Trader's Villiage Pow Wow

Went to a Pow Wow today. First time in more than forty years. I didn’t stay long. I don’t stay long in one spot anywhere right now. Went to take photographs but really couldn’t get interested.

Almost a Keeper

Growing up on the Oklahoma border pretty much made Pow Wows a standard part of life. Dad always wanted to go to the big one at Anadarko but we usually just went to Waurika. Very little was made of our Cherokee ancestry. I imagine if Mother hadn’t mentioned that I was 1/16 Cherokee no one would have known it. There are just some things in families that don’t seem to get mentioned.


When a Cell Phone Killed the Ambiance

My favorite Pow Wow story happened when I was about twenty. I had gone to the Pow Wow at Waurika by myself. I was sitting in the stands when the woman behind me asked to borrow my flash. It was dark and I knew the flash wasn’t going to carry all the way to the dancers so I didn’t mind loaning it out. When I turned around, I was awestruck. I am not sure that I had ever seen a woman that beautiful ever before. Of course she could borrow my flash. She was kindly very attentive to me all during the dancing. She knew she was beautiful and she knew exactly how to use her looks to work a young man like starting off by asking if I was a professional photographer—I think I had a thirty-nine dollar camera with no rangefinder at the time. Anyway, I might not have gotten any photographs but I made up for that in fantasies. I went home feeling like a million to have had even a little of her attention that night. What has that to do with Pow Wows? Absolutely nothing except I was at a Pow Wow.

Today, I got one photograph that is almost a keeper.

Going to a beach photoshoot tomorrow. The temperature is in the fifties/sixties so I'm not counting on bikinis--more likely fur coats. We'll see.