'Hunter Gray' hunterbadbear@hunterbear.org [marxist]
2014-05-23 16:07:13 UTC
NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR (MAY 23 2014)
Things have been very full and interesting and productive social justice-wise for myself since my appearance on Earth (and , in due course, for my good family as well).
And, from time to time, friends have suggested I do some kind of autobiography. A particular proponent of this, among others, was our good friend, Bill Mandel.
A few years ago, I did give this some thought -- even sketched out some basics. Bill Mandel gave me the name of a literary agent who my oldest son John (Beba) contacted with some of my website writing samples. The agent said the stuff was quite good indeed -- but also said I was not well known enough to adequately market any autobiography. Well, it is true that I am not well known -- and the autobio thought faded.
But it does continue to arise from well wishers. And occasionally, I mull things over on that score.
However, it is doubtful that I'll ever do an autobiography. In addition to marketing difficulties, there are, frankly, some other reasons. There are a very few early parts of my pre-radical organizer life -- I emphasize pre-radical organizer life -- that I don't care to discuss. In the eyes of many, they'd constitute no negative reflection on me at all -- maybe in a couple of instances, quite to the contrary. But I simply don't want to get into them. For awhile, 'way back, if they came up in oral histories, I found mildly creative and essentially ethical ways (at least as I saw them) of circumventing and even obscuring those matters. More recently, I simply say I don't care to go into "that."
Another reason involves the fact that I hold, at what's chronologically at least, my 80 years, a very great number of personal confidences from people -- going way back in time. Many of these have a direct bearing on various aspects of my life-long scholar activist/organizer and "professional" organizing career. I keep those confidences zealously, even if the person involved is now long departed. I recognize no statute of limitations when it comes to maintaining confidences. (And, in full accord with Native and rural Western American traditions, I never ask anyone any personal questions.)
My Jackson, Mississippi book, which I essentially wrote in the Fall of 1965, (full of vivid memories and surrounded by boxes of primary documents and a telephone) -- though focused most primarily on the rise and development of our great Jackson Movement, and the Magnolia years 1961-1963 -- contained in its initial edition (1979) my epilogue sketching our subsequent history into 1978. That was the point we arrived at Navajo Nation to reside for several years. A subsequent edition by Krieger (1987), a commercial textbook publisher, had, in addtion, some Mississippi update material. (There was also a mysteriously pirated edition of my book -- accurately printed for sure -- but "intellectual theft." That played out fairly early on.)
This last and current edition of Jackson Mississippi (11/2011) incorporates all of my foregoing material from the first two editions and contains a new Introduction (actually a big new chapter) of almost ten thousand words. I'm indebted to the University of Nebraska Press for its quick willingness to go along with that big dimension -- an update on much of our life and work since the Navajo Nation days.
That does constitute a basic Memoir. I've given copies to all of our offspring and all of their offspring, including the various babies, and we have a sufficient cache of copies to last for a very long time. And, in addition, we have my huge Hunterbear website which contains a vast amount of my written material -- and which is destined by our family to live on into the very far future.
Shifting topic, I chanced to see Chris Hayes' program on MSNBC yesterday eve. I used to be critical of him, seeing him as a fast-talking Easterner. However, I have come to see a sharp and lively critter who puts out interesting fare -- even if I don't agree with him on everything. One of his segments, pretty well balanced, involved Kansas and guns. Kansas, a Western plains setting, with something of a Southern ethos in a few areas, is one of the states like North Dakota, where my roots on my mother's side go back into the Territorial days. I have many relatives indeed in Kansas. I know the state extremely well.
Hayes' segment yesterday evening discussed the fact that the current Kansas Gov, Sam Brownbeck, with strong bi-partisan support from the legislature, has ended all state gun laws of any kind. Adults in the Sunflower State can now carry guns anywhere at any time. (Brownbeck, I should add, has never been one of my favorite politicos by any stretch.) Some other states have done comparable things. Most of this is in the name of crime prevention -- but I am skeptical of claims that this prevents much of that.
I am, of course, a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment -- and I do think that covers these things. On the other hand, however, the utilitarian reasons escape me almost completely. Most people have no reason to pack a firearm throughout the course of their daily lives. Ostentatious display of firearms, without good reason to do so, has always turned me off. There have been periods in my life -- some prolonged -- where I have quietly carried a revolver without any permit. Those were periods in various settings where "clear and present danger" to myself was very real indeed. And we always have a number of firearms -- e.g., a revolver, several lever action Western-style big bore hunting rifles, a single barrel shotgun -- in our own home. I have a definite aversion to semi-automatic firearms generally -- and especially so-called civilian "assault rifles."
To round things out a bit, many in Kansas seem to have real problems with Evolution. My free thinking Populist ancestors would find this very strange and I think most of my current Kansas relatives certainly do. The Creator works, I am sure, on a very long-term basis.
Still, Kansas is one of the states I like very much. Great hunting and fishing in the river bottoms. Mostly friendly folks. Its covered dish suppers are splendid -- like those in Dixie.
Health-wise, we are doing OK here in Idaho. Eldri and Maria, who have had tough bouts with a strange flu, are coming along nicely. As I noted the other day, my Systemic Lupus has never returned. I am increasingly convinced that the "diabetic signs" spotted the other day by my doctor, are, yet again, transitory phantoms stemming from the 'way back artificial but real diabetes originating from heavy doses of Prednisone early in my Lupus War. These "ghosts" come and then fade. The real diabetes ended years ago when I shifted to other Lupus meds.
Still, we are ever vigilant.
But I still remain somewhat wary of "western medicine." Our family practices a lot of Bear Medicine.
Keep Fighting - As an old and radical union friend of mine from the Silver City, N.M., metal mining district was prone to say, "Success will be ours in the long run."
