you had me at "hello"...

I have a book called Tongue Fu! written by a woman named Sam Horn.

Her website says,
According to John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, "This is a GREAT book!  Tongue Fu puts a new twist on communication.  Everyone should read it!"  Known as "martial arts for the mouth," Tongue Fu! is perfect for customer service representatives, parents, business owners, couples and anyone else who wants to learn how to deal with difficult people (without becoming one themselves).

...and also lists these items:

*  Idea Chemistry:  the nine components that cause ideas to break out instead of blend in

*  The Jerry Maguire Rule:  Five secrets to crafting an intro that gets everyone at hello

*  The Eureka Moment:  Why people love to discover The Next New Thing and how you can create projects, products, and presentations that haven't been seen or heard before

*  Contra-brand:  The power of saying something that flies in the face of current wisdom

*  Muse It or Lose It:  Why it's so important to ink it when you think it

*  Half and Half Words:  trademark-able terms that produce income for years to come

*  Likeability Humor:  the quickest way to win buy-in

---------------In Tongue Fu!, she has lots of excellent quotations, & she talks about using the right words to communicate with someone so that there aren't misunderstandings and people don't get mad.  Like -- you have to notice the other person's point, or concern, and acknowledge it, show that you give it value, or something, & not just verbally beat it down: 

it made me remember a conversation I had with somebody at the legislative session in the state capital, one year -- the guy was something like -- a school board member, I think, & he was earnestly and vehemently recounting to me his argument with someone over something --

"he thinks," and "I told him," and "he was saying," and "I explained to him," and -- just telling it to me, he was getting wound up again in exasperation and he finished off the litany with this sentence, spoken vigorously -- "I tried to tell him he was stupid, but he wouldn't listen!"

-30-

up in smoke

When we go on the internet and look for a specific piece of information that we would like to have, we seem to always get sprinkled with other pieces of information that we were not looking for -- (it's like, if we didn't have "attention deficit disorder" when we started, we will have it by the time we're done...!)

Last night -- seeking -- electoral vote count; what are the numbers -- & off to the side was a headline bumping into vision telling us that the voters in the commonwealth of Massachusetts have legalized medical -- 

weed.

Huh.

---------------------------
Election night, felt like my top, first choice for outcome would be for the presidential candidate for whom I voted to win;
second choice, coming in right there close under the first choice:  the other candidate wins;
and last choice, bottom-of-the-barrel, what I really didn't want -- was to repeat the experience of 2000, with three months of counting and bickering ending with the Supreme Court ruling -- "er, yeah, umh, ok, it's -- Our Guy!"

----------------------------
When the NRA drifted onto my radar screen recently, I began to wonder if they've ever thought about changing the name of that organization.  To -- maybe -- "National Association of Gun Owners," or "National Association of people who own rifles" or -- something, because as it is, sort of sounds like -- rifles associating with one another.

INT.  Convention center meeting room.  Night.

The rifles begin arriving, entering singly and in groups through the main door.  The rifles mix and mingle, socializing, getting refreshments at the bar, greeting other rifles by wiggling their triggers.

...Etc.

---------------------------------
Just learned this:  if you want to write a letter to the president, "the salutation is" -- "Dear Mr. President."  I would have thought "Dear President Obama" but...Ah-woulda thought wrong.

-30-

what's that sound?

When I went indoors the other night holding a large-size campaign postcard showing a photograph of the candidate carrying his gun -- (and this was supposed to get my vote) -- I thought,
"man with a gun" --
"man with a gun over there"
Oh! -- what IS that song?...
'z-a man with a gun over there,
something something --
stop children, what's that sou--ound,
everybody look what's goin' down...

WHAT IS THAT SONG?
And thought -- it's "Ohio," the one about Kent State -- No, no, it's the one I always get mixed up with "Ohio" but really know it's a different song....

There's somethin' happenin' here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun, over there
Tellin' me I got to beware

(I think it's time we)
Stop, children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

There's battle lines bein' drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speakin' their minds
Gettin' so much resistance from behind

(It's time we)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

What a field day for the heat
Singin' songs and carryin' signs
Mostly sayin' "hooray for our side"

(It's time we)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away

(We better)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?
(We better)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?
(We better)
Stop, now, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?
(We better)
Stop, children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

--------------------
"For What It's Worth"
written / Stephen Stills
recorded / Buffalo Springfield
released January 9, 1967
label:  Atco

--And there is common ground between those two songs:  Stephen Stills and Neil Young were on both recordings -- "For What It's Worth" in Buffalo Springfield, and "Ohio" in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young -- Neil Young wrote "Ohio" and Stills wrote "Worth" so those two songs -- both great, and I shouldn't mix them up in head -- are, one could say, "related."

