“Chief Big Face”

Originally Posted June 17, 2020

My daughter Catherine, who is on the Board of Directors of my BLOG, suggested I move some of the posts back to the topic of the Coronavirus… since the name of the BLOG is “Dave’s Thoughts During The Coronavirus”. Well, one thing I’m doing  is  reading stories to my younger grandchildren on ZOOM.  My team includes my wife Judy and George the monkey. Our theme song is “Boys and Girls For Jesus”… a catchy tune that you will remember from years ago.

You may ask, gee how did this all happen? Well, it began when some of my daughters who found themselves in “deep water homeschooling their kids”, suggested “dad, why don’t you read to the grandkids like you did to us when we were young?” I immediately saw thru this ploy… they were just looking for a break to sneak off and have a shot of whiskey to steady their nerves. No, they insisted “the kids would love it”. Well anyway, I read to them for about 35 minutes. The kids range from about K- 5th grade.  

The first book was “The Great Black Robe”… stories about the Jesuits bringing Christ to the Indians back in the mid 1800’s. The key player was Peter DeSmet, a courageous and inspiring Jesuit priest from Belgium who went thru “hell and high water” to try and help the Indians. (He also hung out at St. Louis University where Judy and I hung out 100 years later.) Anyway, I would quiz the kids after each session. A favorite question was what was the name of the chief of the Flat Head Indians? Of course it was “Chief Big Face”. What kind of soup did the Indians serve? Yes, you got it right…Porcupine Soup. I actually found it pretty interesting. Judy said she did too… and I believe her because she was always in deep meditation with her eyes closed during the session.

At one point we decided to “kick it up a notch”  and go live on Facebook (my son David’s idea). Boy when I said ”kids, we’re going live on facebook and there may be a million people watching, well their faces lit up…”we’re going on facebook ….wow.” The first day was chaos….”are we on…I don’t know… making faces…. tickling…hey, we’re on facebook….chaos.” We had one one response on that day and the person said…”Cool”. (Who was this person? Obviously it was one of my daughters in disguise trying to encourage me.) 

Anyway, we’ve now moved on to the “Chronicles of Narnia”. We just finished “The Lion,The Witch, and The Wardrobe” which was great, and are now into “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” These books are great. I  know I’m enjoying them.. and I think the kids are too. So, if you have some time around 5:30pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday tune in to my son Dave’s or Judy’s facebook page… we’ll be there. The password is “Chief Big Face”.

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