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Days of Happy Talk
Looking to Resolutions


    Old towels in my house are tattered and grey and need to be made into rags. White sales are coming up so that's a bonus deal.  I remember when I was a kid and worked for a doctor's family. They owned a two-story mansion with suites of rooms. The linen closet was on the second floor. That room was about the size of one of my children's rooms in this house. Stacked in great numbers were sheets and towels. When I worked in the boarding school at the Chilocco laundry I was made aware that there were so many sheets for beds but this for one family was a bit of an awakening. As I worked for them, the only servant on the premises, I realized what a tremendous amount of work it was to keep this part of the household functioning. I don't know why I was so dedicated they didn't really seem to care a whole lot. Each one was into their own world whether the country club or dating, shopping, working or other pursuits. The house was just  sort of handed down, in place thing, left to them by their father who was a doctor, too. The only bed I had to make up for them was in the doctors room. The lady and the girls were responsible for their own. On occasion when the girls didn't make their beds for a week at a time the lady would have somehow missed what they were doing so I would make them up when I changed the linens.
    Today,  I'll watch for the white sales of January and that's enough to make me happy. Could this be considered a resolution?  I'm sure it has nothing to do with greater thoughts of working on one's weaknesses through self-control, but I never am able to achieve that anyway. This one weak plan will have to do and that is of taking care of the not so demanding, on the other hand,  necessary.
    The storage room full of fabric seems to elude me as well. Part of the tradition of my Indian family includes “give-aways” which are always accompanied by fabric or material.  I think it is more symbolic in speaking than anything else but somewhere in the annals of time the true meaning is lost. Really it has something to do with sacrifice of one's material things, giving up something you love and cherish to honor the accomplishments or bereavement, whichever it might be, of someone else. It is a kind of discipline away from selfishness.
    Collecting fabric as I find it on sale or where it is available makes for just that, a collection.  What should be done is to organize sizes and pieces into readily available parcels which can quickly be picked up for when there is a death.  One person doesn't need to give great amounts but if everyone brings a few things to the person in charge of their own give away then the load isn't so heavy on anyone. This part of the culture has dwindled down to a place where everyone just runs out to Wal-mart to,  quick,  buy little gifts. Whatever!  This, though, really has nothing to do with the original meaning of the practice and that was one of dispersing one's personal belongings out to someone else to enjoy and is sort of like sharing good vibrations, as the hippy would say.  Again, would this be a resolution of sorts?
     The entry of Christian values into Native American' lives,  causes the practice to be frowned upon by one or another religion so, we just can't seem to please everyone. Can I resolve to hold to what is good and be wise enough to know what isn't?  Is that a resolution?
    One young person said, “I'd like to go back to the old ways, but I don't know what they are.”  He told it as a joke and I laughed but I suppose it really isn't funny. 


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