.
Now the Western is out. In German, of all languages. It will be a while until it’s translated. But I will keep you posted.
What sparks an idea? I used to think that inspirations would strike me with thunder and lightning. But, no, sparks can be quite slow at times. Think about the ketchup bottle. It’s been around for a hundred years, but only since the last twenty it’s also standing on its head. Duh! Why didn’t we think of that sooner?
Bandana Book I
The Bandana spark, which has now become a book (CLICK ON RIGHT), came with a slow glimmer too. I never go out on a hike without a neckerchief. Since my old Texas days, I have become protective of my neck. Sunburns sting! Yep, that’s why I my collection of bandanas keeps growing.
One of them was a gift from my daughter, with a Native American design. Once I went into the gas station at Star Valley, says someone behind me, “I like your bandana.” This Native American had recognized the Hopi pattern on it. It was nice to be noticed. A bandana can carry a strong message. Since then, I have also acquired a Navajo design on top of many other colorful patterns.
Bandana Stories
The older a bandana, the better the tale. Master mask maker Zarco Guerrero, here portraying a Cholo, knows all about the mysteries of Dia de los Muertos, plus the Central American bandana. When you Google for bandanas you certainly come around many Boy Scout uses, such as for a bandage, splint, tourniquet, wash cloth, trail marker, carry bag, and what not. And then, as you might imagine, all these incidents have circumstances. And the circumstances make for suspense. You can spin a gazillion yarns off of one small bandana.
Bandana Origin
Even the origin of the almighty, universal, wonderful bandana has a good story or two. I heard, the bandana was a tobacco snot wipe to begin with. Imagine, or don’t, that rag used to be white. And the tobacco stains wouldn’t come out any more. Therefore, an Irish tradesman had the fashionable idea to print his bandanas up in color. The print work was done in India, thus the pretty paisley patterns. As we all know, the cowboys came to appreciate the bandana too—duh, red neck. Bandanas trigger excellent cowboy stories.
Bandana Warriors
Or think about famous men. Some of the toughest cookies wear bandanas: Geronimo, Winnetou, Rambo, Hulk Hogan, John Wayne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, and other warriors. Right, the bandana takes to the street for activism.
Here is Ed Kabotie, member of the Hopi tribe, a well-known edu-activist, sharing his fight against uranium mining at the Grand Canyon. He also resents the now much in vogue “land acknowledgment” towards the Native American nations as a hindsight excuse for the colonial land grab and subsequent oppression.
Bandana Art
Independent from my instigations, Elisabeth Sherwood had made a collage series of bandana cowgirls, the mysterious types. (One of her gals to the left.) This was just perfect for the Bandana Book cover. I asked my friends, they wrote stories, I put them all in a book. The second one is on its way. It’s titled “Unusual Encounters.” The stories cover a rainbow of experiences and are deliriously good.
When I see a bandana these days, my imagination gets sparked. What’s next? An exhibition? Do you paint? Make photographs? Prints? Sculptures? How about making a bandana exhibit together?
What’s behind a rock, a root, a shell, or a time-proven fence post? Maybe nothing. But you can always make it “something.” Just by looking and thinking. Art objects are all around us. Nobody knows that better than silversmith and “Macher” (maker) Helmut Buchner from the Bat Cave Ranch by San Antonio.
Helmut has a very deliberate way of talking. Each sentence, no matter how obvious the content, clearly captures a deep thought. And that also applies to the stories behind his sculpture park on his ranch, which grows steadily. I will try my best to do our conversation justice with my English interpretation of some of his new, money-free objet d’art.
“Mona Lisa came together just for fun. There was a river rock laying around for years. It had the shapes of a beautifully formed woman, no relations to the Kardashians (maybe Picasso or Gaugin). And then there was also the tree stump of an old cedar tree. That tree had been in conflict with an oak. Every time when I have to cut down a tree, I leave a stump as a memorial. It could be used for something later. That tree offered itself to install something on it. The other two things had been waiting in the grass for a while. So I put all three together, set the rock on the stump, and installed the metal frame around it. The stone, steel, and wood enhanced each other quite naturally.”
Covid-19 Man: “I made that at the beginning, when we started to realize how threatening and aggressive Covid-19 was. For the first time it happened in my long life that we had such a worldwide epidemic. For me, the woodblock face demonstrates the anguish of a patient screaming from pain and terror. We’ve had the ball made of sea shells for a long time and it offered itself as a Covid virus symbol encompassing the entire globe.”
Bird Happiness: Helmut stands at the bottom of 40-foot-tall bamboo pole. It has a weather vane at the top, a bird with a long ribbon tail. The “Windvogel” sways in all directions, depending on how the wind blows. Unfortunately, storms repeatedly tore the sculpture off its mount. Helmut’s solution? He made a bamboo man to help support the structure. “The golden-haired bamboo guy holds up the pole so that the bird won’t fly away,” Helmut says. So how is this working out? Time will tell.
