I grew up on the edge of a small Haudenosaunee (Mohawk to you white folks) reservation in southeastern Ontario, Canada. Back then (and how far back I won't say), we didn't have much in the way of modern amenities, like running water or electricity. We cooked on an old wood stove, and hauled our water from a well outside.

Our home was an old rambly, wood frame house that belonged to my Grandfather, who was half white and half Indian. Under the legal terms then, he was white because his mother was Mohawk and his father, long deceased, a white man.

Our home was up on top of a great hill, overlooking the rest of the country side. Trees lined the roads, on either side, like Giants guarding those who walked, rode horses, or drove over them. Lots of people still drove horses back then, and old rattle trap Model T's fords and a few more modern cars, a Chevy here and there, and an Edsel or two. Mostly, tho we walked.

Our roads were too muddy in spring time, and covered in black tar in summer to keep the dust down. Being Canada, there was much more winter than summer. Golly goodness it did get cold in winter. Have I mentioned recently how much I HATE being cold?

But this story is about Reverend Findlay, a local preacher, sent to 'save our heathen souls'. Now, we did never knew his first name and the entire community always referred to him as 'the Reverend Findaly' as if that was his entire name. He was a single man, never having found any woman 'Godly' enough for him to marry. None of the local girls would have anything to do with him, and he asked lots!

Now folks, he preached at the local church that we attended on some Sundays, my Grandmother being partial to 'doing as the neighbors do' and she said if they 'rub blue mud in their navels, well, we ought to be right neighbourly and do the same'. It 'made for good relationships' she said. (It is sound advise that has been invaluable to me in my life.)

Well, I was the eldest of six children, and the only girl. My mamma had us all in about six years or so, and a couple of the babies only 10 months apart. (Now there was some talk that she hadn't rightly 'born' me, but she took me as her own and that was that back then. Never the less, she had 'borne' all my brothers about once a year, and buried a few in the cemetery out back of the church that didn't make it)

Mamma was just plain wore out, and took to drinking to soothe her sorrows.

That left us in the care of my Grandmother much of the time, to our delight. Granny was kind, and gentle, (mostly, anyway, and if she went on the warpath.. well that's another sotry algother and not a pleasant one), but could be tough as nails when needs be.

Her voice would carry most of a mile when she was really working at it. Said it came from calling the cows home each morning for milking. Nice, brown Jersey cows with huge old eyes.. slow and friendly and full of rich creamy milk.. made wonderful home made butter and, occasionally, home made ice cream too. Granny loved us, and taught us many good things.. it's strange how the older I get, the smarter I know she was!

Well, the Reverend Findlay, he was a white man. He wasn't much too look at, being small and 'splindly' as Granny called him. He wore these old black framed, horn rimmed glasses. Now you folks listening here need to understand that he wore them not to see with, but to hold the hearing aids into his ears with, being pretty deaf for the most part. And many a time we children would have great fun with that too!

No lenses in the glasses though, and it sure made him look funny. He had a grand voice, prone to covering a wide range of sounds, from really soft to really loud, like Thunder. Listening to him preach was entertainment itself, even tho we didn't agree with what he said, the way he said it was fascinating!

Much better that the preachers we listened to on the old hand crank radio! Billy Graham, Mr. Graham, as my Granny called him, and she said he could learn a lot from the Reverend Findaly. She said she "didn't hold with his religion" but he sure had a lot of Faith, and that was a GOOD THING" in her opinion.

If we said much about that about how funny the Reverend Findaly looked, Granny was like to give us a slap on the behind, to remind us to be respectful to our elders, (elders being everyone over the age of what ever we were).. and not counting Traditional Indian Elders, which is a whole other situation entirely.

We'd sit there on those hard wooden pews in church, in our best clothing (which I hated.. dresses were invented by a sado masochist in my opinion.) Doing our best to keep a respectful face in place while he expounded on a million ways to go to 'hell'.

Sometime around when I was eight or so, the Reverend Findaly took calling on us at our home on most week ends, trying to convince my parents that us 'heathen' children needed to be 'watered', that is, Baptized, so that if anything happened and we died out of turn, we'd be sure to get back to Heaven. He thought we were all going to 'come to a bad end' and he needed to get it done right away.

