Thursday

Fr. Zumach

Tracy was baptised a Catholic, but has not been raised as one. The man in the buckskins and headdress in the picture above is Father Zumach. He baptised her in the Catholic church in Fort Washakie. I took this picture of him a day or two before at the Powwow at Ethete.

When I stopped and walked through the Catholic cemetery at St. Stevens a couple of years ago, I found his grave.


This is Buck, an old kindergarten student of mine. What a kid! His father was a broken up old bronc rider, who limped around town carrying a ladder quite a bit. He shoveled snow off roofs in the winter. One time he shovelled the snow off the wrong roof. Once he lost his ladder and put an ad in the paper, trying to find it. I guess it was returned to him. He left it leaning up against someone's house and forget where he left it.

Did I mention he drank?

Buck had some speech problems, and was going to Chris M. for speech therapy. Chris brought him to me one day. He had been practicing a sentence, and he wanted to say it for me.

As serious as could be, he said "My name is Buck, and I'm five years old." Then he got a big smile on his face and blurted out "I tamn near tits!"

If you need me to interpret this for you, let me know.