Thursday, June 28, 2007

Not to be morbid, but...

I opened this bulletin from this chick on myspace...way over yonder. It was one of those surveys 50 odd things about you or whatever.


Anyway, in it she stated that the song she wanted at her funeral was Letter To Elise by The Cure.


I was thinking, if something ever did happen to her, would that be the song that gets played? Probably not. She would probably have the same type of funeral that all Natives have with tons of food and some guy strumming a guitar singing church hymns. People eating the tons of food that go with the wakes and funerals.


My mom said she wants to be cremated and her ashes spread somewhere like Bear Butte, near Sturgis, South Dakota. She will haunt us if we throw her in water. She wants all Prince music playing, people to wear purple. And butterflies released when we either bury her or spread her ashes.


I think she is like me and a bit iffy about what I want done. I seen to many movies. I seen that part from Scrooged where they are shoving his coffin into the oven thingy and his legs start burning and he is screaming. Then I seen many movies from the grave's view. Both scenarios have given me the willies, for real. Made me a paranoid freak of either. Of course I would just rather live forever, but death is a part of life and something we all have to think about someday.


At this point, I guess the song I would want is Drops of Jupiter by Train or World at Large by Modest Mouse...I don't know.


Who knows though, I mean the songs will be about 60-70 years old when I hit the check out line so...anyway.


What song would you want? Not to be morbid but, just curious.


Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Tiwahe

There are many ceremonies of our Lakota people that are still practiced in this day and age and preserved through the years. There are also many of these ceremonies that are exploited. I guess I am not really here to talk about that this week. I just wanted to make that point, to start with.
Other than ceremonies we have many traditions that we practice and have been throughout the years.
One of these is the memorial dinner which is held one year after a loved one has passed. Sometimes, or most of the times the "Wiping Of The Tears" is performed at this memorial and it is time for the mourning to end.
If anyone reading is not familiar, the Memorial Dinner is a celebration of sorts of that loved one's life. Songs are sung, words are said, a feast follows with a giveaway of many wonderful things, including starquilts and such. Many families save up all year for this one last celebration of that person's life.
Which is really what I want to talk about.
Family.
Tiwahe.
A 6 letter word either way.
And a very strong word.
I often joke that "You choose your friends not your family." Or that my family puts the "dis" in dysfunction, or the "funk" in dysfunction. Or there is an old joke that we are the "Bright Family" when someone does something that is not so bright. It's all good and fun. I like to joke and laugh around, as does my family.
But for real, FAMILY is a very powerful part of our lives. I know many times when I lived off the reservation and I felt something in my life was missing, it was family. Which resulted in monstrous phone bills.
Many times when I felt there was nowhere else to turn, there they were.
Or sometimes when I am home alone and everything is peaceful, someone shows up to visit and eat. It's all good. Tiole is the way to be.
Sometimes when I am sad from watching some dumb, sad chick flick, my family laughs at me and makes me feel dumb for crying to Toy Story, uh I mean, uh...Legends of The Fall.
Sometimes when I....I mean my kids lock my keys in the car, my part of the family that knows how to open car doors without keys, will help me out.
Or sometimes, when I am short on change in the grocery store, someone in my family will put something back from my cart and tell me I really don't need those Swiss Cake Rolls.
Then there's the time when a cat attacked me from a nearby bush and made me scream and run, (last year) who else was there to laugh at me but my family.
Aw...and when I got married, who else but my brothers took a pool on how long it would last. By the way, my brother Steve wanted me to mention that there really isn't a pool, but if there was and anyone was interested, it would be 25 dollars in a money order along with a self addressed stamped envelope. Such jokers, they are!
And my family is so great that if I fall, they race to run over and put their arms widely spread out in front of me and scream "SAFE!" Of course I was safe, I just fell on ice....at night....in the middle of a deep freeze.
OR the time my little sister was so thankful on Earth day when I told her how simple can she be to not know how to plant a baby pine tree that she hit me in the face with it.
Or my other little sister who was so concerned when she painted the wall with toothpaste that she cleaned it up all by herself....with my suede jacket!
The best was when my 4 year old little sister and I was stuck on a bumper boat because I didn't know how to steer it. So my family rallied around us and soaked us until the guy at the park jumped in and rescued us from drowning.
My family is awesome. Our ties bind us. I treasure every minute I get to laugh, cry, hug, be around, and fall down around them.
Treasure every minute you get with your family...so you are not one day sitting at a memorial dinner and regretting the time you didn't spend with them.
Honor your family, even if they put the "funk" in dysfunction.
Love your family because they love you. (That doesn't mean snag your cousin! We are Lakota, not hillbilly! HEEY!)
Embrace your family, because if nobody else is there, they will be.
I didn't choose my family, but I am damn thankful for all of them.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Pilamayan

