Bossier Mom Finds Her Ancestry

A few years ago I made the wonderful discovery that I had Native American ancestry. It brought all new interesting things to the forefront of life, such as growing much bigger vegetables in my garden, scattering seeds around for birds and small animals, and feeling much more in touch with the land I live in. I bought a leather purse. And purchased a really big knife with a colorful totem pole handle. I used my new colorful knife to personally clean and cook all the wild game my husband brought home for dinner. This was made easier by the fact that my husband doesn’t hunt. But the knife works very well busting through the plastic meat containers from Brookshires. I’m still working on the part at feeling that one with nature Cherokee benevolence for larger animals with big teeth, but have made great progress in liking horses, deer, and friendly dogs.

Last weekend I was standing out on the back porch in my purple pajamas communing with nature, inspecting my tomato plants, and watching my older son working in the flower bed beneath the trees in the back yard. He was grumbling about how the last two of mom’s columns printed in The Times had everyone in the world knowing he had gone to Wyoming and virtual strangers asking him which college he had finally chosen. Not necessarily a great thing when one is a teenage boy.

Abruptly this ended with a huge crash from the tree above him and the branches all rattled and shook. My son grabbed a long plastic PVC pipe, formerly used as a makeshift bow, that was lying nearby in the grass and started whacking at something in the bushes. A hideously ugly, snarling, opossum came darting out of the flower bed and running onto the back porch which, for the most minuscule next span of time, I happened to be standing on. Of course, this scenario instantly changed as I ran screaming out into the back yard to take refuge on our pool diving board and realized I didn’t have my totem pole knife, an arrow, or even my leather purse. What in the world did Pocahontas do when taken unawares with hissing man-eating small animals?

My son reminded me of my Native American heritage and told me to quit shrieking, it was just a small animal and he proceeded to grab the plastic pipe and a fishing net and headed toward the porch to catch the thing. Just a routine catch for him now, since he had just returned from the Wild West and dealt with these occurrences on a daily basis for the entire 7 days he was a mountain survivor-man. As he tapped away with the pipe and swiped with the net, the ferocious animal snarled and hissed and I hysterically hollered for him to be careful. It will bite you. They carry rabies. Don’t kill it. It will bleed all over my porch and draw predators like bears and 12 foot alligators that are now roaming freely all about the Shed Road area. And again, I was doing all this jumping and hollering in my pajamas. My loud verbal hysteria seemed to point out to both boys that I actually had more Italian ancestry than Cherokee. And I really do love Notini’s.

As my older son proceeds to bag the opossum, my younger son exits the house to see what is causing all the commotion. This son happens to be my big brained child and a Discovery Channel buff and is intent on filling the void in the world left by Steve Irwin. He then proceeds to instruct his brother (as only little brothers can do) in the proper ways of netting and capturing small animals, Louisiana Wildlife and Fishery Laws, the percentage of native Louisiana wildlife that actually carry communicable diseases, and the height in centimeters of the peak of Mount Everest in November. For a moment I wondered if the opossum was going to be the one actually netted and disposed of.

I calmed down a bit as I watched the two of them trot through the yard and toss the animal into the woods behind our house and we all went down the driveway to the calls of the mailman who happened to be driving by delivering the mail. Anxiously awaiting my new delivery of tomahawks, I ran out to his truck where he was thrilled that my older son was present because he had read about his college predicament in the paper and wanted to know if "Go Bulldogs!" was going to be appropriate from now on. My son rolled his eyes at me and smirked, which I brushed off because I was too busy trying to pretend that I wasn’t still outside after a major hunting expedition, waving hello to the neighbors, and visiting with the mailman while still in my pajamas. All in all, I realized that maybe I need to work harder on the Native American part of my DNA, and also.... I really need to get dressed much earlier in the morning.