Hunter Bear
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm
See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)
Things have been very full and interesting and productive social justice-wise for myself since my appearance on Earth (and , in due course, for my good family as well).
And, from time to time, friends have suggested I do some kind of autobiography. A particular proponent of this, among others, was our good friend, Bill Mandel.
A few years ago, I did give this some thought -- even sketched out some basics. Bill Mandel gave me the name of a literary agent who my oldest son John (Beba) contacted with some of my website writing samples. The agent said the stuff was quite good indeed -- but also said I was not well known enough to adequately market any autobiography. Well, it is true that I am not well known -- and the autobio thought faded.
But it does continue to arise from well wishers. And occasionally, I mull things over on that score.
However, it is doubtful that I'll ever do an autobiography. In addition to marketing difficulties, there are, frankly, some other reasons. There are a very few early parts of my pre-radical organizer life -- I emphasize pre-radical organizer life -- that I don't care to discuss. In the eyes of many, they'd constitute no negative reflection on me at all -- maybe in a couple of instances, quite to the contrary. But I simply don't want to get into them. For awhile, 'way back, if they came up in oral histories, I found mildly creative and essentially ethical ways (at least as I saw them) of circumventing and even obscuring those matters. More recently, I simply say I don't care to go into "that."
Another reason involves the fact that I hold, at what's chronologically at least, my 80 years, a very great number of personal confidences from people -- going way back in time. Many of these have a direct bearing on various aspects of my life-long scholar activist/organizer and "professional" organizing career. I keep those confidences zealously, even if the person involved is now long departed. I recognize no statute of limitations when it comes to maintaining confidences. (And, in full accord with Native and rural Western American traditions, I never ask anyone any personal questions.)
My Jackson, Mississippi book, which I essentially wrote in the Fall of 1965, (full of vivid memories and surrounded by boxes of primary documents and a telephone) -- though focused most primarily on the rise and development of our great Jackson Movement, and the Magnolia years 1961-1963 -- contained in its initial edition (1979) my epilogue sketching our subsequent history into 1978. That was the point we arrived at Navajo Nation to reside for several years. A subsequent edition by Krieger (1987), a commercial textbook publisher, had, in addtion, some Mississippi update material. (There was also a mysteriously pirated edition of my book -- accurately printed for sure -- but "intellectual theft." That played out fairly early on.)
This last and current edition of Jackson Mississippi (11/2011) incorporates all of my foregoing material from the first two editions and contains a new Introduction (actually a big new chapter) of almost ten thousand words. I'm indebted to the University of Nebraska Press for its quick willingness to go along with that big dimension -- an update on much of our life and work since the Navajo Nation days.
That does constitute a basic Memoir. I've given copies to all of our offspring and all of their offspring, including the various babies, and we have a sufficient cache of copies to last for a very long time. And, in addition, we have my huge Hunterbear website which contains a vast amount of my written material -- and which is destined by our family to live on into the very far future.
Shifting topic, I chanced to see Chris Hayes' program on MSNBC yesterday eve. I used to be critical of him, seeing him as a fast-talking Easterner. However, I have come to see a sharp and lively critter who puts out interesting fare -- even if I don't agree with him on everything. One of his segments, pretty well balanced, involved Kansas and guns. Kansas, a Western plains setting, with something of a Southern ethos in a few areas, is one of the states like North Dakota, where my roots on my mother's side go back into the Territorial days. I have many relatives indeed in Kansas. I know the state extremely well.
Hayes' segment yesterday evening discussed the fact that the current Kansas Gov, Sam Brownbeck, with strong bi-partisan support from the legislature, has ended all state gun laws of any kind. Adults in the Sunflower State can now carry guns anywhere at any time. (Brownbeck, I should add, has never been one of my favorite politicos by any stretch.) Some other states have done comparable things. Most of this is in the name of crime prevention -- but I am skeptical of claims that this prevents much of that.
I am, of course, a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment -- and I do think that covers these things. On the other hand, however, the utilitarian reasons escape me almost completely. Most people have no reason to pack a firearm throughout the course of their daily lives. Ostentatious display of firearms, without good reason to do so, has always turned me off. There have been periods in my life -- some prolonged -- where I have quietly carried a revolver without any permit. Those were periods in various settings where "clear and present danger" to myself was very real indeed. And we always have a number of firearms -- e.g., a revolver, several lever action Western-style big bore hunting rifles, a single barrel shotgun -- in our own home. I have a definite aversion to semi-automatic firearms generally -- and especially so-called civilian "assault rifles."
To round things out a bit, many in Kansas seem to have real problems with Evolution. My free thinking Populist ancestors would find this very strange and I think most of my current Kansas relatives certainly do. The Creator works, I am sure, on a very long-term basis.
Still, Kansas is one of the states I like very much. Great hunting and fishing in the river bottoms. Mostly friendly folks. Its covered dish suppers are splendid -- like those in Dixie.
Health-wise, we are doing OK here in Idaho. Eldri and Maria, who have had tough bouts with a strange flu, are coming along nicely. As I noted the other day, my Systemic Lupus has never returned. I am increasingly convinced that the "diabetic signs" spotted the other day by my doctor, are, yet again, transitory phantoms stemming from the 'way back artificial but real diabetes originating from heavy doses of Prednisone early in my Lupus War. These "ghosts" come and then fade. The real diabetes ended years ago when I shifted to other Lupus meds.
Still, we are ever vigilant.
But I still remain somewhat wary of "western medicine." Our family practices a lot of Bear Medicine.
Keep Fighting - As an old and radical union friend of mine from the Silver City, N.M., metal mining district was prone to say, "Success will be ours in the long run."
Hunter Bear
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm
See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)