I would like to thank everyone who reads me from the column. Just so you know the column is not my main lifesource but it helps. I enjoy the emails and I enjoy the seeing you all sign the buddy map at the bottom of the page. When I originally started my blog on Yahoo 360 it was to vent. Then eventually I took the time to send in my writing to a 2 papers and it was accepted by both. I now only write for the one paper, which is more for my people.
I do have issues and causes I DO care to write about and all this can be seen if you go back far enough in this blog. At the moment I am just keeping it real and writing about life.
I hope to soon someday write about those issues and causes without sounding like I am crying around.
So anyway Pilamayan (thank you) to everyone that stops in and signs the map at th bottom and takes the time to email me. You are all wonderful and I hope to get to know you all better.
Ake
(again)
Dana

Monday, June 18, 2007

badass

I once wrote about my friend Nate and how he described a moment as being "badass." Sometimes there are times like that in life where everything is just badass. Maybe it's only seconds or minutes long but it's there, right then and now.
It happened to me yesterday.
I was cooking out for my brother, uncle, Bruce, and his friend for Father's day. The steaks were on the grill. You could smell them.
Bruce and Terry were singing one of their songs that my brother requested. A thunderstorm had just passed and some of the clouds were clearing away. It smelled like rain and it was still slightly and steadily raining. The sun was setting up the hill with beautiful coloring and the sunshine was reflecting every raindrop so it sparkled. My kids and my brothers kids were lighting fireworks and laughing in the back yard. I looked up the hill at the rain because it was so beautiful and a little girl with black hair to her waist was running up the hill laughing as a dog chased her.
It lasted a whole 30-40 seconds tops.
I may live in the poorest county in the country and this neighborhood may be ghetto as all hell.
But those few soconds right then and there were just beautiful and "badass."

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Defeated

When I first started writing I would write with so much passion?

I feel anymore like it's faded. Has it?

I don't know. I guess writing for the newspaper sometimes people tell me I am real. You're for real. They say.
Well of course I can only be me, for reals. But sometimes I wonder where all my passion went. I can't really blame getting married because I am still a radical bitch. I just can't find anything to get fired up about.
Then I started thinking...does that mean I am defeated?
Am I just an indian girl, sitting in her house sipping a beer and plunking away on the keyboard during a thunderstorm? Do I really have anything to say?
Am I defeated as a Lakota because I am drinking a beer?
Am i defeated as a Lakota woman because I do have a man that I love?
Am I defeated as a Lakota woman because I have nothing to be passionate about?
Am I defeated, like they say my people were/are because i live on a reservation. They put us in these boundaries and say we are our own nation when our people roamed from the panhandle of Nebraska to the mountains in Montanta. That was our way of life, our territory.
Now we are our own nation, which is bullshit. The only good thing about this so called soveriegnity is that I can drive my car with expired tags and don't have to cut my grass when a man with a fake cop suit and clipboard comes by to tell me that neighbors are complaining.
I lived outside this reservation.
I came home and it pisses me off how we were so tricked into this. Forced or whatever. Either way, we can never roam freely like we used to. We can never enjoy the land. Nothing pisses me off more than to see a beautiful piece of land and then see a fence with a No Trespassing sign.
Yeah I know, get over it....I know, but you have no idea how much it hurts.
So am I defeated?
I don't think so.
I came home for a reason.
When I know what it is, I will let you know.
Until then I plunk away on this keyboard.

Friday, June 15, 2007

There is something i am having a hard time dealing with.

