Friday, February 10, 2006
The Folsom Boys 1964-68
I met Chanfield Folsom during the fourth grade. When I left Ogallala Community School, the BIA school to attend Pine Ridge Public School he was the only kid I knew in that school. His nickname was Chauncey. Quite the English name for a Native American. Chauncey was a little overweight, but liked to ride bikes around Pine Ridge. We used to ride in opposite directions in figure eights on the outdoor basketball court at PRPS and try not to hit each other at the point of intersecting circles. It was our own original game of “chicken”. When we rode our bikes through the fields we would get stickers and cockle burrs in the tires and then we would have flats the next day.
My mother never really approved of Chauncey nor my friendship with him. His dad was in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. I met him once. He was out for a short time and then back in again. I never knew what his crime, nor did I ask. Chauncey had six brothers, Timmy, Fred, Chipper, Blaze, Snooks and a sixth who died in a house fire. His mother worked as a waitress in the only café in Pine Ridge. She had a string of boyfriends while Chauncey’s father was in prison. His mom had attended an Episcopal boarding school for Indian boy and girls on the Standing Rock reservation as a child (where we had lived for seven years before moving to Pine Ridge). She told me she had gotten enough religion as a child. She did attempt to see that her sons had some sort of religious education though. Chauncey attended catechism classes and we were confirmed together at the age of 12. Chauncey was my same age, but was always a year behind at PRPS.
Besides riding bikes all over the res together, we would collect pop bottles and return them to the local market for two cents apiece. Some days we would make over sixty or seventy cents. Sometimes the store would pay cash, other times they insisted we take it in merchandise. Those days we had enough gum and candy to choke a horse. We also went to the local creek to fish or swim. Another pastime was making underground forts or having dirt clod fights with other youth around the res. I threw a dirt clod once and hit Chauncey in the head. That was the only time I ever saw him close to tears. It really bothered me that I had done that, but he didn't hold it against me for long. I used to think he was one of the toughest kids I knew. Kind of like Sherman Alexie's, "The Toughest Indian in the World"
I received an electronic car racing set as a gift around fifth or sixth grade I set it up in my room in the basement of our house. Racing those cars quickly became a hit with Chauncey and other kids in the neighborhood. We had five or six boys taking turns operating the stock cars. The cars would swerve and veer off the track if one used too much speed on the corners. We found if you put a little weight on the cars they wouldn’t swerve so badly, kind of like the penny on the stereo needle. Eventually more weight was tried to see if the speed could be increased even more without leaving the track. I had a miniature model of the Iwo Jima and somebody taped that to one of the cars. We had a great time envisioning Ira Hayes keeping the car on track much as he helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima before alcohol got the better of him. I think all those kids in my basement made my mother a little nervous. She would have preferred that I only have one or two friends over at a time.
My brothers and I received a small portable record player along with a series of classic, gospel and folk songs as a gift around the same time. Later my mother let me join a record club and I bought Johnny Cash’s, “Live at Folsom Prison”. Chauncey loved that record. He convinced me to bring it up to his house where we would listen to Folsom Prison and other records. I remember one of his brothers getting up on the kitchen table with the opened jam and peanut butter jars and doing a little jig to Folsom Prison. A couple of years later when Chauncey's brothers introduced me to drinking, the record player and “Folsom Prison” would make the trip up the hill to the Folsom's house. Their house was one large room, probably about 12’ x 24’, with only one bed, a woodstove and a sink, but no sewer. They used a bucket underneath the sink to catch the runoff. There was an outhouse in the rear and usually a couple of non-running cars in the yard. For a while, there was a car with a radio that worked and we would sit in the car and listen to the radio. One of the brothers pawned the battery to get some beer and later the radio was sold also. One year there was some extra wood available from a neighboring house that was being torn down. Some of the brothers salvaged some wood and made a sleeping porch. For a while Chauncey slept there in the summer. I remember feeling proud of the Folsoms for improving their house. They also built a small porch outside the front door. My pride took a dive however, as the next winter they broke the porch down piece by piece and fed it into the wood stove.
