6; Rosemary Ackley Christiansen; Current perspectives on American Indian women

Today we have a very special treat in store for us. Our speaker today is Rosemary Ackley Christensen who is a Chippewa and enrolled member of the mole lake. Band of Chippewas but has been raised on the Bad River Reservation at Dana. She is. Very Auld and dear friend of mine and even though at this point she's in Minnesota I constantly remind her that she is a Wisconsin Chippewa and she also has been extremely active in many Indian activities over the years. She has focused her energies on Indian education. Her. Current position is director Indian Education section. The Department of equal educational support services in the Minneapolis Public Schools. She has held this position since November 1978. Now as you can see I have a five page

resume here which only summarizes some of her activities. What I will do is mention a few of them. She has her master's in education from Harvard University which was obtained in 1071 and she is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota. She's been a founding member of the National Indian Education Association and has had a number of positions as a research associate at a teaching fellow at Harvard in the extension in 1971. And instructor at Wisconsin State University River Falls. She's taught at. St. Olaf. And a number of other schools and courses and has a number of publications to her credit. She is a mover and a shaker and is

doing. Important significant work in Indian education. In the Minneapolis School System. So at this point I want to present to you Rosemary Ackley Christensen who will talk with you. On the historical. Perspectives of American Indian women. Rosemary. Thanks. Still not quite recovered from Ada getting me up so early so I'm sort of sleepy. She likes to get up and get going and I like to take my time about it so I'm going to just sit here for a few minutes until I get up enough energy to walk around. I do like to walk around. I like to walk the circle as we call it which is what Indians used to do in the past when they spoke to people. And it's a very logical way to speak if you walk this circle. You can pas in front of the people that you want to talk to and it's a very nice way to do

it. When I have classes as I do from time to time just to keep my hand in so to speak I take like a quarter class and teach history to children not children students and keep. I called anybody younger than me children but students and. I decide whether or not I'm going to do the circle which is a normal way for me or sometimes I just like to do the way students are accustomed to which is the lecture method behind a table using a blackboard. I find that interesting it's a whole different way of communicating and it means a different way of behaving and sometimes if I can I give my students an opportunity to not only learn how to communicate the way Indians did and do but to decide which they prefer. So I not only walk the circle but emphasize verbal learning so that my students if. They're so inclined do not take notes. They listen.

And verbal learning means that you listen and you listen not only with your with your ears but with your body. And if you have to take notes you cannot write as fast as I can talk. Or nor can we talk as fast as we can think. So in order to look to learn the way Indians have learned for centuries you need to listen. With all of your being and that means you can't. Fool around with pencil with doodling and so on. On the other hand I realize that listeners have an obligation then not to be boring. I take that very seriously. So I was telling Ater that I'm not sure I could talk for 45 minutes since it's been a rule of thumb that I. I tend to get boring after 20 minutes. Most people I know tend to get boring after 20 minutes if they can even last that long. And. I have found that. Students especially. They are better at listening. If they are aware that nothing much will bother me. That

is if you want to get up and walk around. That's no problem with me. If you want to know what I used to do when I did some lecturing in Germany for a while and I did a verbal biography so that I brought about 30 books with me and while I was talking I passed out the books so that people could look at books while I was talking not necessarily read them but just sort of do something with their hands. So if you feel the need to do something with your hands call ahead. And if that means doodling that's fine too that's what I do. I doodle a lot when I listen and I doodle like this which leads people to believe that I have more talents than I do. So I make the lies. First and depending on how I'm doing I make the lines very meticulously and I try to get them the equal distance so on. None of which take engages my mind at all. It just engages this part of me. And then I start with the notes. Of course everyone that sees me doodling and I and I

make very fancy notes and I try all kinds of different things. They think I'm a musician. I am not. Why. I had I thought sometimes I try to sing what I do. I make notes randomly and then I try to sing and it's ridiculous. But what it does do is carry people a notion that I'm I know more than I do and I that's not why I try the notes I like doing it for some weird reason. Deep in my psyche I like to do that and I have maybe in a been another life I was a musician I don't know. I'm not and I don't know very much about music. And of course that varies. I listen a lot to music and not only the kind I like which my sons call bubblegum but also the kind they like which is very hard rock. I don't really like it but I've grown accustomed to it and I can tune it out when I have to. And I think that compromise is life. So therefore I try to do and listen to the kinds of things my children do as well

