back to braiding sweetgrass. i read the library books straight through but in between i go back and read this one slowly. tomorrow i'll get the red new deal. i get this blankness in my head. an old skinny smoking guy in the park said that's a happy dog huh? i said yeah, though she has to have two extractions. he said he had all of his teeth extracted at once, and found his world changed, he had a continual infection before his body was always fighting off. now he's happy, though i see him every day and remark to myself it's a wonder he's alive. everyone does have a story, most of them untold. the kid of the author of sweetgrass refuses to say the pledge of allegiance in sixth grade like i did in third. i feel a connection. i wonder how many kids refused to say the pledge. she's indigenous, which i'm not, and it seemed stranger for a white middle class middle american kid to refuse the pledge. it was strange to me, i just knew i wasn't that kind, and here half a century on i'm the same. more kids joined her in refusing the pledge, and the teacher said, i just wanted you to know. no punishment or anything. i have to ask mom what happened if she can recall. i think i sat alone when they recited, or maybe i stood and turned to the window.