To those that know me...not biblically speaking...but more as a ramblin deranged po-ET...Not to take away from Allen Ginsberg's in speaking of po-ET and their words...or Fernigetti, one of the greatest of American Poets,(my last trip/stop at City Lights in SF...I had the honor of taking a photo of him with another man...who just wanted a picture of them together...and I was chosen to be there at that moment)... as was that drunken Bastard from Los Angeles (Charles Bukowski)...who I discovered has inspired the great Tom Russell...
From the recent cyber broadcast of the Cowboy Poets gathering (2008)in Elko, I have learned that Tom was raised in Los Angeles, and not an authentic Tejan...oh Tom, oh Tom, who now resides on the border at El Paso...Tom's masterwork of cowboy verse/song, has an intensity that is comparable to the greatest cowboy verse writers,but is more of a Bukowski bucking bronco buster...To be able to exchange words years back with Tom in the Starry Plough men's wash room in Berkeley, as he was washing his hands...telling him that he/we cannot wash away our sins, Tom understandingly nodded in agreement...I attribute this mind thought to those piney woods people that reared me in that community on the great river, Mother Sabine...and thus this post...
I have stumbled and fallen, and with tired hands through the course of my life, pulled myself out of the gumbo/adobe mud of which I have found myself fallen...this after graduating from Hyatt High School, at Fields, Louisiana in 1963, having walked off that stage with a sore chest. This injury came from the kick of a mule several weeks earlier, while attempting to plow the spring garden, and my father stood amused, that I would allow that mule to place me in that spot...one would say, mind over mule...thus, the mule won with a direct hit...
My journey, my road scholar work took me into many doors, with views from many different windows, and stairwells up and down, often racing to keep my spirit alive...Again, walking out of that gymnasium that night in 1963, I knew not what layed ahead, but that there was some challenge ahead for me. I feel most strongly that I have met that challenge ...even moreso having been nominated in the late 80's as a Who's Who of the West, unable to submit the profile with feelings that I had not done enough to prove myself worthily of such honor.
Returning in (2002) to my mother land, to this woman(Earth) who gave birth to me, for she did her upmost best to mold and make me,just as I am, without one plead
...those wimmen of the Sabine, written about so well with that story by Kate Chopin..."IN SABINE"...a termendious reading to understand the hardship pioneer women endured, and especially those of the Sabine River bottom...The community that I was raised in, Bancroft...has put out so many remarkable people, three are from my own family, and several other families in that "rural" hamlet have done equally as well...Southward is the De Witts Eddy community, they have succeeded, and also the neighboring community of Fields...Nearby Fields is a small community amid the pines of Bear Head creek, some refer to that area as PeckerWoods...a very enduring term...home of the Pickering's, the Boyer's, LaCroix's and so many more. Honest people, a most lost virture.
Bancroft was settled by refugees from Hancock County MS,led by a Samuel Wingate entering from the Newton Texas side,a journey into the dark, piney woods of NO MANS LAND. There, he discovered some most Majestic Pines...pines that were cut out by the 30's and then the economy began to diminish. At that time,the various one room school houses were combined in a newly built WPA building, which should have already been declared a national treasure, and historial landmark...To see that building and its 50 acre campus, is a site to behold...it is a twinkle in the creators eye...
Since the inception of the school, a combination of "rural" communities, WE have been strongly judged these many years by the "correct" despots of De Ridder, the parish center some 30 miles away..."They" considered us clodhoppers, ect...we are not...WE are Sabine...WE are Sabine...PROUD...our lineage arises from the Celts,the French, additionally we inherit both Cherokee and Choctaw blood...Many are seeking to regain their status as Cherokee/Choctaw through Four Winds Tribe of Louisiana Cherokee...
Through my own research, I have learned in the past two years, of that link to this native blood. This discovery is attributed to another woman who has been researching on the mystery "GORE'S"...our discovering our common grandmother Mother Ellen...who she through her own research, believes walked the Trail of Tears, forced to become outlaws...The Cherokees and Choctaws settled with the other displaced traumatized Southern's after the war of the civil in these majestic, wonderful and most serene piney woods...Our beloved NO MANS LAND became a safe haven for both the traumatized Southerns and the Native people who refused to go to Oklahoma...re:Chief Bowles and thus Bowl(e)slough, whose banks I was raised on...
