1955...me and Elvis down memory lane

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Tansi, ahnee and hello.

Coffee and Elvis Presley. This morning finds me on a pleasant little journey back to 1955. It was in that year that Elvis and I emerged.

One of us would shake the world of popular music to its very foundation and become a legend and another would travel a lot of strange and wonderful roads and become the writer

that shares this morning coffee with you.

For me, it started on a frosty October morning. I was born in a trapline camp somewhere in the wilds of northern Ontario. I lived there with my mother and father, and two brothers and

sister, grandmother and grandfather for the first two years of my life.

The bush is still the only place I feel real comfort.

According to my mother, me destiny in life was evident really early. I was the one who would wander. In fact, I spent so much time crawling around and getting people chasing after

me that my grandmother had to make a moosehide harness for me and tie me to a tree at the edge of camp. Guess they didn't want me crawling off into the bush. My mother says

she knew right then that I'd be finding my way into a fair bit of trouble in my life.

Life changed quickly. The Ontario Hydro Corporation in its infinite wisdom decided that they really needed two large dams on the Winnipeg River system and that nobody really

needed the million or so acres they eventually flooded. Our trapline and our lifestyle disappeared.

It wasn't too long before another foreign enterprise pushed its way into our lives. The Ontario Children's Aid Society stepped in to say that we kids weren't getting adequate care and

attention. Anyone who's ever spent most of their time as a kid around their grandmother knows that this just isn't true. Soon the three of us youngsters found ourselves in the foster

care system.

When I was five, I disappeared. The Children's Aid decided that I didn't need to be with my brothers and sisters and I was moved to another home in Kenora, Ontario. I wouldn't see

my family again for almost twenty years.

When I was nine, I disappeared even further. I was adopted. Soon I found myself in the suburbs of Toronto as far away from the bush I loved as I could imagine being. There were

new rules to obey, new games to play, new attitudes to learn. I was the only Indian in my world and soon I even started to turn my back on him.

The next six or so years were the most painful of my life. Every day of those years I wrestled with indentity. I wrestled with acceptance in this strange new world and I wrestled with

new ways of being that just didn't seem to fit no matter how hard I tried.

As soon as I could I disappeared. I made my way to the streets where I soon began to learn that Indians were much more than the images on movie screens or in the pages of

novels. I began to learn that I was an Indian. I began to learn that I wanted to go home.

From sixteen to twenty-five, my life was drugs, alcohol and jail. Northern Ontario seemed like it was a million miles away. I couldn't seem to break the chains and the hold of the city. I

couldn't stay straight or sober long enough to get a solid plan of action together. I was as lost as a human being can get.

My brother found me. I was serving time in an Ontario jail when a letter arrived with pictures of my family and a long letter from Charles. Suddenly it seemed like I had roots. I had a

history, a culture, a family and an identity. Soon after, I was back wandering those northern Ontario woods ad rediscovering a little peace.

It would be another six years of drug addiction, alcoholism, the occasional jail time, divorce and desperation before I finally settled down. Before I finally learned to listen to the elders

and began to walk another way.

These days my family and I are in each other's hearts everyday. I never see the ones who adopted me. There doesn't seem to be a reason. I spend as much time in or near the bush

as I can and I spend most of my time with my people because that's where I belong. I was lst for a long time but these days I'm home.

In the next few days, I will turn 34. It's been an interesting life. In terms of experience alone, I've lived an awful lot of different realities. I've been a lot of different people in a lot of

different places. I've cried and hurt, suffered and changed, learned and grown and just lately rejoiced.

And that's why I write. I write because of my life. I write because I have first-hand knowledge of the realities our people live under. I write because I survived it all. I write because

every day I learn more about the sweetgrass way and I move further and further away from the lost person I use to be. I write because sharing these mornings and this coffee with

you is just one way that I can pay back for all the negative and hurtful things I did in all those years of lostness.

1955. Me and Elvis. This morning his music has taken me back through my life. This morning the King and I have tripped down memory lane. It's been good. This coffee and these

words have brought us closer together just as our elders tell us that good words told in a good way will do for people.

Until next week, may you walk tall and proudly upon the land.

Meegwetch.