Armond Blackwater
Stories (7)
Filter by community
Transition
We played baseball every waking daylight hour all year long with an occasional drift into football in the fall. I hated meal time because I had to “come in” to eat where I gobbled my food as fast as I could to hasten my return to the ball field off Rampart Street. From ages 7 to 12, baseball was my life.
By Armond Blackwater5 years ago in Humans
Res Life
Our first residence was a crappy little pale blue trailer on the Red Cliff Reservation near Bayfield on the banks of Gitche Gumee. I immediately made friends with other Indian kids my age. They were really cool people, human beings as they referred to themselves. We played on the shores of the big water, occasionally dipping ourselves to cool off in the 38 degree lake. When I left Louisiana the temperature was 95 every day with 90% humidity. The Mississippi River hovered around 88 degrees. In Red Cliff if the temperature reached 80 everybody started complaining about the excessive heat. To me it felt great and relatively cool. To them it was torturously hot, hence the need to immerse in the frigid lake.
By Armond Blackwater5 years ago in Humans
New School
My new school was called Central Junior High. It was located at Belknap Street and Cumming Avenue. It would be a few months before I got the joke about the name of the avenue. Even though I’d played strip clubs in Fat City, I was still terribly naïve. I still thought that head was a body part that sat on the shoulders. And that dick was a nickname for Richard.
By Armond Blackwater5 years ago in Humans
Gregory Stuart Lake
I’ve been stuck in the denial stage for over 2 years now. I am finally ready to enter the anger stage. Why? Why do amazing people contract fatal diseases while disgusting rats live on? I realise that life isn’t fair, nothing about it is fair. I wish we could make trades. It would have been an easy choice in December of 2016 for my nominee for exchange.
By Armond Blackwater5 years ago in Beat
My First Professor
Occasionally, my folks would scrape together enough extra money to head to a country bar on a weekend. I remember one bar in particular by the name of the Gaiety, which was a honky tonk east on Chef Hwy. It was a long drive to near or maybe over the Mississippi line. (M I S S – I S S – I Pee Pee In Your Eye – that’s how I learned to spell it.)
By Armond Blackwater5 years ago in Beat
New Res Life
Our new house was a tiny two-story, two-bedroom on a remote street with four other houses. The nearest houses sat one mile to the north. The next nearest were 5 miles south in a part of town called South Superior. East End settlement began 6 miles to the east and 7 miles to west lay Billings Park. I couldn’t help but wonder how we weren’t on the reservation any more. We started out just as poor as we were before, there were even fewer kids here my age than on Red Cliff, and we were farther from other people.
By Armond Blackwater5 years ago in Families
Emergence
Emergence I remembered the time before my spirit embraced the body I then found myself in. For eons, I had bounced around the galaxy from crib to lecture hall to ballroom to bar room. I always felt most comfortable in the bar room.I floated in the Amniotic Sea at the darkest of midnights enjoying the banquet graciously passed down by my host. Andouille sausage, shrimp Creole, red beans and rice, chicken jambalaya, deep-fried catfish, washed down with sweet iced tea providing my nourishment. Dixie beer and brandy had become my favorite calmatives. It always happened the same way. The music of a juke box would filter in, I would start dancing my tiny feet, and soon the alcohol would start flowing inducing immediate relaxation, peace, and dreams. I was certain that life couldn’t get any better.
By Armond Blackwater5 years ago in Humans
