"Spending part of my honeymoon in a Sweat Lodge on an Indian reservation didn't strike me as odd. It was just another of the interesting things my late husband and I did during our years together.

Four of us were invited by tribal Elders to assess potential effectiveness of a program in which Al and his colleagues were involved. Their team included a psychiatrist, MSW social worker, and my husband, a commercial airline pilot was also Chairman of the Aeromedical Committee for Pan American World Airways. I went along as Al's new bride.

PANAM had a successful drug and alcohol rehab program in which he and his colleagues had been instrumental. Another pilot and his Native American wife, after successfully completing it, encouraged tribal Elders to consider it for the entire tribe.

But we got far more out of the experience than we delivered."

Get the Story:
Kathryn Taubert: Passing the Feather: Lessons from Native America (The Naples News 9/26)