Recently, those who have and continue to JUDGE us so strongly and harsely, have decreed that they would shut this community school down...Their meeting was held almost in secret, in De Ridder on a Thursday night, a 30 plus journey. They expected those who worked 60 miles away from our beloved communities of Bancroft, Fields and De Witt's Eddy, to attend this board meeting in De Ridder,another thirty plus miles, a near almost difficult task,and again,this was planned on a Thursday night,days before Thanksgiving...
Their, the schoolboards action was both an immoral and illegal action...They declared with little community input and with scant evidence, that they had the power to destroy this community (a combination of commun-ities whose center is Hyatt)...This nearsighted elitist board has failed, for there is a higher authority...a higher power...and there is that personal power we all have. This combined personal power becomes WE, and oft it rang out from voices many years back...POWER TO THE PEOPLE...
Yes, I walked in those marches...fist raised to the heavens...and have stood in front of the National Capitol in July of 1974 most proudly, with 2000 other
Vietnam Vets...John Kerry was there in March, I do not know if he was there in July, he could have been that vet who stood next to me...Prior to my revisit to Washington DC in 2001, my journey took me to Ebenezer Baptist Church, in Atlanta, placing my hands in the waters...to heal...My journey continue to the WALL in Washington, to touch it, and completing at the head of the line, as a Disabled American Veteran, (having been with the other 2000 vets in 1974 denied the right to enter the capitol building), I entered the capitol most proudly, for so many of these warriors have died since that day in 1974.
While visting the capital building, I discovered a marker declaring it to be the center of the building, and center of Washington. I stood at the center of
power...the center of power...to be centered is a most powerful experience...often the hardest journey in one's life, is to discard that excess baggage of which we have laden ourselves,and this journey was to complete that mission of 1974, and I found myself centered. Life is termendous when we carry about fresh straw to which one can lay...to sleep, to dream, but first we must muck the stall of our lives.
What is most parammount at this moment,is that those that discover this blog...to go to friendsofhyatt.org....interesting, I entered friends of fields.org and found a site devoted to Marin County...south of Sonoma County where I spent so many years, making many friends in Marin as well...Again,it is paramount that information get out, both the illegal and immoral action taken by that incompetent school board...just because we can...and
friendsofhyatt.org
needs both voice and monies that can be given,and especially,legal assistant...
Three years ago, a young man walked across the stage in Washington DC, with his mother and grandmother, finishing 7th in the Scripts Spelling Bee...This young man is my great-nephew...his grandmother is a Who's Who of American Women...Who walked off that stage at Hyatt in 1958 with little more than a 50 dollar scholarship to McNeese...A woman who should have gone to Harvard or Yale...those that be, those power people in DeRidder...chose not to do anything to direct her there...Their concern was with "their precious" children in De Ridder...This is my indictment. An indictment against the board,in behalf of all the native blood people who have been denied their just, and especially those rural inhabitants who make the best of America. WE are strong, WE are Sabine, WE are rural. WE are AMERICANS, WE are the spirit of the native people.
My sister succeeded by her own determination, as did my older brother, who is now an attorney in Houston, our younger brother now teaches computer science at UT in San Antonio.... I feel that there are many more success stories from families who have chosen to stay in the woods, and who's children have not stood in the national spotlight, as drunks, criminals. Childrens who have walked a walk, to be but the best that they could be, to have the Piney Woods People most proud of them...strived to excellence...and many of us have...It is only that "Piney Woods Ceiling" that has been our main obstacle...The problem is not ours,but is their problem, the judgmental despots of De Ridder. Still, yet they have used it every opportunity they can...I speak from personal experience...
