Category: Alternative lifestyle

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Broke his own world record

Kevin Fast who is a Canadian Reverend, has set a new record in the “heaviest vehicle pulled over 100 feet”.  He beat his previous record for this category which was 125,660 lbs.   Kevin pulled an International Loadstar truck and hauled a load of 126,292 lbs over 137 feet. Paramedics were standing by, and quickly inspected him after the attempt.

Fasts only food in preparation for the event was a cup of coffee. He pulled on a rope, anchored by a parked car. Stuart Claxton from the company Guinness World Records, has been judging record attempts for many years.  My question is ‘Why would a man risk hurting himself as badly as he could have just to pull a truck farther than anyone else?’  Just goes to show that a lot of men are all brawn and no brains but this man should have some.  He’s a reverend after all but I guess he was trusting in the ‘Big Guy’ upstairs to see him through it.  I thought the ‘Big Guy’ gave us enough sense not to hurt ourselves as a way to see us through life.  Shows how much I know I guess.

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Getting cooler and I love it

Fall is finally coming and I am loving it.  I love to hunt.  Yes I do hunt with a primitive bow like my ancestors did. Yes I only kill what I will eat.  I’m sure someone will read this and wonder how I can kill Bambi.  Well Bambi is not real and hunting deer helps the herd to stay healthy.  Too many deer and there won’t be enough food for them.  They’ll get sick and diseased and slowly die off.  That’s not good.  By hunting them for food, you are keeping the herd stronger.

I hunt strictly by the rules.  I get my license and only kill bucks until doe days.  I prefer to get the old spike bucks so that you weed out the poor racks and build a herd in your area that is more likely to produce bucks with nice racks.  I put out mineral blocks for them through the summer to help make them healthier.  I do feed them apples and corn to bring them in to my stand but I also take care of them when it’s not deer season.  My ancestors taught me to respect the animals as they should be.

Deer season starts soon so I need to get out and practice a while to keep my skills sharp so I hopefully make a clean kill every time.  The last thing I want is for the animal to suffer any more than they have to.  IF I hit one and it doesn’t fall where I hit it, I track it down until I know the animal will either survive or I find it.  I don’t leave a badly wounded animal to suffer.  I would never do that.


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Historic sites and State Parks closing

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s office announced layoffs of up to 450 state employees and the closure of 25 historic sites and state parks. Fourteen state historic sites are scheduled to be closed October 1. Eleven state parks are slated for closure November 1.

Among these sites to be closed is the Black Hawk State Historic Site, in Rock Island, Illinois, which occupies much of the historic site of the village of Saukenuk. This was the home of a band of Native Americans of the Sauk nation. It includes the John Hauberg Museum of Native American Life. The state park is located on a 150-foot bluff overlooking the Rock River in western Illinois. It is most famous for being the birth place of the Sauk warrior Black Hawk. The disputed cession of this area to the U.S. Government was the catalyst for the Black Hawk War.

There is already so much of the Native American way of life gone forever and now this?  Why can’t the white man see what they are doing to OUR countries deep rooted heritage?  We all are now Native Americans and these things must be kept to teach our young of the way of life of Our nation.  Our nation we ALL call America which is made up of many tribes from all over the world.

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Grandmother is at it again.

The wife and I have been discussing grandmothers latest decision to stay where she is at rather then to move in with us. She says she has been on her own since she was knee high to a grasshopper and doesn’t see any reason for me to worry about how she’ll be getting along. It’s a good thing we’ve relatives nearby or I’d have grandmother really ticked off at me for moving her out of where she is now and into a guest room at our own home. Sometimes what we think is the right thing to do isn’t right at all for the concerning party.

Grandmother is a hardheaded old woman with strong opinions about how things should be. but she did promise that if it got to the point where she can no longer take care of her own personal needs, she’d give me a call before she’d ring my sister because she believes sis is just out to get the family land or some such thing. She told me every time she confides in sis about something the girl gets, “all whacked out” about everything! Grandmother is a hoot at times and I must agree with her about sis’s overreacting to nearly everything these days. The girl does have a tendency to blow things way out of proportion to say the least.

