Shawnee and Thom

    I wanted to explain a couple of things that have stood out to me lately.

    American Indian or Native American tribes have had their impacts on the world. Each one has their ways and influences. Last year I learned about the three major cultures of Southeast Alaska when I visited there. One of them is the Tlingit, for example. The other two are on or in my peripheral memory. I have met and known some Tlingit people over the years, not as much with the others.

    Where I grew up in Indiana the Shawnee peoples are one of the foremost tribes that go back in the region and history. Growing up I tried to learn and read a lot about native peoples, the indigenous of the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere. It made sense to understand the world around us better by understanding some of these groups, not just traditional Western history and culture.

    I cannot recall which happened first, but my mother gave me a copy of "From Sea to Shining Sea", which is about an American family and its members that made a significant impact on our United States legacy. It is the Clark family that were Virginia gentry, then eventually provided the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Coast, a then undiscovered area, by way of the upper Inter-Mountain West Rockies.

    

    James Alexander Thom does a pretty amazing job of writing this book and others. He brings to life our shared American history. My sophomore year of high school I met Mr. Thom, who was kind enough to visit my class. I spoke to him; he was gracious and kind. He was a special person who wrote masterfully and with a profound sense of the culture of the Shawnee and other peoples in our shared history. He married Dark Rain, becoming an honorary member of the Shawnee, producing some intense and probing literature about the native tribes and the interaction with the greater cultures of our world.

    Fast forward more than three decades and I find myself in Virginia, the place of the Commonwealth of the Clarks, and friend of my full-blooded Shawnee friend from Kentucky, not too far from my hometown in southern Indiana, where Thom lived and died.

    Thom died this year in January. This year of 2023; I read up on it a few weeks ago, this spring. He lived a long life, relatively, and made an impact for the better.

    Long live his soul, his thoughts, his energies, and the Shawnee peoples.

    I think I explained what I wanted to say.

    Oh, yes, that copy of his book all about the coast to coast Clark family? It is missing by me. I think that I loaned it out, but I am not sure where or to whom. Maybe my friend who deployed to Iraq a couple times has it? Who knows? But, the book was internalized by me, and it is out there.

    Like the soul of James and others. They are looming. As the Shawnee. As the Tlingit. As the rest of us.