red lake, easter sunday

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, I returned to Red Lake with my friend, Linda.  Actually, it worked out perfectly.  When we walked back to Lorenzo's office, I told him I followed through and brought him the nurse he requested and then asked "...where's my sheepherder?"

It occurred to me last week after looking at photos from pasting Red Lake that I should have put a sheep + kid image on the ice container and do it in such a way that Lorenzo could still use the cooler.   I used an old Boy Scouts bowie knife to separate the lamb's legs from the body so the ice box door could still be used.  One of the cashiers who was standing close by watching said to another cashier "...O look.  He's a good inlaw. He can butcher.  He just cut the leg off."

It was great again hanging out at the store.  Later in the day Linda mentioned that she'd heard from a friend that the old Red Lake Trading Post had been built by the Babbit Brothers two years before Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation.


This time a different relative of Lorenzo's named Chris helped me.  He really got into it.  He joined me as I was putting the piece up on the ice cooler and then did the "kid running left" image pretty much by himself.

Ned, in the red hat, showed up.  He asked where I was going and whether I had room to get him to the junction some 18 miles away.  "Yeah," I said.  "Sure."  And then it hit him.  He recognized me and said "...Ooooh.  I know you.  You're Thomas from the clinic.  You know my mom and dad and you took pictures of me in 1998."  I didn't recognize him but when he told me who his parents were, boom!  I knew who he was (though I still didn't remember taking pictures of him).

I ended up giving Ned a ride 35 miles to the road up to his parent's place (though his dad passed away several years ago and his mom is in a nursing home in Flagstaff.  He went to their place to meet up with his kids who were coming in from Salt Lake City.)  


Ned talked incessantly on the ride back.  At one point he told me what's his wife's name is and said "...she's got a big ass, like... like... like..."  Linda and I looked at each other somewhat incredulously waiting with baited breath to hear what Ned's wife's ass was like.  


"It's like your people's asses,"  he said.  


"Okay.  I got the image in my head,"  i responded.


Ned reminded me of one of his favorite photos that I took of his parents.  We laughed about the irony of his parents being outdoors while a recently born baby goat was inside.  I'd just picked his mom up who'd been hitchhiking and took her to her octagon.  When we got there I cracked up upon seeing the goat inside.

the madman's, guy + marie                       feb 1998

He said it's up still in their house even though they aren't there anymore.