Tar Creek got invited, she snuck in at the last minute in the competition as one of the most Endangered Rivers in the country, with a brand new video. True she isn't a river. But she does flow and she is endangered, and that designation might bring to light only too boldly that she needs some help, real help, the big kind, the inclusive and the all purpose fix she deserves.

What else did she get? She got some good attention by a local writer, Linda Sue Warner when she added Tar Creek and her unquestioned ability to share what flows out of her onto property near and new to be flooded with Senator Inhofe's dream coming true to raise Grand Lake's level up 2 more feet especially so when she will be spreading across yet unflooded properties near her. Warner's series of Coyote stories brings him from a visit on Monkey Island to a fishfry and pot luck at the LEAD Agency office where Coyote gets more than fish and fries, he gets the load-down on who gets injured when that creek goes out of bounds.

There is a great deal of talent out there and Tar Creek desires it. She is damaged, yet, she wants to be thought of, considered, themed in literature and rhymed in poetry and put to music in lyrics that will be hummed when you might be doing dishes or walking your dog.

Tar Creek has potential and has dreams of being your friend, your playground, your stomping grounds, your swimming hole. She wants friends to come to her and sit on that log and have feet dangle in the water. She longs to have batches of baby wood ducks learn to swim in her and duck their little bills into the water to find sustaining nourishment.

Cherokee Volunteers can you imagine it was 25 years ago you planned the First Tar Creek Fish Tournament? And still there are no real fish tournaments held there? Your work made history, planning that inventive event, that first virtual fish tournament Tar Creek ever had. I verified you made history when I found it on the Oklahoma Historical Society's TRI-STATE LEAD AND ZINC DISTRICT page for all the world to read.

Millions of dollars has been spent moving, selling and stacking up chat that is not sell-able, while Tar Creek waits her turn. The Superfund site's name sake has patience. It is what she has. She waits for justice. She waits for equity, and waits to be included in the work done at her superfund site.

A creek knows no time, just as the river who accepts that water, they are simply vessels and paths for that water to flow. All moving to the wider rivers and on to the sea. The water cycle is the cycle of life, flowing from and to perpetually moving. But our Tar Creek, she flows as Ryan Lovell said as a sophomore in high school knew when he described what he saw as her "eternal flow of evil."

Our Tar Creek is not evil, but she carries with her the sins of our grandfathers, the ore left behind in the mines bleeds out and into this creek every day for forty-one years this month.  I am keeping time for her. Another set of children will grow up not knowing they lost the use of a treasure. Growing up next to a creek running through your hometown? Doesn't get any better. Ask countless people who knew this one before it was tainted. Ask people who grew up in Tahlequah, and other little and bigger towns all over America. They haven't had their creek taken from them.

It is serious what this creek has seen since mining began and on to our present. This is Tar Creek's second pandemic. Mining was in the heyday in 1918 and the interurban, the network of electric railway lines allowed miners to commute to work.   The first case of the Spanish Flu was reported on March 11, 1918 in Kansas and less than 2 years later over 1,000 people had died of it in Ottawa County. 

To date we have 22 deaths in this county, but at the rate we are going we could certainly match that number. That early flu and COVID19 are both respiratory viruses. Both pandemics have closed schools, but ultimately enough people wore masks and contained it before. Very interesting to many reflecting on the similarities between these time periods when looking at the presidents in power and their slow reaction and that they both contracted the virus of their day.

Tar Creek is still on course for this second round, and would gladly remind you the ones who lived through before outwitted that virus by not breathing it in and did that simply by wearing masks.

I wish you the kindest of weeks, full of fresh air, time with the people you share your home, and loving thoughts for those who from afar wish you the best.

Respectfully Submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim

This week my friend, Elaine Irvin who lives in Miami asked me to please write about COVID19, the virus that is taking over a thousand people's lives PER DAY. Humbly, I wondered what could I say that hasn't been on the news, in social media, the same messages: wear a mask, social distance and stay home if you can to stop the spread.
 
Masks. Maybe people don't have masks. Why don't each of us make sure we have some to share, to pass on, just in case that is why we still see full faced people, because these are our neighbors, our friends, perhaps they have hit on some hard times and can't afford a mask, and don't want to admit it, or don't know where on earth you buy them, or don't have a momma to get her sewing machine out to whip some scraps together to make original creations.
 
This must be why, because these are our people. They do good things, they are friendly. We like their parents, their kids. They would never want to hurt others. One of my neighbors, did a sneaky drop off of the most luscious jars of jam, didn't knock, just left them in a cute little basket and waited for me to discover it. It would have been great to see her and get a chance to thank her in person, but she told me over the phone, she can't wear a mask for a medical reason, and didn't want to get in our space without one. There are tons of acts of kindness going on all around us.  And I bet you are doing some of it yourself.
 