I wasn't really sure back then I even wanted to go to what the Reverend called 'Heaven'. Seemed like a dull, boring place, with funny looking angels with wings and gold halos over their heads, sitting around on clouds playing harps. I much preferred Granny's tales of the Spirit World, with it's Sacred Fire, and Spirit Guardians of the four Sacred Directions, and great battles between good and evil, myself.

Anyhow, he'd come by every week or so, and Granny would get us all dressed up in our Sunday best, which for me meant wearing a dreaded 'dress'. (Jeans, shorts and bathing suits were my preferred summer wear.) My five younger brothers all had to wear white shirts and ties, given to us by the Missionaries who came several times a year and handed out free clothing, usually worn, stained and in only two sizes, too big and too small. They liked to pull on the ties and lead each other around like we led the calves in the barn yard.

So there we'd be, all cleaned up, sitting on our big old yard. We'd bring our 'company chairs' out under neath this big old Maple Tree that offered lots of shade from the summer sun. It was HUGE and one of my favorite things was to climb up it and watch everyone below.

Especially if my father was in one of his alcoholic rages and looking to 'tan my hide' as he often wanted to do. I liked my hide just the way it was, thank you and didn't think it needed any 'tanning'. The yard was several acres big, and it was our job to keep it looking nice, unlike most of our neighbors yards, which were full of junky old cars and other aging farm equipment. Mamma made Pappa put all the junk in the back field out of sight. We had to cut that big 'ole yard with a push mower. No wonder we slept well at night!

Gee, folks, back to the story... We had these wonderful old rattan chairs.. with cane wood work on them.. and flowery fabric covering old feather stuffed pillows. Made it nice and soft as long as one didn't 'set' too long and compress the feathers.

So the chairs would be set in a Circle, and we'd have to sit there and be 'polite and quiet' and listen respectfully while the Reverend expounded on what heathens we were and how his God Given mission in life, was to 'save our souls'. He never quite explained what he was saving us from and we would have asked, 'cept that Granny might have thought that was 'rude' and cuffed us for it.

Well, I forgot to tell you how Blackie came to be a member of our family... several months before this particular week end visit, my brother, Sandy and I, had rescued a half drowned black crow when the wind blew it's nest out of the Elm tree on the edge of our yard. He'd fallen out in the middle of this grand Thunderstorm and we'd heard his feeble cries, crept out in the darkness and brought him inside. We'd fed him rolled up bread balls dipped in milk and flour ever few minutes, day and night until he grew big enough to get through the night without being fed. (Seemed like an eternity).

My brother Sandy was 10 months younger than me, and full of ' mischief ' as my Granny would say. He loved to get into trouble and had been suspended just recently from school for sneaking a snake into the one room school house that we attended. He loved how the girls ran and screamed and stood up on the desks to get away from the poor, scared snake. Teacher too. She didn't like snakes one bit. She sure looked funny in her penguin outfit (she was a Catholic Nun in black and white robes). I made points with the teacher for going over and picking then poor thing up and taking it outside and letting it go in the woodpile that was used to keep the school warm in winter. Have I mentioned that Canada has WAY too much winter?

Well, folks, this Crow was given a name, as all things were in our community. He was named Blackie. (We didn't have much imagination when it came to Naming things.) It turned out that Blackie loved my brother more than me, (even tho I fed him more often) and that danged bird followed Sandy every chance he got. Being full of mischief, my brother decided to teach him how to talk. He spent hours, coaxing and tutoring the Bird. If he'd spent that much time on his own school work, he'd had straight A's instead of the D's he usually brought home. Turned out the only language the Crow would learn to repeat were words not used in 'proper society', cuss words.

Now cuss words my brothers all new in great abundance! So Blackie learned a wide range of them!