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Family…

Been kinda busy last couple of days. I’m getting ready to take a few days off work to go see Grandmother and maybe see if it could be possible to have her come live with us instead of having to stay in such a place as a Nursing Home. Wife and I are still discussing the pros and cons of the possibility especially as to what her medical needs may be or develop into.

Family means a lot to me, even if it is my adopted family, they are the only family I knew growing up and did well by me. It is not like my people to put away our old where they cannot be seen or heard. We are connected to our past through the elders and it is our heritage itself we pass along with the wisdom only gained by experience and what we learn from them must be taught to our young and them to their young. Only in this way can a people survive the onslaught of time. We must do right by those who have done right by us, we owe them that. We owe ourselves that.

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Independence Day Festivities

This year the 4th of July happens to fall on a Friday which means that a lot of people have gone out of town in order to take advantage of a three day week-end, but there are still plenty of folks who are still in town and the neighborhood is filled with wonderful smelling aroma’s from all of the outdoor barbecues that are going on in backyards everywhere today.

I happen to go into town and was visiting a friend that lives in a very diverse neighborhood so the aromas from many nations are mingling together and it makes for an interesting experience if you happen to wander outside during all of this grilling. It isn’t just hamburgers and hot dogs that I smell anymore.

I have not found myself going to see a firework display in quite a few years, just not into the crowds much anymore, but I did get to kick back and watch many wonderful fireworks that were being televised from all over the U.S.  I got to view these on my brand new 49″ Flat screen HD TV.  I enjoyed them in the privacy of my own home, which is the way I prefer things in today’s complex world.

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Sky Dogs

I do on occasion have a few friends and family members come by for brief visits time to time. I enjoy the children that are brought along and  I do have a way with children. My house is full of interesting and unusual artifacts that it doesn’t take long to get a kid interested in a certain piece or a collection of the various Native Americana items that are so fascinating and hold many interesting stories and myths inside them.

I even have a few books that I enjoy telling them stories from, for some of the ones they can sit down long enough to really pay attention and listen too.  One of my favorites just so happens to be about my own people of the Indian nation and it is called, “Sky Dogs”, and was written by Jane Yolen.

When horses first appeared to the Blackfeet people, they thought the strange animals were large dogs sent as a gift from the sky – from God, creator of all things.

It’s a good story, if you run across a copy I urge you to pick it up and give it a read. It is a short story of our people and how they came to know of horses.

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Asia is facing hard times

As if the cyclone Nargis hitting Myamar wasn’t grief enough for Asia, now a huge earthquake hit China!  Seems as if Mother Nature is conducting a large scale massacre out there!  I was reading that some people think that the tragedy has been worsened emotionally because of the policy of each family only being allowed to have one child, but I am wondering if each family had been allowed more children, if the death toll would have been higher!

Something to ponder over and discuss with other folks.

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Wildlife galore this time of year

My yard has been filled with an abundance of wildlife these last few weeks, there has been an major explosion of rabbits, skunks, opossum, ducks and gophers and even a porcupine or two, my dogs hate to see critters in the yard and bark and whine like they’ve never seen such creatures when they are out there. We have had deer and foxes in the past, with the lake less than a mile away we get a bit more wildlife than most of the neighborhoods around here.

I remember about six years ago, I found a wounded dear in my backyard.  She stayed perfectly still and rested under the bushes for a few hours thinking she was totally out of site, and then she went running down the sidewalk and into the street, never to be seen again by these eyes of mine.  It is good to see the animals returning, very good.  It is a good sign too.

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Hello world!

I am Raymond Whiteside, full blood of the Cherokee Nation. Educated in the white man’s schools. Fought for my country in the uniform of the U.S.Army, in a country far away where our enemy were easier to understand then were our so called allies. We should not have left. But those decisions were not made by men of war. Sort of brings the French Government to mind for some reason. Strange world we live in. Good thing I have a sense of humor. I”ll just say I married a white-eye, so you’d know I just kid a lot about you guys. After all, this is the 21st century and unless something drastically changes the worlds population, the Buffalo won’t be making any miraculous comeback. My wife looks like an Indian, but her people are of the French, and THAT, my friends, is FUNNY!