as they do for me. And periodically we find compromises such as we both like the Beatles. So he listened to the Beatles and that is what life is all about. And that is what Indian women are all about. We are different culturally Physically we are different than not Indian women. And I like to think that spiritually we may be different. I think in that particular realm thats something that is very difficult to talk about and so I do very seldom but I will touch on it briefly. When. You are. Learning about anyone that is good for anything that is different. I have found that non Indians and Indians. Like to start at the beginning. That's a very typical response right in the beginning was the word and word was God and so on you have beginnings when you were children you were probably told stories by your

mothers and fathers if you were lucky and there too you had beginnings so beginnings are something that were custom to. We want a beginning. We want usually a middle. And of course it's very nice if we know what the ending is and we've been taught of course isn't it wonderful it's such a wonderful if we have been taught of course that that we want there to be a beginning. Now this kind of and I'm trying to make a point here. This is a beginning. This is the middle and this is the end. You find that to be. Steps. Something that is structure and in this case a linear logic which the non-Indians are very fond of and think it's the only way to be linear course Indium. Are not linear or circular in everything beginning.

Or end. Now if you're in a circle. Where you begin is where you jump in. And where you end is where you jump in how you fit in that circle is up to you. So these two kinds of ways of behaving and I'm sure there are others. These sort of encompass a lot of the way the world of the world today who knows about yesterday or who knows about tomorrow. We can only speculate but the beginning. You can have several different kinds of beginnings is what I'm trying to say. It really doesn't matter in a sense. All right now if you're. An American. And I hope you're proud to be an American. I certainly am very patriotic. You probably were taught in high school or college your. Grade school probably that this world that we know called America began and 14 92 when Columbus sailed the ocean

blue when Michelangelo was painting in Italy when all kinds of wonderful things were happening throughout the world. And Isabella was sitting on the throne in Spain and her daughter was carrying on in England and so on. You can start making all kinds of what was going on in fourteen ninety two and in fourteen ninety two people called Indians were busy behaving themselves normally minding their own business in America. And Columbus came over in fourteen ninety two and that was the end of that. All right so a lot of people think that's a beginning. And you can do the line again and you can get down to nineteen eighty three. Here we are 93. We Indians. That's one way of looking at it but it's not the only way. We also look at it over here so that my family which has been in the area of Wisconsin since at least the.

Fourteen hundred is just a long time and can trace our roots back to them. Find these dates to be almost meaningless since we have been in this country for ever since the dawn of man. And depending on our own religious beliefs and we respect yours and you respect ours. We have always been here and that is a beginning. The way I believe is a beginning and in that beginning and you can choose any of the beginnings you like because we have the right to choose these kinds of beliefs but I believe that the good she managed to The Spirit of God. Made it and this should not be which is the name of my tribe. He was very pleased with what he did. He liked what he saw. Obviously this submission Nobby was perfect.

But he looked at the initial not been decided. But what is the good of one. A mission update. And so he made another. That was nice. Now there were two initial happy days. The old lady that I grew up with and there were lots of old ladies in my village who took it upon themselves to tell me things and to tell other children things since it's our responsibility to tell as we get older younger people how things really are. And to tell them in such a way that they don't think you are talking down to them that you don't think they are stupid that you think they are the most wonderful things God has ever given you. And I believe that sincerely that children are the most wonderful things and we have to be very careful how we teach them. We have to be very careful how we tell them things. We have to be very careful so that they learn how to make decisions and they learn how to do it you know.

So the old lady that told me that story told me that when the second mission Abi was made he was made from a part of the woman's anatomy. And I said because I questioned a lot when I was young and it was all right. It's also right to question my children know that if I question. They will answer me if they question. They have the right to get an answer always no matter what it is and they can't embarrass me. And they never have. And I don't embarrass them. That means you can ask me anything you want to and you can't be embarrassed. And that's the best freedom you can give a child. And it doesn't matter ever what they ask. There was one time when my child almost embarrassed me except I remembered my own role. I have a very beautiful unicorn in my house made out of wood and it is sitting where everyone can see it.