There are probably no words of advice to give but I would like to express it my thoughts about it anyway. For those of you who know me from Yahoo 360, you know my family had a tragedy back in November when my step-dad passed away.

It was really hard for me to deal with because I never had to deal with anything like that. Not that closely anyway. But i struggled and wondered if it was harder for me to deal with his death or whether it was harder for me to deal with the fact that my little brothers and sister lost their father who was a great father to them. He lived for his children and he raised my brother and I, since I was 10 years old. He always, always included me in the count of his kids. He never said I have this many kids and 2 step children, he always considered us his.

The only reason I still say step-dad is because my father is still alive. I love my father and nothing ever changed that.

But I still have my father.
My younger brothers and sister do not. And my youngest sister is age 12, she was 11 when he passed away. It was all of a sudden and a massive heart attack.

This is what bothers me.
My little sister, his baby girl, once told my mom. "He is still on my messenger, but I can't delete it because maybe wherever he is he will find a computer or maybe he will be able to type on it like that guy on that movie Ghost. Then II can still talk to him."
MY mom said nothing, she walked to her room and cried.

When she told me that, I cried.
Then the other day I was cleaning out my messenger box and at the bottom I have people who use MSN messenger, which he used. And at the bottom I seen his smiley face icon on messenger.

So I was like....now what do I do?

I can't delete him.
I just can't.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

for reals

I used to say that when I was a kid, "For reals." especially when someone didn't believe me. "For reals." I would say and soon it got to be a habit, after almost every line. For reals.
I read a blog today that made me think about being for real and bloggin. Some people use their blogs for poetry, or fiction, or like JohnB and his daily travels on the city bus, with some poetry mixed in.
We can all use our blogs anyway we want. They are, after all our blogs. Yet some people use them for them the wrong way.
Let me explain. I kow a guy who uses them to make himself feel better about who he is. he will blog about his existence as a soldier for 10 years serving in many wars and as a peacekeeper. Yet, when I saw hiw actual army paperwork he only served two years.

He constantly checks and rechecks his blog for comments, which is fine, we all do that at some point in the day. Then if no one comments he gets mad and pissed off. Saying how no one likes him.
That is what brings me to blogging for you. Comments are nice but when you are not yourself people will find out and realize what a fake you are. And for reals, if you are going to be fake be an interesting and fun to read fake. Don't blog about model building or checking your mail.
Peace out, for reals!

Wednesday, June 13, 2007



I was 2 when my brother Travis was born. i don't remember much except he had a huge bald head and big giant eyes. I would kiss him and call him bubber when everyone was looking and when no one was looking I would tip him over. I taught him a trick, go ahead baby put the whole bowl of cereal over your head. I thought he was going to get in trouble but it made everyone love him more. We have the same mom and pops and are closer than siblings can get. We went through alot together, even if it meant kicking the crap out of each other and chasing each other around with weapons i would rather not name. The day he was run over by a drunk driver still seems surreal. I stayed many hours in the hospital pushing him around with his big leg with all the pins sticking out of it. It had to suck for him to have us leave at the end of the day. The older we get the more kids we have but nothing has changed, we are still the same goofy ass brother and sister. We can still just about read each others minds.

Trav will always be in my life as a hero, brother and friend. We went through some trying times together and we survived. Love you bro.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Confessions of a blogger

Ok when I decided to do this on confessions, it is because I want to cleanse my soul. I decided to go back to the first thing I wanted to confess. I realized I have alot to confess. The roots of evil were planted long ago.

*Anyway I will start at the age of 5 and this confession goes to my brother. When I told you to swing from that vine and yell like Tarzan...I knew it was a stereo....a big stereo from the 70's and I knew the vine was the cord. Hey you turned out ok and have an amazing tolerance for pain to your head, right?
*To the little boy in 1st grade, Greg. When we moved to the city and you told everyone I was a "dirty indian." I wrote your name all over everyone's desk with the crayons you stole from me. I stole them back and walked by after school to watch you scrub your name off the desks. I smiled when you cleaned after this "dirty indian."