--------------------------------
Reflecting on the gun guy in my mailbox, wondered -- does the NRA help fund some of that type of advertising? 
A lobbyist who sometimes went to Washington  told me that the three most
Powerful
Lobbying
Influences
in our capital are pharmaceuticals, the NRA, and insurance.

Big Pharma
"big arma"
and
insurance, upon which I won't even get started in what possible way did an industry get built on the concept of sell the customers something and then do everything in your power to never deliver to the customer the things that you sold to them??
Like if your customer bought thin-sliced turkey from you and you got paid by them and then told the customer, well our legal department says there's a clause where jklasud8ornlhsopwio + all the gobbeldy-gook and so we do not have to deliver the product that you purchased, when you need it.  Or ever.

What if you sold newspaper advertising to a client, got paid, and then told the client well our experts tell us that under such-and-such loophole, we don't have to -- indeed we are prohibited from -- putting the ads you paid for into our paper....

what other kind of business gets by with that?  it's like twisted logic from the Planet Ridiculous.  (Or maybe the Planet Rip-Off.)
"You, sir, are a pre-existing condition!  You were alive when you purchased this insurance from us, and we're not paying your hospital bill like we said we would when we wanted your business -- we'd rather KEEP THE MONEY!  Because then we have MORE MONEY and MORE is our FAVORITE KIND of Money!!!!!"

It could be that the days are numbered for this type of gravy-train-of-free-money for the insurance industry, regardless of who wins the presidential election.  Pres. Obama has obviously prioritized health care, and Mitt Romney has already won support for, and put in place, a health care plan in Massachusetts -- my guess would be that Mr. Romney knows the ins. industry's bag o' tricks forwards and backwards, from experience....

The candidate (and, am referring only to the two major-party candidates) that wins the presidency in 2012, should appoint the other candidate to a position in his Administration, and then work on health care, and fair-dealing instead of double-dealing for the American consumer, together.

-30-

guns without butter

Returning from an evening walk, I found a large-size postcard in my mailbox with photographs on it of some guy with a gun.  I was like -- "Aauugh!"
WHAT in the heck....?
Briefly considered not bringing the postcard indoors -- (Thought, can I, maybe, "throw it back" like in Fishing...?)

Flipping the card over and reading the back, it said -- "I promised to run no negative political ads and I have kept that promise!"
And I thought, Well that part's good.
But what's with the gun?...Back to the front-side, the lettering assures the recipient that the candidate for State Senate "supports gun owners.  Always has... always will!"

OK -- am catching on, now.  Down at the bottom:  "Check my record.  Don't believe the gross mischaracterizations of the negative ads.  I am a life-long hunter and gun owner and that's not going to change.  COUNT ON IT!

I -- I think I get it now....

I'm not exactly the specific type of voter that's aimed at, but -- could see what he was doing and why.  He had promised to not use negative advertising (Yay!) and then apparently some opposition force must have dumped hot-button ads onto the voters, telling us this guy might be "anti-gun."  (Blessedly, I missed that.)

(The funny thing is, there are districts where, if you ran a bunch of ads saying your opponent was anti-gun, that would increase his support - !  Suburbs in Connecticut, and around Boston -- places like that....But in this area, the intention
of ads saying a candidate is "anti-gun"
is certainly to turn public sentiment (and votes)
against that candidate.

So -- it appears he made the commitment to run a positive campaign (commendable), but then felt compelled to defend himself when negative ads were run against him (understandable).

I don't know why I was intimidated when I first took out the postcard and was greeted by people wearing hunting clothes and the candidate carrying a gun.  I guess I just wasn't expecting it.  I see photographs of people in their hunting gear, with guns and ducks and things, on people's walls and on their desks, and that doesn't scare me or -- startle me.  But these folks don't have a photo taken of themselves holding their gun and then -- send it to me in the mail!

