1287 MAMMOTH LAKE From June 3 through June 7 we were at Galveston and had several experiences, not the least of which was walking into Asiel’s Restaurant in Clute on Thursday. Just inside the door is a skeleton of a fourteen foot tall Columbian mammoth with curved tusks about sixteen feet long. To make it more surprising, the creature was discovered in 2003 in a sand pit just behind the restaurant. A bulldozer was working thirty five feet deep down and uncovered the skeleton. Also found in the sand pit was pottery, arrowheads, and other Native American artifacts. The sand pit is owned by Vernor Material Corporation and is now filled with water at a depth of sixty nine feet. The water is very clear and one of the premium lakes for scuba diver training and exploration. Many organizations dive in this unique fifty acre lake, now called Mammoth Lake, which is filled with about fifty discarded items such as a roller coaster from Astroworld in Houston, Army airplanes, and much more. On the internet you may want to look at some underwater videos of the lake. Divers prowl inside the sunken items with fish swimming just inches away. To make it more exciting there is a human skeleton in the seat of the Army plane. Next time you head for the Gulf Coast throw in your scuba or snorkeling gear then circle through Clute and visit Mammoth Lake. The restaurant has great food and plenty of windows that overlook the lake. Thursday, June 13, Casey Williams, Tanner Phifer, Archer Findley, Brantley Anschutz, Zack, and I made our annual visit to Beavers Bend and the Owa Chito Festival. Mark and Dylan Owen arrived and we set up tents, unloaded kayak and canoe, and settled in for three days and four nights in the great outdoors. Jean chose to stay home, take care of her flowers, and sleep in air conditioning. That first night we were almost asleep when a noise began that sounded like the squeaking, whistling noise made by grackles. The boys got up, shined flashlights in the trees, and discovered four coons fighting. Friday we went to the main drag where vendors were set up and there were four young men from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area performing BMX bike tricks. Back flips and such from a ramp. Canoeing, kayaking, swimming, and jumping off a high bank into the water were on the afternoon agenda then to gospel singing at night. Saturday was the main day and more people from home showed up. There were seven tents crowded into one little campsite. Mark and I slipped off early while all the young’uns were still asleep and went to Broken Bow for breakfast material. Sausage and eggs scrambled together, sautéed onions, cheese, bell pepper, and potatoes. Championship breakfast burritos for the eleven people. At the doins we watched the bike tricks again, a talent show, and an ancient Indian sport called stickball. Stickball, similar to lacrosse, is one of the oldest games played in America, first being mentioned in 1729 by a Jesuit missionary in the native homeland of the Choctaws in the southeast. In the 1830’s artist George Catlin captured the excitement and ritual of the game in his paintings. Today, modern Choctaws have stickball tournaments at annual events such as Labor Day celebrations. The world series of stickball is held annually and hosted by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians at their Choctaw Fair. In Lacrosse there is only one stick used but two in stickball with the sticks varying from 18-32 inches in length. The ball is a little bigger than a golf ball. There are basically no rules. A team tries to catch the ball in the cup attached to the end of the sticks and sling it at a goal post. Each team has a single post on opposite ends of the field. In soccer you try to kick a ball in a net but in stickball you just hit a post with the ball. At the Beavers Bend festival each goalpost was a four inch PVC pipe. In the old days there was no limit to the number on each team and it was common to have blood and broken bones. In 1903 a particularly violent game between the Choctaws and Chickasaws ended in a brawl involving over three hundred people that went on for hours until stopped by U.S. Marshalls and Indian police which were then called Light Horsemen. Saturday we enjoyed watching two teams of young people playing stickball. The tradition goes on. A Native American, Les Williston of Tuskahoma, Oklahoma, had a display of bows, arrows, flint knives, blow guns and darts. The blow guns were made of cane which has “joints” about a foot apart. I knew at those joints there was a thin, paper like partition separating each section from the next. How did they bore through those partitions? Before asking I studied the situation and possibilities. The only thing I could think of was to drop a tiny coal of fire down in the cane, let it burn through the thin partition, shake out the ashes, and add another coal over and over until you got to the other end. When I asked, Les verified that was the way it happened. Darts for the blowgun had a fuzzy looking material for the “feather” part on the end of the dart. It looked like the fuzz off of a cattail but Les said it came from thistle. Since I am a member of the Valley of the Caddo Archeological Society that meets once a month in Paris I asked him if he would present a program to us some time and he agreed. To be continued. A young lady went for a job interview. When she got home her mother asked if she got a vacation and the girl said not until she got married. The mother thought it was very strange for an employee to have that policy and asked the girl why she wouldn’t get a vacation without getting married. Finally the girl said, “All I know is they said I couldn’t have a vacation until my first anniversary.” etrapp327@hotmail
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 23:41:31 +0000
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