Himmelsleiter-Stairway to Heaven: A bicycle without a saddle is parked at the bottom of a bamboo ladder leading up into the air to who-knows-where? This sculpture, one of Helmut’s oldest, is thoroughly weathered. Visitors are fascinated by it, a stairway to heaven. “I figured that the ladder alone won’t get you to heaven, but I had a lot of people thinking that it might,” Helmut says with a wry smile on his face.
Nothing is accidental about Helmut’s sculptures. They are built on careful observation, selection, and artistic vision. A lot of thought goes into them. Helmut’s next sculpture could take a while or happen spontaneously. It starts with the idea, then the collection of materials, and finally comes the technical problem solving. The organic part is undeniable. These sculptures, exposed to the elements, change and mature over time—intentionally. They are in constant dialog with the maker and spectator. And nature.
“I don’t want to convert people to anything. Everybody should make up his or her own interpretation. Friends brought visitors over to show them the sculptures. I am always surprised about their comments. Everybody gets to think what they want. And that is the way it should be.”
Another piece is in the works, called Kama Sutra, aka a bunch of large, gnarly cedar roots arranged together. “At this time, I am working on the enlightened lovers,” Helmut says.
What will people think about that?
Whatever they want. Like me. Mea culpa, Helmut! I had thought that man with the sea shells was playing beach volleyball: shells = beach, white ball, get it? Perhaps some wishful thinking there. We all could have done so much better without the Covid.
Maybe some objects are also crying out to you for the art inside of them? Just look around! Elevate your vision for the not-so-ordinary.
There is more. Helmut is also an excellent silversmith-jewelry maker. His life partner Edda Buchner will be showcasing his jewelry together with the sculptures in a book. Helmut has also built a Zen garden, a labyrinth, and a tipi on his Texas home turf.
War on Crime, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, Star Wars, Price Wars, – Why not have a War on Plastic—NOW? We need one more good war!
We splurge in unnecessary plastic all the time. Where does the waste go?
Refuse, reduce, recycle that plastic!
I confess, I use plastic still too much. Most of it is totally avoidable.
Regardless how judicious you may be, you will have committed one of these 10 Plastic Cardinal Sins. Aren’t we lazy! (Or is it short-term memory loss?). So, let’s restart.
The 10 Cardinal Plastic Sins
Single-use water bottle: It should have been legally restricted or taxed by now. Some schools and organizations have banned them. Bring your own refillable water bottle. Water in tin bottles available now.
Plastic shopping bags: Yeah, what’s your problem? Bring your own bags, or a basket. Ask for paper bags. Don’t trust the “recycling” of plastic bags in the stores. Or hopefully the store makes you pay for a plastic bag.
Take out containers: In the US, it’s still a world of plastic and Styrofoam. Avoid restaurants that serve you tubs of plastic that could be aluminum or paper. Plastic take-out containers were banned in some European countries.
Online purchases: Hell, no! Get your items from the store, because the shipping material refuse is insane. Peanuts and bubble wrap galore. Leave that stuff to Santa!
Beverage bottles: Get your drinks in a can, glass bottle, or from the faucet, notplastic! This would be my NEW LAW: Stores must recycle plastic bottles, return them to the manufacturer. Let the Coca Cola deal with the plastic!
Liquid detergent: The utmost insanity of all! Haven’t we always used washing powder? It gives you the same results. Listen up, Tide & Co.: Take your jugs off the shelves right now! We can shake up our own soapy sauce.
Body wash & hair shampoo: Just use bar soap. Even hair shampoo and conditioner are available as solid bars these days.
Body lotion: Easy fix. Use fragrant, essential, natural oils—in glass bottles. Oils have fewer ingredients than lotions and may be more beneficial than lotions overall.
Juice & milk jugs: Tropicana switched to plastic carafes. Why?? Other juices still come in cartons. Buy those! One gallon milk jugs can still be recycled in our town. But you may just as well get milk in 1/2 gallon packs.
Egg “cartons” ???: Why should plastic egg “cartons” even exist?
Our municipal authority, the City of Mesa, has basically given up on recycling. Only about 5 item categories will be accepted, forget about washing out yogurt cups. Since China does not take our American trash any more, the dumps on the Salt River Reservation and the other one by the Florence prison are growing at horrid rates.
ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF ILL-FATED PLASTIC LOGIC: In my college days I met a lady who had a big heart for animals. She cut up the plastic rings from the soda six-packs. Why? So that no sea-life should be caught in it. WHY would our plastic end up in the ocean in the first place? This was some 30 years ago, and ongoing.
At any rate, plastic should carry a Surgeon General’s warning, just like cigarettes:
SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Plastic Causes Piles of Trash, Harmful Inertia, Intrusion into the Food Cycle, Death of Sea Life, and various types of Cancer. Plastic Overuse by any Human Has Been Shown to Result in Global Pollution, Toxicity in the Food Chain, and the Increase in Morbidity in Humans on All Continents.
FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC:
Environmental change: California’s new plastics law could force the rest of the nation to cut down on its polluting materials. The legislation mandates, among other things, a reduction in the single-use plastics sold in the state. It also requires 65 percent of plastics to be recycled within a decade—an ambitious goal. Plastics makers will have to foot the bill for recycling. The law could have ripple effects across the nation, but not all recycling proponents are pleased, Laura Parker reports.
Read the full story. (Pictured above, one million plastic beverage bottles are purchased every minute worldwide.)
If you are an “adult” like me (whatever that means), you may have left most cartoons behind you. But I like an animated movie once in a while. Animations help us to look beyond reality. They punch our buttons, hit us on levels of irony and travesty, where reality just does not reach. Here are my top five animation movies.
Shrek turns all fairytales upside down. I like it so much, because I grew up with a lot of Grimms’ stories in Germany. And Shrek busts our stereotypes once and for all: nothing noble about the steed, a prince turned out short, and an ogre who is a philosopher. There are surprises around every corner. I love how all the characters are mixed up in a paradoxical stew. Best of all is the twist in the end: Be who you are, not who you think you should be. And don’t we all love dragons!
Monsters Inc. shows us the inside workings of a scare corporation–very well done! The monsters are more scared of humans than the other way around. When the monsters march to work, I am reminded of our current political scare tactics. Doors hold a fascination for all of us. Don’t we always want to know what’s behind them? Are we afraid to open them? So cool, how the doors are played throughout. The nice thing about Monsters Inc.: Truth be told, laughter creates more energy than fear.
Wall-e is the most real and scariest animation that I know. I have always had a knack for utopias (Brave New World, Time Machine, 1984). A tiny robot is the only worker left in a post apocalyptic world, when spoiled-beyond-belief humans have escaped on a spaceship. Humanity, all fat like mast oxen, has fallen victim to limitless comfort seeking, subscribing to the Buy&Large, until all life on earth was buried under trash. So what should we do? Go about our business, as the world goes down? Think. Think again. Do something! Recycle, vote, refuse the plastic!
Rango must be counted as one of the best Westerns of all time. It’s up there with Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, but not only because Johnny Depp is the chameleon. If you’re ever talking “characters” in an animation–it’s Rango. But I like it the MOST for its DIRE dire story line, especially for us in Arizona. A little desert town called Dirt is running out of water–because a greedy corporation diverted it. Similar monster developers and corporations have bought up everything in the Valley of the Sun. When will our Valley run out of water? What can we do to conserve it? Certainly the cancer-like sprawl doesn’t help.
Finding Nemo instantly thrilled me. It had a good story, I can identify with short term memory loss (ha, ha, Dori!), and I have always been fascinated with sea life. At one point, I had wanted to become a marine biologist, reading too much about Jaques Cousteau and an Austrian scientist, Hans Hass. Both swam with sharks and studied their behaviors. They weren’t the blood-thirsty beasts as often portrayed. Imagine:
100 million sharks are killed by us in a year!!
Sharks, in return, hardly kill 10 humans a year. Something is off here. Something is also off at the Great Barrier Reef. It’s dying from global warming.
Thank God for animation! At least we are able to participate in nature vicariously via movies. Although that’s not enough for me. I need a regular, in-person experience with nature to balance me out—not necessarily with sharks, but a good hike on the Rim will do.
So, if you got nothing better to do, watch a movie! I just gave you my top five animations.
Guest Column by Dan Baldwin, Ghost-Writer & Author
I remember the 1950s when conformity in life, belief and culture was not only expected, it was demanded. Most people went along, but there were a few on the fringe who refused to conform. This was before the age of the hippie. (Although of that generation, I have more in common with the beatniks—jazz, writing, being cool as opposed to being loud, “sick” comedians like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl.) We seem to be living in a retro-fifties era today. The cries for conformity are everywhere. If you’ll watch the news carefully you’ll see that the “free” kids of the sixties, who are now in their seventies, are bringing back the worst of the fifties.
That’s true in the writing universe, too. As with the “pantsters” vs. “plotters” debate, we have an ongoing confrontation between those who believe in the conventional and those who believe in the cool (originally a beat term).
Dan talking to the spirits of the past with his pendulum
The conformist seek comfort in well-established, inflexible rules. The cool isn’t afraid to risk pushing the edge of the box or even punching through now and then. For example, the conventional believes with the faith of a 12-year-old Southern Baptist at her first tent revival that a work must—must mind you—be rewritten and rewritten and rewritten until like Goldilocks says, “it’s just right.” The cool, with the confidence in his own ability looks across the uncharted literary landscape and says, “I wonder what’s over there” and then makes the journey to find out.
Being a beat generation survivor, I think of myself as a cool. I send my works to first readers for their input. I listen to that input, evaluate it, and incorporate their suggestions if I agree with them. A conventional writer will automatically submit to the recommended changes of an editor, critique group, best friend, fellow writer, or first reader without hesitation. Why? Because that’s the way it’s done. The rule book says so.
