Columbus Day.

Whoever had October 9th in the pool, you won. We got our first snow of the year last night and has been snowing all day today. Thick, heavy, wet, more like spring time snow. There is still lots of leaves on the trees and this heavy snow broke lots of branches down. Sometimes, this type of snow kills older trees. That is sad, but maybe it is God’s way of pruning. We need to moisture here. I like the snow. That is why I live here. Howere, thios morning at Spinning, I visualized myself doing Yoga on a warm sunny beach in Jamaica.

Today is Columbus Day. I am NOT in favor of this holiday. To begin with, Columbus did not ‘discover’ this country. He did not even make it here. This country was visited by Europeans 500 years before him. Leif Erickson Day would be more accurate. I used to think that we should just change it to Discovery Day and not assign it to one person‘s name, but this country was not “discovered.” There was already hundreds of thousands of people living here. I worked with a guy at the cemetery a few years ago who is Latino. He told me that this day is a slap in the face for his people. I can understand that. Columbus has been reported to be a murderer and a slave owner and rapist and thief. If not him, then his crew and all the others after him. My Great, Great Grandmother was full blood Native American. She and her entire tribe, Tuckayoo, were moved by our government from their home in Tennessee to Oklahoma on the “Trail of Tears.” They were all promised to live there forever as they choose. Less than 5 years latter, their land was given to white settlers. My Great, Great Grandmother Mary Jane (her white name, sorry, I do not know her real name) married a Scottish immigrant, Arthur Oliver, while still in Tennessee. The Tuckayoo tribe was matriarchal so he lived with her family. Just before the government gave my Grandparent’s land away, they moved to Kansas. From there, they and their 12 children wagon trained to Oregon. About 100 miles into Wyoming, the kids caught small pocks and died, all 12 of them. They are all buried in the old historic cemetery at Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. My Grandparents homesteaded just 20 miles from the Fort between there and Lingle, Wyoming. They never made it to Oregon. They had nine more children. That farm is still in my family, only because they ‘pretended’ to be white. Whenever I think about Columbus and white settlers and the genocide of an entire human race, I tend to side with my Grandmother’s people. So, I say, no Columbus Day or Discovery Day or any thing like it. There should be a Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse or someone like them day. Just my biased opinion. This country was a blessing to my mother’s side of the family. Her Grandfather immigrated here from Greece just before Mussolini took over and Hitler and fascism. So, I am 1/16 Native American, Scottish, and 1/8 the Greek, but in my heart, I am full Native American. We have little ties to Greece or Greek traditions because when my Great Grandfather got here, he said he was in America now and he would do American things only, not Greek.