Content about blogs

Election Day has arrived and Osages are going to the poll to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.

Rick Luttrell and Sonya Holloway were the first two Osage voters to arrive, signing in promptly at 8 a.m. Others soon followed, all seeming to be in jovial moods.

Imagine a world where at any time during the work day you can get up from your work station and take a swim, get a massage, get your hair cut or even go shopping from a store that is designed just for you.

A world where you can take a walk down any hallway of any building and look at the past and present Nike athletic superstars like Jim Thorpe, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, Nolan Ryan and many more.

Well, in Beaverton, Ore., such a world exists and it’s called the Nike World Campus.

For those of you privy to the music of L.L. Cool J, you know how keen that song is and how very fitting and appropriate that “hook” is for a blog title. Yet, as I write this blog, I was not in a black corvette, did not push play and did not play in the sun. C’mon, I was there on official business folks, but having been there many times before, I could claim ownership of that hook.

What Osage doesn’t have an Aunt Mary? I had several aunts, two of them were actually named Mary. The younger of the two was aunt Mary Gray Pratt, my mother’s eldest sister. Her name was Wy a sha she me tsa he and she was of the Deer Clan. She died of cancer when she was 29. It is true she died before I was born, but to say I did not know her would be inaccurate.  

I spent day four of the Carden Bottoms Excavation being a sponge.

I absorbed any and all information I came across and it made me think of something an Osage participant said to me on the very first day – you never stop learning.

I didn’t realized how right she was until today.

I learned just how important the excavation is, who it was important to and for what reasons.

It took a lot of exploring, a little bit of digging and much understanding to figure it out, but I think I got it.

Every morning I wake up at 6 a.m.

I would like to share a poem with you instead of a traditional blog this month. In fact, I wish more Osage writers would share their artistic works. We have so many talented writers among our people; calling all Osage writers, this is a perfect forum for you!

Tha^.tse Xo - Broken Heart

As a youngster my parents would load my niece and I up in the roomiest vehicle we had and we’d hit the open road for a summer vacation.

My parents didn’t have much when they were growing up so they did all they could and more to get my niece and I a taste of the world outside of the Navajo reservation.

One summer, when I graduated from high school, we took our first trip to Oklahoma. We traveled to Oklahoma City to visit the National Memorial and Museum and eventually made our way south on the 35 to Dallas, in the dead of summer.

Why is it important to learn the Osage language? Well, I for one am certainly privy to the delicate nature of this beast. I am an instructor for the language program, which gives me cause on a daily basis to ponder such a question. And in my experience, our language is seriously taken for granted.

Legally, we are not a tribe if we are without language and culture, which the two in some instances are mutually exclusive.