A conventional knows for a fact that the way to publishing success is to get an agent who will get a publisher who will then publish the work. He knows for certain that this is the only sure-fire method. The cool knows that he can take that road or choose another, such as self-publishing. I’ve debated the pros and cons of traditional vs. self-publishing and each side has its share. The amount of emotional attachment some authors have to conventional thinking, however, borders on religious belief.
I am not against conventional writing, publishing or marketing techniques provided they are not employed by rote simply because ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ To me, conventional or cool should be a choice and not a self-imposed mandate.
Something to think about, eh? Give it some thought.
Dan Baldwin has been my role model and motivator for the last 15 years. He has penned and ghosted probably more than 70 books. Mysteries, thrillers, westerns, and the paranormal are his favorite genres. In his spare time he works as a psychic detective to let the departed speak through his pendulum. You can contact him through his website below.
Wow, I hopped on the Internet–it’s astounding what bandanas are all good for! I thought I could make a book of it. But not without your help. Submit your entries! Download the guidelines below. $200 grand prize; $100 second; and $50 for honorable work (multiple)–tell your friends!
Bandana gone to the dogs
Bandanas have been an important hiking gear for me. Sometimes we have turned around when I forgot my neck-saver. Indeed, I am a redneck. I burn easily. Perhaps that happened to the cowboys too, when they were driving cattle under the scorching Texas sun. Ditto. Necks turn red. Or, wait a minute, were they wearing a paisley red bandana? That would explain the expression, too.
My bandana is blue and has Hopi dancers and decorations on it. Of course bandanas come in all colors and patterns, but red is still the best. And those colorful mini rags are usually dirt cheap. Michaels, the crafts store, will sell them for a couple of bucks. Don’t pay any more than ten. Some bandanas like to claim a boutique extravaganza. Mine actually came from a Goodwill store. Maybe 50 cents? I’ll ask my daughter.
John Wayne’s trademark rag
What else is a bandana good for? It got me thinking. My grandpa never left house without one in his trouser pockets. Mostly—gee thanks, but gross—he used it to wipe snuff and snot off his mustache. But at times (I hope that kerchief was clean), he carried mushrooms or blueberries home in his bandana. He tied the diagonal corners together to make a carry bag. On one occasion, he used his bandana as a bandage after he cut his hand splicing kindling wood.
A bandana could, seriously, save your life. Maybe you got injured and needed a tourniquet. Or you got lost and needed a flag for the helicopter search team to find you. Or you needed to filter drinking water from a desert puddle. My friend Edda might use a bandana as a signal flag for the prettiest Texas cedar tree for Christmas. And on it goes.
Bandanas are not only for hikers, cowboys, and pirates. Animals like bandanas too. Do you have a bandana at home? Maybe you can write a story about it and send it to me. I am so much looking forward to that!
Like the fat Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland I sit perched on the window sill of our 13th floor room at the Hilton in San Diego. Down there, at the dock, a ginormous cargo ship lies anchored. Its name is the Dole Pacific. It’s stacked high with white containers. Piles of “white mice.” And then the process begins. Like a cat watching mice at play, I get entranced with the container logistics 13 stories below me. So many containers! So many bananas? Or were they filled with pineapples?
The big “Dole” boxes all have refrigeration fans and stack up perfectly, on the cargo ship as well as on the loading zone. No “supply chain problem” for bananas, so much busy-body activity below.
The cargo ship at anchor had two cranes for unloading the containers. Close by the dock, there was a mountain of containers piled up. Were they empty? Crammed on the islands between the throughways, spindly trailers were neatly filed up. And across from the monster warehouse with its gaping receiving gullets, the “mice” were perfectly sorted into numbered spots to be carted away.
How does all this work? At eight o’clock sharp, the first harbor rig, a motorized box with a hitch in its back, crawled out of the abyss somewhere below me. Its overnight sleeping location was invisible from my windowsill. What was that tiny looking tadpole up to now? Catch some mice? You bet! That cabin vehicle knew exactly what it was doing. It backed straight into one spindly trailer, hitched it, and scurried with it to the dock. There it sidled up to the monster boat. Slowly but surely, the crane drifted one of the hundreds of containers down on the truck’s trailer. And, happily, the truck carted the white mouse off. This process repeated itself a number of times, until half a dozen rigs scurried back and forth between the cargo ship and the distribution area.
They lined up so many mice! I smacked my lips in awe. That was no small feat, because these monster mice barely fit into their spaces. After a while, no more slots were available for the mice to be parked. But, voila, from outside, the cross-country rigs lined up by the pearly gates of Dole harbor business. One by one, ever so slowly, they pulled off one after the other mouse to the open prairie. And they knew exactly, which mouse they were getting. How did they do that? Meanwhile, the harbor rigs filled up the vacant spots with more mice. It was a mystery to me.
After three days, all the containers were offloaded from the Dole Pacific and she sailed off to Ecuador and other places to bring more bananas in. What was in the boxes now? Air mostly, I read, and 5 percent freight.