Standing on my porch in the dark, with my heart rate in the exercise zone and my comfortable sneakers and jacket and stocking-hat which says, "Don't approach me or run over me, I'm busy" and looking at the "Thanks for your support!" postcard, upon realizing it was a political candidate, thought momentarily, "is he coming after me with the gun, to make me vote for him??"...  (Smith & Wesson, The great equalizer.  The great convincer.)...

-30-

when we canvassed

Most of those initiatives, referendums, items on our Voting Ballot that are not individuals running for office, are pretty well worth voting "No" on, most years, most of the time.  Once in a while there's something where we voters want "Yes."  This year, about 6 minutes of research told me that, for my taste and priorities, it's "No" on all of 'em except 14.

The rest of them, this year and most others, seem to be --
something the legislature didn't want responsibility for -- "let's turn it over to the people!"
or
somebody who has a good deal and wants an even better deal,
by passing something or, heaven help us, changing the State Constitution....

---------------------- Thinking about the Election, I started remembering past elections -- and over the years, the "thrill" of voting has sometimes started to feel more like a "chore" instead...(less like a Bob Dylan concert and more like, say, vacuuming.)  But then unexpectedly it can again become a thrill.  (Put away the vacuum cleaner -- Bob Dylan's coming to town!)

When I was a senior in college I worked as a volunteer on Ronald Reagan's campaign for president, stuffing envelopes and typing press releases at the campaign office in downtown Boston.  You got off the trolley at the Park Street stop and walked on the crowded, bustling sidewalks to a small suite of non-sparkling, low-rent rooms in a tall building.  There was a woman there named Barbara Pond, whom I sort of bonded with, and "followed" -- like a mentor, and I remember a guy named Bernie Sweeney (one of my professors said, of him, "Ooh! -- lace-curtain Irish!" just from hearing the name...).  Bernie Sweeney had a patient, impassive face and attitude in the midst of campaign hurly-burly. 
He -- paced himself, at his desk in the corner.

I liked going down there and helping, and expressed my enthusiasm by inviting everyone to a party at my apartment in Brookline.  My space was student-y, and stereo-centered, and in someone's basement....and yet the amount of self-consciousness, nervousness, or pressure to measure up that I felt about that party was Zero - !  (Looking back, that seems amazing, lol.)

It was easy -- maybe it's kind of like the person who accomplishes something because he didn't "know" that he "couldn't."  There was an ease and happy froth of having a common goal and yet not a horrible amount of pressure on any one person -- it was just sort of a "together" effort.  And that ease and casualness and good-will just flowed right over to my little party.  I invited everyone and everyone attended and it was fun.

The idea of a Republican such as Reagan winning in Massachusetts was somewhat foreign, and when he did win in Massachusetts it was like frosting on the cake.  (A newspaper carried headlines that Carter had won in the Bay State because they went by the early returns -- so it turned into a sort of "Dewey Defeats Truman" situation.)

Reagan was the candidate I wanted to vote for, and work for, that year not because I didn't like Carter, but it seemed like things were bogging down a little bit, with the energy crisis, hostages in Iran -- (my Italian professor said, "I think the Ayatollah is going to get aya-told something!"), 18% interest ....Ronald Reagan seemed like a nice guy who wanted to help.  He was optimistic -- I think he called himself "the eternal optimist".  (Like President Obama -- when I read sections of his book, The Audacity of Hope, I thought of Reagan and the attitude of "Yes we can do this!)

------------------------When we heard last week that George McGovern had died, I remembered the 1972 presidential campaign, and mentioned to a co-worker that I had volunteered on that campaign in 8th grade, & she kind of looked at me like that was a "different" sort of phenomenon....but perusing Hunter Thompson's book about the '72 campaign, came across various passages about kids being involved in that campaign -- it was not so unusual, that year.
------------------- [excerpt, H. Thompson]: 
MILWAUKEE, WISC. -- The George McGovern field organization has become a legend.  Gene Pokorny has been hailed as the "best young political organizer in the history of this country"...
A bunch of beautiful, euphoric, very young McGovern volunteers were having a completely informal victory party in a block-long two-story brick warehouse, formerly used to store toys.  ...

They had all worked in the Fourth District, the Polish South Side of Milwaukee, a section that even the McGovern staff crossed off as the inviolable turf of Muskie, Wallace, and Humphrey.  McGovern had not only won the district but beat Wallace by eight thousand votes.  At the warehouse at 3:30 in the morning, nine or ten of the volunteers gathered around to talk.