My doorbell rang yesterday. How often does that happen way out here in the country? When I opened the door I didn't know who the masked man was at first. A carpenter had returned to do a project on my house and charged me a much too modest amount, to be kind I think, but when I paid him, I added the value he deserved.
 
He valued me, I valued him. We wore masks.
 
My dad inherited the land I live on, but worked out of state until he retired and moved home. I remember his brothers taking turns calling long distance, remember when that was a thing? They would ask him to hurry up and get moved back to Oklahoma because their friends, people my Dad had grown up with were getting older and  "dying like flies," and his brothers wanted him to get up here to "help bury them."
 
This is literally happening now for real. People here and around the country are literally "dying like flies," They are dying in hospitals alone because they are too infectious for family to be with them.
 
I remember the AIDS Epidemic. At first people didn't know how that virus was spread, and there was alot of fear ginned up against gay people, until children with hemophilia began to get it and more was learned about that virus and how it could be spread and how that spreading could be stopped and the virus contained while medicines and treatments were developed.
 
This virus is worse, you don't have to be intimate with a partner, you don't have to exchange blood, all you have to do is breathe what is exhumed from a person who is carrying the virus. It is an air exchange. Think about that.
 
We all have to breathe to live. But we do not have to exhale virus that can then be breathed in by a person passing by you, someone you might not even know. They could be standing in line near you and there is your virus hanging out in their air. That easy.
 
Back in the AIDS epidemic, to stop the virus from spreading, the mask of that day was a condom. Not all guys wanted to wear one of those either, lots of virus was spread by the macho man of the day, to women and to other men, people who didn't have to die but did.
 
I remember going to visit a former student of MHS who was in hospice in Tulsa, in his last hours, quietly dying without his parents because they shunned him for who he loved. He didn't die alone, he was not going to share bodily fluids with me, I was not in danger.
 
Our people who have been exposed and are quarantining with each moment the real fear must be will I be positive?
 
Back in the AIDS Epidemic being positive was a negative just as it is now with COVID19. People who live through a bout of this virus will be learning for years what lingers and can bite you later as many of us have learned who had Chicken Pox as children, in our later years only to get its mean brother Shingles.
 
Our new virus will have lots to teach us, those who survive it will be the guinea pigs who will bear witness to medical professionals for the decades to come.
 
Together we share responsibility, and care for our community.
 
Thanksgiving's next week, make the choice to only interact with those in your household and not others so you'll all have a next year to share.
 
Respectfully Submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim

After having lived in Pueblo, Colorado for only 3 months, I went back one afternoon 2 years later, wearing moccasins and my robe for graduation.

Southern Colorado State is a university now, but when I enrolled there it was a college with a program that changed my life forever. The program, Teacher Corps, was a 2 year commitment of service in a public school, basically in practice teaching, while completing  2 years of college level education courses, while also any "spare" time was spent doing service in the community where you lived and worked.

While living in South Dakota, I learned about the Teacher Corps program in Colorado, grabbed a map and found the campus and the site for my 2 years of service was actually 2 mountain ranges away from the college campus, but with 7,000+ showing on the map, it looked to me like a nice sized town in the mountains. What could be better?

Those 3 months on the campus in Pueblo went quickly, and soon my team drove the 5 hours to my new home on the Southern Ute Reservation in Ignacio. I could hardly contain my anticipation and yes, excitement when I saw the city limits sign. Those same numbers I had seen on the map all those months ago... were the elevation. And the population? 303.

There was suddenly a moment of clarity. And the number that really resonated was the number 2, the commitment of 2 years in a town of 303 people.

As I said earlier, this experience changed my life forever. Most college students enrolled in teacher education have a semester, and sometimes even less time than that to experience life in the classroom and from that make the decision to pursue that career or not, based on that one experience. My team of 5 got to spend 2 whole years in a variety of classrooms, different levels, different subjects with really experience teachers. We all chose to stay in education until retirement. So we must have found education fit for each of us.

My college town of 3 months, if you want to call it that, was in the news this week. Why? Right there in the middle of town, blocks from where my little apartment must have been is their Superfund site. Yep, waste from what else? lead.  There had been a lead smelter and EPA had been in the process of cleaning it up, and the town? getting yards remediated for lead!  Just like us here!

Why was it in the news? Community members are afraid EPA is going to walk away and not finish the work. Yes, that can happen. That is why I hope while you might be home more, it might become more urgent for you to call DEQ at 1-800-522-0206 and ask for your yard to be added to the list to be checked for lead in the soil, and if found to give permission for that contaminated soil to be removed for FREE and replaced with soil you can grow a garden in, or have your children play safely in the dirt. We have been spoiled with that opportunity being out there, year after year. But 1995 was a long time ago, and EPA rarely funds what people WANT, but they are doing this, for as long as people WANT it and are calling in and asking for this service.

One third of my time in Teacher Corps was service in my community. Bnd this sounds like a Commercial, or an Ad for EPA to pay for this Service in our community, and it is. Take advantage of making sure you have a clean yard, and so your neighbors do too.

