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This is a membership Morsel from “Too Young to Retire”. Today’s talk is about Money and it is one of the five areas that “Too Young to Retire” addresses. My name is Ted and I am a story teller at a museum. I wasn’t always called Ted but my

original name couldn’t be pronounced by all the visitors, so I was renamed Ted.
I was made to celebrate an upcoming Potlatch that the head of the bear clan had planned for the coming winter. I was not the tallest totem to grace the front corner of the Big House, but I think I was the best. It was a great Ceremonial house on the Nimpkish River with a great thunderbird painted on the front.
My top totem was a beaver to show that our family was hardworking, energetic and had excellent building skills and provided plentiful food and shelter for all the clan families. The beaver’s tail was flipped up in front and he was shown holding a stick in his front paws.
Next a frog was carved into the totem. The family head was very knowledgeable, and a great communicator. He could find a solution for any dispute and have both parties walk away with mutual understanding of each other’s needs. He was comfortable talking with both the leaders of other clans or with a common person.
At my base a great bear was carved to show that this was the home the bear clan. It was a position of great honor. He was shown holding a great salmon in his paws signifying that he was a great provider. The bear shows that the family is strong, fierce, and devoted and that this family was the guardian and protectors for the clan.

On top of the beaver’s head was four watchmen wearing conical hats with four potlatch skills. They kept watch over the village and river and would howl anytime an enemy approached.
The winter I was erected to overlook the edge of the big house to watch the river. It had been a summer of great abundance. The potlatch that winter was a great one with many gifts being given by the clan head to all those around him.
I stood there for many years and watched life on the river slowly change. I would talk often to the those who could talk with Spirits. The long canoes slowly disappeared and boats with foreign spirits started to ply the rivers.
They had strange designs and spoke strange languages. The strange boats brought sicknesses that caused many to die and what was once a great nation was soon reduced to a few. My few friends who could speak with me told me about the hard times.
My friend who spoke to spirits introduced me to his grandson one day. He was like his grandfather, and could speak to me, and told me that his dad said he was not to talk foolishness and should not put any faith into the old ways. Sadly, I did not see him again. Slowly everyone drifted away, and the site became abandoned. I cried, the wind moaned, and the sky shed its tears as the big house slowly fell into disrepair.
The children drift away as they stopped learning the old ways of the family. They didn’t want to fish the old ways or spent the long winter nights in the big house telling stories of spirits and family deeds from years past. After many years there was only the old members, and the big houses were soon silent.
No one came around and Ted and his friends slowly started to struggle. Some fell over. Ted and his neighbor started to lean over, and he feared he would also fall and lay on the ground and rot. His friend the big house had a great thunderbird painted on the front. It was slowly fading, and the boards were falling off leaving gaping holes.
One day some men from a museum came around and walked all over the site. One was a young man who talked about what the encampment was like in his youth. Ted recognized him as the Spirit talker’s Grandson. Ted reached out and called to him. Ted asked the wind to give me a voice but it sounded weak and sa. He had not used it in years. The Grandson stopped and looked around, who was talking to him in the old language? His gaze came upon Ted.
Ted said, “I knew you as a child when your grandfather introduced you to me.”
The grandson walked up and said, “I thought everyone was gone but your still here. Can you tell me the old stories?”
“I would love to,” Ted replied.
The grandson laughed, I am remembering stories as we stand here, grandfather told me to ask the totems if needed to know anything. They continued to talk and finally it was getting dark and time to leave.
Before grandson and the other men left grandson went back to Ted and said, “I will be back do not despair, grandfather is still alive. He will be excited to hear we talked. I will bring him next time.”
As they started to walk away and the wind blew extra hard, the watch men on top of the Totem cried in joy. The Beaver thumped her chest, and the bear waved the salmon. Ted's fellow totem poles in front of the big house also yelled and shouted for joy. One of them tried to run to them and in his excitement, he fell and came crashing down.
The men stopped and looked back at them. They walked back to the big house, and he could hear the men saying these have been abandoned could we harvest all of these and take them back to the museum. The men went back down to the river's edge and hopped in their boat and headed away. Ted and his friends yelled don’t leave, we have stories to tell, and things to teach you.
Ted cried, was no one ever going to visit them again? Several days later grandson came back and true to his word he had Grandfather with him. Grandfather struggled to walk up the path but when he got to Ted, he smiled and put his hand on Ted. It is good to see you again old friend. They talked all afternoon, grandfather translated while a young lady recorded what they had said.
Grandson and the other men surveyed the site and planned on how to transport all the totems and the face of the long house to a museum. Shortly thereafter a barge was pushed up the river and tied off at the river's edge. Some noisy machines came off and there was a gang of men. The two men who had visited them months earlier with grandson started barking orders.
The men first took pictures then they numbered all the boards on the front of the big house and took them off and carefully stacked them all and then tied them altogether. Then they came to the three totems that were in front of the big house. They started with the one who laying on the ground and they carefully picked him up and carried him onto the barge and put him in a cradle.
Then they came over to Ted and the other one and debated how best to pull them out of the ground. They had the big machine drop a rope that they tied around Ted and then the men started digging around him and he could feel the dirt he had become accustomed to fall away.

