Thanks for Giving Me a Chance

As I sit here at the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, I have faint memories of the last time I stepped foot in Phoenix. I was sitting in as lead guitarist for Garaje at a show they were having in Tempe. What was ironic about sitting for Garaje was that all the guitar parts I was playing had been partly created by me yet I was their guest. Anyway that is a whole other topic. Let us not live in the past but live in the now. The air is crisp and fresh today. It reminds of being naked on a balcony before the Garaje show....again, I digress.

I have been here since Wednesday night. I had promised my sister that I would spend Thanksgiving with her and her family here in the big AZ so here I am. Or here I was to be exact. I have dreaded coming to AZ for the longest. I am not a big fan of deserts and heat. Argh, just the thought of extremely hot weather makes me moody. LIke a fat woman in desperate need of pie. Luckily, the weather here these past few days has been exceptional. A solid 70 degrees during the day and a chili yet bearable 45 degrees at night. I have absolutely not complaints about the weather. In fact, I would have to say that, after these few days of Arizona living, I like Arizona. Dare I say, I REALLY like Arizona. The not so wild blue yonders have given me a new perspective on desert life. That was until......

I have a buddy who smokes. I thought it would be cool to bring him home some authentic Indian cigarettes from an authentic Indian reservation. I thought that would make for some interesting conversation and give me a lead in the "better than you" friends department. Anyway, I asked my sister if she knew of any Indian cigar shops that I could visit so I could get the loot. She, being the good Christian woman she is, said she didn't know of a specific cigar shop but she would help me find one. Sure enough, as we were driving back from the airport, there were a few shops to choose from.

We pulled into the first one we saw and I got out of the car. I walked in. Hope and a little excitement filled my tiny heart. I opened the door and was greeted by the friendly attendant.

“Do you have any Indian cigarettes?”

There was a short pause.

“No we don’t have any”

“Do you know where I can get some?”

“No I don’t”

“Okay. Thank you.”

I walked back to the car. I opened the door and sat down, and shut the door. With a sad look on my face I looked at my sister and told her they didn’t have any. She was a little perplexed to find out that there weren’t any Indian cigarettes at the Indian cigar shop. I suffered from the same perplexity. We continued to the next cigar shop.

“This one better have Indian cigarettes.”

My sister just smiled so as to say, “Nicotine is addictive and causes cancer you fool.”

She is a swell little lady.

I walked in the cigar shop with my fingers mentally crossed and my toes physically crossed.

“Do you have any Indian cigarettes?”

The guy behind the counter looked at me and replied with a tad of cynicism,

“Indian cigarettes? Don’t you mean native?”

Native? Is that correct? I thought to myself?

“Um yeah, Native. Sorry.”

He laughed as he turned around to get me a pack of Arizona’s finest.

I racked my brain trying to remember if I had been taught to call Indians, Native Americans as I paid for my Native cigarettes. Not one memory came to mind. Well one did but it had nothing to do with the difference between Native and Indian. I remembered being in the 4th grade. I had a friend named Wesley Sweetwater. He was an American Indian. I want to say he was from the Cherokee Tribe. I could be mistaken. I might just be that that is the only tribe I can remember from growing up. Anyway, I remember his mother coming into our classroom before either spring break or summer vacation and letting us know that Wesley would be doing a tribal dance at an Indian gathering. Wesley got made fun of for the longest time about that fateful day. That’s my only memory of Indians or Natives.

I was glad that the Native guy selling me the cigarettes didn’t tomahawk me or cast a folkloric spell on me that would turn me into the 2010 version of Teen Wolf. I would be Not-So-Teen Wolf though.

Happy Thanksgiving Natives.