and Said

(Marx) My Son Pointed at the Tombstones and Said

“Is it called a cementery because those are made of ‘cement’?” I told him it’s called a cemetery. He asked what “cemetery” means. So I looked up the etymology and told him the word means

“to put to sleep.” He pointed at the ground and said, “Are the people down there sleeping?” I said yes. He asked when they were going to wake up. I said that they don’t have to go

to work anymore, so they can sleep forever now. My son thought about that and then he said, “Do any of them decide that they’d rather go back to work?” I said,

“Yes, and those are called zombies.” My wife swatted my shoulder. A few months later a zombie movie came on TV and my son said, “Look at all the workers!”

Ron Riekki

Ron Riekki is the author of My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction, U.P.: a novel, and Posttraumatic: A Memoir.

Utqiagvik -- Arctic Education

Just like the native name “Denali” has replaced the Anglo name of Mount McKinley for that magnificent pluton, Utqiagvik has replaced the town name of Barrow in this remote Iñupiat village, accessible only by boat or plane. My friend and I had flown with an educational tour group to this northern-most point in the US to learn a bit about native Alaskan culture on the north slope at the Beaufort Sea. After browsing through the town’s museum with fascinating carvings of whale bone, walrus tusk and baleen, Iñupiat masks and baskets, and indigenous whaling boats, we needed to get outside, get some air, despite the grey and drizzle. The two of us walked across the unpaved street -- as were all the streets in town -- to the local grocery store, curious about food prices in a place with no roads leading to it. Groceries and all supplies were either flown in, or arrived by barge that crash-landed on a frigid, gravelly beach, no port nor docking facilities here.

The Alaska Grocery Company looked like most medium-sized grocery stores: long aisles packed with boxes of cereal, stacks of canned goods, and piles of fresh produce. Despite the town’s access challenges, the residents had plenty to eat. After strolling the aisles looking for snacks -- finding nuts, cookies and chips -- we parked ourselves in a couple of chairs in the store’s vestibule, at a plastic utility table that might have been used earlier in the day for school sign-ups or a community event. We sat for a while, munching our snacks, watching locals go in empty-handed and out with bags full of groceries. Then, a man wandered over to where we sat. “How much do you want for this table?” the Iñupiat man asked us. Sensing a bit of humor in his question, I replied: “50 bucks. . . but we’ll donate it to the school.”

He smiled, asked where we were from and then launched into a tale of his childhood, of how the native children attended BIA schools where the goal was to assimilate them into white culture. With great emotion, he told us of being punished for speaking his native language.

“But many of the kids didn’t speak English,” he explained, “so I was translating for them, and then I would be sent off to the principal’s office to be punished.” He didn’t elaborate on what the punishment was, but the injustice of it and the persistence of the pain it caused him sounded in his voice. He seemed grateful to have someone to tell his tale to.

The story of his youth continued until our tour leader stepped into the vestibule and signaled that it was time to leave to resume the tour of the town. We left the grocery store with much more than our snacks.

Susan Canale

Susan Canale spent her adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area, retired and moved to Asheville, North Carolina seven years ago. Earning her living through numbers but always expressing her passion through art, she now finds endless creative possibilities in crafting words.