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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2006)
AUGUST 15, 2006 Smoke Signals 7 said Dale, "and decided on a differ ent way of life." He's raised two families of kids who have had their own kids, and some of those have had kids, and Dale and his wife, Shirley (Keller), now are raising their granddaugh ter - Tribal member Ashley, 14 too. They started taking care of her when she was only a few months old. "She was sick when we first had her," said Langley. They have since adopted her, though Ashley's father, Tribal member John Lang ley, of McMinnville, stays involved with her life. His recipe for raising kids: "Just teach 'em right from wrong." John is the second of four children for Dale and Shirley. Edward, of Sheridan is the oldest son. Debo rah, who lives in Montana is the third. And Bryan, the youngest son, lives in McMinnville, and is an Education Department staffer at the Tribe. As a long time member of Fish & Wildlife, Rodeo and Veterans com mittees, Dale continues to focus on the interests he's had all through his life: hunting, riding and Vets affairs. Wife Shirley has been sharing the hunting and camping with the family from the beginning. And she goes out still. "Somebody's got to cook," Dale joked. In January, Dale and Shirley will be married 50 years. When Bryan was about 12, said Dale, "he'd get his mother to drive him up in the hills, to the Coast Creek. He'd shoot one, and then, somehow, they wrangled it into the trunk and brought it home." "We've always had a few horses," he said. "Now, I have eight and we just got two mules to take hunting." Langley enjoys his horses, but according to Bryan Langley, his dad originally got involved with the Tribal Rodeo Committee partly because one of his other sons, John, was into horses. "Some of it was so John could put his horses out there," said Bryan. Son Ed was interested in fishing, so Dale got him started fishing. And Bryan's interest was hunt ing, so Dale and his uncle Clint taught Bryan hunting before he was a teenager. Back in the 1980s, Dale and Bryan struck up an inter est in bow hunting, and they have continued bow hunting ever since. "Neither of us knew much about bow-hunting in the beginning but I figured out the elk call. Now, said Dale, Ed's boy, Corey Langley, 14, is "gonna use my bow to learn." Dale also taught Bryan to drive the Cat. "He showed me real brief ly," said Bryan. He told me how to turn right but not left, so for awhile, I was driving it in circles." Before Bryan learned to drive a stick, his dad sent him to get the truck. Bryan managed to lurch it Hunter Tribal Elder Dale Langley killed this buck during the hunting season of 2004. r: n n xx S8 mm rrr--. - ItVzz: ll i g4 7 1 ; ... .. if. rNLv K,,i,-,r' Honorary This picture of Tribal member and brother Casey Langley (I) with Dale when they were members of the Grand Ronde Honor Guard in 2000. Dale was a member of the Honor Guard for about six years. forward, and when he arrived, it bucked and sputtered to a stop. "Why didn't you use the clutch?" Dale asked him. "What's the clutch?" Bryan want ed to know. Bryan also remembers, some thirty years ago, when his dad was part of the pit crew for a sports car that raced in Lebanon, Oregon. "We used to go over there and freeze," he said. The family lived for quite a while in a little house in Willamina. The kids along with Dale and Shirley shared 827 square feet, recalled Bryan. "Three tiny bedrooms and no shower. We had an oil stove for quite a while and then a wood stove. Bryan and his sister, Deb bie, "cut lots and lots of firewood," Bryan said. But the house was in a great deal of disrepair during many of those years. "The roof was leak ing," said Bryan, "and I remem ber putting pans on the floor. I remember the rain pouring down and we were up on the roof trying to patch it up." One time, when Dale and Shirley were working out of town, Bryan and Debbie decided they would in stall a shower. They got the place pulled apart, but didn't quite have the shower in before the folks came back. "(Dale) wasn't very happy," said Bryan, "but we got a new shower out of it." More recently, Tribal Housing benefits enabled the family to do a major rehabilitation. "We redid the entire house, and turned the three small bedrooms into two larger ones," said Bryan. Dale recalls a youth where being an Indian did not matter much. "We didn't go to school with white kids," he said. "They went to school with Indians. I didn't see too much difference and nobody said any thing about it." At Termination, said Dale, "I can remember going up to the Commu nity Hall, the government building, where Verna Larsen used to live." He also remembers when they wouldn't sell alcohol to Indians. Later on, as the Tribe prepared for Restoration, Dale said, "I used to come down here and listen to what was going on. I thought it would be great if they could do it." "To me, everything we're getting now, I look at it as a gift." Not entirely a gift. He has worked on a number of important commit tees for the Tribe. "I thought (these committees) would be a good place to get involved with the Tribe." Dale was not only a committee guy. "He and Marvin (Kimsey) did all of the work on the rodeo, like tilling the ground," said Bryan. And he got involved with the de tails of an issue. "When you talk to a biologist," said Dale, "you learn about how important everything is, from microscopic things to the big fish. You learn if you destroy one part, it will affect all the rest. If you destroy their habitat, they'll move on. If you over hunt them, you'll lose them." "The old ways," he said, "were always right." D t'f ..... .' -'7 : 1 ,' v; Cr 'it eh i j " . ' v : ' i
