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Be Brave

8/21/2022

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In the privacy of your car there is a thing you can do. Drive down Main Street, like usual, but when you are alone in your car, slow down,  stop near one of the new banners and read aloud the words. Simple words.  Each is a proper way to greet the people you have gone to school with or lived next door to for the entirety of your life. How gracious it would be to know one single word of their language and to demonstrate it by speaking "Hello" to them in theirs.

The tribes who were forcibly moved to Ottawa County gave up a lot when they came. So many tribes in this slice of what would end up being named for one of those tribes. But with so many all at once thrown in together, what language would dominate? As it turned out, English came to be the standard and as such, many of these ancient languages went dormant for the most part in order for the once so distant tribes and the settlers who came to live here too, they all settled to that common language.

But within each tribal member throughout their lives have been the goal to base back not only to their culture but to regain their own language. There is a renaissance occurring around you. The tribes are claiming their place among you. They have partnered in a good way with the City of Miami and if you look at those words, you might see them planted on Main Street rather as a stake in the ground saying, "We are still here and we would like you to know it."

I myself am Cherokee and my hello, "O Si Yo" sits on that list, but like most of the readers, I will have to covey near a street pole and study the other greetings because I do not know most of them. But let's learn it together. Learning a new language not only makes you smarter, you exercise the part of your brain that you might have left dormant since you walked out of your last Algebra class. You also are recognizing and demonstrating respect to the people you know, perhaps love.

Let's be brave.

And if you can do that, then we will move on to lesson number two. I hope the next banners will be Thank you.

I owe a great deal of gratitude to a friend of mine who is one of the Cherokee speakers who have convened to construct new words for the language, just as the Webster dictionary has to decide which words to retire each volume, in order to include new words that have come into common use during that year, the Cherokees are cognizant language must grow in order to include these.

Twenty-seven years ago, Nancy Scott came to Miami High School  about a program she was coordinating for the Cherokee Nation. Our school was eligible to participate because some of our Cherokee students lived on the other side of the Neosho River, in the Cherokee tribal boundary, now known as reinstated reservation land. Nancy had first gone to the Intertribal Council to find youth to be involved in the program, and some unknown person directed her to find me at the school.

Nancy brought Learn & Serve to MHS and with 6 Cherokee students, the Cherokee Volunteer Society was born and operated until I retired, and continued projects in classrooms for several more years, involving hundreds of MHS students in their classrooms until after the last project was completed, a book entitled: Disasters-Flood and Ice.

Learn and Serve students took on the needs of the community and did something brave and then taught others what they had learned. The cycle of learning. Recognize the need, research and learn, do something, after reflecting, tell what you learned and then in some way celebrate!

One of the first concerns was how to change the HS when 9th graders moved in. They took on recycling in a then "incinerator" city, then valued their culture and took on Tar Creek as a project that gained them and the school district national awards. But their efforts and dedication inspired me to pick it up, organize LEAD Agency and keep at it for the 2 decades since retirement.

All this spun into being because Nancy Scott walked in the door. She also inspired a generation of youth who now are the moms and dads, the leaders in city, business and the professionals right here.   

You know people who have inspired you, so let's study these banners, our first lesson of 'Hellos" and wait with expectation on the "Thank you" banners that are bound to follow.

We have people to thank for the kindnesses and for the inspirations that they have been.
But they also taught us in some way to be brave. Use that gift and in some way pass on that legacy. Use it and speak up for yourself, yell if you have to, Join me if you would in hollering for a clean Tar Creek and a healthy environment for us all.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim


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The Game

8/17/2022

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There are lots of comparisons to life itself being a "game." But the greatest example I am aware of is played in our area and was being played this week not as a ritual, but I would say as a celebration of life.

As such "it is a game of amusement to our Creator as one of His gifts to us to think of Him in a sociable way. For one thing as they have always taught us, when we play a game, whatever it is, is to remind us also that the temptation of anger is something that we have to overcome," as told by Rudy Diebold.

One day this week I experienced a range of rarely used emotions.

Beginning with surprise as I fell flat in the garden when my feet got tangled up in some electrical cords I had left laying in the open. And if you have ever experienced that kind of falling flat, so fast, one of the first things to do is see if you can in fact get up from it, next, look to see who SAW you fall! I did both.

Pride and satisfaction, grief and compassion, teaching and story-telling voice and listening mode, physical action and the joy of sitting with dear friends to share stories. Making new friends and connecting with old ones. Experiencing the excitement of children as they beam with pride over knowing new information and becoming ready to tell it.

Anger. Is truly the end of the scale for me, but yesterday I rang that bell.

All of these emotions, the range were mine to share with the Creator on a day many others were sharing theirs during the annual Peace Seed Game just off Highway 10 down next to the lake.

But that anger generated enough Adrenalin, or maybe even the fall's untapped Adrenalin kicked in and the LEAD Agency Community Garden got a good dose of work done. Several beds worked up, tilled, and readied for children who were part of our Youth Activist Camp who took up the work to ready a series of beds for planting.

We are truly connected spiritually and ultimately by the earth and water. The theme for the Youth Activist Camp could have been environmental one, but water was the over arching theme.

This year's gentle leaders were Moriah and Stefan, proactive Water Protectors. The campers first experience with water began with the rain barrels in our Community Garden and filling up their watering cans and learning how to water to help plants and not to drown or bear down with too much pressure on the youngest members of the garden: the just then sprouting seeds, learning that too much water can be harmful.