*To another boy in 1st grade...Mark. When you kissed me on the playground and said you liked me. I am sorry I screamed, cried, and ran. I really did like you and your blue eyes and I think our children would have been beautiful.

*In second grade, to my grandma...I took your poodle...Mr. Bo Jangles or was it Jingles to school and he danced for everyone and then molested my friend's cat.

*In 4th grade to my teacher Mr. Collins. Everytime you turned your back I sent you death rays and death thoughts but my super powers were not fully developed...I heard you later passed and I am sorry if the powers wore you down.

*In 5th grade.....to our dearly departed neighbors. Your dog Puppy Joe did NOT crap that much in your yard. Me and my brother had to pick up the crap in our yard with one of those long handled pooper scoopers and we par-red up into your yard. Your roof was hole in one.

*In 6th grade, this confession is to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I only went to church because I had a crush on the Pastor's son. Forgive me.

*In 7th grade, to my friend Missy....every time I had a crush on someone you and your Daryl Hannah looks made a play for them. So when I said I liked that butt ugly guy at camp with the same name as me...I only did it to make you go out with him while I crushed on the pastor's son. I thought it was funny to see you hold that ugly guys hand though.

*To all the girls at Bible Camp in the "Big Girls" dorm. It was me who put the frogs in your beds, purses, showers, and toilets. God wasn't dammning you and I was surprised to see that none of you noticed my bed and purse untouched and unfrogged.

*To my brother Trav again...when you gave me the Wrist Rocket sling shot to defend us against those "bad guys." You should have taught me how to aim. That dirt clod that blasted your head was me. But hey, it sent you into a rampage that scared them away.

*To one of my best tippers when I bartended...Tony the Butcher. I never went on that second date with you because everytime I said something you said "riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!" Like the Fonz said "Heeeeeey." You even said it when I purposely said something wrong. Hey thanks for all the meat, steaks and other stuff....me and my kids enjoyed.

*To my kids, sorry I make you get me the remote even when I am closer. My mom did it to me, it is a vicious circle.

*To my mom and step dad.....the red paint on the front of the van....that was me. I know you argued over it and blamed each other, but you made me take my brother dinner and yeah, that is all I will say.

*To my brother Trav....I know you ain't with this chick anymore but when she asked who Susan was because you said it in your sleep...I didn't mean to tell her it was your ex...you guys should have told me you was all lying about it and in on it. I am not a narc.

* And last but not least, to my brother Jesse....that one time...I was the one who wrote "Wash Me Bitch" in the dust on the hood of your car....but it gave it some charm. Oh yeah...and sorry to all the siblings that got blamed.

Ok I have to end there........I will not confess up anymore details to anything for fear of prosecution. I plan to take the 5th if there are any further questions. Oh I am free...the burden is off of me.

Monday, June 11, 2007

busy and blocked

I am busy. I have so much beadwork to do and so little time. Not only that I have nothing to write about. I sat here to write yesterday and all I could do was look at the blank post.
i have until tomorrow to write something for the Journal and am still blocked. We'll see.
Ugh...writers block sucks!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Writing Challenge

pic from yahoo image search for the movie Skins.

I miss alot of the people on 360 and lately I reposted some of my stuff there that I wrote here. There are some awesome writers out there who put up terrific challenges and I decided to still participate in the challenges on 360 with that blog. One of my favorite challenges is Carol's Random Writing Challenge which gives you a choice 5 or 6 lines that you must write a story from. So the first line of my story is from one of her choices.
The rest of it is from me. Actually based a little bit on what my grandma went through here and things I seen. My grandma had a happier ending. She beat her cancer and she is still in remission. She sued the Indian Health Service and took them for about a quarter of a million.
The more I sit and talk with my husband the more and more i get into the injustice of our people. I truly think we was meant to hook up at this point on our lives. Here is my entry in Carol's challenge.

He scuffed his toe into the dirt and absent-mindedly kicked a cigarette butt.


“Yup” he said to himself. “These Black Hills were ours. At one time.”