Years ago I heard the fact that almost a quarter of all the people living the U.S. live within 3 miles of a Superfund site. And yes, I have worked in Ottawa County for over 40 years, and the whole county now counts as one big superfund site because the mine waste was hauled all over it, but I don't live here, I live in Craig County on land untouched by industry or mining. But tonight, I found out the heart of my college town is a Superfund site, early in her OU's.

To check out  that 3 mile theory, stating so many people live within 3 miles of a superfund site , I checked on where I had lived in Big Spring, Texas, and they got it wrong. The nearest superfund site is FOUR MILES AWAY, not three. It is at the Lake we would ride our bikes to.

This is a lot to settle in on.  Those years in Teacher Corps changed my life, and my years here dealing with one of the largest superfund sites in the nation, one that is all around us. That blend of education and service was the training that has kept me focusing on our superfund site, but we are not alone. There are nearly two thousand sites on that list.

Let's keep learning, share what you learn, do what you can to help your neighbors and let's band together in service to make this place get cleaned and off that LIST so EPA can get on with helping our sister sites.

Respectfully Submitted  ~  Rebecca Jim
 
 
 

The house I grew up in had a mailbox just outside the front door. Lots of houses are that way. It is so very handy to put out a letter to be picked up, and in the morning you don't even really have to get dressed to find out if your bills have already arrived.

Now my mailbox is 3/4 of a mile from my house. It has never been any closer, but for a number of years it was another 3/4 of a mile farther.

For the last half year the mailbox is the way I connect with the wider world. Each day I long to see what kind of "good mail" lies inside. Good mail? Mail from a friend, or actually any real person. A few days ago a nice packet arrived absolutely stuffed with seeds from Virginia from a fellow Woman Accelerator. It will be awhile before any of these get used, but the plan is to kickstart spring by planting some in containers before winter ends.

What came a few days earlier is a book I don't want to finish reading, but can't put it down. June Taylor surprised me with the Louis Erdrich novel The Night Watchman and every page takes me back to the cold winters spent in South Dakota, though the action in the book takes place with the Chippewa.

The story is old, Indians fighting for their rights against the US Government, this time it was to try to stop the Termination of the tribes in 1953, with policies to end the federal government's recognition of sovereignty. The government wanted to end any responsibility they had for tribes and implement relocation as a policy to move Indians into the cities for training and for jobs, so they would become self sufficient.

In other words, the government proved to be the ultimate "Indian Giver" first taking lands, giving land, then taking that, too.

Ottawa County had tribes on that termination list.

What happened here during that era? Who spoke up, how did they fight for their tribes? Were these efforts reported? Where do we look? The Miami NewsRecord, of course: The Moccasin Telegraph, the column written weekly by Velma Niebering about the Indian doings in the area. Collections of her columns were later bound and I am on a quest to find them.

The reinstatement occurred in 1978, the year I began working as the Indian Counselor at Will Rogers Junior High School. The tribal leaders had their hands full, putting their tribal governments back together and making decisions to shape the future for their individual tribal nations. They were diplomats, businessmen, traditionalists and when you were in the room with them, you knew there was great strength and a bravery they must have learned when young that carried them through the changes they had to face and the responsibilities they were shouldering.

Perhaps that emerging pride in tribal heritage is why our Indian Club membership grew every year. Their interests varied, but always included a quest to learn more about their own tribal ways.

June Taylor's son Joby was involved in our Indian Club and became one of our dance team members, along with the new AARP Recognized leader George Briscoe, Aaron Cusher, David Coyne and many others too numerous to list here. Basing back to our culture was sometimes hard because of another US government program: Indian schools.
For our family, it was the Cherokee Female Seminary where my grandmother and her sisters went to school. She learned Latin, chemistry, physics gained a love for opera and became a lady, leaving her native language there like many who later attended the federal Indian schools did.

My friend Jon Sixkiller got to go to Seneca Indian School as a young boy after his father died and left his mother with her hands full with little children. He was really excited to go, so he could learn to be a "Real Indian." though he was already a real Indian who spoke only his native language. Disappointment came when what he came away knowing was how to make his bed so he could bounce a quarter on it.  

I think about him often as I struggle to expand words in my Cherokee vocabulary. But remember how he and his mother kept the language alive by writing letters to each other totally using the Cherokee syllabary. Letters he couldn't wait to find in his mailbox.

... So I have been using the mailbox to stay connected with friends and family.

All summer, I wrote to children, printing or writing in my best cursive, and almost always when they returned their letters to me, they brightened my day because there inside, they always drew a picture. How do kids know to do that? And why don't we link back to our artistic selves and share something we create?

The holidays are coming and with it, the mailbox is going to be our conduit to our loved ones as we postpone Christmas and Thanksgiving gatherings to protect these precious ones from COVID19. I am already planning what goes out and hoping for "good mail." 

Hoping you get some, too!

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim