13
Street roots
Jan. 31, 2014
R em em bering ‘Willie Boy’
BY CHARLES HUDSON
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
"VT THlliamson Bearstail was always well
l / l / dressed. Even in his adult years, as
▼ V he combed the streets of Northeast
Portland looking for cans and bottles to
redeem, I’d see him in a buttondown shirt
and nicely fitted jacket.
I knew Williamson for over 40 years
before I got word of his death in a Montana
nursing home last week. I was a timid,
skinny, half-Indian, half-white kid on the
Fort Berthold Indian reservation in 1972
when Williamson and I found ourselves in
gym shorts and t-shirts on the brown hills
south of Parshall, N.D., (population 800). I
was an 8 th grader running for our seven-
man high school cross-country team.
Williamson and I were the only Native
Americans among a small handful of sons of
Norwegian farm kids.
Williamson was four years older, but
unlike the other upperclassmen, he made
time for me, and in his own subtle way,
looked out for me, letting the others know I
could not be picked on due to my age or
heritage. A subtle segregation permfeated
my little reservation town, split down the
middle between third generation
Scandinavian homesteaders and the
Indigenous Hidatsa people. Suffice to say
Williamson belonged to no clique. During
our lonely, cold practices on the hills south
of town, Williamson ran alone. He ran hard.
He ran with nobody cheering for him.
Native youth in Parshall would
congregate each night in the front room of
Bob’s §teak House. Bob’s had a jukebox,
and in it a 45 of the song “Little Willy” by
the rock band Sweet.
Cos little Willy, Witty won’t go home
B u t you can t push Willy round
W illy won’t go, try tillin’ everybody but, oh no
Little Willy, Witty won’t go home
Without his approval, our cluster of
Indian kids made it Williamson’s theme
song. It went well with Williamson’s
nickname, ‘Willie Boy’ which was on his
silks he wore into the amateur boxing ring.
Williamson “Willie ‘Boy” Bearstail still holds
Transitions
by J. McCurdy
the record for delivering the fastest
knockout m North Dakota boxing history.
The first time Williamson and I lost track
of each other was 1975. The song was
prophetic; Williamson had left and would
never go home again. I was not to see him
again until 1999.
- Just as he had on the prairie race
courses, Williamson beat me to Oregon. He
spent the '80s and '90s on the Portland
streets after serving time in the Eastern
Oregon Correctional Insitution in Pendleton
for assaulting a police officer. I was
surprised when I saw him, the strong,
compact frame, and the unmistakable
Hidatsa features that even years of hard
living couldn’t tamp down.
Our relationship had changed. It is
difficult to describe and I’m not proud of
the circumstances. Williamson and I were,
after all, both members of the same clan,
the Prairie Chicken Clan, the most nuclear
of tribal associations. J lived comfortably
and prospered in Portland’s well-heeled
Irvington neighborhood. Irvington was also
Williamson’s urban turf where he gleaned
cans and bottles from recycling bins.
Occasionally I saw him with other Natives,
usually a Plains Indian. We Plains Indians
are nomadic but we tend to find each other
no m atter how far away from home.
I avoided direct contact with Williamson,
I’m ashamed to say. I was afraid of what I
blight get myself into if I let him too close
to my life. In any case, I don’t think I had
his back in the way he had mine 40 years
ago. So, instead, I communicâted with him
through surrogates. Friends and neighbors
who would slip him $20 or relay information
like the time I had to let him know his older
Sister Marliss had passed away. He replied,
I was told, “That’s too bad. I should
probably go home,”
That was the last surrogate contact we
had. I heard through channels back home
that he stalled in Montana attempting to get
back to our Rez. He died in a Lewistown,
Mont, nursing home on Jan, 14 at thé age of
57. In his obituary, S sister Beverly wrote,
“The life Williamson chose w asa tough
one.” :
She spoke
softly, soothingly
to the frightened child
. I’d allowed myself to become
Of the places
We “get to” go
Before
We begin again
Places of wave and wind
Of sea and sand
I asked her through my tears
“Why”
She said because
There freedom wraps her wings
'Round my back
Inches up my spine
To let my spirit sing
Haiku
by Ian Civil
Above the tree line
M t Hood appears to hover
Suspended in air
Untitled I
by W illiam Holmes
awareness for knives
break bread with confidence,'men
eat fast, die hungry
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