I met Chanfield Folsom during the fourth grade. When I left Ogallala Community School, the BIA school to attend Pine Ridge Public School he was the only kid I knew in that school. His nickname was Chauncey. Quite the English name for a Native American. Chauncey was a little overweight, but liked to ride bikes around Pine Ridge. We used to ride in opposite directions in figure eights on the outdoor basketball court at PRPS and try not to hit each other at the point of intersecting circles. It was our own original game of “chicken”. When we rode our bikes through the fields we would get stickers and cockle burrs in the tires and then we would have flats the next day.
My mother never really approved of Chauncey nor my friendship with him. His dad was in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. I met him once. He was out for a short time and then back in again. I never knew what his crime, nor did I ask. Chauncey had six brothers, Timmy, Fred, Chipper, Blaze, Snooks and a sixth who died in a house fire. His mother worked as a waitress in the only café in Pine Ridge. She had a string of boyfriends while Chauncey’s father was in prison. His mom had attended an Episcopal boarding school for Indian boy and girls on the Standing Rock reservation as a child (where we had lived for seven years before moving to Pine Ridge). She told me she had gotten enough religion as a child. She did attempt to see that her sons had some sort of religious education though. Chauncey attended catechism classes and we were confirmed together at the age of 12. Chauncey was my same age, but was always a year behind at PRPS.
Besides riding bikes all over the res together, we would collect pop bottles and return them to the local market for two cents apiece. Some days we would make over sixty or seventy cents. Sometimes the store would pay cash, other times they insisted we take it in merchandise. Those days we had enough gum and candy to choke a horse. We also went to the local creek to fish or swim. Another pastime was making underground forts or having dirt clod fights with other youth around the res. I threw a dirt clod once and hit Chauncey in the head. That was the only time I ever saw him close to tears. It really bothered me that I had done that, but he didn't hold it against me for long. I used to think he was one of the toughest kids I knew. Kind of like Sherman Alexie's, "The Toughest Indian in the World"
I received an electronic car racing set as a gift around fifth or sixth grade I set it up in my room in the basement of our house. Racing those cars quickly became a hit with Chauncey and other kids in the neighborhood. We had five or six boys taking turns operating the stock cars. The cars would swerve and veer off the track if one used too much speed on the corners. We found if you put a little weight on the cars they wouldn’t swerve so badly, kind of like the penny on the stereo needle. Eventually more weight was tried to see if the speed could be increased even more without leaving the track. I had a miniature model of the Iwo Jima and somebody taped that to one of the cars. We had a great time envisioning Ira Hayes keeping the car on track much as he helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima before alcohol got the better of him. I think all those kids in my basement made my mother a little nervous. She would have preferred that I only have one or two friends over at a time.
My brothers and I received a small portable record player along with a series of classic, gospel and folk songs as a gift around the same time. Later my mother let me join a record club and I bought Johnny Cash’s, “Live at Folsom Prison”. Chauncey loved that record. He convinced me to bring it up to his house where we would listen to Folsom Prison and other records. I remember one of his brothers getting up on the kitchen table with the opened jam and peanut butter jars and doing a little jig to Folsom Prison. A couple of years later when Chauncey's brothers introduced me to drinking, the record player and “Folsom Prison” would make the trip up the hill to the Folsom's house. Their house was one large room, probably about 12’ x 24’, with only one bed, a woodstove and a sink, but no sewer. They used a bucket underneath the sink to catch the runoff. There was an outhouse in the rear and usually a couple of non-running cars in the yard. For a while, there was a car with a radio that worked and we would sit in the car and listen to the radio. One of the brothers pawned the battery to get some beer and later the radio was sold also. One year there was some extra wood available from a neighboring house that was being torn down. Some of the brothers salvaged some wood and made a sleeping porch. For a while Chauncey slept there in the summer. I remember feeling proud of the Folsoms for improving their house. They also built a small porch outside the front door. My pride took a dive however, as the next winter they broke the porch down piece by piece and fed it into the wood stove.