My son who is presently 17 but at that moment was probably 11 or maybe 12 even and maybe even 10 looked at the Unicorn and asked me about it at that particular moment when I had a lot of gifts. And so I told him because he has the right to ask questions at any time and I have the responsibility to answer. I told him that the unicorn was a mythical beast and that if you wanted to catch one you had to sit still and he would come into your lap. The only problem is that you have to be a virgin before the unicorn will lay his head in your lap. And then I stopped. And I have always stop when I answer the question. And if my children have further answers or questions they ask. Sometimes they have answers because children are very wise and much beyond what we think. So in this house full of people then he said Are you a virgin. Because he was wondering whether or not I could catch a unicorn. And I said No my dear I am

not. And I didn't respond any more and didn't explain what was meant by a virgin if you wanted to know he would ask me. He didn't but he proceeded to take a poll of the entire room about who was virgin and what not. My friends are very accustomed to the way my children are and there are they treat them as I do which is why my children like my friends and why my friends like my children and so they all very seriously calmly answered my child. However I noticed my other son who is older four years older and his friend both speaking upstairs during the poll. I'm so so they didn't get get to take part in this very interesting survey and they ran up in America. So the moral of that story is you must always answer the questions of children and you are an adult and if you don't want to answer them you must you must be sneaky and sneak off if you don't want to do so. But the whole point of that is that questions are to

be asked and they're to be answered. So when I asked the lady how who and what happened and where did this second mission. Who was the man. Where on earth did he come from. The lady's anatomy. She told me what it did. Did not you know. Which is another answer that you must always give children when they ask questions. I do not know if you don't. Don't try to fake it because they can tell. Children can tell when you're lying. And it's very important not to lie to children. It's something that we learn as we grow up and it's what I learned from my grandmothers and the women that were around me how to raise children which is the most important thing. I believe that we can do. We raise children. We bring them up. We enjoy them. But that was a beginning the beginning. One of the beginnings we can talk about. The nice thing about any of these

beginnings is first of all you need to remember that is it is a beginning. It is not the beginning. English is such a marvelous language. It is not in the beginning. The only beginning that we must all believe or we will be pounced on from on high. It is a beginning. You may choose to believe a beginning that begins this way goes this way and ends up happily ever after if you choose and I think it gives great solace to people who believe that. They really in truly believe that there is a beginning. And it's number one. You go to number two you go to number three number four you go to number five. And that the only reason you're at all willing to go through these steps is you believe that someday your prince will come and you will live happily ever after and your whole bang is stored.

That so you spend all of your time. That's what the anthropologist called future oriented. Right you care about what's going to happen tomorrow. You plan for tomorrow. You worry about tomorrow. You do not spend a lot of time thinking or being or caring or enjoying today this minute this very minute that we're in is very important. I am not future oriented. I do not worry very much about tomorrow. I do not worry very much about yesterday. But I really like today. Today is my thing. I like today I enjoy today. If I'm not enjoying it I try to do something about it. So the difference there and one difference that we can talk about as far as between men and women. And beat not necessarily between Indian men and Indian women but between Indians in general and non Indians in general.

Is our orientation. Toward the future. And you probably already know that but that's important to remember because the things then that are important to you based on the kinds of steps may not be important to me. Hence our interaction will be like ships passing in the night and our communication will fall. Flat. Because we're having a problem with our orientation. So we have a spiritual beginning when we go to school and goodness knows we go to school don't wait and we go to school. More and more we go to school and I have been to school with the best of people I have been going to school forever. Finally got tired of it and decided not to go anymore. But when we go to school we learn that there is another kind of beginning. There is a beginning that has to do with bones or the body. And this particular beginning that people talk about with women

can be traced through history and you can look at the kinds of women that we know about. And you may not know this and I want to get the words properly correct. There are two kinds of. People. One is called the Minnesota man and the other is called the Texas middle and man. These particular bones were discovered in America and are considered to be the oldest human bones to be discovered in America. It was found that although they are called Minnesota man in Texas middle and man that they're actually not man at all but the bones of young females. That is another beginning. So my old Anishinaabe a woman told me that in the beginning woman was created. And then

came and then the anthropologist tell us the oldest bones in the United States are America. Are female. Now I don't know if that means that women were here first in America or not. Kind of interesting though that the oldest bones are female and we can probably believe as we wish because we have that right. We have no scientific evidence to prove that these were bones were sold and there are no male bones made the male bones were lost or any number of other things. But the fact remains that the oldest bones in America are female bones. So that's another beginning. Are there other beginnings too. And that is what I am going to try to talk about. The beginnings happened in history. Now what is your definition

