Happy 83rd Birthday Mom

Today is my mom's birthday!! I thought I would post a photo of her in her Native dress. just kidding mom!!! When I was a child, my dad, who is Native American Ojibwa and French, would tell us our mother is Indian. This did not sit well with my mom, due to the stigma that was attached to being Indian, it was shameful to be Indian. We never bought into it, being that cowboys and Indians was the thing to be...all our heros were Cowboys and we didn't know what "Stigma" even meant. Anyways, my mom would get really ticked off because he was the Indian not her...! While on a camping trip out west, we went shopping and I got Navajo moccasins and my brother got a Souvenier Indian knife...check this out I was probably 10-11, which would make my brother 5-6...and he had a switchblade knife. So we stayed at this Reservation campground and I met a girl from Alaska that was camping with her grandparents. There were horses in the field on the side of the campers, and I had my moccasins on, which gave me bragging rights about being Indian. I was filling this girls head with bull from beginning to end...oh yeah, if I could get into that pasture, I would ride those horses bareback..(never been on a horse at that timeframe, other than the nickle horse in front of Treasure Island). We lived on a reservation, in a Teepee and I showed her my knife...eh, my brothers knife that is. The great part about camping as a kid, you will never see those people again...you can live out any fantasy you want when you travel...unless of course you get caught. I was in the shower room with my new found sucker...I mean friend and in walks my mom, I say Hi Mom, and she says "Hi honey" and new found squeeler, I mean girl says, really loud..."is that your Indian mother?" I think I saw steam coming out of the toilet stall, as my mom said through clenched teeth "Jan, get to the car..." uuuhhhmm ...I go to the car, that was packed up and ready to go, dad in the driver seat, my brother seated behind him and me behind my mom's seat...here comes mommy!!!! Kicking up stones as she was flying into the front seat...Al..(that is my dad) she is telling everyone that I'm a damn Indian...I was cowering...dad was snickering and mom was having a hissy fit....She actually threatend to take away my moccasins...so I offered her uuuhhhmmm.......my knife....
I made this card for her, and she looked at it and said that the Indian actually looked like her and I had to tell her it is!!! How funny is that...the miracles of Photo shop!!! So Happy Birthday to my Indian mother!!!