"Tell everybody we really love George McGovern," said a blonde girl.

"The district coordinator we had was really great," said another girl.  "Every time you came back he'd say, 'I know you'll go out one more time.'  But he worked later than anybody.  And he had a great way of getting little 13-year-old kids to work so they wouldn't just hang around the office."

"I came from Utah for this primary campaign."

"We came from Springfield, Illinois."

"When we canvassed we thought a lot of people were against us.  We got really discouraged, it was freezing cold.  You'd get a whole bunch of uncommitteds and then you'd hit three favorables in a row and it was an amazing up.  The people were good to us, they were impressed that we were out in the cold and they let us come in to get warm.  They were impressed I had come from Michigan to do this."

..."Some of these people were weird," said another girl.  "I asked one guy, 'What do you think of McGovern?' and he said, 'I'd vote for him if he'd turn Christian.'..."
...
"This is the old politics," says Joel Swerdlow, the 26-year-old who ran McGovern's operation in the North half of Milwaukee.  "We have precinct captains, ward leaders, car captains, the whole bit.  That's the only way you win.  But instead of patronage bosses and sewer commissioners, we've got young people who work because they're interested in the issues."
...

"I have to crash," the girl from Utah said...."But I have to tell you something first.  I've been here less than a week and yet I know so many people here well, 'cause they're beautiful people.  Even if we'd lost, we'd have won so much."

-30-

northwest passage

A few years ago I listened as a woman told me that her mother and her mother's friend had gotten so carried away watching the 2004 presidential campaign coverage & commentary, that they had declared if George W. Bush won re-election, they were moving away to another country.  (Usually in these types of statements people specify Canada, preferring it, for some reason, to Mexico -- if we're limited to a contiguous nation....but I don't recall that she named which country these ladies were going to -- maybe it was to have been any country, just so long as "W" was not president of it.)

News drifted in, in 2008, that a long-time acquaintance was moving to Canada for certain if Barack Obama were to win that election.  (They didn't move to Canada -- all their stuff is here....   : )

Surely people who say these things do not really plan to move out of America, even as they're making the statement -- it's probably just a momentary expression of frustration.

And that's why politics makes people mad sometimes -- like life, and like golf, it can be frustrating.
The empowering thing for a person to do is to recognize two things --
1) The world is not going to end if the other candidate wins, get a grip, &
2) It's an election not a junta -- it won't be a huge difference in our lifestyles or our human rights, or anything, regardless of which candidate wins.

If the presidential candidate that we vote for wins, fine!
If the presidential candidate that we did not vote for wins, --well -- that's the way the cookie crumbles, and we go on with our lives, just the same the next day.  Unlike in some countrires, if our favorite candidate loses, we don't have to pack all the belongings we can carry on our heads and run for our lives.

---------------------------------
When I was in 8th grade I worked on South Dakota Senator George McGovern's presidential campaign -- stuffing envelopes, mostly, in a second-floor room of a downtown building in Kent, Ohio, along with my friend Robin, and some college kids.  A few days before the election my father, watching news on TV in living room, said with a disappointed sigh, "I don't think McGovern has a Chinaman's chance."  (don't ask me what kind of chance that is -- that is the first and last time I ever heard the expression, "a Chinaman's chance."...)

On Election Night I still thought maybe McGovern could win -- because I had no understanding of, nor interest in, polls and predictions, and I was naturally optimistic and excited -- and I had stuffed all those envelopes!   And as the black-and-white murmurings on our TV screen sort of started to become clear and I could see and hear that Pres. Nixon had indeed already won re-election, pretty early on, I thought of the "Chinaman's chance" and burst out, in that same frustration that makes people say they're moving to Canada -- "I hate Nixon!"

And my dad said immediately, kind of shocked at my outburst, "Oh now, we never hate the president.  Don't say that.  He's our president."  And he added with a sort of subtext of irony, "He's the only one we've got."

---------------------------------
Nora Ephron wrote about that phenomenon of "Life goes on," or -- "There may be great events, great issues, and great struggles in the world but we still have to live, in our individual daily way"...
[excerpt, Introduction, 1970, to Wallflower at the Orgy, collection of Ephron articles]:
I should say that almost everything in this book was written in 1968 and 1969, and almost everything in it is about what I like to think of as frivolous things.  Fashion, trashy books, show business, food....