of history. Do you have one. Do you have a nice little short Sassoon definition that you can rattle off. Or do you have to think about it. Well then I will give you one. That was my gift to you today I will give you a definition of history. It's a very simple definition and it was done by a man named Collingwood who is a historian. He said it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is. Simple that's what history is. History teaches us what man has done and thus what man is now. If you're a logician or if you think logically or if you're analytical you start wondering what on earth that means. That's the trouble with these little pithy sayings are these little proverbs or things or little cliches. I didn't grow up on cliches so I.

I love them and I use them all the time only I get them mixed up such as Spare the rod and spoil the child which I don't believe by the way. But that's a very pissy little saint that people use all the time. Very interesting. I love the whole question. The trouble with little cliches proverbs and the like is that you need to think about what it means and then you approach it from your own value structure and you start wondering what does this mean. What does it mean. Then you start looking at what is there. So you start looking through the history books as I did and start looking at what there is about. Indians in the history book for example. Lo there was nothing. Or lo it was one sided. So you go back to the definition again and say. That it teaches us what man has done. And that's what man has. So we should probably add something to that definition depending on who the man

that's telling us what happened and therefore what he is. History is very narrow. Not saying it's narrow minded although it may be that. It is very narrow. And reflects the mindset of those who wrote. So if you go for example to the first historian that we are told and I'm sure he was not by first we mean and again we can look at beginnings and how we look at beginnings. But if we look at the so-called first historian who is to write of this and you look at his particular method of telling history you get what he thinks is important. Right. Does anybody know Herat of this. You get what he thinks is important. You get what his beliefs are. So you were told that Zeus founded this town and Apollo founded that town and you sort of get a little idea that he may not believe this entirely but this is what he was taught.

Is that history. Do we believe really and truly that Athena founded Athens that it is sacred to her that she came down and said This is where I want my town to be. Some people did. Maybe some people still do. So history then is not only what man has done and therefore what man is. But what man thinks he is and what man thought at the time. That's important to remember because we need to we Indian women have our beginnings as other people do in history. So we want to look at three kinds of beginnings if you examine your perceptions of Indian women before you came to this class. We could probably take your perceptions and put them into one of those three places either a spiritual beginning or a bones or an anthropological beginning or historical beginning. And there are a lot of people who think the word for example squaw is OK.

It is not. There are people who think that Indian women were all descended from Pocahontas. That we are all little princesses running around which is another way of looking at Indian women. As the princess or our grandmothers were princesses we happen to know a lot of people who think they were descended from Pocahontas. It's amazing for someone who only had one child and who died in England at a very young age. She's got the most enormous group of descendants probably the world has ever known. But people like to think claim they're descended from her because she was a prince. Yes. Americans love royalty even this kind. OK so we look at them as princesses. Or we look at Indian women as we would socket your waya. Everyone knows about Sacajawea a girl

explore the first girl scout or whatever you want to call her. And you see statues of Sacajawea a wonderful lady. I saw one. If you've been to Mina Minneapolis you may know about the Thunderbird Motel which is located out in what is called the strip where you go into the Thunderbird and go into the dining room. There is a statue of an Indian woman. There is a statue of Sachar and on her back is a basket of fruit. And there's bananas and oranges and pineapple. And she is bare breasted and you can't really tell what's around her. Her middle and bottom but it looks like it might be maybe some sort of skirt of some kind and wrapped around carelessly. You get the notion therefore that suckage away first of all ran around without any clothes on and secondly someone was pretty stupid to put bananas and other tropical fruit in her

basket instead of her baby which is what she did carry on her back as Indian women did in those times. So we learned Therefore that. Indian women may be. Let me call it for it is something less. The girl Explorer. Has never really talked as a woman. But as a girl a girl Sacajawea. She was so kind as to guide those intrepid explorers. Let's see what is their names. Lewis and Clark who wanted to find her found. The west coast and they don't want to found them Pacific. So being wonderful strong big men who thought they could go and explore. They went ahead and did that but they were although they were big wonderful strong men. They apparently weren't stupid. So what they did was they found an Indian woman who knew her way and who not only knew her way

but because she was a woman and she did carry a baby on her back. Told any other people that was met along the way that this was not a war party. If you don't take women with babies on a war party. So she served two purposes to these wonderful Lewis and Clark men. And where if you cross the United States you will find their names on absolutely every think. The Lewis and Clark Trail and Lewis this the Clark that and so on and so forth you will very seldom find the suckage aware this or the suckage way of that. But you will know about her because she was the Girl Guide. Well you see how history is written history is written by and large men of the time and by and large through their eyes now are Lewis and Clark going to admit. That they couldn't have gotten anywhere unless they had some fine Indian along to tell them where to go.

