Numerous times as I demonstrated building furniture and displayed my wares at shows people asked me about my college education. I developed a pat answer. “I am attending NIT.” My answer always brought puzzled looks from those who asked. Demanding I follow up, with: “You know, Natures Institute of Technology."
I had tried to forget about the dream dad and I had of making a Red River float trip. It was no use … fifty year old dreams are hard to forget. I hung up my hammer and picked up the pen, then embarked on a sixteen-day, four-hundred mile boat trip down Red River. The day I launched the schooner I began my postgraduate Red River studies. My goal: To interview the people I met along the river; to study Red River’s geography and her nature; to glean from Red River’s history the way its inhabitants would have lived and create a record of Red River in the twenty first century for those of tomorrow and beyond.
What happened I did not expect. I got caught up in Red River … I became obsessed with her … I became one of her people. I traded in my Stick artificer shingle for a brand new one that read, "The Red River Scholar." I became Red River’s most astute scholar! It was not enough for me to be a Red River scholar. A person who cannot transfer their thoughts to paper only lives for their self. I began to teach myself how to put Red River down on paper. My greatest desire — even greater than being a Red River scholar — is to bring you into my world, by what I write!
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The silvery sands of time sift between my fingers. With each escaping grain I taste the salty tears of the Indian losing his way of life, I feel the strife experienced in taming the Wild West and I hear the screech of the eagle ... soaring. As the last
grain tumbles to the ground, I remember from whence we came.
