The view from South Dakota

 

Crazy Horse memorial

 

Prairie dog

Antelope

Tatanka

 

 

My son Julian and I are in the Black Hills of South Dakota for several days. We first went to northwest Iowa to visit one of my sisters who is fighting cancer.

Julian made the trip from Cambodia where he now lives. I came from Maine.

I lived at Ellsworth AFB just next to the Black Hills during the early 1960's when my step-dad was in the military. It was during this time that we were crawling under our desks at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Early on in my life I was worrying about nuclear war. Not much has changed since then.

Also while living at Ellsworth, one day in elementary school at lunchtime, it was announced that President John F. Kennedy had been killed. During this current trip we've learned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (nephew of JFK) has declared he is running for president. I understand that in his announcement speech he said he wanted to shut down the CIA. It takes great courage to say that.

I fell in love with the Black Hills, the Badlands, and Native American history and culture at that young age and have tried to return to this very historic and spiritual place as often as possible.

One winter as a boy my family visited the Crazy Horse mountain carving site and met the family of Korczak Ziolkowski who was leading the effort to build the memorial at the request of Lakota tribal elders. The effort has come a long way since then. The museum at the site is excellent and a Native American university is also under construction at the complex as well.

The Ziolkowski family (with 10 kids) is now carrying on this amazing task of creating the Crazy Horse memorial after their father and mother have passed on to the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Bruce