Running Commentary: 3
June 17th, Sunday, Father's Day

     Laura held verbal court this morning.

     Sentences can break apart; words evaporated and carried away by gusts of wind. To counter nature, for this morning's run, I brought a small spiral notebook to capture key ideas before they floated away. Later, when I opened the little 3" x 5," I saw I'd written a single word--Indian.

     I've been trying to figure out a way to mention I'm Indian--American Indian--Citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

     My friends don't care, or half-way believe it, as I am fair skinned, light haired, green eyed, and sport a fair share of freckles. If they could only see me in a line-up with my Indian cousins, I'd be picked out as the suspect, for sure. And, then as far as the State of Texas is concerned, they believe they got rid of all the Indians years ago.

     Now, I know over the past five hundred years, the dominant White society in America has chosen to imagine the Indian has vanished. The myth of the noble, but savage Indian, is allowed to live in books, and movies, but has been carefully faded into the glory of the Western sunset. Since they've vanished, I, as an Indian, am not supposed to be here. The Indian part of me is ignored; never acknowledged.

     At our first stop for water, Laura was pulling at the legs of her three-quarter length running pants. Between gulps, she admitted the pants were hot because they didn't breathe. But, she couldn't wear shorts; they would give her the 'Indian Creep.' She got a funny look on her face, then told me, this was what her mother always called shorts, covering legs that were a little too chubby--"Indian pants that creep up on you." I laughed. I can do that. I'm Indian.

     Running by a busy lawn sprinkler, out came a flush of summer time memories. "Water coming out of a hose or sprinkler, smelling mossy when it hits the grass always makes me think of summer. That's the first thing," said Laura; "Second, coconut butter tanning lotion--the Coppertone kind; Third, charring meat on a grill. These are the important smells of my childhood summers."

     "We were feral kids. Mom and dad left early for work and we were left alone. Our neighborhood didn't have a single fence separating houses; we had a whole range to roam; trails to carve; plenty of space to be free. I think it was when I was twelve, people moved into the house behind ours and put up a fence. From then on, summers were never as fun."

     The first summers of my childhood were different from Laura's. I knew the smell of mossy, too, but, I didn't tell Laura of these things. My childhood summers were spent in the hills of Northeastern Oklahoma and in the Piute Allen canyon of Utah. My playthings were the sky, the stars, the rocky hills, and the grapevines. I was a feral child of the woods. I lay on the wonderful mossed ground, looking up to the heavens through the frame of green, ferny leafed branches, stretching higher than my imagination. This was my art; the space, the animals of the woods and those of the rivers and streams, my childhood friends. Even if they are now gone, they live in me. Those were my summers before moving to the land of the fences.