The Night Before Christmas - NDN Style

I don't know who wrote this (unknown) but a very good friend of mine, Cindy Mae Lopez, sent it to me and I love it! Hope you do too because it's too good not to share. Merry Christmas to you all!

The Night Before Christmas - NDN Style

Twas da night before Christmas and all through da hogan

not an eyelid was shut cuz no one was sleepy

The Wal Mart bags were hung by da fire so neat

Hopin' soon Hosteen Nick would fill em up w/ Shasta colas

Da chillren were nestled all snug on their sheepskin beds

While visions of frybread men danced in their heads

With Masani’ in her kerchief and my hair braided so tight

We turned up da scanner to entertain us tonight


Then all of a sudden a very loud crash we did hear

Da rez dogs started barking but that juss da norm round here

Da moon on da breast of da new fallin snow

Gave da luster of mid-day to my rez runner car below

When what do my NDN brown eyes should appear?

But an NDN sleigh and eight tiny reindeer!!

With a little Rez driver so stoic and quick

I knew in a frybread moment it must be Hosteen Nick!!


More rapid than a Rez baller da reindeer they came

And he pointed with his lips and called dem by name!

"On Fancy Dancer! On Roast Mutton! On Thomaaas and Victor!

On James! On Ernie! On Jacob and Edward!" (Shish)…

Shhhh. Land beside da hogan quiet for good reason

We have to be careful it's deer hunting season...


Da stickers on his sleigh read "I love mutton"

Another on his ride said "My other ride is a ford pickup"

Dah one in the middle said in big red letters "NDN Power"

There was duct tape and bailin wire holdin it all together

When da hogan door flap opened I just hung my head

For I just finished off his mutton stew and frybread

He was dressed in full jury from his head to his red mocs

He was fully decked out right down to his bell covered mocs!!!


His huckleberry eyes twinkled and his bun waz like WOW!

You have to see it for yourself he was jus.... SOMEHOW!

Da stump of his peace pipe he held tight in his teeth

And smoke signals circled his head like a keshmish wreath

His forehead was kinda greasy and he was "NDN" size

He had a commod bod only a Skin could recognize.


He spoke not a word just flashed his tribal census ID

He left a block of a cheese and a box of cornflakes under da tree

He left sum pinons an blankets and rezbandz CDs

A bag of beans and da new Aces Wild CD! (hoka!!)

Then he pointed with his lips and gave a big hardy AAAYE!!

And he danced out da door and jumped on his sleigh..


I heard him exclaim as he flew outta sight

"Round Dance hard my red chillren and Round Dance tonight!!!

AAAAye!!!

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

A Chinook Christmas

More so now than before, every holiday seems to evoke memories for me. This approaching Christmas caused me to remember an event that happened years ago when I was a grunt in Vietnam.

I was an 11- Charlie, which stood for infantry mortar man. The specialty was no safer than being an 11- Bravo, which stood for infantry foot soldier. We called them 11- Bullet stoppers.

When we changed areas of operation from the highlands to flat plains, we got rid of our 81 mm mortar because it was too heavy to hump. Since I was already used to carrying a twenty-three pound base plate our platoon sergeant chose me to carry the twenty-six pound M-60 machinegun instead.

The gun was a weapon I had never even held in my hands, much less shot. We were in a hot area of operation and everyone expected contact. In a clearing, waiting for resupply, I extended the bipod of the gun and pointed it toward the tree line. I was admiring my handiwork when a voice from behind interrupted my thoughts.

“Better lower the bipod. In a firefight, you want as low to the ground as you can get.”

I turned to see a trooper named Denny. He was white, but had dark black hair and drooping handlebar moustache. He was from Michigan, as were many of my fellow boonie rats. Denny was a veteran of the recent Cambodian campaign and had participated in many firefights with the elusive enemy of darkness.

I lowered the bipod and thanked Denny for his sage advice. Later that night, moans of someone suffering horribly awoke me. It was Denny.

“He has malaria,” First Sergeant told me. “Medevac won’t come for him till his temperature reaches a sustained one-oh-four.”

One-oh-four was a number someone in the rear had come up with to prevent troopers from faking illnesses. The problem was, when a sky trooper’s temperature reached a sustained one-oh-four, he was already almost dead.

Later that night, a chopper carried Denny away, and everyone tried to forget that we had ever known him. It was November, although it seemed more like summer in tropical Vietnam. Later that month I left the jungle for good. A college graduate, I got transferred to help in the rear as a clerk-typist. Seems they needed a typist more than a gunner.

When Christmas neared, the company sergeant asked if I wanted to see the Bob Hope Christmas show. The gig required spending a night on a forward firebase and none of my fellow clerks wanted to chance being that close to potential combat. Fresh out of the jungle anyway, I said yes.

The night on the forward firebase went without incident, except that a reporter for Newsweek later wrote that we violated the Christmas truce when everyone on the firebase opened fire for what we called the “mad minute.”

Next day we took a Chinook helicopter to the hospital in Bien Hoa to see Bob Hope. It was there that I saw Denny again, wandering around the grounds in pajamas and a robe. He did not recognize me.

Denny reminded me of Jack Nicholson in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest—after his full frontal lobotomy, that is.

I didn’t have a good seat and didn’t see much of the show. It mattered little because I was thinking of other things—Denny and the masses of other brain and soul-damaged soldiers wandering like wraiths across the grounds of the sprawling hospital.

That Christmas night, I watched the sunset from the back of a departing Chinook, and considered my own mortality.