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[Gene Tagaban] How many of you have a grandma?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait.
How many of you have a grandma, when you walk into that house you go, "Grandma I'm here."
"Aw that's so good that you're here.
"Oh, I love you so much. "Oh, are you hungry?"
"No, grandma, I'm really not hungry, I'm okay."
"Oh, that's okay, I'll go get you something to eat.
"How about some hot cocoa and some toast?"
"No, I'm really okay Grandma. I really don't need anything.
"I just came here to see you and everything.
"You go sit down. Oh, I'll go get you something to eat."
[grandma kissing him]
"Oh, you're just so precious. You sit down.
"Oh, I love you so much. Oh, come here, give me a hug.
[grandma kissing him]
"Oh, you just sit, I'll get you some hot cocoa and toast."
How many of you have a grandma that is just so nice, so sweet that she's just...gooey.
[audience laughing]
Maybe you are that gooey grandma.
You know, because I had a grandma
I'd walk into the house and I'd go, "Grandma, I'm here."
"Oh, that's good that you're here, you get that bucket, you go get me some water."
"Oh, come on grandma, I'm tired."
"You don't talk back to me." [grandma hitting him on head]
[audience laughing]
So, I would get that bucket, I'd get that bucket run down to the creek, get the water,
and I'd run back and I'd set it down.
I got to say something right now.
Back in the day they said that they didn't have any running water.
[audience laughing]
That was my Indian name, Running Water.
I was always running from the house to the creek and running back.
So I said, "Grandma, there's your water."
"Oh, that's good.
"You go get me that empty Folgers coffee can with the string on it
"and you go out there and pick me some berries now."
"Oh, come on grandma, I just got you the water, now, I'm tired Grandma."
"You don't talk back to me." [grandma hitting him on head]
So I'd go out there and pick the berries and bring 'em back in.
My Grandma was tough.
But back in the day you had to be tough.
Our ancestors, they are strong people.
I mean, my grandma she would get up at 4:00 in the morning.
She'd go to the top of the mountain, hunt, get a deer.
She wouldn't even dress it or nothing, carry that whole deer on her shoulders
back to her back porch, and then she would dress it then.
Then she'd cook breakfast.
Then she'd clean up everything there for breakfast.
And then she'd go out to the beach and she'd start collecting
clams, conchels, seaweed, little shrimps, you know.
And things to this day I have no idea what I ate but I ate them anyways.
And then she'd have lunch all fixed up and then she'd have that all cleaned up
and she'd get ready for dinner time and she'd have deer,
roast, salmon, crab, king crab, Dungeness crab, seaweed rice with salmon eggs in it.
Oh, it was a feast.
Oh, it was so good and then everything would be all cleaned up that evening.
And then my grandma, she would sit on the couch
and she would grab her knitting needles, her crochet needles, and she'd sit there.
And then she'd grab a piece of yarn that came up
from in between the cushions of the couch.
Nobody ever knew where that yarn came from
and they never asked either where that yarn came from.
But she'd grab that piece of yarn and she'd be sittin' there crocheting or knitting
and about an hour later a couple dozen afghans would suddenly appear behind her.
[audience laughing]
And then she would go to bed and then she'd do it all over again the next day.
I mean my grandma was tough.
There was one day I was on the mountain four days, four nights, ceremony.
I just got off the mountain with my uncles.
I walked into my grandma's house and sittin' against the wall were my four uncles there,
you know, one for each direction you know, gotta keep it sacred.
And my uncles are sittin' there, you know, bein' all uncle like
...lookin' all stoic, spiritual, and sacred.
You know how the uncles are, I mean, you go up to them they're sittin' like this.
You ask 'em, "Are you hungry?
"Are you tired?
"You happy?
"You got to go pee?"
You know, just like those uncles, you know,
just like the ones who just undid your arms right now
in the audience as I was talking about those uncles.
And so I walked in, there's all my uncle's right there.
I say, "Grandma, I'm here."
"Oh, that's good that you're here, son,
"you go get that water there, you go get me that bucket, you go get me some water now."
And I looked at my uncles, and my uncles are sittin' there going...
So I stood there.
"Grandma...you go get your own water grandma
"'cause grandma I just been on the mountain four days, four nights grandma, ceremony.
"Grandma, I'm a man now grandma.
[audience laughing]
"I'm 13.
[audience laughing]
"I'm a man."
And I look at my uncles and my uncles are sittin' there, you know, just going...
"You, a man?"
"Yup, I'm a man, grandma."
"You're a man, huh.
[audience laughing]
"Come on man."
[audience laughing]
And I was looking at my grandma, we call her Big Grandma because she's about this big.
But she's got this heart that's just like this big.
And I looked at her she was just looking cute. I said, "Come on, grandma."
"Oh, that's so... Come on... "
You start to joke around a lot.
"Come on give me a hug grandma, give me a hug.
"Grandma, why...why are you being like that grandma?"
And I looked at my uncles and my uncles lookin' all sacred
and stoic and-and special over there.
They're like going...
[audience laughing]
"Well grandma, come on.
"Show me some love grandma, come on, show me some love here grandma."
It was at that moment I never felt so alone in my life.
I mean my uncles are over there looking like they're-they're sacred shamans,
whatever the heck they were at the moment there,
and my grandma's over here lookin' like Muhammad Ali,
Sugar Ray Leonard, and Bruce Lee.
And I was like, "Alright fine.
"I don't need you. I don't need any of you.