I was getting hungry for bananas. A cat? Why not.
The terminal at the Port of San Diego can hold about 800 containers. All of them are refrigerated boxes known as “reefers”: Each 40-foot reefer can hold 1000 boxes, and each box holds around 100 bananas. Dole discharges around 2 billion individual bananas and 16 million pineapples in San Diego alone. Read more at:
November is Native American Heritage Month. The Mesa Public Schools NAEP celebrated a fabulous Heritage Night at Westwood High School. The evening was filled with Native royalty, sizzling dance performances, and a heart-felt community spirit. The evening started with an invocation by Freddie Johnson, Diné, and the Land Acknowledgment read by Vice Principal Paul Davis. Keynote speaker was Steven P. Toya Sr. from New Mexico, a much loved counselor and educator. NAEP Program Director Esther Nystrom was visibly proud of her District team that night. Senior NAEP Liaison Debra Toya from Mountain View High School had brought the Royalty and top performers to the stage.
Amazing performances by the internationally acclaimed Indigenous Enterprise group (top row) and Renae Blackwater/Maswade (above).
The fancy Rooster Dance
Multi-talented performers
The Drum Group (above) fired up the spirit of dance. Then the Traditional Akimél O’odham Singers (below; Salt River Pima) invited everybody to join hands for a social dance.
Everybody dance, and . . .
. . . they all did.
Finally, Thunder and his brother Tyler read us a story called “Thunder’s Hair.” Here Tyler and Thunder are with team leader Tiffany (middle) and their mom (right).
Debra Toya and Esther Nystrom provided gifts for Royalty and honorees.
Great job, everybody!
IMPORTANT NOTES:
Arizona is home to 22 Tribal Nations that comprise approximately 28 percent of Arizona’s land base. Two important legislative bills impacted the Native American communities in 2021:
In April, Governor Ducey signed a historic tribal-state gaming compact agreement that modernized gaming in Arizona.
The Governor also signed legislation allowing Native American students in communities across Arizona to wear traditional tribal regalia at their graduation.
This can’t wait any longer. The Huntington Beach oil spill on October 4th, 2021, reminded me again. 25,000 gallons of crude oil flowed into the ocean. As the beach cleanup goes on, residents can apply for federal disaster loans. But why should the government (we) pay for the corporate oil exploitation sins? Make the oil barons cough up the money. Besides, no money can make the hazards of offshore drilling or pipelines breaks go away.
Look, at the above sculpture “Water Is Life (Remembering Standing Rock)”, a porcelain piece by Cincinnati artist Lisa Hueil Conner. It was featured in an SOS Art Exhibit and Retrospective last year. Isn’t it beautiful? I just had to have it. I look at it every day. It tells an important story. And it’s also a stark warning about oil spills.
There are oil spills all the time. Remember the Amoco Cadiz in 1978? The Exxon Valdez in 1989? The exploded and burning oil platform in the Gulf at BP’s Deep Water Horizon in 2010? This was the largest oil spill in history, which left 11 workers dead.
And the spills continue. There were at least 8 spills at the North Dakota Access Pipeline in 2017 after it was put in operation again. The Native American DAPL protesters (2014 to November 2016), who held watch over their land, were trying to stop the pipeline transgression, but the protectors of the land were forcibly removed.
At the time of the no-DAPL protests in 2016, I marched too, in Arizona. At our Native American program in the high school, we held a presentation on the DAPL issue with Native American speakers, Tim Hunts-in-Winter (Lakota, Standing Rock), Stephanie Big Crow (Oglala Lakota), and a key participant by the name of Rance. (The assistant principal wasn’t too happy about it.)
The Dakota (Sioux) knew they had reason to be afraid: The Black Snake prophesy could bring life to an end. In that prophesy, a black snake would slither across the land, poisoning the water before destroying the Earth—the Dakota Access pipeline. It crosses over the Standing Rock Reservation and under the waters of the Missouri.
“There was a prophecy saying that there is a black snake above ground. And what do we see? We see black highways across the nation,” said Dave Archambault, chairman of the Standing Rock reservation, which straddles North and South Dakota. “There’s also a prophecy that when that black snake goes underground, it’s going to be devastating to the Earth.” (CBC News, December 11, 2016)
That’s why hundreds of people had gathered in 2016 to pray in camps along the Missouri River. The incoming Trump administration put a violent end to the encampments.
DAPL continued. The DAPL pipeline expansion is now vying to cross under the Missouri River without a federal permit. Standing Rock fears that their drinking water supply is threatened. They called on President Biden to shut down the pipeline.