Again...these words are but mine, and proud of their intensity...as I was when a friend from Marin informed me to look at the recent column by the now late Herb Caen (SF Chronical), and see his reflections on me. To have received a letter years earlier from this great writer encouraging me to put pen to paper, I hold. Priceless. This post reflects my experiences in life, early life esperiences, and my decication to and support for the best education that one can receive, which is a rural education. Class size does make a difference. And thanks to that writer on that men's bathroom stall at SSU, encouraging others to read Small Is Beautiful, those stalls were the best place to read in the universe...Big is not always better. I feel that Hyatt has proven it many times over.
friendsofhyatt.org...do something...no school left behind...
friendsofhyatt.org...do something...no school left behind...
p.s. {for those that know me, I was the runt of the litter, and could not talk: now, I am a giant of a man, and speak with a thundering voice, a voice that shakes cones off the tallest pines.}
From the recent cyber broadcast of the Cowboy Poets gathering (2008)in Elko, I have learned that Tom was raised in Los Angeles, and not an authentic Tejan...oh Tom, oh Tom, who now resides on the border at El Paso...Tom's masterwork of cowboy verse/song, has an intensity that is comparable to the greatest cowboy verse writers,but is more of a Bukowski bucking bronco buster...To be able to exchange words years back with Tom in the Starry Plough men's wash room in Berkeley, as he was washing his hands...telling him that he/we cannot wash away our sins, Tom understandingly nodded in agreement...I attribute this mind thought to those piney woods people that reared me in that community on the great river, Mother Sabine...and thus this post...
I have stumbled and fallen, and with tired hands through the course of my life, pulled myself out of the gumbo/adobe mud of which I have found myself fallen...this after graduating from Hyatt High School, at Fields, Louisiana in 1963, having walked off that stage with a sore chest. This injury came from the kick of a mule several weeks earlier, while attempting to plow the spring garden, and my father stood amused, that I would allow that mule to place me in that spot...one would say, mind over mule...thus, the mule won with a direct hit...
My journey, my road scholar work took me into many doors, with views from many different windows, and stairwells up and down, often racing to keep my spirit alive...Again, walking out of that gymnasium that night in 1963, I knew not what layed ahead, but that there was some challenge ahead for me. I feel most strongly that I have met that challenge ...even moreso having been nominated in the late 80's as a Who's Who of the West, unable to submit the profile with feelings that I had not done enough to prove myself worthily of such honor.
Returning in (2002) to my mother land, to this woman(Earth) who gave birth to me, for she did her upmost best to mold and make me,just as I am, without one plead
...those wimmen of the Sabine, written about so well with that story by Kate Chopin..."IN SABINE"...a termendious reading to understand the hardship pioneer women endured, and especially those of the Sabine River bottom...The community that I was raised in, Bancroft...has put out so many remarkable people, three are from my own family, and several other families in that "rural" hamlet have done equally as well...Southward is the De Witts Eddy community, they have succeeded, and also the neighboring community of Fields...Nearby Fields is a small community amid the pines of Bear Head creek, some refer to that area as PeckerWoods...a very enduring term...home of the Pickering's, the Boyer's, LaCroix's and so many more. Honest people, a most lost virture.
Bancroft was settled by refugees from Hancock County MS,led by a Samuel Wingate entering from the Newton Texas side,a journey into the dark, piney woods of NO MANS LAND. There, he discovered some most Majestic Pines...pines that were cut out by the 30's and then the economy began to diminish. At that time,the various one room school houses were combined in a newly built WPA building, which should have already been declared a national treasure, and historial landmark...To see that building and its 50 acre campus, is a site to behold...it is a twinkle in the creators eye...
Since the inception of the school, a combination of "rural" communities, WE have been strongly judged these many years by the "correct" despots of De Ridder, the parish center some 30 miles away..."They" considered us clodhoppers, ect...we are not...WE are Sabine...WE are Sabine...PROUD...our lineage arises from the Celts,the French, additionally we inherit both Cherokee and Choctaw blood...Many are seeking to regain their status as Cherokee/Choctaw through Four Winds Tribe of Louisiana Cherokee...
Through my own research, I have learned in the past two years, of that link to this native blood. This discovery is attributed to another woman who has been researching on the mystery "GORE'S"...our discovering our common grandmother Mother Ellen...who she through her own research, believes walked the Trail of Tears, forced to become outlaws...The Cherokees and Choctaws settled with the other displaced traumatized Southern's after the war of the civil in these majestic, wonderful and most serene piney woods...Our beloved NO MANS LAND became a safe haven for both the traumatized Southerns and the Native people who refused to go to Oklahoma...re:Chief Bowles and thus Bowl(e)slough, whose banks I was raised on...
