A GREAT AND PASSIONATE BOOK ABOUT AMERICAN INDIANS

It is important to me to encourage the welfare of the beautiful indigenous people of my country. For this reason, I include Native American characters in my books when appropriate, facets of my stories that place me on joyous research studies about them—about their histories, their cultures, and their contributions to American society. Today and for fitting days in the future, I will post the cover and short description of a book about American Indians from my library and other sources. I hope they will spark interest in, concern for, and support of Native Americans on the part of my friends who read my posts.



Today’s feature is “TOUCHES THE SKY,” a great and passionate yarn authored by JAMES CALVIN SCHAAP: The Lakota and Dutch settlers clash on the mid-country plains during America’s western expansion. The settlers charge the Lakota wrongly with the death of a white settler, a situation that not only places the honor of the Lakota in peril, but also their freedom, home, and way of life.



Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase at Amazon.com.  

GREAT-GRANDPARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, MOTHERS AND FATHERS

INSIDE THE TICKING MOMENTS OF A PANDEMIC – III – EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 12, 2020, COLUMBUS, OHIO, USA, LINDA LEE GREENE, AUTHOR & ARTIST

GREAT-GRANDPARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, MOTHERS AND FATHERS

Of my early childhood, I recall quite a lot, both great and small—little things such as the floral pattern of my grandmother’s apron; the chewing-tobacco aroma of my grandfather’s breath; the giggle of my Uncle “Neenie.” I remember big things, as well, such as the gnarled old man, his cavernous eyes shadowed beneath a snow-white pair of shaggy, brush-like eyebrows, whom from time to time nodded off on the davenport in the front room of my grandparent’s farmhouse. Landon Howard Caplinger was his name, and he was the father of my grandmother, a worn-out farmer and grieving widower. Great-grandmother, Sally, his wife of over fifty years, had died when my mother was in the early days of her pregnancy with me, and by all evidence, he mourned her passing until his own death nine years later at the age of eighty-nine. It was also one day before my ninth birthday.  

My great-grandfather, Landon, was the first old person I ever knew, and I recollect that I was always on guard around him while he was alive—on guard so as not to disturb his sleep, but also because I think I somehow feared I would catch what he had—that I would also grow suddenly old if I failed to keep a very long and very safe distance between him and me. Shielded behind the frame of the doorway between the kitchen and front room, at every chance, I peeked around the edge of it and studied the strange old man, scanning him from head to toe, rooting out his secrets—secrets, I suppose, of what it was like to be such an ancient being.

Religion weaves through the history of my family, but by the time of my childhood, church attendance was a luxury they could no longer afford. Sundays on the farm were like all other days. The cows still needed morning milking, the pigs slopped, the chickens fed, and meals prepared for the many of us. Animals didn’t take out time to worship God, nor did the members of my family whom were their busy caretakers. Even so, there was a kind of reverence in the air of those Sundays, a softly-spoken devotion among my grandparents, my parents, and my aunts and uncles. I hail from a family of talkers, chatterboxes whose verbal excesses required of me to take cover beneath tables and behind chairs and to listen, to observe, and to examine their words for myself. No doubt my soul was rehearsing me even then for my role as the chronicler of their story.  

It was there in those times of overhearing that I learned about another sad man, a man by the name of Jesus. While all around my great-grandfather the house bustled with that activity and chatter, out of the corner of my eye, I watched him half-prone on the davenport, silent and sad. That old man added a kind of curious weight to my childhood. I seemed to understand that he was the linchpin of my family, indeed of my very existence, while at the same time he seemed to me to be of another world. I think that deep down I had a feeling that Landon and Jesus were one and the same.©

Image: Landon on the davenport between my grandfather and grandmother, Adams County, Ohio, circa early-1950s.     

Multi-award-winning author, Linda Lee Greene’s books are available for purchase at Amazon.com.

A TALE OF TWO LIVES

INSIDE THE TICKING MOMENTS OF A PANDEMIC– II –Linda Lee Greene, April 1, 2020, Columbus, Ohio, USA

A TALE OF TWO LIVES

Fifteen months ago, I was with my kid sister, Suzee, as she succumbed to a long illness. She was a radiant creature of 63 years of age. In her final weeks, family and friends gathered at her side and stayed with her, myself included. I came away from the experience saddened and distraught, but also enlightened in an utterly unexpected way.

                I was an adolescent when Suzee was born. The first time I held her in my arms, she was three days old. I was privy to the opening three decades of her life from an intimate standpoint that can only be provided in the fold of a birth-family. My concept of her was pretty much set in stone. I would describe Suzee as quiet; shy; private. She was a loner. She stood apart. The spotlight held little interest for her. She would prefer to steal away in a book. She loved animals more than people.

Thirty years before her death, Suzee relocated from Ohio to the Gulf Coast of Florida, and there she forged a new life for herself. Our sister, Sherri, and I had remained in Ohio. While visits, letters, and telephone calls were consistently passed among us, there is just so much people can know about the nitty gritty of one another’s life under such circumstances. The bottom line was that Suzee got away from us, to a large degree. Separated from the support of her early foundation, as well as out from under its scrutiny and stresses, she remade herself. While I was with her in her final three weeks, I was stunned to see that the Suzee I knew was only one, narrow dimension of her, and I saw it through the dynamic at work between her and the people she had attracted to herself in Florida.

The shy, quiet, private Suzee had grown into a deeply loved, very popular, and sought-after person. She had evolved into a witty chatterbox and a raconteur. She had become a talented artist. She was a property and a business owner. She was an advocate for animals and a minister of their care. She didn’t have children of her own, but in her role as a business person, she sheltered, guided, and mentored many young people. One after another, people told me that Suzee was the greatest woman they had ever known. What a revelation all this was to me!

Had I not been with her during her final weeks, I would have missed knowing the complete Suzee. And more importantly, Suzee would not have had the chance to reveal herself to me. She yearned to see the amazement in my eyes. She longed for my validation. She needed me to endorse her achievements. She wanted so much for me to open my mind about her. Otherwise, the whole of Suzee’s story would have gone undiscovered. She was desperate that I get her story right because she knew I would write it.  

My experience with Suzee circles back to our current situation with Coronavirus. I find myself lamenting the missed opportunities for people everywhere to examine and likely to edit the final chapter of the life of their dying loved-ones. Souls are passing away all alone. Confessions, apologies, secrets, successes, failures, ideas, histories, heroics, revelations, statements of love, and more, are going unsaid. So many vital stories are vanishing, are getting lost, are adrift in the ethers.

I hope that after Coronavirus, some sort of archive of the stories will emerge. Lacking that, I yearn for something akin to the Viet Nam wall scribed with the names of our precious brothers and sisters across the world who lost their lives to the virus.© #STAYHOME #SAVELIVES #INTHISTOGETHER

      

**A personal note to my readers: Muse kicked me out of my cave and told me to get back to my keyboard. It is a struggle, but I will take a stab at following her lead whenever she deigns to whisper in my mind’s ear.