It’s a beautiful fall morning here on our back porch. Days like this used to be called Indian summer or, as they say in Seattle, Indigenous People’s summer. And next week, in my calendar, we’ll be celebrating Columbus Day by eating spaghetti which, according to what I’ve learned, Marco Polo brought back to Italy from China. We celebrate Columbus Day because he was supposedly the first European to hit these shores. But didn’t Leif Erikson come before that? (By the way, Leif Erikson Days is “observed” on October 9, but it’s not officially “celebrated,” and nobody gets the day off.) And what about those Ancient Romans. There’s some evidence to support that a few of their intrepid sailors showed up here, too. Just haul out your handy-dandy copy or the Peri Reis map and see what you think.

But back to Indigenous People. I know a little about them having spent five years working with and among them. Back then the reservation in question was referred to as the Papago. That name had something to do with their being “bean eaters” (tepary beans, I believe) which was what the arriving Spaniards called the people inhabiting the lands in and around what is now Tucson. Those folks actually called themselves the Tohono O’odham, the Desert People, to differentiate themselves from the ones who lived just up the road apiece, near the Gila River. Those were the Akimel O’odham, the River People.

On the reservation I was an “Anglo” although none of my forebears came from England–I’m actually a Scandinavian-American. (Go Leif!) On the Papago I was also referred to as a Milgahn, a White, although the occasional African American who worked on the reservation also landed in the Milgahn category. It didn’t really matter if we had white skin or black skin–we weren’t Indian. The term Native American hadn’t yet come into vogue or common usage.

The Tohono O’odham Nation has now reclaimed that original name, but back when I worked there and when Columbus Day came around, we were ALL, Indian and Anglo alike, glad to have the day off. My friend Loretta, the Papagoes token Quinault, called it “a national day of mourning,” but you know what? We all laughed about it, too. Together.

That was one thing I loved about working with those folks on the reservation. They had a sense of humor. I haven’t done an official poll, but I suspect that the Desert People would greet the whole “Indigenous People’s” debate on the Seattle City Council and the Washington Redskins controversy, (Go HAWKS!) with a shrug, a grin, and a sad shake of the head and say, “You know what? Those crazy Milgahn are at it again.” Which reminds me, why isn’t someone protesting about the Kansas City Chiefs or the Cleveland Indians? And what about the Arizona Cardinals or the Baltimore Orioles. After all, don’t birds have feelings, too?

I have a friend, a newly minted U.S. citizen, who immigrated here from South Africa. His forebears were Dutch. His skin is definitely not black, but he is legitimately an African American.

I read an article this week about how DNA researchers have found that Denosovians inter-bred with a previously unknown species. (What? You never heard of Denosovians? Look them up. I have it on good authority that those were some of our paleolithic forebears.) Who knows, maybe we’re all descendants from someone visiting from a galaxy far, far away. What does that make us–Intergalactic Americans? Will the city council grant us a special day, too?

I guess I’m a little grumpy with today’s all-pervasive political correctness that seems to have sent both common sense and humor out the window. Just because you put the words “Rapid Ride” on a bus doesn’t mean it will actually BE a rapid ride. When an Islamic fundamentalist beheads a co-worker in Oklahoma, you can go ahead and call it “work place violence” all you like, but just because you don’t call it terrorism doesn’t mean it isn’t terrorism. And please don’t lecture me that the “alleged killer” was simply exercising his “religious freedom.” When the media pulls its punches by saying silly things that their readers see as patently absurd, we’re all losers–the media most of all.

Isn’t it about time we called a Spade a Spade? No, that’s not hate speech. It’s playing cards, people. What about Hearts and Diamonds? That term means nothing more or less than saying it like it is.

After all, it’s not what we’re called that’s important. It’s who were are and what we do.

That was true all those years ago back on the Papago, and it’s still true today.