Although I can’t tell you exactly the year we decided to pick a leader, it likely happened during one of my growth spurts when I was flexing my temporary position of power. I certainly can’t conceive of either of my brothers willingly including me in the running to be the leader otherwise. And we all participated in the selection process.
And in truth the process that we ultimately devised and used, while as nonsensical as our current presidential election process, was a much better process.
Not that it was any more logical, or more academic, reasonable, or considered. But it was at least designed to only last a day, and while a few technical difficulties forced it to run long, it was still over in less than two days.
At the time we must have all been reading about the wild-west; because we knew that Native American tribes used to select their leaders based on bravery in battle, their ability as hunters, and their wisdom. So we decided to set up a leadership challenge based on Native American customs.
I remember discussions about knife fights, war clubs, and bow and arrow duels at 10 yards; but the wisdom part took over and we settled on something less likely to mangle each other. I had by that time in life already survived a couple near scalpings with rock rakes and so was naturally a bit leery of where this all might lead.
While I can’t remember exactly how we worked out the selection process, I do remember that those three factors (bravery, hunting ability, and wisdom) were of upmost importance and so we came up with a three part test.
Back then Dad smoked a pipe. Most often a glass water pipe. Not real regular, but often enough that there was loose tobacco around. And Indian’s of course smoked pipes to prepare for their “vision-quests”, oh, and they used to prepare themselves in sweat lodges too.
We made a “sweat lodge” out back. Easy enough to do when it is a hundred and ten degrees in the shade; all you need is a dark canvas tarp and an old fence rail in the full sun. Lay that tarp out over the rail, clothes pin the end flaps together, and sit inside. Last one out, would win the sweat lodge phase of the competition.
Try it sometime; you’ll be panting like a long-haired black dog running across Death Valley on a cloudless August afternoon in no time.
We all piled in. Then set about trying to psych each other out by saying things like; “man, I wonder when it’s going to get hot in here” and “shoot, I should of left my jeans on instead of changing to cut-offs”. We sat there while little beads of sweat broke out on our foreheads and ran stinging into our eyes, until we could feel a trickle of sweat run down our backs under our shirts, until our tee-shirts and cut-offs could have been wrung out by a 90 year old man in a coma
We sat there for all of 3 or 4 minutes before one of us bolted for the exit. Maybe at that point a little wisdom did kick in, cause next thing you knew, we were scrambling all over each other shoving and pushing to get out.
It turns out that if you’re the last one out of a sweat lodge made of a dark green tarp in the 110 degree sun you weren’t the winner, you were actually the loser.
The sweat lodge was officially a draw.
From there we proceeded to the ceremonial smoke. Since we didn’t dare breaking Dad’s glass water pipe, we decided to roll a cigarette. It turns out that toilet paper doesn’t work well to wrap tobacco in. It burns way too fast; and it sticks to your lips; even while it’s burning.
And after all, there is just something “wrong” about stuffing a piece of toilet paper in your face and lighting it with a match, even fresh off the roll.
After hunting around we settled on newspaper. And since none of us had any skill at rolling our own cigarettes, the result looked more like the gonzo joint in a Cheech and Chong movie than it did a cigar, but, the important part was we got it rolled and ready for our vision quest smoke.
Now, I suspect that a long term habit of smoking colored newsprint wrapped tobacco probably isn’t real good for your health. And in this day and age of the Internet, you’d think you could answer that question. I tried. And while I could find a few articles about lab rats unionizing, there didn’t appear to be any about the harmful effects of colored newsprint cigars.
Be that as it may, I know for a dang sure fact that short term use is downright unpleasant.
Only “visions” any of us saw from the ceremonial smoke was the bottom of a toilet bowl.
And thus, the ceremonial smoke ended in a draw as well.
The next day after our stomachs had settled down we proceeded to the “hunt and eat” portion of the leader selection challenge.
This part would better have been called the “close your eyes and swallow” part, except that chewing was required. The challenge was to find something that the other two wouldn’t eat.
We started out with live ants. As any self-respecting boy scout from the 60s could tell you, ants are really not that bad. Pick a mess of Miner’s Lettuce, a sliced up fern shoot, a few berriers, and sprinkle on a couple dozen ants and you have a pretty decent salad. Even tastes vinegary. So, ants? No problem all round.
Woodlice?; Otherwise known as Rolly-Polly bugs, no problem either. They roll up when you pick them up and as long as you don’t let your mind gag you out and don’t wait so long that they begin to crawl around on your tongue, they are a quick, pop, chew, swallow.
Tomato Caterpillars? A bit mushy. Oh, and selected ones are very, very bitter.
Snails and slugs are a bit gooey as one would imagine.
After all of those bugs (Barry first, Jeff next, me last) had been caught and swallowed, the final cut came when Barry popped a live grass hopper in his mouth.
I don’t know about what Jeff was thinking (after-all, he had a pet rat that cleaned his teeth for him), but at that point the thought of those spikey back legs kicking and gouging my tongue and throat while I tried to get the thing lined up to be chewed was enough for me to decide that I really had no need to be the leader.
Especially since I knew it would only last until I couldn’t beat on both of them anymore.
Okay, so maybe in the retelling it appears that the wisdom target may have been a clear miss in all three tests.
In retrospect, unless our leadership challenge was the one used by the Whi’t’les Lodge of the Ni’mcompoop tribe, our challenge was not very reflective of the real challenges of leadership.
Which brings me back to this year’s Presidential campaign.
© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen
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