Lisa Hueil Conner speaks my mind:
“We still see the disregard for indigenous people’s humanity in the handling of the Standing Rock Pipeline in North Dakota and its ongoing controversy since 2014. Hiking trips to several national and state parks in the Dakotas inspired my work in porcelain called “Water is Life (Remembering Standing Rock)”. This piece is a visual statement of my outrage over the pipeline that was allowed to be built below Lake Oahe and through sacred native lands in North Dakota. The base of the piece depicts a Lakota family (a father, mother, and child) with representative Lakota icons displayed beside each face. The faces are a composite created after viewing many photographs of members of the Lakota tribe. The rim is the pipeline as it leaks toxins into the ground water of the Lakota peoples. Of course, the pipeline has leaked countless times into the lake water.”
What can I say? Protest, protest, protest! Speak up when things are wrong. Art can give you a voice for that. SOS Art Cincinnati has been going strong for 25 years, giving a diverse voice to many political concerns. There is a lot say about humanitarian outrage—rightfully so.
What can we do? We all use oil. We can car pool and use less of it. We can opt for alternative energies. We need to be willing to pay a higher price for clean products.
But what would we be without water? Lake Mead is at its lowest point in history.
Lake Mead has declined about 140 feet since 2000 and now sits at 37% of full capacity.
Luckily we can always drive up to Horton Springs for some untreated well water right from the earth. Inder scooped it straight from the source; spring in the rocks to his right. (Yeah, yeah, wrong kind of bottle, I know!)
I hope this spring will stay clean forever. You all stay clean!
ABOVE: Performing at LeMars, Iowa, in 2015 are Frankie Carter (left), Tommy Buller (middle), Lillie Mae Rische (right, fiddle), and two more.
Bob Everhart has left the building. He passed away on August 20, 2021, at the age of 85 from heart complications. The world of Old-Time Country Music has lost its most passionate advocate. He was a great entertainer as well. Here we are with Bob and Sheila at LeMars in 2017.
I met Bob on my first trip to the United States in 1979, visiting my hometown Friend Maria “Leni” Petersen in Omaha, Nebraska. She, an accomplished zither player and singer, took me to a county fair park called Westfair.
Maria “Leni” Petersen, plays the zither, her friend the guitar, the harmonica, and the saw.
Instantly, I was immersed in a world where folks strummed and fiddled and balladed on every corner of some dusty arenas or around the camp fires in the RV park. You could hear bluegrass, honky tonk, highway music or Appalachian dulcimers, a vast range of styles topped off by gospels and spirituals. This good-natured music mania was also going on simultaneously on several stages. There were competitions, instruments, vendors, foreign guests–I was hooked. In the eighties, I often ventured to Iowa over Labor Day weekend for a country music bath and to hear familiar acts again.
Bob is recognizing Harry Rusk, a First Nations minister and singer from Alberta, Canada, with a lifetime award.
Bob Everhart was the perfect host at his festival, scootering on a golf cart all over the park. He was also an accomplished singer of train songs, when he let his harmonica do the Train Whistle Blues, ALL Around the Water Tank, the City of New Orleans, or the Wabash Cannonball. And in the winter he usually went on tour to Europe, including Germany. When I still lived there, I booked a couple of gigs for him at the Oklahoma in Munich, the Notabene in Wolfratshausen, and even Gasthaus Lacherdinger in Ascholding. I will never forget that raucous evening with the Black Bottom Skiffle group. That night I realized that I would never want to be a music event manager. How, dear Bob in heaven, could you do that tricky business for more than 40 years? God bless you! Please tell him/her to blow a bit of traditional country music our way, and not those terrible hurricanes!
A snapshot of Bob and me in 2015.
Nobody made a lot of money at Westfair, Avoca, or LeMars, but we all made lifetime friends. When I revisited Bob’s festival in 2015 and 2017, I recognized some familiar faces from the eighties, like Stanley “Gallon Hat” or Erv Pickhinke. Some I didn’t recognize because they weren’t born yet in the eighties. These young musicians were the maybe-soon-to-be-famous offspring of the CW hardliners. Bob cared a lot about growing up young country musicians. He was excited to provide them a platform to show their talents. Bob kept his Who’s Got Talent in Country Music going until his eighties. Well done! A life unmatched.
And so many of the young CW folks played him their last respects with songs like “In the Sweet By and By.” But here comes Jacob Austin as Dapper Dan.
Bye, bye, Bob! Keep on jamming with Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and company.
Here is more In Loving Memory of Robert Phillip Everhart
Waiting. Waiting again. Now at Safelight Autoglass.
This wait was totally unexpected. The timing was freakish. An ice block from the overpass hit our windshield as we were driving under it. It delayed our trip by a whole day. Dreadful.
Aren’t all waits dreaded? The wait in the doctor’s practice, the turn of the red light, the hand of the clock to reach twelve? Waiting for summer, for your turn, waiting for what and why?
During this time of Covid, we had a lot of waiting to do. And we still haven’t learned anything. We still don’t like it and we are not good at it. Waiting takes practice. It’s a skill, It’s an art. Good waiting makes creative and happy.