One night not too long ago I was on a radio show talking about an article I had written for Esquire on Helen Gurley Brown and I was interrupted by another guest, a folk singer, who had just finished a twenty-five-minute lecture on the need for peace. 

"I can't believe we're talking about Helen Gurley Brown," he said, "when there's a war going on in Vietnam."  Well, I care that there's a war in Indochina, and I demonstrate against it; and I care that there's a women's liberation movement, and I demonstrate for it.  But I also go to the movies incessantly, and have my hair done once a week, and cook dinner every night, and spend hours in front of the mirror trying to make my eyes look symmetrical, and I care about those things, too.  Much of my life goes irrelevantly on, in spite of larger events.  I suppose that has something to do with my hopelessly midcult nature, and something to do with my Hollywood childhood.  But all that, as the man said, is a story for another time.
-------------------

-30-

run for it

[excerpt]--------- "What do you see?" whispered Bopo.
When Olah did not answer he crept up to the flap and added his eye to the slit.  Then his heart turned to stone within him, for, hanging from a thorn bush at the edge of the clearing was a large square of red deerskin!

CHAPTER THREE

That piece of red deerskin hanging in the bushes meant only one thing.  The council had voted for the immediate destruction of the two boys.  The girl, Wawena, had failed.  It was but a matter of minutes, perhaps, before they would be led to the post, bound back to back, and left to the red tongues of flame reaching out to sear their quivering flesh!  The sun was down; it was dusk in the village.  One moment more might be too late!

Both boys threw themselves flat on their stomachs and peered under the bottom of the teepee.  There were guards in front preventing any escape in that direction.  There were, of course, others in the rear -- but they would see.  So, cautiously peering beneath the rear wall, the boys came face to face with -- Wawena.

She had waited long to get to them.  The sentry placed to watch the teepee at the back had gone for a chat with someone behind the next lodge, and she had found her chance.

"Everyone is at the council!" she cried in a whisper.  "Here, let me cut your bonds.  What, you are free?  There is no better time to escape than now!  I tried to get provisions to the canoe without being seen, but once the dogs got what I had placed, and another time there were too many children playing nearby for safety.  So there are no provisions.  Run to the river -- take your pick of the three canoes there--"

"But I don't understand!" said Olah.  "You hung out the signal on the bush, the red buckskin!  We though they had decided death--"

"No, not yet!  They are still debating!  And I didn't hang that skin up.  Old Buffalo Woman was dyeing leather for a dancing costume, and hung that up to dry.  I couldn't take it down without her seeing me.  But we must not talk any more.  The sentry may be back at any moment!  You have a clear path now!  Go!"

The two lads ducked out under the buffalo hide, and crouched ready to run, but Olah glanced back.  There sat Wawena as they had last seen her, slumped against the teepee like a sack.  Olah slipped back to her and hissed in her ear.

"Quick!  What are you sitting here for?" he gasped.  "Hurry!"

"No," she returned, "you'll need all your wits to beat them, and you can't afford to be hindered by a girl!  I will stay here!"

"No!" said Olah, roughly seizing her arm.  "If you won't go with us, we will remain.  That is final!"

Wawena saw that he meant it.  A look of intense joy came over her sad little face.

"All right," she said, stiffening her neck as one does before diving into icy water, "I'm with you!  Now run!"

At that moment a sudden flare of light shot from near the council lodge.  The flap had been thrown open, and the glow from within was reflected from the green brush outside.  There were voices, and the sound of thudding feet.  The council had ended!

But, whatever the verdict, the boys did not wait.  Three forms crept out from behind the teepee and shot toward the river bank.  The boys had started slowly to keep pace with the girl, but they soon found out that this was not needed.  She was as swift as a rabbit, and outdistanced them both by two lengths.  Over the bank!  A long slide down the clay side of it!  And there, on the gravelled shingle were the three canoes, bottom up.

Bopo picked the smallest and lightest hastily.  With Wawena's help he turned the craft over and launched it, while Olah was smashing the other canoe bottoms with a large rock.  Crash!  Creak! went the ripping birch bark and splintering wood shells of the fragile canoes.  A few well-aimed blows and they were out of commission.  No man could chase them on the water now.  But on land -- that was a different thing.

Two dogs, running along the river, saw them and began to bark.  The curs yelped and howled.  Wawena tried to quiet them, but through some sixth sense they knew that something was amiss in their village.  And, in answer to their yowlings, came a long wavering whoop from above.  Someone had discovered the escape!

