From One Raven's Eye

Page 7

Yo, hello and tansi. Well last week we set out talking money. How shooniah it snuck up on us. This week how we sneak back, around, under and hopefully over it.

Now this glittery stuff symbolized by a snake crawling under two sticks has some day-to-day behaviour problems attached to it.

Say, for example, you're forced to borrow money from a friend. As you are asking isn't it weird how you can suddenly hear your own voice in your head. Borrowing other things doesn't cause you to be at all self conscious. Let's try it. Say this. "Excuse me Jo Anne, but can we borrow a cup of lard?" Now this. "Uh, Harry could I, uh, like to talk

to you for a second. I really hate to ask you this but...could you lend me three thousand dollars 'til Tuesday" Notice the difference.

An unpaid debt can come between friends. You have waited and waited for Simon to pay you back. Now you need the cash but don't really want to ask him for it. Maybe he'll think you don't trust him. You ask him anyway. Now either he simply forgot, say oops or hasn't got it. You might end up walking away, working on your patience and understanding some more. Most friendships can handle that but we all have seen some that can't.

Now imagine we are at a place where they are going around taking a cash donation. How much is right to give? Or all you have is a twenty, that's got to last you 'til payday. The guy comes around with the pot. When your handful of change clatters in, heads turn in your direction,.

Picture these two reserves house side by side in your mind. One's got a half ton, a fancy car, two skidoos and a satellite dish in the yard. The other, a woodpile, a canoe and one scrawny old yellow eyed dog. What goes through your not really judgmental but just curious, you know, head as you pass by?

Suppose over coffee at the band office those two homeowners are pointed out to you. Turns out the one with the dime a dozen dog is the chief and makes as much money as the one in the suit driving the Thunderbird. Money and possessions can easily mess up your thinking on who you figure is doing better for themselves in life.

When this paper moved its office over here I had to take cabs to get back and forth. On the very first trip the taxi driver talked to me all the way across town. While he did that he took me the long way around. I didn't figure this out 'til the following week. That driver who didn't say a thing got me over here for three dollars less.

That memory still gets me mad. Why? Because I trusted that first guy. He betrayed a trust for a couple of bucks. Sure you have to look out for yourself, but what kind of society operates like that?

In order to get ahead, consideration and a fair shake, nice little human values like that have to be put second. A definite second along with the poor, the old, women, the handicapped - anyone less able to compete, in other words.

Still, sigh and however, this is the way of things for the moment.

Some simply refuse to participate in the dealings and so choose to be poor. It's pretty rough on those ideals when you open the fridge to feed the kids and find it empty. How they do it is beyond me.

Then there is my friend Eric who is a lot like George who I introduced you to last week. Eric runs a consulting service from his house on a reserve in Saskatchewan. He designs social service skill development programs based on traditional values. He sings powwow, speaks his language, has a nice place and a string of horses. So it sure looks like there is more than one answer.

There are others who say a person has to get as aggressive, as competitive, as low down and dirty as it takes to get ahead. Maybe that's true, but who wants someone low down and dirty for a friend?

Now me, I do this column and stuff for the radio to make a living. It's third on the list, to a life no longer possible doing trapping and commercial fishing and second to writing stories for children. It's often a tough compromise. Someone who'd refusethe compromise would accuse me of doing this then just for the money. I'd have no choice but to shrug and admit what they say is partly true. Shucks.

Cash, capital, money, shooniah, how is it, what it does to your thinking, how to best deal with it, is a mystery to me.

You could always have a pocketful and be poor as a person. You could have none and really be counted on as someone. Also the rich don't have to be poor like that and the less well off aren't necessarily further ahead in that respect either.

Tricky, tricky stuff to mess around with. Sometimes you've got it and sometimes it's got you and it's often pretty tough to tell the difference between the two

Let me leave you with this one last story concerning this that might make sense, but then again might not.

Do you know about the Battle of the Little Big Horn, when the U.S. Cavalry led by the General George Custer got rubbed out by Crazy Horse? Custer had refused to

pay his men in the last town they were in. A day or two before the last confrontation, he did that. These soldiers had all this money but no place to spend it. On the day of the fight, in the dust and swirl of fierce combat, there was all this money just blowing round. No Indians were bothering to puck it up. They could have used it to buy guns from the Mexicans. Or paid for the Black Hills at the nearest real estate office. Maybe they never bothered collecting that stuff because it had no value compared to what they were fighting for that day.

Anyway, gotta go. You too? Well, okay. Let's get together like this next week. Oh yes. If you've got something on our mind and want me to take a turn at reading your thoughts for a change, go ahead, make my day. If not, adios until October.