Bear's Den: "Black Friday"
David Walks-As-Bear
November 28, 2008
Pecan is the generic Shawnee word for nut, and, as anybody that has ever cracked these little babies knows, they can be pretty hard to deal with. That´s, more or less, how the word "nuts" came to mean ´somebody´ or ´something´ that´s equally hard to manage. The Christmas buying antics of many folks is just as fruity to me. But then, when I was a kid, buying frenzies were unknown to my family. In fact, buying just about anything except the absolute necessities was almost unheard of even a turkey.
Until my mom got a job where they gave each employee a farm-raised turkey, our holiday meals usually hosted wild meat or a cheap store-bought version thereof. Money was tighter than a tick´s tennis shoes, and we had to make do. Yeah, so in addition to garden vegetables and gathered stuff like water cress and polk salad, we ate a lot of wild fish and game. Squirrel & dumplings, venison, fried rabbit, catfish, bluegill, bullhead, perch and pike you name it, if it could be gathered, caught or killed it was on our menu. And like most folks, when I was older, I toted my raising with me. And my wife who wasn´t known as the outlaw the "Leukemia Kid" back then went along with this modes operandi. Of course, this was because I´ve always done most of the cooking in our household, too. Where I liked whipping up victuals, she never cared much for the process, and so, while her growing-up dining was much different than mine, she was satisfied enough to let me do as I pleased in the kitchen.
Um-hmm. I can still remember my 10 year-old daughter and her friend sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, eating leftovers from the night before. Her friend had a curious expression on her face as she ate and asked her, "This is good but does your dad always add shorting to his beef?" My daughter answered, "I don´t know I´ll have to ask. But if he does, we could save money by using the drippings from this raccoon & sweet potatoes because boy it´s always really greasy." Yep, for us, wild was worthwhile and sensible, and heck, this mindset went for acquiring stuff for Christmas, too.
Being Southern Indians, trade has always been our most popular mode of acquisition be it for necessities or for gift-giving. If I have something that somebody else wants, and, if they have something that I want, then we can trade. Man, what a deal, huh? Who cares if one or the other gets the better monetary value on the deal? Each barterer gets what they wanted and that´s all that should matter. For instance, bicycles were a mainstay for kids when I was growing up. But we couldn´t afford to pay attention much less the money for a bike. So, my 14-year-old brother Joey traded his ´worth-more´ boat for a ´worth-less´ old bike that he then fixed up and gave to me, his seven year-old little brother. So, it´s that kind´a thing, eh. It was, and in many ways remains our way. When my kids were little, my domestic boss and I made things for them for Christmas pretty nice stuff, eh, or we made things that we then traded for doo-dads for the giving. Yep, and so it is, then, that the nutty antics of most two-leggeds with holiday buying is a wonderment to me.
Yessir, I always dread having to go into a department store for anything after Thanksgiving. That´s because life for me is mostly in the understanding of everyday stuff, and boy I really just don´t get this one. I´ve been in the stores when people are thicker than needles on a pine most of them, ill-mannered, pushing and shoving down crowded isles, in an effort to get that which HAS to get got. Yep, and that´s because two-leggeds lose what little sanity they possess whenever they get about their buying frenzies. Uh-huh, and man heaven help the hapless soul who is in their way when this loss occurs, too.
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