His Name Was David Sam

By David D. MacArthur

In this exciting second installment of short stories, David shares more stories from the Mille Lacs Ojibwe Reservation. From opening up the first convenience store on the reservation to watching the casino’s parking lot turn into a lake in a matter of minutes; from taking part in a sweat lodge ceremony to witnessing the aftermath of an explosion heard from miles around, David’s stories will delight readers interested in life on the reservation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
• Release date: Aug 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780878399543

Book preview

His Name Was David Sam

David D. MacArthur

North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

Saint Cloud, Minnesota

Copyright © 2014 David MacArthur

Drawings by Mona Marshall

The author would like to acknowledge Charlotte Tommerdahl, née McArthur, for her help preparing the manuscript.

All rights reserved.

Print ISBN 978-0-87839-675-7

eBook ISBN 978-0-87839-954-3

First Edition: June 2014

Published by

North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

P.O. Box 451

St. Cloud, Minnesota 56302

Table of Contents

His Name Was David Sam

Community Center

The Old Ways at the Reservation

Merlin and His Plow Truck

Foster Parenting

Community Clean-Ups

The Haunted Office

The C-Store

Building a New Convenience Store in District Two

The Propane Tank Explosion Heard for Miles

The Parking Lot That Turned Into a Lake in Ten Minutes

Everyone’s Friend Carlos

Crow Wing County Opposition to the Building of Homes

Wild Rice Plant

Fort Mille Lacs

The Corporate Commission

The Elected Officials of Kathio Township

The Mille Lacs County Fight

The Minnesota Historical Society Museum at Mille Lacs

Eddy’s Resort

Eddy’s Marina

Sweat Lodge Experience

Some Vendors Are Just Easy to Deal With

Old Feelings Are Hard to Hide

The Pizza Shop That Flopped

Clarence McArthur

His Name Was David Sam

His name was David Sam . He was about sixty years old when I met him. He looked very much like a real Native American, and could pass for an authentic symbol of an American Indian. He was tall for a Mille Lacs Band member—close to an even six feet. He had a proud look, an intelligent gaze filled with wisdom, and yet he had a softness to his demeanor which others thought was undoubtedly wonderful. With me he was all business.

He had been elected as the District One representative shortly before I arrived. That’s the equivalent of being a state representative or state senator. His Indian name was Mosey, pronounced Moose Say, and he preferred to be called just that. I never new what it meant, but my solid waste employee, Fred Day, who had known Mosey his entire life, said it meant worm.

Mosey, like many Native Americans, battled alcohol addiction and had overcome it many years prior. He was well respected, and I of course gave him a respectful path when I would see him in the office. I happened to see Mosey a lot when he consulted with Don Wedll, our commissioner of natural resources, regularly at Don’s office, which was in close proximity to mine. I also knew where Mosey lived, as I regularly rode with all the guys in the Public Works Department.

Mosey was an elder, and they received preferential treatment. Such treatment involved having their driveway plowed of snow right away, or their garbage picked up even if it overflowed, and, of course, any water or sewer work needed required us to attend to it immediately. We did these things for the elders, not just because of Mosey’s elected status.

Mosey was a fine leader as well as a good decision-maker who showed foresight just like Chief Marge Anderson did in making those tough choices that showed long term gain, but not immediate gratification. I cannot say I liked Mosey or disliked him, as I really never knew him on a personal level. I very much respected him.

My wife at the time was the school nurse for the reservation school and regularly visited with Mosey, getting to know him on a very personal level. Although Mosey was married, I always sensed he greatly enjoyed talking with my wife if not actually flirting a bit. They developed a friendship, and I learned much through my wife about him. I learned he was helping raise his grandson, Reuben, and at times was having a tough time with him. He was not a bad kid, but Mosey was old and his grandson was just a kid of about six or seven. Without consulting me, my wife invited Mosey out to our home, as we lived on a lake, and Reuben could go fishing.

On the appointed night, Mosey and his grandson showed up, and I noticed Mosey was using a cane to assist him in walking. He looked very tired, too. Grandson Reuben appeared from the beginning to be a handful, and it soon became apparent he had very little fishing skills. Taking him out in a boat could prove very interesting as I also had my three kids coming with us, and they were between the ages of six and ten. It was also apparent a storm was approaching and the barometer was dropping, meaning the fish would be biting. So we all fished from my eighty-foot dock, and since the fish were biting, we caught a bucket of thirty sunfish in less than an hour while Mosey and my wife sat on our deck and watched. This was a different type of fun for Reuben, but he had a blast. Reuben was a fine young boy even though he tangled more than a few lines as he excitingly reeled in fish after fish. The storm came in just as the fish quit biting and was gone before we knew it. I cleaned the fish and gave them to Mosey and Reuben to take home.

