THE CUNNING FENNEC FOX: Where Are You Really From? and the Cunning Fennec Fox

24 March 2014

1131 hrs

Hu, all; My Dear and Patient Readers!

Your old buddy Cunning Fennec Fox, here. Yet again, I apologize for the delays in my posts. Spring Break began

officially for me last Wednesday at around 0930, but I went home and turned the phone off and caught up on a couple of things.

But I am back at school today, sitting in the Mess Hall, doing this very thing at this very moment. I had me some biscuits and gravy, though nothing like Shmeri* made for me back in the day. She used spicy sausage and white pepper, and rolled out the homemade dough, using a glass to cut out the biscuits. I miss those biscuits. I miss that gal, sometimes. OK. I miss her a lot.

Been thinking a lot lately about some of the women in my Ago . . .

Shmeri is now in her forties, surely remarried long ago; surely with kids. Then there is Shmelanie*; I met her when we were just youngsters- she’s in her forties, too.

Shmonda* and her broken heart, buried somewhere in western Alabama . . .

Why is it I torture myself so? Have I changed so much that I now realize and own The Pain I Have Caused Others? What of that? Is it now too late to be of any good to anyone? Will they look at my past and think they understand the future? Am I still that alone?

Anyway, I am taking three more classes this, (spring) term; all of them related to filmmaking in some way. My photography is taking off . . . Photoshop has chosen to follow my work on Behance.net

behance.net/properfessor

And I’ll take that as a feather in my cap. In fact, I am being followed by artists who surprise me. I go to their pages and I see talent that blows me away. It’s very exciting to see such wonderful artists that actually think I contribute to this Great and Terrible world. I’ll post some more stuff below.

I have some more subjects about which I want to rant and will, but I am too weary to do so right now.

For example, I wanted to rail against slavery, not from the whole negative entitlement view, but from the POV of biblical justification. The Old Testament is rife with examples of slavery, and xians from the Old South used the references extensively. Stupid xians from the Old South. Strangely enough, it is the Big City in the Modern South where I saw the most tolerance for mixed-race couples. It was not until I moved up here to the Pac NW that I bore witness to such racism not seen since I lived in SLC, Utah. Yeah, those Mormons have racist views, too.

Anyone who is not a Hansen or a Jensen or a Yorgasen; anyone not blond-haired and blue-eyed is, well, a furner, not a ‘Mercan. “Where are you from,” I heard them ask anyone without milky-white skin- anyone who does not burn in the sun . . .

“Uh,” some would say, “I’m from California (for example).” “No,” their ignorant response, “where are you really from?”

I myself am a beautiful half-Japanese, quarter Cherokee, quarter German 100% American middle-aged man born on Hamilton AFB, Novato, California. The Germans from whom I descended came here just a century after the Mayflower hit these strange shores. Yep, 1720’s is when my pop’s pop’s etc hit the sand of North Carolina. Some of these cats questioning my American-ism descended from the Irish or Italian or Scandinavian hordes that landed here in the late 19^th C or so. Some a bit earlier . . . yet none of them remember that the Natives of my family were here to greet them. But I begrudge no one for this; America IS the Great American Melting Pot,

if I may quote Schoolhouse Rock. (“Kiss me. I’m Polish,” said the pin the old lady in the rocking chair wore.)

But if you look different, if you’re browner than others, you are unworthy. At least that’s how it was in SLC, rural South, and all over this godforsaken wasteland we call the “Liberal Left Coast,”-at least in the PAC NW.

When I went to school, there were three black kids in Jr. High and high school. Three. I was the next darkest kid on the spectrum, and I have burned once or twice in the sun. My dad took after the Germans in hair (blond as a kid) and had green eyes. You could see the Native when you studied his nose and cheekbones. His kin “passed” for white, and when you passed for white in 1930’s Alabama, you by-god kept your fucking mouth shut.

But he told me about the native side- Noccolula Falls-how Princess Noccolula leapt to her death in love’s despair . . .

Noccolula Falls, Etowah County, Alabama. Now three-fifths of that last sentence are Cherokee words; Jalagi, if you will. Even my word-processing program is ignorant of this word, Jalagi. Ignorance . . .

Yep, the Old Man was a lot of things, but embarrassed of his heritage he was not. He spoke as a racist in the privacy of our home, but I think a lot of it was bluster. He did not mind it, as I thought he would, when I brought an Arab woman (Lebanese Muslim) home to meet him. Even after I visited without her he said only the nicest things about her.

He claimed to have hated Jews, yet his best friend on the air base on which we were stationed was Colonel Bergman, a full bird we had over for dinner more than once. He was not two-faced, though; he parodied with a strong sense of irony, the way in which he was raised.

His aunts, born sometime in the early 1900’s, eschewed their Native heritage, refusing to acknowledge it and raging at anyone who raised the topic. Jesus, those women had Native American names, fa chrissakes . . . going by cute Southern nicknames outside of the house. Birdie, for example. Self-hatred, and the racism that causes it.

OK, there is a lot more to say about this- and for someone who said I would not Rant N Rave today, it seems I certainly had a lot to say on the subject. So I will leave you with some recent photographs I took, and I will see you all when I do. Thank you, Patient Reader, for your, erm, Patience and your Reading.

Shall I leave you to it? Splendid!

Always ever yours,