To be or not to be Chief?

Had our monthly Longhouse meeting last night, this is a monthly meeting of the Nation Officers, Longhouse Chiefs and two representatives of each tribe. The meeting was short and sweet and we have a couple cool activities coming up. This month were having a movie night at the Y and in August we are having a night of free ice skating, this one should be a big hit for both the Dad’s and the daughters. Funny thing happened last night when I entered the meeting room, Steve the Nation Medicine Man asked if he could have a word with me outside, my first thought was “oh no what did I do”. When we got out into the hallway he asks if I would be interested in being the next Nation Property Keeper, the first step in the five year ascension to Nation Chief. Of course I was somewhat flattered that I was asked to join the hierarchy which will lead to being Nation Chief, but at the same time I was concerned about the amount of time, effort and commitment required if I accept the position. No to mention that my good buddy and fellow Creek tribe member had just offered to become the Property Keeper and was told they had others in mind. When I was asked, I mentioned to the Medicine Man that Paul had offered his services and was told that they want to change the way things are done and have any potential Nation Officer serve as Longhouse Chief first. So should I take the offer, there is a considerable amount of public speaking involved, and that’s not my thing but it would be really cool for the girls to have their Daddy be Chief.

Me and My Girls

This is my first foray in to the blogosphere and what better subject to talk about than my two beautiful little girls and the fun times we have together. A little background, I am a married father of two young girls ages four and eight. We live in a modest working class neighborhood in Southeast Florida, in an older, fixer-upper that my wife and I purchased shortly after our first daughter was born. After seven years of working on this house...it's still a fixer-upper, but that’s another blog entirely.

My daughters and I have been involved with the YMCA Indian Princess program for almost four years now. If your not familiar with the program, let me explain. The Indian Princess program is just like the Y Indian Guides except it is for girls. The group, when founded in 1926, was inspired by Native American themes, hence the name; however, in this time of political correctness, the official name has been changed to "Adventure Guides" as not to offend...(don't tell anyone, but we still call ourselves the Indian Princess program). The program is organized into "nations" and each nation is made up of "tribes" with each headed by a "chief" and so on. Our nation; The Seminole Nation consists of 15 tribes, our tribe is the mighty Creek Tribe.

Each tribe is different from one another in terms of geographical location of the members within the county, socioeconomic makeup of the members and of course the ages of the girls vary. Generally, everyone gets along well and the girls make new friends that they wouldn’t otherwise have met. When we joined the Creek Tribe, they were in the process of loosing a majority of their existing members as most of the girls were ageing out of the program. We joined with a childhood friend of mine and his daughter along with two other new guys. We have added several other members along the way, with most of those being current or former members of the church/school that my daughters attend.

That should be enough background for now, our activities consist of several camping trips over the course of the year and numerous other outings which will be the focus of this blog.