Against All Odds Light Shines
An unbelievable procession of light in the gathering cold
and darkness, all the way down Lodge Grass School Hill
The night before Christmas Eve my wife Bonnie and I left our
house for our car. We were met with a wall of cold air. Who could think of mounting a horse or a float
and parading in this cold? No. They will surely call it off. We went because we
were curious, having seen a facebook page from Bethyana and the young people of
the Valley of the Chiefs announcing the daring event. Subconsciously I already
knew, from being with the Lodge Grass Indians Band in three back-to-back state BB
tournament wins, folks from the Valley of the Chiefs are keen on doing the
impossible. I only was aware we could stop in with friends there as the
inevitable happened. They surely would turn sensible in the cold, and call off
parading.
The sun set before we crossed the tracks by the store. We drove
up school hill. I expected an empty parking lot by the school. But I couldn’t
miss the heavy traffic. Once on top, through the frosted windows of our car we
saw an amazing sight in the school parking lot. It looked like the summer pow wow parade time
gathering at Gas Cap Junction. Horse were being bridled and saddled, and decked
with Pendletons. Floats were being loaded with antlers, greens, and boxes for
seats, and there were bags of candy. But something was different. Christmas
lights! On horses, pickups, floats, and even on people. We watched as horses
stamped and steamed frozen fog. We watched children and adults pulling off
gloves to tie on lights and decorations, and quickly replacing the gloves. When
everyone began wrapping blankets and scarfs around themselves and mounting
horses, floats and pickup cabs, we hurried to the bottom of school hill to catch
a good view.
By then dusk had descended to velvet dark blue, and the
horses’ breathing fogged enough to play with the lights coming down the hill.
The visual effects were stunning, and hard to record with a camera. In my
simple cell phone view I caught several images of a cross, a star, of the
mingling of the fog, silhouetting horses and riders. It gave a visual impression of a choir of
angels descending school hill to the town below.
As the procession wound through Lodge Grass, crowds of cars
joined us with only a few people braving the cold to actually stand outside and
watch. My guess is that the size and
strength of this parade has not been exceeded for a good while.
