Four Dollars Worth of Torture

We spent the weekend in Medicine Lodge for the Peace Treaty Pageant. We watched the Parade Saturday morning that included 3 or 4 of the Indian Tribes that took part in the treaty. They were at the front of the parade and they danced along the way with big drums and most of them wearing the authentic dress. Then they had all the different characters from the Pageant, but I couldn't help but laugh wondering when the fake Indians came out at the end on horses, they consisted of just local people dressed like "Indian Warriors", if the real Indians where offended by the fake ones. We also saw Martina McBride. She is the lady on the back of the motorcycle with her dad in the pictures. That evening we went to the carnival. The boys had fun on the kid's rides and then we went downtown to get what we hoped would be a cheaper funnel cake than at the Carnival, it wasn't. There we watched some of the stage events. A man and woman were singing folk music with a guitar. I thought, man that looks like someone I know so I asked around and found out that yes it was Willis Pracht (I hope I am spelling his name right) who was my 5th and 6th grade principle at Garfield. He was very good; I wish I could have heard more of it. I was disappointed that he wasn't playing with his Hummingbird that he bought back from Linda. Instead he was using a 12 string which was probably more fitting for playing solo before such a large crowd. After the music they reenacted some Medicine Lodge history including a bank robbery in which the town citizens carried out some good old fashioned mob justice :-) Then they had a historical Congressional election debate between a big city proper Republican and local Populous candidate. About half way through it I thought man that Republican looks familiar, so I asked Jenny who said it was Mr. Germes. He was my AP History teacher my Junior year. From this I concluded that they couldn't have put on this event with out people from Garden City ;-) Then we went back to the Carnival to finish off our tickets. We waited in line for the Tilt-A-Wirl for probably 30 minutes. Jenny and the boys and I all rode on it. The carni taking tickets was like "All four of you? OK...." Like he thought that was a bad idea but wasn't going to stop us. About 30 seconds into it I realized why. The more weight the faster it spins. All the other carts either had 1 person in them or 2 smaller people. From about that point on I spent the rest of the time praying that it would be over. Apparently I am too old for spinning in circles fast anymore. Jenny and Jacob loved it though and couldn't stop laughing the whole time. Ethan had a poker face through the ride. I just kept thinking "Why did I stand in line for half an hour and pay four dollars to torture myself?" I am pretty sure that they would not be allowed to do that to the prisoners in Gitmo. Although I think an hour or 2 of something like that would be pretty effective in getting information on anyone. I am pretty sure I would have told them whatever they wanted to know. The family picture is of us in the torture machine before it started and the blurry pictures of Jenny and of Jacob laughing are of them during the ride. After the ride of pain we went home. It took me a good hour to recover to where Jenny and I could go back downtown to the street dance where Jenny was wanting to meet some friends, and we left the kids with Bonnie at the house. Later I had a chance to talk to Mr. Germes and his wife. I told him who I was and when I had been in his class but I am still not sure that he remembered who I was. At least he was very friendly and we talked for a good 20 minutes. It was a fun weekend though and now it is getting late. I wanted to put the pictures throughout this post but it would only let me do 4 at a time so I just opted for the one and you can see the others in our web album. No time for proof reading now :-S Good night.

Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty

Sep 30, 2006 - 11 Photos