He continued walking up the mountain. He was burnt. Old even. At age 45, he didn’t have much longer to live. The doctor at the IHS clinic told him so. Oh well. It’s not like they were really doctors anyway. The Indian Health Srvice paid big scholarship money out to people from all over the country for med school only to hire them in their tight budget hospitals. So each hospital on any reservation that was lucky enough to have a hospital mostly only had interns. Interns that didn’t really care about the people they served and made well. All they cared about was working off their student loans just to move away when they got done “serving their time.” Then they moved to towns by the name of Duluth and Woonsocket and such. Marry a nice girl their, join country clubs and put in long hours at their practice so they can play golf on Saturdays while drinking high balls. They had babies, grew bellies and built their 401k’s. Soon the time they did at the reservation hospital became a memory, only to be brought up again when people talked of charity and giving to the poor.


“Oh yeah” the fat cigar smoking doctor once said “back in the day I worked on a reservation at a hospital. “


And he would beam and his wife will pat his belly, proud her husband had them a step closer to heaven and the pearly gates. Nodding and thinking her man could fly with his cholesterol level as it was.


He would never tell of the time he seen the woman. The old woman. He seen her X-rays. He knew, but he was tired and didn’t want to do the paperwork. He seen the spot on her lung, over the months as she came in complaining of a chest cold.


“No.” he shook his head at her “It’s ok. You are ok. Just a slight infection.” He prescribed her antibiotics and motrin and sent her home. Only to see her again in a month.


After a few months of this routine, something kicked him in the ass. "What am I doing?'He thought but how could he bring himself to tell the woman now. So he kept it up for a full 18 months. Soon I will be done here on this god forsaken, diabetic land. I can get away with it…after all I am an intern….on a reservation.


Then one day the old woman’s family took her to a ceremony. There they told her she was leaving them. They cried. They took her to a city.


They got a “second opinion?”


He panicked, he only had a week or two left here.


They saw the tumor, it had spread and grown over 7 ribs.


The doctors in the city tried. They removed it and some of her lung and ribs. Years of smoking he told them. You know these people smoke the peace pipe all the time. trying to justify why it was so bad when she kept going to the doctor.


They looked at him knowingly, but not saying anything.


The woman passed away after her other lung collapsed. The night she left this world he seen her. In his dream.


She was walking down a long hallway towards him but she never got closer.


She pointed her finger at him.


“You and your people have done enough. You must stop. We were here. We cooperated with you. We only fought for what was promised us the first time. You have done enough. My people suffer. Do you know that? My people suffer!”


He woke up in a cold sweat feeling guilty and went to her funeral. He saw the people crying. Her 40 something children throwing themselves on her dead body and crying. Her grandchildren crying. Her grandsons singing with the drum through tears. He left before anyone seen him.


The next day he caught a flight out to Woonsocket where his college sweetie was waiting to make him fat, married and a father.


One boy saw him standing there. One boy.


The boy was 15 at the time. As he grew up and saw various relatives killed off by diabetes, a stand off with the evil government in 72, and by drunken driving.


He saw it all. He heard stories of how Sitting Bull was killed on government orders.


He was told of Crazy Horse and his pride. How he never gave up his fight for the Black Hills. How he always told people to remember him when they seen the Black Hills.


He remembered growing up hungry, waiting for rations. For government issued commodities. He heard stories around the inipi ceremony fire. Elders saying that each Indian was promised land to farm. Then the land was not suitable for farming. How the Black hills were promised then taken away. How, if we sold them we would bankrupt the U.S. government.


But the pride of the people would not ever sell out.


He finished his climb on the top of the mountain and he went to work. As he worked he thought lastly of his grandmother, lying in her casket. Not able to be buried like hers that went before her because it was illegal. He thought of how the doctors in the city advised his mother to take legal action against the Indian Health Service for letting the cancer spread in her lungs for almost two years. He remembered the young doctor standing there at the funeral, looking at his watch and rolling his eyes.


He finished what he was doing. He finished it.


He stood up and began to sing.


He pushed the button to detonate.


He died at age 42. He didn’t blow all of Mount Rushmore up but he put an good dent in the head of George Washington.


He did it for his people.


And for Paha Sapa. The Black Hills.