Recently, those who have and continue to JUDGE us so strongly and harsely, have decreed that they would shut this community school down...Their meeting was held almost in secret, in De Ridder on a Thursday night, a 30 plus journey. They expected those who worked 60 miles away from our beloved communities of Bancroft, Fields and De Witt's Eddy, to attend this board meeting in De Ridder,another thirty plus miles, a near almost difficult task,and again,this was planned on a Thursday night,days before Thanksgiving...
Their, the schoolboards action was both an immoral and illegal action...They declared with little community input and with scant evidence, that they had the power to destroy this community (a combination of commun-ities whose center is Hyatt)...This nearsighted elitist board has failed, for there is a higher authority...a higher power...and there is that personal power we all have. This combined personal power becomes WE, and oft it rang out from voices many years back...POWER TO THE PEOPLE...
Yes, I walked in those marches...fist raised to the heavens...and have stood in front of the National Capitol in July of 1974 most proudly, with 2000 other
Vietnam Vets...John Kerry was there in March, I do not know if he was there in July, he could have been that vet who stood next to me...Prior to my revisit to Washington DC in 2001, my journey took me to Ebenezer Baptist Church, in Atlanta, placing my hands in the waters...to heal...My journey continue to the WALL in Washington, to touch it, and completing at the head of the line, as a Disabled American Veteran, (having been with the other 2000 vets in 1974 denied the right to enter the capitol building), I entered the capitol most proudly, for so many of these warriors have died since that day in 1974.
While visting the capital building, I discovered a marker declaring it to be the center of the building, and center of Washington. I stood at the center of
power...the center of power...to be centered is a most powerful experience...often the hardest journey in one's life, is to discard that excess baggage of which we have laden ourselves,and this journey was to complete that mission of 1974, and I found myself centered. Life is termendous when we carry about fresh straw to which one can lay...to sleep, to dream, but first we must muck the stall of our lives.
What is most parammount at this moment,is that those that discover this blog...to go to friendsofhyatt.org....interesting, I entered friends of fields.org and found a site devoted to Marin County...south of Sonoma County where I spent so many years, making many friends in Marin as well...Again,it is paramount that information get out, both the illegal and immoral action taken by that incompetent school board...just because we can...and
friendsofhyatt.org
needs both voice and monies that can be given,and especially,legal assistant...
Three years ago, a young man walked across the stage in Washington DC, with his mother and grandmother, finishing 7th in the Scripts Spelling Bee...This young man is my great-nephew...his grandmother is a Who's Who of American Women...Who walked off that stage at Hyatt in 1958 with little more than a 50 dollar scholarship to McNeese...A woman who should have gone to Harvard or Yale...those that be, those power people in DeRidder...chose not to do anything to direct her there...Their concern was with "their precious" children in De Ridder...This is my indictment. An indictment against the board,in behalf of all the native blood people who have been denied their just, and especially those rural inhabitants who make the best of America. WE are strong, WE are Sabine, WE are rural. WE are AMERICANS, WE are the spirit of the native people.
My sister succeeded by her own determination, as did my older brother, who is now an attorney in Houston, our younger brother now teaches computer science at UT in San Antonio.... I feel that there are many more success stories from families who have chosen to stay in the woods, and who's children have not stood in the national spotlight, as drunks, criminals. Childrens who have walked a walk, to be but the best that they could be, to have the Piney Woods People most proud of them...strived to excellence...and many of us have...It is only that "Piney Woods Ceiling" that has been our main obstacle...The problem is not ours,but is their problem, the judgmental despots of De Ridder. Still, yet they have used it every opportunity they can...I speak from personal experience...
Again...these words are but mine, and proud of their intensity...as I was when a friend from Marin informed me to look at the recent column by the now late Herb Caen (SF Chronical), and see his reflections on me. To have received a letter years earlier from this great writer encouraging me to put pen to paper, I hold. Priceless. This post reflects my experiences in life, early life esperiences, and my decication to and support for the best education that one can receive, which is a rural education. Class size does make a difference. And thanks to that writer on that men's bathroom stall at SSU, encouraging others to read Small Is Beautiful, those stalls were the best place to read in the universe...Big is not always better. I feel that Hyatt has proven it many times over.
friendsofhyatt.org...do something...no school left behind...
friendsofhyatt.org...do something...no school left behind...
p.s. {for those that know me, I was the runt of the litter, and could not talk: now, I am a giant of a man, and speak with a thundering voice, a voice that shakes cones off the tallest pines.}
