Now, Mr. Dickens, was it the best of times or the worst of times. You can scarcely have it both ways.

For those tempted to vote for E, a hevay fog or mist, derived from the Menominee word apeha'pfe-o-akh, I must tell you that my late father spent several years learning Menominee (he was born in Menominee, MI in 1902) and according to his Menominee-English dictionary this word apeha'pfe-o-akh is their term for the flail used to harvest wild rice along the shorelines of the lakes and rivers in the area.

My old man tried for years to get the ten tribes of the UP to appoint him their agent for selling wild rice, which would have made all of them rich. The ten tribes have the right to harvest all wild rice on the shores of Michigan and Superior (though there isn't much wild rice in Superior). One tribe refused to do this so the mini-cartel died aborning and they all to this day continue to try to undersell the others.

I still have pictures of my father in a canoe that is laden almost to the gunwales with the just-harvested rice. He's holding a apeha'pfe-o-akh in his left hand and his other hand is holding out to one of the chiefs a bottle of fire water.




TEd