Spring of 2012 is almost here the Indian New Year, wow time has flown by.  I see the signs of the changing of the season, box elder bugs, children riding their bikes, the robin is back, so are the eagles, although they have been here for over a month now.  March is the month of the little green tree frog and the thunder beings are making their way back to the plains.  I have so many things to be grateful for and so many things to remember.  My friends and relatives who have gone on their journey home and then there is little ones who have just arrived. I get mail from AARP now pretty regularly so I too am getting old.  Wakonda has been good to me and for that I am forever grateful and humbled by his grace and patience with me.  I have been living among my Omaha people on the reservation now for almost three years and I get to see my mother every now and then.  I asked her one day, Mom how are you doing? She said "oh life is just draining out of me son, but I'm OK."  She broke her left hip twice and her right hip as well all in a three year time frame.  I don't think she will ever fully recover from those injuries. She lives at Carl T Curtis Nursing Home in Macy Ne. She sundanced her last four years with me, that was nine years ago, I will always remember that as a very special memory. I am so grateful to still be able to say mother. My time here on the rez so far has been good and productive, I dont think I'm done yet either.  If you read on further down you will see some of what we have done for our people just these past few years.

Originally I wrote this blog for my two daughters, both are enrolled Ponca Indians, one is Northern Ponca the other from Oklahoma, my oldest is an urban Indian in So Cal.,with so many questions. She has blessed this world with two boys and a little girl.  My three beautiful grandchildren are enrolled in the Northern Ponca tribe as well. The other a teenager full of drama and life she has been raised among her Southern Ponca and already has so many memories of her Indian ways. I love all of them so much and I am so proud of each of them.  I have told both my daughters that being Indian is a way of life, not a degree of blood or a color of skin.  I told them; be good to people, be respectful to the elders, be helpful when you can, always be prayerful and acknowledge Father God in all that you do. I encouraged them to talk to God every day as if he were sitting right in front of them. I want them to pass those things on to their children. I don't know what is in store for me tomorrow, I just want to keep God in my life everyday that I am walking on this earth. I have tried my best to show them a good path to follow.  I only want good things for them, they are in my prayers every day and as I said I love them dearly.