(HOST) During his recent move, commentator Willem Lange developed a new respect for native American wisdom.
(LANGE) Let me tell you something: The Indians had it right! Whenever it came time to move, they took only what they could carry, either in a canoe or on their backs. I’m sure there was grousing about the amount they took, but they relied upon the resources of their new territory to set them up for comfortable living.
The Inuit of the far North weren’t quite as restrained. If they were seaside dwellers, they had the umiak – a large, hide-covered boat – which can carry ten times what a canoe can. If they lived inland, they moved when there was snow on the ground. I have photographs of Copper Inuit of 100 years ago traveling to their spring fishing sites. With a combination of dogs and men, they’re moving sled loads of stuff as big as Humvees. We’ve always taken with us as much as we could move.
Homo sapiens, we call ourselves – intelligent ones – and look with condescension upon those we deem less gifted or more primitive. Yet somehow they muddle through life more or less happily. Their lives are shorter than ours, in most cases. But recent studies show that, because of the abundance and physical inactivity of our advanced civilization, the current generation of our young people will not live as long as their parents.
We moved recently to an unfinished house. The movers brought all our stuff and set up our bed, but the bedding was buried somewhere in a pile even the Inuit wouldn’t try to move. I found a sleeping bag that had floated to the top of the pile; Mother wrapped up in a fleece blanket. The dogs, disoriented, lay around the bed like little black booby traps. We had one toilet that worked and a utility sink in the cellar.
The kitchen was full of loose cabinets and piles of tools. I worked for two weeks, hanging and setting cabinets. Mother and a daughter who’d flown East to help, began unpacking boxes; their contents overflowed into the kitchen. It was like when two log drives used to meet at the junction of two rivers: clash,,, chaos… raised voices. But all the cabinets are set now, and the kitchen stuff’s begun to disappear.
The original pile is down to several dozen boxes, including flat boxes of paintings, prints, and photographs; hanging them is far down the road. All the doors are crying for knobs and latches. There’s a medicine cabinet to be hung. There are crates of books yearning for the light. It’ll be a month or two before they get shelved.
My grandmother’s crown-of-thorns is flourishing on a windowsill. Other things with only sentimental value will disappear. So it goes. The desk is set up in what will be the office. Gotta get out forwarding address notices and get a new driver’s license. Uh oh! What if there’s a test?
Yessir, the Indians had it right. If we move again, I’m going to take charge. I’m going to say, "You see that canoe…?"
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.