For Carols' Random Writing Challenge Number 7


Tuesday, June 5, 2007

I did it


I woke up this morning got myself a gun....
i held it to his head and said
BLOG MOTHAFUKKA BLOG!
And he did.





Ok, it wasn't like that but i made him write...the love of my lifetime....the man who put the muthafukkin stars in my eyes and hung my moon...he blogged!
YAY!
Check it out! Click it!
This is for Wounded Knee

This is me

This is who I am.
Some people know who I am.
“Oh, I can’t believe Bob and Jeaneen’s daughter grew up and writes now. Keep it up.”
Some people are just plain nice. Stop me in the casino even.
“Hey you! I like your writing!”
Some people are just plain rude.
“Hey, you should write something about me! Let people know who I am.”
Um ok, do something then. Roll over.
Some people got jokes.
“Put that in your book!”
Says someone related to me after he farted.
Or some people have the generic question.
“Who the hell are you?”

First off, I don’t really, really know that answer myself.
I am a great speller but bad typist, sometimes conformist sometimes not, sometimes I am a little to the right, but dance in the left New York Yankee fan and San Antonio Spurs hater.
I am a tough chick who cries during sad movies.
I care about politics and sometimes I hate it.
I watch the news, only to forget it.
I am a mother of 4, wife of one, who would only be thought of as that if she didn’t write something. Anything.
I am a child of the Wounded Knee Standoff, not a result of it, but born during it.
I am the grand-daughter of a GOON and AIM. Don’t blame me. Blame my parents.
I am still learning to understand that turmoil, along with trying to learn the rest of the history of our people.
The more I learn, the more radical I see myself growing. The more I feel the blood pumping.
The more I am around tradition, even though I was raised amongst it, the more I appreciate it.
The traditional side of my family recognizes, hugs and holds all. Including beliefs, cultures and my children & I.
Our people hang onto our traditions. We remember the past. We have it like that.
We will never forget Wounded Knee, Little Big Horn, or The Black Hills.
We will never forget who we are, what was once ours and still ours.

So if you want to know who I am just keep reading.
Really, I am just a rez chick with an opinion, that you just read.

Oglala Lakota, baby.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Explained Absence

I haven't been blogging much lately. You all know I blog alot.
I think I am fading out. I don't have very much readers. I know one person cannot comment out of fear of the fact that her family will find her and read her inner most private thoughts and be offended. I know another person that told me she misses me in an email. And then I got an email from this guy who just now found me and used to read me on 360. That was cool.
Anyway, let me explain what I have been up to.
My dad is having a ceremony on Sunday. Tomorrow already. My dad is a heyoka, or as he called it a "contrary" in the white language. He has been this way for all his life. Having dreams of thunder beings and lightning. The spirits talk to him. This is his second year having a Kettle Dance Ceremony.
I can't explain it much, because I am not sure what it is. Except that it is a healing ceremony.
So, anyway for the past week, my brother and husband and I having been going to see him and help him with whatever he needs.
Tomorrow is the big day. I have to get up early and make bread.
Yesterday evening, we sat in a tipi and talked to my dad for over 3 hours as the sunset. He seemed so happy to have us there, he was joking and saying "Are you guys really here?"
One of the last things he said to us before we left was about Chief Crazy Horse. He told us of an old song that translated to "When you see the Black Hills think of me." He told us about how sad this song is. The Black Hills were taken from us for gold and here we sit on this reservation with nothing. We are a suffering people because they illegally took our land. We are the ones that should be benefitting off the Black Hills. Living up there and having riches. But we sit on this reservation, with nothing. That is why Chief Crazy Horse said "When you see the Black Hills think of me." After his death, we were forced on this reservation and today the people suffer.
I couldn't get that out of my head. I watched almost all of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. HBO is showing it all month, if you haven't seen it I recommend it. That is my people.
I don't know when I will post again, but it will be soon.
Ake (again)
Dana

Friday, June 1, 2007

Condemned on Potter Street (360 repost)




(pic from Yahoo Search not related to the story. the story is a repost from an assortment of creepy stories I wrote.)



When I was 24, Carter and I broke up for the first time. (Not the last.)