Not all the plants in the garden are for human consumption, some are there to attract the pollinators and provide for them. They learned to observe and by doing so began to find the other beings living in the garden, the insects and a toad! June Taylor's milkweed corner is getting ready to bloom and will provide for the monarchs but also has a tray of water for the "little ones" hidden beneath the leaves.

We loaded the Campers up and took them on a 2-part eco-tour where they learned that not all water is protected or safe for them or other species. They learned about sad George Mayer was when his horses were harmed by the bad water that spewed out of the bore holes on his property in Commerce and no one could or would help him so he had to sell his horses. But learned how Bob Nairn figured out how to make that water better by removing metals and ORANGE color before it ran into Tar Creek.

They saw the remains of Picher and met the Gorilla and loved him! Chat piles became real things and the trucks carrying it were really big. They stood on the Douthat Bridge and saw Tar Creek actually turn colors under their feet. They held there signs up for the slow moving trucks telling them and the world they wanted Tar Creek cleaned up! They took home their very own Horse-tail plant, in honor of George's ponies.

We then took them near NEO, walked by the city's Pollinator Garden to Tar Creek where one of the campers noticed she was slowed by little dams that had been built, but the only ORANGE was on the pillars for the bridge, even though the water still had plenty of metals.
To protect their clothing while painting some of their projects, the campers took on the orange "I Flood, I Vote," to design the banner now proudly displayed over the LEAD front porch, perhaps not knowing that just wearing the shirts they were making a statement!

In a place with so many environmental issues, we are going to need these and more Youth Activists to be the Water Protectors for the future.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim



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Dams Can Be Removed

8/5/2022

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"There are places you will remember"... are words from a song you may remember. But the places you remember, yours and mine, may differ of course, but if you have walked along the shores of a stream, a river or a creek, you will recall the sound and the movement of the water as it flowed past you and continued on its work to reach the ocean, like seeking its long lost mother.

Perhaps it may have lapped to the shore and reached your feet and slid back away only too quickly. It is a beautiful sight. But seeing trapped water, held back and turning black, gathering and beginning to "scum" over can move you and others to action: To free that water and allow that water to move as it was created to do. Monday morning made it a thing your Waterkeepers did. We took down the latest dam that had been built to stop her flow, went to our office, put on dry boots and led a US Senate candidate on his Toxic Tour.

As a child, is Tar Creek a place you remember? If you were an NEO student, how did her proximity become layered into your memories? If you live along her, on the corridors we know as riparian zones did she rush into your home? lap onto your yard? enter your swimming pool like she and her teammate the Neosho River did with the BIG POOL in Riverview Park?

These waters flow and butt into the water stacked in the Grand Lake o' the Cherokees and never turns around to see which way they back up on us. Ever backed a boat down to the water? It isn't always pretty to watch and neither is that water backing up across the Steve Owens Blvd.

We bemoan and demean that lake and the people who operate the gates that keep our backwater coming back to us. Lots of other people have felt that same way. Many are way ahead of us with the anger, the disgust, and the drive they have to STOP that from happening again.

These waters remember how they flowed unrestrained, they sing it when they meet at Twin Bridges. Other rivers have known freedom, then containment and every year throughout the nation, these rivers are not singing loud enough, but there is a movement to free these trapped waters and let the forces they contain reach the sea.

As we know, a dam can be built to hold water back and while storing it, control flooding, and may even generate electricity. But outdated dams pose a threat to public safety. A recent UN report highlighted the growing risk of aging water infrastructure.

There was a "big dam" building phase in the US beginning in the early 1900's and President Franklin Roosevelt used dam building to put many people to work during the Depression. Our Grand Lake got in on the tail end of that era and is now over EIGHTY years old and GRDA is asking for a 30 to 50 year license to continue generating power. It is hard to believe that there are more than 90,000 dams blocking rivers in the U.S.

"90 dams in the US were removed in 2020. A total of 1,797 dams have been removed in the U.S. since 1912."

The movement to capture nature and USE her has met the challenge of old dams and trapped water also trapping sediment and pollutants, these aged-out infrastructures have gotten the attention of protectors: water protectors, the Salmon protectors, the flat heads and the cultures that have been spinning in place to reclaim their origin stories and follow the food that lives in the waters that flow through ancestral lands.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/dams
Our Grand Lake has been the stopped up sink catching the metals from Tar Creek for almost half her lifespan which is why DEQ posted the fish advisory for many of our fish for lead in 2007.

What happens to our flooding if not only the operation of the dam worked in our favor, or if the dam was removed? "There are places you will remember..." perhaps the lake when the water was clear? When you were allowed to swim in it as a child? Will we begin to consider what other communities have? Will we free these rivers? Or are we satisfied with the lake we have and the flooding that comes?

Leaving you with another possible way to prevent flooding.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim


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    Rebecca Jim

    Rebecca is the Executive Director of LEAD Agency and one of its founding members. She also serves as the Tar Creekkeeper with the Waterkeeper Alliance.

    Contact Rebecca

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Local Environmental Action Demanded Agency, Inc.
Miami Office:                                Vinita Office:
223 A Street SE                             19289 South 4403 Drive
Miami, Oklahoma 74354             Vinita, Oklahoma 74301
(918) 542-9399
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