And it probably had to be an Indian woman since the man didn't have time for this nonsense. And they weren't going to show people they don't have time to trek across the country they knew the way anyway why should they show someone else. But they found this woman who did indeed do that. So we have these funny ideas in our head about what Indian women are. We may have a couple of more ideas based on who we listen to. And that's why I started studying about Indian women. Because I was very concerned of all these funny ideas about what Indian women were. I knew I was not a princess. I was not definitely a squab. And if you want to be punched out you call me one. And neither was I a girl Explorer. But if I read history the history of America. The history that I have the right to as a child was what I would be told I was not reality not what I am not what my mothers were before me. All my grandmothers

before me or the interaction between the mothers and fathers and I got very angry. And I decided that. Since God in His goodness and kindness gave me a brain that I would use it. And that is one thing we are taught when we are young that we really ought to use what we've got. And we ought not to apologize for it. I never have. I do have a brain and it's a very good one and I use it a lot. If you don't use it let's goes away. And of course as I tell my children if you decide to stuff yourself with pot or if you decide to stuff yourself with liquor you kill off those little brain cells. And they don't worry girl. We're not like sharks with their teeth. The sharks teeth leave they grow more. Our brain cells don't keep rejuvenated so we have to remember if we are as I am very conscious of my brain and its power and authority I feel treated very well. One of the things I do is they use that a lot. So I decided that I would find out what Indian women

really were because I was interested. So in order to do that I needed to go through all this history. I needed to find out what people really did say about women because there is and then I found through that process that there was another way of looking at women Indian women by history and that was as. I can't think of a good term but it's the women that helped man white man with like Pocahontas Did You Know Who She saved. She didn't save some Indian she saved Jan's men. And what was John Smith trying to do pray tell. He was trying to do when the Indians. So you start looking at the women that we know about in history. You start analyzing what is a correlation and what are the things you can talk about the difference in the two in the differences in the beginnings and the the similarities between suffrage and we are Pocahontas and I'll win the mother for example and other women throughout history that do find their

ways into white history books. You know what their similarities all are they all helped. The white people against the Indians. Well. We don't want to start in the white horse again and I have no intention to do so but neither am I going to teach my children that the hair wins that we have in the past are those that worked against my people. So that has to be put in perspective. Why on earth should I try to teach people about somebody's lame when Naima who. It helped the enemy that white people in the States at this stage against her people the Modocs. And she sold out her cousin who was the leader of that particular tribe of Indians and of course the white people won. So what do they do with the silly one name a woman they gave her.

They took her to the White House in did things in the White House I suppose they had a lunch they had little matches with her name on it. The president took her out to the Rose Garden and said Winnie M. You are wonderful. And they had a parade in Washington where I'm sure she said in an open convertible and draped herself around and waved at everyone. And she had apparently a wonderful time. She was feted in other words by the White House by the American government. And when she died on her little gravestone it said when EMA strong heart. And that's what she got for helping other people against her own. Now. I have no problem with people making choices when they made a choice. Pocahontas made a choice which if you like John Smith maybe she thought he was cute. He was sexy he was this or he was that. Who knows we have the we have the choice and Sacajawea we know was married to a French woman and she went along with him and that's how she got to be the Intrepid girl reporter and explore the Girl Scout and one all only because she was with a man at

the time. So it's a relationship. They have their own right choices. That is not my point my point is if we're going to teach little children about women we can't be so one sided. It's OK if we want to teach him about Sacajawea of Pocahontas and Lima but we also have to teach them about those Indian women that were hanging in there with their men and helping and realizing that that is my family and I help. So I wanted it not to be so one sided. And that was that what I was trying to do when I did this. So then I found a woman. Who did an interesting thing of telling me what's happening in this area and what is happening is that where do we get these ideas. About the definition of woman or Indian woman in this particular case. We get them obviously through the eyes of history the history that has told us the history that has shaped the history that says this is the way we are.