I had spent years working while he was supposed to be going to college and he dropped out and screwed around. We had 2 sons at the time, Ty and Jalen. They were 2 and 3. We shared custody of them at first, but he was not responsible enough. (He still isn't, sad.)

I decided to go to college then and enrolled at the local community college. I was able to get a 2 bedroom apartment on the second floor of an old house in the older part of the factory town that i lived in. I remember freaking out one day when we was walking back from the store because the hosue had a third floor and no way to get to the 3rd floor. I finally noticed one day that the entrance was in the closet of the boys' room. That scared me because the boys would not sleep in there. Instead they always slept with me in the living room on the futon and would cry when I put their toys back in the closet in their room. They would always point and say "chee chee." Which is slang from the reservation for ghost. So I always avoided their room.

People would spend the night and see things in my apartment. I never did. One time my friend Tessa seen a little girl standing by the front door and looking at her so she closed her eyes and went back to sleep. My brother Jesse seen a woman standing by the doorway between my room and the living room and made my mom come after him at 3 in the morning. My brother's friend Nate seen a woman there too in my kitchen.

I felt creepy there. I did, I won't deny that I stayed up all the time until my eyes absolutely closed on their own. I did not sleep good. From the previous blog you all know what a chicken I am. So even though I never seen anything I was scared.

The best thing about the apartment is that it was 2 blocks from the grocery store, and a drugstore. One of those cool drug stores that sold everything from make up, to candles, to toys, to home repair supplies. I loved that store. In the winter time I used to put the boys in a sled and pull them to the store and we would throw it behind a hedge. I didn't care, you do what you gotta do. Before the snow hit, I would pull them in a wagon. This is when I saw what creeped me out about living there.

We was going to the store to get some snacks for the Yankee game. The year was 1996 and it was the year I absolutely fell in love with their new shortstop. I loved his eyes and they way he played with so much heart. So I was pulling the boys to the store and the next house after our garage was a duplex. It had 3 seperate porches...I never notcied it before, other than the fact that it was rundown.

Well that day I noticed it because a little old lady was out front. She was on the last porch going towards the store. She had an old broom and was sweeping all the leaves off of her porch.

"Well hello there." she says to me. She stops sweeping, so I stop the wagon.

"Hi." I say, I absolutely adore elderly people as long as they don't hate me and the rest of the world.

"Beautiful day today." she says looking around "Thought I better come out and take care of these leaves that are piling up on my porch."

"Yeah good day for that." I say, I have to tell the boys to shhh because they won't stop fidgeting.

"What handsome young men you have there, and so well behaved. How old are they?"

"2 and 3, the one in front is Jalen and the one in back is Ty." I tell her, they immediately stop moving and look at her.

"I had 2 boys too and a girl. But they all have their own lives now." She says looking in the distance.

"Well I better get to the store." I tell her, I had to get back to see the hot new short stop, I had to.

"Ok well, stop by and visit me sometime. I always bake and never have any visitors to appreciate it anymore. " she starts sweeping again "My name is Alice."

"Ok Alice, I will. I am kind of new around here and these boys can eat. So count on it." I start pulling the wagon again and feel all warm on the inside because I made a new friend that day.

We go to the store and get our snacks something for dinner and leave...I had to watch all 9 innings with the rookie Jeter...so I am in a hurry.

I am one of those people that walk most of the time with their head down. I look up when we get to Alice's house so I can smile at her, just in case she is still outside. I noticed her porch is full of leaves. Old leaves. Rotting leaves. WTF? I just seen her sweeping it. Then I see old newspapers. The free one that comes out on Wednesdays with nothing but classidfied ads. Piled up and in various states of aging. I look at the house. Some windows are broke out and there is a county paper on the door warning of the house. CONDEMNED it says on a bright pink paper. It warns people not to trespass for this reason.

I couldn't believe it. I was freaked out. I turned to the boys to ask them if they remembered Alice. They just look at me, their minds on the gummy bears I bought to shut them up during the game.

That house was in Red Wing, MN. I lived there for a few more years but not on Potter Street. I remember when they tore that duplex down and wondered who Alice was and what happened to her?