Bear´s Den: "You can hit a triple on HONOR, INTEGRITY and CHARACTER if your eye's on the RIGHT ball"

Ya know, in the old days, you had to possess the foundation of honor, integrity and character to sometimes garner fortune, glamour and fame. But, you never got the last three unless you had the first trio. Nowadays, though, all you have to have is the right place in society, and presto – you´re affluent, glamorous and famous. But these trappings are phony, and ring shallowly false if you don´t have honor, integrity and character to begin with. Yet, anyone can have these vital traits, folks – true fact – and that´s… the foundation I´m standing on.

Now, honor, integrity and character go hand in hand with a staunch belief and following of the Creator – that´s just truth. You can´t have a car or a house unless you have the materials to assemble one. Yessum, and you can´t drive a car with weather-checked tires or build a house on a base of poplar wood and expect it to hold up, either. You have to have a sound foundation – in everything. Sure, and if you don´t, then like our country´s current economy… it will fail – fact, again. As a two-legged, I seldom care much about how other folks do things. I´m more interested in doing what I know is right. Yessir, so it is that I know this truth about honor, integrity and character is sounder than a moonshiner´s hidey-hole.

Back in the late 1980´s, the domestic boss and I attended a Broadway show and, when it ended, we went to a little-known egress point to leave. She hit the ladies´ room while I waited at the doors in an almost empty foyer. The elevator opened and out walked actor and entertainer Bob Hope and his wife. She headed for the ladies´ room and the famous man made straight for me and extended his hand. I stood there in my broad-brimmed hat with a completely ´gasted flabber´. This guy was someone I admired immensely, and, as I shook his hand and we chatted a bit, I knew that I was in the presence of a great and good two-legged. It was January and he asked if it was always this cold here. I explained, "Not always, the sun comes out for at least an hour every day in Mid-August, and it warms up a degree or two". He chuckled and, shortly, his wife Deloris and my domestic boss exited the bathroom, yakking, too. I held the door for the Hopes as they exited and climbed into their limousine. Uh-huh, and I thought boy… Bob Hope is a huge star; he has fortune, glamour and fame. But long before he´d ever achieved those… he´d maintained honor, integrity and character. This man did more for the country and its defenders than history will ever properly note – also fact. Yep, and as I pondered this, I noted that the defenders of the Alamo had as well.

As stated, it´s my take that over these generations, we´ve given accolades to those who carry just… a façade of what they should possess. They have the fortune, glamour and fame that we award them, but few have any foundation for it. Nowadays, our country´s heroes are pretenders (actors) or athletes (sports stars) or elected officials (politicians). While I´m not saying that there aren´t a few in these categories that have the necessary foundation, I am adamantly noting that most… don´t. They acquire these accolades by virtue of the positions they hold in society – not who they are… as two-leggeds. Now, that said, everyone has somebody in their family tree, or elsewhere, that they can look to who´s carried the true foundational cargo of honor, integrity and character, even if they never garnered one iota of fortune, glamour and fame. All you have to do is look.

Recently, I pondered this, about both little and well-known heroes who held such foundational traits as honor, integrity and character. My dad´s folks came from an original band of woodland Indians that continued to live in the wooded hills of western Tennessee long after the Trail of Tears hike ended. As a kid, I routinely visited kinfolk who lived in the deep timber without indoor plumbing and drew their water from stonewalled wells or, in the fancier places – levered pitcher pumps in their sinks. Daily, they dealt with copperhead and cottonmouth snakes. They tended gardens and hunted and fished to survive, as the old ones had done for thousands of winters before. Babies were born in cabins, nigh-on until the 1950´s, and this… was as it was. Like most Indian families, ours was an oral history. And in this passing-on, there´s the family story of my pop´s distant cousin, John Davis. He never garnered high praise like, say – Crockett, Travis or Bowie – but, he owned what they did: honor, integrity and character.

Indians use historic stories, a lot, for guidance. They also take high note of bravery which, in turn, comes from goodly amounts of honor, integrity and character. So, stories about any such brave two-leggeds are proudly passed on, aplenty. They provide strength by example to hold the People up as the Great Mystery has instructed. Now, according to family story, old cousin John Davis left Kentucky and homesteaded in the Texas Territory in 1830. He had his own piece of ground along the banks of the Lavaca River. In 1836, with the Texas War for Independence firing up, he joined the Gonzales Rangers as a rifleman. Along with 31 other Rangers, he passed through Santa Anna´s lines to enter the walls of the Alamo, never to leave again. The family legend relays that, later on, other distant kinfolk settled on tract lands in the Lone Star state, bestowed to John´s family for his service at the Alamo. I once visited San Antonio and spent time at the old adobe structure. As a warrior, I regard the men who fought there with great awe – truly, I do. And, as I gazed upon his name at the memorial, I marveled at the concept alone… that comes from honor, integrity and character, via a staunch adherence to the Creator. These defenders had willingly, with full thought and circumspection, fought to the death for a mere principle and a mere principle alone. They knew, positively, that they would die in the process, and they still gave it their all. I find it hard to compare this with someone pretending to be someone else (an actor) or someone able to catch a fly ball (a sports hero) or someone dripping in governmental power (a politician).

We used to hold such heroes as Bob Hope and John Davis up as symbols in our society – those to admire and to try to emulate. But, today, these slots have been taken by those… who mostly carry only the accolades of the foundation. They usually have little or nothing, at all, of the actual supporting pedestal. And, like the car with weather-checked tires or the house built on a base of poplar wood… they will not hold up when tested. Honor, integrity and character have to be there… before fortune, glamour and fame have any worth, folks – they just do. And those possessing this honor, integrity and character can be found close to home – almost always. It can be seen there in ´you´… if you so choose. So, look inward, because it is there, if you want it – it is. Those possessing these needed foundational values will seldom appear in places like Star, Sports Illustrated or People magazines, but they will reside in less society-driven places. Most of those who appear in such magazines will only have the false accolades of fortune, glamour and fame and not the foundational values of honor, integrity and character. But you don´t need the last three… for the first three to be held, or even… reclaimed. You don´t, folks – true fact – and that´s… the foundation I´m standing on.

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David Walks-As-Bear is an Inter-Tribal Elder and Kispoko Shawnee Indian. He works as a private game warden and detective and is a novelist and syndicated newspaper columnist living in Northwest Michigan. Contact him at The White Lake Beacon: 231-894-5356 or visit his website at: www.Walks-As-Bear.com