Blackie had a bit of the mischief maker in him too.. that durned black scoundrel well, he'd take rotten food, tuck it into the toes of my shoes with his beak and when I put them on, my toes would squish into the goup and feel just awful! This resulted in my shouting at the bird, chasing him around the room or yard with great energy, but ya know, I NEVER came close to catching him. Many a time I was sorry for all my wasted time in keeping that silly bird alive. And don't even think about the noise he'd make on Grand Ole O'Pry night.

So, back to the weekend visit, and the Reverend Findaly and Blackie the Crow. All of us children, (six) sitting in our Sunday best, in our rattan chairs, along with my parents, (both clean and sober for a change), listening as respectfully as we could. The sun is shining high in the bright blue of the afternoon sky, and the warm summer breeze gently rustled the leaves of the big old maple tree. Up above, from high in the tree drifts down a word.. something sassy, like 'you jerk'..

All heads look up into the tree, but nothing can be seen up there. All eyes then turn to the Reverend who's taken off his glasses and is fiddling with the volume of his hearing aid, turning it up. He puts the glasses back on, makes a 'harrumpphhing' sound and looks at us. He counts heads, on his fingers, and saying each of our names out loud.. then points around the circle, again naming us all off to see if one of us is missing and who might be up in the tree. Figuring that we are all there, he shakes his head and resumes his 'heathen Indian' speech.

It is quiet from the tree for a few minutes and then, once more, the sounds of words filter down through the maple tree.. this time it's 'Oh Sh**'.. Again, the Reverend Findaly repeats the same pattern of counting heads, and assured that we are all there, starts sounding off once more.. his voice raising and falling as he tells us what awaits us in 'hell'.

He doesn't get ten more words out before some really crude words float down.. this time the Reverend Findaly is really offended. He looks at my father, who's trying hard to smother his laughter. Shouting about "this sir, is disrespect of the highest order!" and how "God will deal with you!" and then he jumps out of his chair.

Have I mentioned that the Reverend Findaly was bald? And his head was now bright and very shiny with sweat. Have I mentioned that Blackie like to steal anything that he could find that was bright and shiny? No? Well..

So Blackie the Crow, he sees the Reverend Findaly jumping up and down and making lots of loud noises, with his bright and shiny head, covered in sweat, bouncing along in time with his jumping. And he swoops down from the big old maple tree and tries to grab the Reverend by his bald scalp. He's unsuccessful, but manages a 'peck' on the scalp just for punctuation.. then decides to make a second flight path by it, and unable to steal the bright shiny object, registers his favorite signature of disgust (green, smelly, Crow poop) right on top of the Reverends head, before taking refuge across the road in another tree, to make more noises, (but not words), while the commotion continues in the middle of our front yard.

Well, us children had totally given up controlling our laughter and were laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes, as we watch the poor Reverend Findaly, wiping the bird poop off his shiny head. His face gets red all over, and the veins in his neck begin to pop out. The redder he gets, the louder we laugh.

Finally, even Granny gives up and begins to laugh uproariously. My parents aren't quite sure if they should yell at us, laugh with us, or both. Finally, my mother gives up and begins to laugh. Next, my father. Soon all of us are rolling over, holding our tummies as tears stream down our faces.. ain't a great laugh just majick?

Meanwhile the Reverend Findaly begins to shout, and then he curses at us.

Big old swear words, that we never thought he even knew!

At this point my brother Sandy decides that leaving for parts unknown is a smart thing for him to do, he always was smart about saving his own skin, as he'd been warned not to teach Blackie such language and knows that someone is going to give him a 'royal whupping.'

The Reverend Findaly starts moving over the yard towards the top of the hill where he parked his old jalopy, still sputtering and trying to get the bird poop off his head and neck.

My brother Sandy hid so well that our father got drunk again before he found him and he never got the 'whupping he deserved' as my Granny said.

Blackie lived a long life for a crow, and played numerous tricks on many people over the years.

That was many years ago, and I live far away from that old farm house, yet when I hear the Crows calling, I remember back to the Reverend Findaly and Blackie the Crow.

Wish I could say that was the last of the Reverend, but it's not. You see, there was this time my brother Sandy was learning to cook and he made the Reverend his own apple pie.. but that's ANOTHER story..