"I punched the TV button so hard that in the old days I would have twisted the dial right off, and went looking for cousin Ray Sixkiller. I found him over at the high school football field practicing digadayosdi, the Cherokee marbles game. He had stuck circles on the ground made from clothes hangers to stand for the holes, because even Ray is not sacrilegious enough to deface an Oklahoma football field.

“Hey, Steve! C’mere and help me set up some real shots. I’m tired of making them up. Whoa, what’s the matter with you? You ain’t looked so hacked off since your boy pulled his second tour in Iraq.”

“It’s not quite on that level, but I’ve been watching the Republican debates.”

“Yeah, there’s been a lot of them. I’m burned out on politics since the Cherokee elections. I mean, the choices were a lawyer who ginned up a constitutional crisis trying to kick people out of the tribe or a businessman who was neck deep in the last constitutional crisis.”

“So who did you vote for, Ray?”

“It was one of those deals where you had to pick who to vote against. Made me think of what that Sioux guy said.”"

Get the Story:
Steve Russell: Politics and Lost Marbles (Indian Country Today 11/29)

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