Where birth to set come from. So I looked at what else is there to do. I looked and I found that there were typically three people that told us how Indian women were in this country. Those three people were the traders you know bus traders right. Those wonderful guys that came over from France and they wore little red hats and they and they paddled in big long canoes and they sing. Lusty songs as they ran through this part of the woods or that part of the streams and they carried on they were lusty wonderful men and we learned about them in history and movies and books and panoramas when we go to various little parts of the country traders. Actually there was someone that preceded these traders but I go back and forth in time it doesn't matter. And that where the hell call of the missionaries because it was more than just the good fathers that I knew when I grew up there were the missionaries.

And once we chip world where there were just the words we were very into the just the words but it was the missionary that came on. In the third person was the anthro. Anthropologie. Those three people came here to the United States of America and they observed what was going on and they told us the traitors told about it too. Back home they wrote about it in their journals. The missionaries wrote back to their superiors. For example the Jesuits had two different kinds of organs of communication. The Jesuit relations which was written in French and is now translated in English and there's something like 98 volumes and then they wrote something to their superiors which was only meant for the hierarchy in the Jesuit order and was not blabbed about to the general common ordinary man. But you can see that now one point in their time of justice you know where the spanned by one of the. Anyway you look at one of the far seeing popes or one of the really weird little bigoted popes

whichever way you favorite Jesuits I happen to favor chess with so I think one of these Wordle bigoted popes disbanded the Jesuits. But a lot of their material is still available so that if you want to study Indians and do it very well you need to go to the Vatican in Rome and study in the Vatican libraries where they have heard wonderful material on India's which is what I'm going to do one of these days. Who knows when but one of these days. OK so you have the missionary. You also have the anthropologist who came over here and start studying was in the field and then would send back all these reports to Europe and everybody would get just. Oh how sad. And they would start writing books about that. And the women think oh mine would be wonderful to be loved by a savage male and Latina. But one of the things you probably are to look at and again analyze this what do we have among these three kinds of people.

That is what can we say about it. If we analyze it what would we say about this. They're all one race. Most of them are priests you know. PRIEST Do they have vows evolves or poverty chastity and obedience. And chastity means that they do not live with a woman. They do not as the Bible says know a woman. So the only experience the missionaries had of women on a date on a regular basis was when they were growing up with their own mothers and aunts and so on but no day to day experience interaction between adult men and women. They didn't have any experience. The traders were by and large crooks and cons that were thrown out of the country because they were no good and they came over here because this was a place to come because they could start anew and start afresh. They didn't have any women either because nobody in their right mind would give them their daughters

and nobody in their right mind would be around them unless they were chaperoned fully and closely by their husbands so they had no interaction either. That was it daily that was normal with women. Anthropologist I never did understand. OK. So we have this funny group of people that are telling us what Indian women are based on what. They stand no experience or through their mothers who maybe say only a very different kind of experience very limited real experience is what I'm trying to get at. And so what do they do. They come over here for 10 years being wonderful adaptable flexible human beings who will take pity on these poor lonely guys start co-habiting with people like the traders and did whatever the missionaries wanted which was to try to be like the Virgin Mary and take vows of chastity and so on and so what did these guys do.

That did live up to their ideals because as you know a lot of people have ideals and then they have the reals and there has nothing in between because their logic is such that you can't deal with that. It's it's nice if you can get your ideal and your real pretty close. You know maybe you can get them intertwined as adult reciprocal human beings should which is like this your ideals and your real is to touch each other periodically. But if you have your ideals up here that nobody in their right mind can fit or nobody can possibly do. And then you have the real down here that are totally and completely removed from the ideal. What do you have. You have an extremely biased point of view about these terrible little women that had the gall to interact with these people and try to be what they wanted. So what did we get. We get these funny notions of what Indian women are. And you know we are stuck with that today. You know that I still have to deal with people that think that I'm some

funny one of these things. I am not this wonderful human being that you see in front of you who has a marvelous mind and who cares and who does things and who goes out and does what they have to do. But I'm one of those funny things. What would you do. Well I did what I did and then periodically I'd talk about it. And now I'm through.