Many of us (used to instant gratification at a click) couldn’t wait any longer but then we learned it again during the Covid year. Waiting to go back to school. Waiting for take out orders. Waiting in the carvalcade to get your specimen taken and then waiting for the results to come back. Wait, wait, wait a minute or an hour or a week.
The wait at the post office (even pre-Covid) was usually the deadliest for me. I always thought each PO visit would shorten my life by a day or two. So I avoided the PO. HOWEVER, I was so WRONG: actually the PO extended my life. It tricked me into appreciating my time more. The PO gave me slack time that I wasn’t aware I had in my rushed daily routines.
“Waiting for God” was a British sitcom about feisty older folks in an assisted living home. They didn’t jus want to wait around. They wanted to be players in their home court. Nobody wants to wait. Waiting seems a waste.
Waiting is good. Why? We discover our own inner world of fantasy and creativity.
Ask Jaime Carrejo. This Denver artist just now has an installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art called “Waiting.” He made up a colorfully decorated waiting room where the walls seem to come alive in floral patterns and the hanging plants randomly raise or lower themselves. I know all about the ins and outs of this exhibit because my daughter Priyanka Makin (proud mom shout out) designed and built the motorized mechanism for ten of these trailing plants. These spider plants are making a name for themselves by hanging on a thread.
The description for “Waiting” says that “Jaime Carrejo explores the relationship between confinement + duration (=waiting) by layering Southwestern symbolism, mid-century design, and objects from his domestic space.” Wherever this comes from, it is just fun to watch and live inside for a while. More often than not, the pictures on the wall of my doctor’s office have come alive too.
Here is what we learn in this exhibit: Waiting doesn’t kill time. It makes the relationship between space and duration more colorful and essential. Waiting entertains us too. We never know what might happen next. So waiting becomes the real adventure.
Fritz Häber, 16 Months in an American POW Camp by Bernd Häber (grandson) is a remarkable document of WWII history. In it, Bernd shares the complete war diary of his grandfather Fritz, born January 22, 1910, in Leipzig (40 years in GDR). The historical assessment in the Foreword by Björn Krondorfer and the commentary in the Introduction by author Bernd Häber frame up the historic context.
A Tiny Piece of Blue, cast in 1934 rural Michigan in the winter months, tells the harrowing story of a dirt-poor girl abandoned by her parents to fend for herself during the Great Depression. In the course of Silstice’s struggle for survival, she comes into her own. “Silly,” technically orphaned after her parents’ house burns down, gets on with a kind farm woman, Edna, who dotes on her but who is powerless in getting her husband on board to help the kid. One cannot fathom how crustaceous and heartless the old man Vernon is. He may not know any better, and his farm may be down the hill too.
Its rustic charm was irresistible. The Crofting Inn put forth a Hallmark lumberjack façade. The bed and breakfast in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, offers 7 quaint, old-fashioned rooms. Just what my friend, Bandanaland Princess Edda, had been looking for. She was planning to get away from the Texas heat for a summer outing to this ski resort village with her Prince Helmut.
“No problem!” the hostess said. “We will move you into another unit.” Those showers were totally up to date.
A couple from Kerrville, Texas, shared their discovery of mega croissants from the best bakery in the 950-souls-strong little western town of Cloudcroft. They talked with an astoundingly sprite 90-year-old woman who celebrated her birthday with a family reunion. And a good-looking couple was planning a flashy wedding.
“We get many guests from Texas up here,” Gail explained. “They are very fond of Western themes, in which the bandana plays a pig part.” So, she made her place extra comfy and welcoming for cowboys and cowgirls. This goes to show again that there is creativity in bandanas to no end. The sky hangs full with bandanas at the Cloudcroft Inn.
Why do we take pictures with famous people? We want some of the stardust fame rub off on us too.
I am certainly not a stage hog. But—The most famous picture, which I had always wanted, would have been with Elvis Presley. I was only a teenager when he died, cried my eyes out. But Gisela Solms-Wildenfels got a shot with Elvis when he was stationed in Germany. I stumbled into Gisela at a flea market in Wolfratshausen, where she was selling Hummel cups and other trinkets. She is of that Elvis generation. And this one encounter gave her joy to last a lifetime. She gifted me a copy of her Elvis picture.
And yet Princess Edda left the safety of her Rainy Castle for the tea house, cozied in her covers, pulled the blanket up to her nose, and admired the strength of the swaying trees outside. This was such a noble fortress, with Saltillo tiles and stained-glass windows and a bed. But it rattled like a mousetrap. The pelting rain noise felt like being inside a drum.
But the morning was still far away and the wind howling with no mercy. She decided to read herself to sleep. It got later and later. It got so late that it was almost early again. Yet the lightning kept flashing through the glass door, and the wind howled even worse. No use trying. So, Princess Edda decided to admire the power of God’s nature instead. This was better than a movie.
And she was still alive. A tree had crashed only a foot from her tea house. Oh, miracle and wonder! Not quite. Prince Helmut had sent his Bandana Gang to the rescue. Who else could have heaved the tree away from its fateful destiny? And so Princess Edda escaped the storm unscathed. The Bandana Guard kept watch all night.
