If I Were to Tell a Story

about a trip I had taken, I would have to talk about other things. They would not seem relevant. And you would get bored. If I talked about a trip, it would not be that particular trip, but I would have to go back to the first trip the sun took out of the Great Spirit's hands. You know how at first it was burning everything up and the Great Spirit had to let it go. He had to let it move around so all the sky beings, the stars and planets, the little dogs of the moons, would follow. And in their flying, they would cool. Then I would have to talk about other places, you know. And the relationship between trips. I would talk about who was there, what caused us to go to those particular places. How we each saw them in our own way. I would have to go into the history of tribal migration, you see. How we start out someplace other than where we are. I would talk about the ancestors. How they followed a stick from the west. Long ago they walked east and then northeast and then down the coast to the southeast. I would have to tell about the Trail of Tears and by then you would be asking me to get on with it. I would have to talk about my heart and I don't want to do that. I would have to talk about my concept of history. My side of the whole thing. Yes, and I would talk about the nature of talk. You would not have patience or time. I would have to talk about reciprocity as a general principle. And my relationship with mov't. It would not be simple. I would have to end with the man in front of me on the plane just now who must weigh 300 pounds. The flight attendant even brings him an extension for his seat belt. I would have to makeup a story for the story of my trip. I would have to say, yes, we can get even this off the ground

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