{"id":16934,"date":"2021-10-18T00:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T04:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=16934"},"modified":"2021-10-17T21:56:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T01:56:29","slug":"tim-giago-it-has-been-a-long-and-bumpy-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/10\/18\/tim-giago-it-has-been-a-long-and-bumpy-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Giago: It has been a long and bumpy road"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Tim<\/a>
Tim Giago. Photo courtesy Native Sun News Today<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
Notes from Indian Country<\/div>\r\n
It has been a long and bumpy road<\/div>\r\n
Monday, October 18, 2021<\/div>\r\n
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji \u2013 Stands Up For Them)<\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIt has taken me 87 years to travel that bumpy road called life. I think I may have a few miles left to travel.

<\/p>\r\nI was born in the Indian Health Service Hospital on the Pine Ridge Reservation, but as soon as I was able to leave that hospital I went to my home at Wounded Knee. My Dad Tim was a butcher and a clerk at the Wounded Knee Trading Post for nearly 15 years.

<\/p>\r\n\tI recall having lunch a couple of years ago with my friend Leonard Little Finger, now deceased. Leonard asked me, \u201cTim, you write about it sometimes, but what is your interest in Wounded Knee.\u201d I told him that it was my hometown when I was boy. He nodded his head and said, \u201cI didn\u2019t know that, but it explains a lot of things.\u201d

<\/p>\r\n \"The<\/a>

A page from an illustrated version of The Rubaiyat<\/em><\/a> by Omar Khayyam. Photo: Oliver Hammond<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\t One of my favorite quotes is from a poem about life. The line originates in English in Edward Fitzgerald\u2019s translation of the poem The Rubaiyat<\/em> by Omar Khayyam<\/a> and it was written in 1859. It goes:\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
\r\n\u2028Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit\u2028
\r\nshall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
\r\n\u2028nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.<\/em>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\tTo me it is pretty self-explanatory. In 87 years one can do a lot of things, both good and bad. You can hope that you did more good than bad, but that is a matter of opinion. The thing that bothers me the most about some of my shortcomings in life is that I did not spend the time with my children when they were growing up and needed me the most. I have made every effort to make up for that terrible mistake for the past 30 years and I have come to the conclusion that my children still love me. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nBecause they had such great mothers in their lives they are all doing well.

<\/p>\r\n\tPersonally, I have survived the Great Depression, I survived the boarding school, I survived World War II, I survived the Korean War, and I survived starting my own business, a weekly newspaper, 41 years ago.

<\/p>\r\n\tI survived working in the sugar beet fields of Colorado and the cotton fields in New Mexico when I was just a teenager. I got into the newspaper business because two friends, Rupert Costo, a Cahuilla Indian from Southern California, and his wife Jeanette Henry Costo, am Eastern Cherokee, took a chance on me and put me to work at their monthly newspaper Wassaja in the 1970s.

<\/p>

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