[sniffling]
"Fine, if you're gonna be that way, fine."
[sniffling]
Then I thought to myself, "I'm man now...
[sniffling]
"...a man...
[breathing heavily]
"I'm a man.
[breathing heavily]
If you're gonna be that way...
Bring it on."
And it was WWF, WWC, WW wrestlinggrandma.com.
And I had my grandma, I had her in a headlock.
I'm going, "Grandma, have you had enough yet? Have you had enough yet?"
And she's down there, she's goin', "You haven't even seen nothing yet."
And it was at that moment I closed my eyes for just a moment and I felt myself...
whoosh, my feet flew out from under me...and everything went in slow motion.
And I felt like ten hands, no twenty, hundred, a thousand hands holding me in the air
as I suspended up in the air for just a moment and I felt like a leaf floatin' down.
And a thud...
[thudding on ground]
And when I woke up...
[audience laughing]
...and I opened my eyes my grandma, she's standing over me.
"You want some toast and hot cocoa, son?
[audience laughing]
"Oh, you just so precious.
[audience laughing]
"Oh, I love you so much. Come on, get up, go sit by the table.
"I love you. Come on, you go sit down.
"I told you get up, sit by the table."
[grandma hitting him on head]
[audience laughing]
As I was sitting there, my uncles came up, surrounded me.
"Oh, nay, huh, you been on the mountain four days and four nights,
"and then you come here and do this.
"You mess with grandma like that.
"Tell you what, huh ...congratulations son, now you're a man.
"You lived to survive a talk and now you made it through grandma,
"now you're a man, get up to that table, son, you eat your toast and hot cocoa.
"Oh that's good. Oh, I'm proud of you son.
"Now, get-get up there, I told you get up there."
And as I was eatin' my toast and hot cocoa, I heard my uncles talking, you know.
"Yeah, oh, yeah, you remember that old gal, she just gets tougher in her old age.
"You know, remember when we she, remember when we went through that ceremony,
"remember you went through that ceremony and you- she did that to you.
"Yeah, aw, don't tell, I know she did it to me too, she did it to all of us.
"Oh my gosh, she just gets tougher in her old age, whew."
You know, I love telling that story because my grandma has since passed on.
She has since passed on.
And that spirit still lives in me.
I carry her spirit with me, that blood still pumpin' in my heart.
You know my family told me, my mom and dad told me
that when I first met my grandma that she lifted me up on the day that I was born.
And she lifted me up and she said...
[speaking native language]
"Thank you, thank you, creator for this-this-this beautiful,
"beautiful gift you have given us.
"Thank you, thank you, ancestors, oh, relatives,
"thank you for this gift you've given our family, our clan, this community.
"Thank you for this gift that you have given this-this world, this universe.
"Thank you, thank you, ah."
And then she handed me to my mom.
And see my mom said, that's when she said, "This is the one.
"This is the one that's going to pass on the stories.
"This is the one that's gonna pass on the songs, and the traditions, and the dances.
"This is the one that's gonna be the teacher for the people.
"This is the one."
And it's amazing how our elders they know those things.
They just know those things.
My grandma, you know, I love to go to my grandma's house.
And I would sit there with my grandma
and we would sit there and we would watch The Price is Right, you know.
And-and she would always get it right.
She didn't speak English very well but she could talk up a storm in [indistinct]
You know, my grandma, many things changed in her life,
you know, man on the moon, uh, planes, trains, automobiles, uh,
radio, television, more ways to love and more ways to hate.
My grandma, she loved to sit and we would sit and watch the hummingbirds.
My gr-she would go, "Look son, those hummingbirds,
"oh, I sure do love hummingbirds, son.
"You see, those hummingbirds, they're really little fairies watching over you, son.
"I sure do love hummingbirds."
This one time, my grandma, she loves to go out to parties,
Indian parties, and we would be dancing all night long.
[chanting]
All night long.
And I would be exhausted and tired and I would go to bed and she'd still be up dancing.
And I would get up in the morning and my grandma she'd already be awake.
And she'd go, "Oh, I try to experience all I can in life, son.
"Oh, life is so precious."
This one time we were out there walking and we saw a rainbow.
And I said, "Grandma, look there's a rainbow."
And she said, "Oh, that's good son, you see that rainbow,
"every time you see a rainbow you think good thoughts and one day you'll get your pot of gold.
"Me I already gave all mine away."
"How do you cook adobo, ma-uh-grandma?"
And she goes, "Oh, you put a little bit of this in the- in the pan,
"you put a little bit of that in there, and then you put it on medium,
"and when you can smell it in every room in the house, it's done."
And she came up to me said, "Son, son, listen to me.
"You try to learn something every day.
"Try to learn something every day.
"Look at me, look how old I am, uhm...
"Oh, it doesn't matter, son, you learn something every day."
You know, there was one day I got my plane ticket to go see my grandma.
And then I got the call that she went to sleep.
And as I was standing there and she was sleeping,
she was holding the eagle feather that I beaded for her, and I gave it to her.
And I remember when I gave her that eagle feather,
she got up out of her chair, she was dancing, and dancing, and dancing.
And I was thinking to myself as I saw her lying there with her eagle feather I'm thinking,
"Grandma, come on grandma, get up grandma, dance, dance grandma."
You know, now when I go on stage to tell stories, to sing, or to dance,
often times I'll look out the window and I'll see a hummingbird watching me.
I sure do love hummingbirds.
Ah, thank you.
Thank you, so much.
[audience clapping]