He felt he was going to fall, and he started to, but the rope caught him, and the men slowly lowered him to the ground. The men transported him to the barge and put him in his own cradle and tied him down. The grandson came and comforted him to relax everything would be alright.
Ted was still worried what was going to happen to him and then the third friend was brought onto the barge and tide down. He could hear the men excitedly talking but he had no idea what they were saying. They did not speak the old language.
The barge was pushed down the river to a place with many boats. Boats of the like that Teddy had never seen, and all of them spoke different languages. The barge moved next to one boat and they lowered ropes from a crane and hoisted each one of them up onto the deck and tied them down. The front of the longhouse was loaded inside the ship, it was swallowed up by the belly and teddy feared he would never see his friend the Thunderbird again.
The next day the boat headed out and Teddy was amazed. The boat traveled out of the harbor as the land slowly slipped away and Teddy had no idea where they were. For many days they traveled, the sun beat down on him, and the wind would whisper. On two of the days the ship was tossed around and water from the ocean splashed on him. It was salty not like the Sweetwater that brother rain would shower upon him.
Then one day the boat came into harbor where there was more boats and more strange languages being spoken. He was he was craned off the barge and onto these long cars that ran on steel rails. He had never seen anything like this before. The train took him through the countryside. Countryside he'd never seen before, he never knew existed.
Finally, it came to this huge city. They had buildings there towered above him and it made him feel small. They got to a spot in the city and stopped. There were the two men that he had seen months before. They were watching him and his friends being loaded on to more long vehicles. They were trucked and they traveled through the city till they got too a huge building.
He was moved to a spot next to a wall. He was placed in the same position he occupied front of the big house. The crane disappeared and then he watched as the Workman fix the hole in the roof. Over the coming weeks scaffolding rolled around him. People came who he recognized were from other tribes.
He could understand some words but others he couldn't. None of them talked to him which saddened him. Finally, grandson came with grandfather and started to ask him questions about the old days. The other totems called out and told other stories to the grandfather and grandson.
They cleaned him up, when they were applying new paint, he got his back sanded and told the workers how good it felt. A man came with a medicine man and looked at him and said welcome to your new home, Ted was astonished that the man could talk to him like the old days.
Ted said, “Thank you.”
The man laughed he said, “You are at your new home, I heard you were calling at the old site to grandfather. I heard your friend was trying to run after them and fell. This museum is for the First Nations, and you are the grand exhibit.”
Ted asked, “What's going to happen to my friend the big house.”
The grandfather said, “He is going to fill that whole wall behind you and the Thunderbird will be able sing about the family’s history.” Soon the exhibit was complete, Ted felt like a new creation. Many people came at the opening and stood by him for pictures.
They walked past him, through the doors in the big house wall and then went into the great big house. Ted could hear all the commotion. He looked around he realized he had successfully made the transition to a new job.
He was still story telling but he was telling the story of his family and his nation to the world, He loved his people and he realized he now had a new purpose in life. Grandson and grandfather visited him often and introduced him to other spirit talkers.
He missed brother rain and wind but loved the new life that he now lived. The story of his nation would never die if he had his way. The four watchmen no longer looked for enemies approaching but would announce every day when the museum opened, and everyone came to visit. They all missed brother wind and brother rain, but they loved being part of a great new exhibit. Telling stories of the potlatches that took place, marriages that took place and the great deeds of the family.
Live life with gusto and keep pushing forward with your plans on enjoying life. This membership morsel was written by me. I hope you enjoy the story and thought that life continues in different directions if you keep trying.
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