When I would see Mosey around the reservation I felt as though he treated me differently because he had been to my home and I had treated his grandson to a great time. Shortly after that visit though, Mosey’s health began to fail. He began to depend on his cane much more as he walked, coughed more and more, and he seemed much older than he did just two years prior when I first met him.

During my time working with some of the Mille Lacs Band members I’d be privy to some wonderful stories. Fred Day, Jr., always was the best storyteller, and one subject he shared was the ritual of an Indian’s death path to the happy hunting grounds. I do not know how many times I heard the stories from Fred about this, but it had to have been at least three or four. The reason I heard it so often was that I would attend wakes of the deceased, and at some of them a game or two of cribbage was going on.

Funeral reviews for band members were always held in the community center. The night before the body was placed in the ground the entire family would stay the whole night in close proximity to the body in the community center. Playing cards was something to do as they would be there for many, many hours. There was usually a tremendous amount of food available, as friends and family would provide for the deceased family members present and for visitors. Set aside was also a special plate of food prepared for the journey the deceased person would soon take. Regarding playing cards, I would often play cribbage and was quite good at it, so I made inroads into the social life faster than someone who would just show up and pay their respects and leave. It was at these wakes that Fred would share the process someone took after they passed on. Fred said, on the night before they put your body in the ground you went to every place you’d ever been when you were alive. You make that journey very fast and you are tired afterwards and that was why you needed the feast offerings put out by your family members.

I had my own vision of what this might look like, a ghost of an image, flying like a wisp of smoke, going to every place one had been. It was easy for me to envision this, maybe because I am Native, or I trusted the person who told me this, or maybe I wanted to believe.

One morning when I was arriving at work we were informed Mosey had passed away the night before. It had been sudden but not entirely unexpected. He died at home. His stepson, Darren Moose, was to be in charge of the funeral arrangements. Darren was Reuben’s dad and was close to Mosey but had so much going on that he needed help raising his son. Mosey’s wife, Sharon, was quite distraught and was not up to planning for the funeral. Darren wanted the funeral services at Mosey’s home and since it was July, it was entirely possible to do so.

Since Mosey was an elected official, the funeral would be large and the Public Works Department would have to supply portable bathrooms and assist in bringing hundreds of chairs from the community center. We, the Public Works Department, were basically on call for Darren Sam for a couple of days, assisting with all the things needed to pull together a funeral at a private home for hundreds of people. I never complained, but a few times I was at my wits’ end with another request for something else. I don’t think the humidity of July assisted in cooling down the situation either.

As I just mentioned, it was July and humid. My home on the lake did not have air conditioning and some nights the fan blowing on me was just not enough to cool me down. It is especially hard to cool me down since I’ve always been one to run rather warm compared to those who are always cold. On this humid night, the night before Mosey’s funeral, I got up around 2:00 a.m. and had a cigarette on the side porch. It was a moonlit night and quiet as it should be at this time in the early morning, when a sudden wave or rush of movement passed completely through me. This came out of nowhere and actually passed right through me as if I had a hole in me. I was perplexed for only a moment. Although I had never felt anything like this, I knew what it was without anyone telling me. It was Mosey passing through, as he had visited our home earlier that summer. Why I was able to figure out what that feeling was amazed me. I guess I was getting used to the stories and happenings of my ancestry. Later that day when I told Fred of this, he seemed completely unfazed. I, on the other hand, was saying, Fred, Mosey passed through me this morning. He really did. Others heard me say this and acted as though this was nothing new. Mosey went everywhere that night and early that morning. I still remember the experience like it happened just last week. I have never had the feeling again.

Community Center

My experience with going to funerals for the first three to four decades of my life was very limited due mainly to a lack of relatives who had died. At the Mille Lacs Reservation the tribal government pretty much shut down for a band member’s funeral. I started going to the funerals to show respect for the people I was working for. In many cases my position as a Public Works administrator had introduced me to various band members at their homes. I saw first-hand how little they had to support and raise their families, and now with the passing of one’s family member I truly wanted to show I cared for them.

When a family member passed on, I also started going to the family reviewals of their departed. I had intimate knowledge of everyone who passed away on the reservation because the Public Works Department would build the casket, but not the coffin for each band member who died. It was a type of tradition that this was done only after someone died. We were not allowed to build these caskets ahead of time, so whenever someone passed away we had to make them up at the time. The guys in the Water and Sewer Department usually did this. They had a ready-made pattern, and it took three sheets of plywood to make a casket the coffin would fit in. I believe, and my lack of knowledge is funded by my lack of funeral experience, that because the cemetery was on reservation land a steel vault was not