Environmental Day at the Capitol earlier this year, struck my memory chord like a gong chiming in my head. Activists from all corners had gathered on the Arizona Capitol grounds in Phoenix to lobby for water protection measures and have a word with their District reps.
The Colorado River is so dammed up that none of its waters reach the Gulf of California any more. Lake Mead, in 2023, was at its lowest since the Hoover Dam (1 of 15 Colorado River dams) was built. 2023 was another heat record year with 50+ days over 110F. It’s a damn’ dry situation. For many Native Americans, Navajos included, water has always been scarce.
My friend’s house had a warm, cuddly, welcoming air to it. It was very much ranch-style in its decor with blankets, Native art, and the occasional antler. This was a much privileged outing for me, because a group of strong Native women shared their time and space with me. And I finally would get to see Window Rock, the Navajo capital, as well.
Many Navajo families have no water lines going to their houses. Imagine, any and all water has to be hauled over long distances and bad roads. Imagine how hard it will be to maintain proper hygiene. Imagine how health-compromised individuals might suffer. Or what about elder and infant care? Staying well and healthy requires a reasonable amount of water.
Julius Schütze rides up from Austin. He demands justice for his brother. The wolf pack does not like to be dragged in front of the judge. Now the events take a dramatic spin for the worse. One of the Waldrip gang, Gibson, threatens Eberhard several times about his ammunition, raids his shop, and rapes his Comanche maid. Eberhard is a reluctant hero, but Gibson had it coming. From this point on, Eberhard’s life spins out of control. Done with playing it safe.
Bandana Stories
Bandana Origin
Bandana Warriors
Independent from my instigations, Elisabeth Sherwood had made a collage series of bandana cowgirls, the mysterious types. (One of her gals to the left.) This was just perfect for the Bandana Book cover. I asked my friends, they wrote stories, I put them all in a book. The second one is on its way. It’s titled “Unusual Encounters.” The stories cover a rainbow of experiences and are deliriously good.
“Mona Lisa came together just for fun. There was a river rock laying around for years. It had the shapes of a beautifully formed woman, no relations to the Kardashians (maybe Picasso or Gaugin). And then there was also the tree stump of an old cedar tree. That tree had been in conflict with an oak. Every time when I have to cut down a tree, I leave a stump as a memorial. It could be used for something later. That tree offered itself to install something on it. The other two things had been waiting in the grass for a while. So I put all three together, set the rock on the stump, and installed the metal frame around it. The stone, steel, and wood enhanced each other quite naturally.”
Covid-19 Man: “I made that at the beginning, when we started to realize how threatening and aggressive Covid-19 was. For the first time it happened in my long life that we had such a worldwide epidemic. For me, the woodblock face demonstrates the anguish of a patient screaming from pain and terror. We’ve had the ball made of sea shells for a long time and it offered itself as a Covid virus symbol encompassing the entire globe.”
Another piece is in the works, called Kama Sutra, aka a bunch of large, gnarly cedar roots arranged together. “At this time, I am working on the enlightened lovers,” Helmut says.
Liquid detergent: The utmost insanity of all! Haven’t we always used washing powder? It gives you the same results. Listen up, Tide & Co.: Take your jugs off the shelves right now! We can shake up our own soapy sauce.
Environmental change: California’s new plastics law could force the rest of the nation to cut down on its polluting materials. The legislation mandates, among other things, a reduction in the single-use plastics sold in the state. It also requires 65 percent of plastics to be recycled within a decade—an ambitious goal. Plastics makers will have to foot the bill for recycling. The law could have ripple effects across the nation, but not all recycling proponents are pleased, Laura Parker reports.
I remember the 1950s when conformity in life, belief and culture was not only expected, it was demanded. Most people went along, but there were a few on the fringe who refused to conform. This was before the age of the hippie. (Although of that generation, I have more in common with the beatniks—jazz, writing, being cool as opposed to being loud, “sick” comedians like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl.) We seem to be living in a retro-fifties era today. The cries for conformity are everywhere. If you’ll watch the news carefully you’ll see that the “free” kids of the sixties, who are now in their seventies, are bringing back the worst of the fifties.
Being a beat generation survivor, I think of myself as a cool. I send my works to first readers for their input. I listen to that input, evaluate it, and incorporate their suggestions if I agree with them. A conventional writer will automatically submit to the recommended changes of an editor, critique group, best friend, fellow writer, or first reader without hesitation. Why? Because that’s the way it’s done. The rule book says so.
A conventional knows for a fact that the way to publishing success is to get an agent who will get a publisher who will then publish the work. He knows for certain that this is the only sure-fire method. The cool knows that he can take that road or choose another, such as self-publishing. I’ve debated the pros and cons of traditional vs. self-publishing and each side has its share. The amount of emotional attachment some authors have to conventional thinking, however, borders on religious belief.
Something to think about, eh? Give it some thought.