Olah gave a hard kick to the shore as he leapt swiftly into the stern, and the agile boat shot outward like a startled duck from cover.

"The paddle, quickly," he hissed.  He heard Bopo rummaging in the bow, and then a silence.

"Didn't you find a paddle under those canoes?" Bopo demanded.  "There's none here!"

"Oh," cried Wawena under her breath, "I might have known.  They always take the paddles up to the teepees after dark!" and a silence, a dread silence, fell on all three.

Meanwhile the canoe was being taken by the current, and hurried along parallel to the shore but not far out.  Back at the landing a tall form rushed to the bank edge, stood silhouetted a moment against the sky, then dropped to the beach below.  A howl came, then shouts, and cries.  They had found the demolished canoes, had discovered one was missing.  Wawena listened.

"I hear Scar-Face," she whispered.  "That voice above all the rest.  He says that the canoe is drifting downstream, and for them all to get their bows and shoot from the bank!  But I also hear Red Wolf, and he is ordering them not to shoot!  But I know Scar-Face!  He will kill us all!  He will go to the buffalo ford!  Oh, we must have a paddle!" and she shivered in the bottom of the canoe with excitement and fear.

"I have it!" she cried at last.  "Not a paddle, but some good substitutes.  On the other side, if we can reach it, is a shallow pit where the women have been digging clay for cooking pots.  Their shovels are made of buffalo shoulder blades lashed to short poles, and they usually leave them in a cache at the side of the pit.  If we can reach it in time, they will make good paddles!"

Olah and Bopo were not Chippewa lads for nothing.  The canoe is the burdenbearer of the woodland Indian.  It is his horse, and his plaything.  And many a race had these boys run against each other on their home lakes, with paddles left behind.  So now they knelt on the bottom and, with hands slashing backward like the feet of a duck, little by little they edged the canoe in toward the other side.  It took Wawena little time to locate the pit in the darkness, and in a minute or two she appeared on the shore with four clumsy shovels in her arms.

"Nezesheen!" cried Olah.  "Good work!  You are a true Chippewa, because you think fast and not like the slow Bwanoz!"  So saying he took the largest for the stern, balancing it in his hand.  Bopo selected another, shorter in the handle, while with a smaller one Wawena crouched in the center and amidships.

"Now let them come," cried Olah, his head high, and feeling every inch a warrior.  "Now let them try to get us!  They are turtles, running on the land, but we are swift trout in the water.  We shall soon outdistance them!"
--------------------- [end excerpt]
from a children's book, long out-of-print, called Claws of the Thunderbird, written by Holling C. Holling.  Copyright 1928 by The P.F. Volland Company, "Joliet, U.S.A."

--------------------
When I read that now, (which I read when very young and heard read-aloud when even younger), it reminds me of the determined spirit of people I work with -- where, if one thing doesn't work you figure out something else to do and, as I heard someone say one day in his office, "Failure is not an option."

-----------At the front of the book there's an intro titled, "To the Reader":

All this happened many, many summers ago, before the heeled boot of the white man crunched the sanded shores of Kitchi Gami, Lake Superior.  Then the trails were run by soft moccasins that made no sound.  Then no bark of rifles disturbed the woods, and deer and moose went to their deaths heralded only by the twang of bowstring and the hiss of feathered shaft.  The smoke of coal fires spread no haze against the sun in those days, nor was there steel for knives, nor yellow lumber for houses.  Copper there was, and stone and bone and flint, and with these four things the Chippewa and the Sioux made weapons and hurled defiance, one at the other, across the forests and the plains.

If you look at a map, you may see Lake Superior, the Great Water, lying with his tail in Minnesota where now stands Duluth, with Superior, Wisconsin, on the opposite shore and a long sand island between....
...
There are others who say there was once a great battle fought, but when and where it was, nobody seems to agree.  Yet, when the fire has sunk to slumbering coals and the memories of old men wander along the misted trails, they will tell you that it was a great battle, a great battle, indeed!

I have never seen the Thunderbird, but there are those who have, for they will tell you so.  And when the thunder roars, and the loose bark flaps on the wigwam roof in the gale, and the rain seeks every opening, and forked lightning seethes in the black night -- then are the old women watchful, and the old men remember strange tales.  Then, for them, the Thunderbird flies once more!

-30-