The Call

     I got a call from Jose Jimenez on Saturday.  "Hola, Tomas.  I goin' back to workm but its not a good deal."  He explained how we wouldn't be staying in a mancamp this season, but a hotel...
     Not a good deal?  I guess I could think of so many people that have not had a good deal.  I myself have been down that road of not thinking I was having a good deal at the moment: fend for my own meals, more miles to drive.  About that time I begin to think exactly how spoiled rotten I am and have been over the last few months and truly blessed.  I think of all the people who have lived out West and not had such a good deal.
     On Saturday I visitied Fort Buford and Fort Union near Williston, North Dakota.  I attended these sites of historic profoundness in awe and wonder with my beautiful companion Brenda.  She being more familiar with the area acted as my guide.  At Ft. Union an old fashioned Rendezvouz was happening.  Furs, old tools and dress, harsh living quarters, with a hint of Bourgoise presence and human refinedness made me reflect on this idea of human dignity in in the harshest primitive conditions in a time period when nothing was certain.  I particulary let my ear wander to the sound of a a drum and a Lakota story-teller.  The man spoke and sang in a small crowded room in the corner of the fort opposite the Bourgoise house.  How fitting and contrasting the two ideas of richness.  Yet I felt at ease in either setting.
     After some time at Ft. Union, we moved down the road to Ft. Buford.     More military than fur-trade historics, it hit me and I felt the presence of something much greater than the happenings of the Bakken.  I imagined what it would have been like to be doing about my business one day when over the hill came a band of 168 Lakota people, warriors and families, hen hearing an order to disarm them and take their horses. 
     I imagined Sitting Bull the leader of these people handing his 5 year old son his rifle and explaining to the commander and the press that the buffalo were gone, the nomadic way of life was gone and it was the responsibility of people like the commander to teach this boy something, to educate him because as far as sitting Bull was concerned, he only knew one way to educate a child and from that day forward, it would be pointless to try and teach him the ways of survival in the new way.   He only knew his way.  On Saturday, June 15, 2013  I walked where Sitting Bull walked,  and I sat in the room where he surrendered his rifle.   I looked out the same window where Crows Foot gave the commander his father's rifle.
     The Bakken, invaders, manifest destiny, imminent domain, mineral rights, land owner rights,  expansion,  progress, technology.... Change!
     I wonder in great awesome thought, what has really changed over the last 130 years.  Men all the time wonder what it is that they should educate their children in.  It beguiles me to think of what an education is today and what it should be, what kind of society we are building for our children?   Should it be the path of secular humanism, college, new age scientific dynamics? What path should I point them down. God knows how often I have stood where where the two roads diverge.  Then as I reflect on the changes in my life it hits me so simple so precise.  What if we just teach our children  to walk, to walk where Jesus walks.
     "I'll see you out there on the line my friend Jose, if not this one maybe the next one."