50th Reunion (PDF)

O MAHA T RIBAL H ISTORICAL R ESEARCH P ROJECT , I NC .
Margery Coffey, Ph.D.
Assistant Director

Dennis Hastings, Ph.D.
Founder/Director

P.O. Box 279
Rosalie NE 68055
402-863-2522
Black Prairie Dog Woman Studios

834 Hwy 75
Walthill NE 68067
402-846-5454
othrp@yahoo.com
50th Reunion—Class of 1967
Ernest Righetti High School

“Nothing cool at all about putting a bullet through anything. It's a sad hobby and an empty legal right. Try building
something or saving someone before coveting the tools to destroy things and end life. Only then you will realize des
troying things is about a thousand times easier and that will make you angry. A person can work on home for a lifetime
and a single bomb can erase that lifetime's work in an instant. One bullet can erase a stellar person just as quickly.
Talk about bad karma. Be a real man, grow up and find another hobby.Johan Permakult, Omaha, Nebraska 10.4.2017

A half-century is a long time, and so short it’s like a whisper across the winters.
Like so many of us, i’ve been struggling since a shadow fell across the country last November, with what
to say and how to say it to you, my fellow Classmates, as icy winds sweep down from the North, and we as
a People have lost our way in this blizzard of tragic sadness
At this moment people are dying in Puerto Rico, and the world is closer to nuclear war than anytime since,
yes, more than a half-century ago.
Yet at such times it is as important to commend our collective Classes in organizing these “All 60’s Reunions,” as an Alumni Association would have assisted individual Classes, and this has worked out in a very
good and creative way. Recognizing each birthday as the “All Classes” do on Facebook is an excellent
means of re-connecting for those who cannot be present, even as the reception, luncheons and outings
for those who do attend provide real-time celebration of “Well, we made it this far!” And so we have.
i am now so distant from those times, and yet remain as do you a part of them, and honour them for what
they were, and honour you for being a part of my individualized life, as i was, with yours. i remain grateful
for my own transformative presence beyond that time, and have both experienced and envision a different world far more expansive than what we were “taught” at Righetti High.
We were taught, for example, in World History Class that “our” intellectual and philosophic history began
with the patriarchal cultures of the Greeks, but in truth, the Greeks appropriated “their” ideas from earlier, matriarchal cultures, among those expressly held by the Sumarians. Among these ancient matriarchal cultures, women held the religious authority the way men hold such authority in patriarchal cultures,
even today. What is even more interesting however, is that, similar to patriarchy, women at that time imposed a social conditioning upon men, likely theocratic in nature, whereby the resultant governmental
edicts held men to second-class citizenship the way (later) patriarchy held, and still holds women to.
Looking at Humanity as a whole then, this makes oppression a human problem rather than a genderbased one, putting the lie to the claims of “second-wave” feminism that the conundrum of Humanity is –
and remains – patriarchy, alone.
Yet even this presumption doesn’t hold when we see how modern feminism began not as “waves” but as
a continuum, from Mary Woolstonecraft’s “Vindication on the Rights of Women” (1792) to the intersec

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tion analysis offered by Millennials today. Our 21st Century is thus, “The Century of Women,” and as this
unfolds we honour our women, who each day provide those nurturing qualities of life bourne in the roots
of sexual energy, the creative life force of both art and science, as both Wilhelm Reich and Mahatma Gandhi understood in their respective advocacies of sexuality and non-violence.
In this way, we comprehend through both science and art that Human Beings are both inherently nonviolent and naturally non-monogamous.
We know this because in the 21st Century the increasingly expert literature on nueronplastcity is validating the earlier thinking proffered by Erik Erickson, Carl Rodgers, Alice Miller and many others, champions
in our time regarding the growth of human potential versus the effects of unresolved, multi-generational
or historic trauma imprinting upon the brain. This perception provides for us an equal insight into the imprinting of pleasure as a corollary, if healing and even preventative practice when addressing trauma.
These are important thoughts to consider because trauma will likely be the predominant theme of our
ensuing time; as it was in the 20th Century, and how we handle trauma, whether it is experienced
through Climate Change or War, impacts upon whether we—and the entire world, perhaps—survive.
Accordingly i am increasingly turning to the Millennials, who are responding to this dynamic in a much
more nuanced and seemingly intelligent way to the challenges we all face today, even for us in our elder
winters, https://heleo.com/conversation-the-perks-of-being-an-older-adult/16544/ . Similar to their
grandparents when they were once their age, these young folk have the zeal and fortitude to grasp the
present as their own, much as we did “Back in the Day.” Having matured in a cultural environment devoid of traditions from the past, many of them see the Faustian Bargain we as Baby Boomers made with
our own youth as the parents of their parents, only to stumble through a greater hypocrisy than we felt
and experienced in our time. They seem, as younger folk, to hold us accountable for that, and rightly so.
Certainly we literally could have changed the world in those earlier times with different consumer choices
of convenience and comfort, and did, even as we allowed it to slip into a more sordid present than what
we had been born into. Others in varied nations and cultures across the seas and around the world have
been able to wrestle some control of their societies and governments and live predominately a better life
than we here in America, while still others have been caught in waves of despotism and violence, some of
which is of our own government’s doing.
Yet, as the parents and grandparents of our children and grandchildren, we are also in their awe and inspiration, and they look to us for a wisdom gained from our collective knowledge and experience over our
lifetimes, which they both admire and wish had truly been different. As DARK as the world is at this moment, i, myself, retain such optimism because there is movement among the community in which i work
and live, as people are tired of the corruption and dysfunction and desperately want to change, and I, in
both a humble and far-reaching way, have been an agent of such change for sometime now.
Indeed, i would say that, given the complexities of our world, we are already seeing this change across the
planet at the local and regional level in so many positive ways, so there is much to be thankful to the
Creator for as we forge ahead in our later winters n this “Age of Aquarius.”
i wish you all many good winters of health and ease of living, and would welcome:
“Greeting and Salutations” to correspond, call or visit.

richard chilton

October 4th, 2017