Bruce is beyond reproach

JT Twissel

Good Friday always reminds of the Seagrass family under whose wings I spent my high school years. They celebrated every holiday to the max, unlike my family. Easter we might get dressed up and go to church. Or we might not. One year we went to the Lutheran Church because my paternal grandparents were visiting and grandmother insisted that we not only go to church but that we look respectable.

My brother still hates wearing a suit! But my little sister has become quite the fashion plate. Don’t show her this picture. She’ll really pitch a fit!

The cheerful couple in the above picture, Myrtle and RB Senior, met in Fargo North Dakota and spent twenty-five years working on Indian reservations. I never really understood why until I recently discovered that RB Senior was a descendant of White Elk, aka Colonel Alexander McKee and Nonhelema, aka Grenadier Squaw. So living amongst the Native Americans was in his DNA. Unfortunately it was a life that hardened my grandmother to the point that she made RB Senior’s later years miserable. I only remember the quiet, taciturn man who died when I was twenty. But recently, via the miracle of the internet, I discovered he wasn’t always that way.

Oh Bruce, we never knew! Why didn’t you marry Katherine Ladd, whose “winning countenance never fails to influence the judges in forensic contests”? Or her twin sister, Rizpah, the laughing twin, who “plays gentleman friend to all the spinsters on the faculty.” A good laugh is indeed sunshine in a house. Or both sisters! You could have done it Bruce! Although, what was this Ford’s establishment on North Broadway you famously frequented?

Once again I have the ancestors in an uproar! But it is the holiday for forgiveness, right?

Happy Easter all.

45 thoughts on “Bruce is beyond reproach”

    1. I didn’t know him well – he was quiet and reserved. But he did spend his adult life living amongst the poorest and most neglected people in this country which he did not need to do. And he did put up with my grandmother who could be very judgemental! I love those old HS entries – they’re so quaint.

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    1. I always wondered why both my father and grandfather were so drawn to Native American culture. They were both very private people. And – unfortunately having so called Indian blood hasn’t always been a source of pride.

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  3. Is this possible to be without reproach? I mean even Peter got on Jesus’ case and told him he couldn’t be killed since he was the son of God, which set Jesus off and he called Peter “Satan.” Reproachment right and left, but they got over it in time for Pontius Pilate to really reproach everyone and I guess it is lucky he didn’t crucifie the whole lot of them. As a Bible story that might have been more interesting. For example, I can see necklaces with 13 crosses, but one would be bigger and probably more beautiful than the other 12. If interested in this you can check out Matthew 16 which has caused many a Christian to do double twists to explain all of this pretty serious reproachment activity. As a side note, I’ve always had a soft spot for poor Judas. I don’t know if Camus or Sartre ever wrote about him, but they should have. I never understood why the other disciples did try to save Judas? Why they didn’t forgive him? Maybe they did, but I’ve forgotten all of that and now Semana Santa has become a street festival and something to be endured. Judas, the ultimate suicide. Duke

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    1. Well, Duke – both my father and grandfather strongly identified with the Native American culture but I never knew why. They were both extremely guarded men and having Indian blood was not always something one spoke of. . I think “beyond reproach” simply means he was well groomed – remember this was North Dakota just after the turn of the century. The New Testament is a collection of morality tales and in morality tales there must always be a villain. I’ll check out Matthew 16.

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    2. I woke about three this morning thinking about your comment – when I read Matthew 16 I got the feeling that Jesus was saying that if you believe an all powerful God ordains everything then you are listening to Satan. He’s saying that he knows mankind is weak but that weakness is something we choose instead of fighting. He was a bit of a fatalist. And I had this whole post blog in my head and then I woke up and heard the Pope had died. (after meeting with that Vance creep). Now I struggle to remember the writing that was in my head.

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      1. Everyone with a reasonable mind is struggling. The bible for me represents one of the first displays of people acting against their own self interests. The explanations for the acts are often contradictory or mysterious and the early authors realized they were on to the whole mystery religion idea and they saw how people would discuss the meanings and motivations and then … wait for it … someone was needed to explain god’s plan and the money and worship started to flow and the whole thing turned into a violent church money grab that continues and there is not a fucking thing we can do about it except maybe bury the dead, mostly children, who don’t understand why daddy and mommy are so crazy. I read the bible to remind me how horrible the human creative spirit can be. How damaging are the words from god and his son and all the angels who support the whole insane structure. Ni modo and we are doomed. Love. Duke

      2. The Bible stories contradict each other because they’re basically morality tales and the idea of what is moral has changed over the centuries. It’s psychological suicide for those who believe it’s all the word of God and attempt to follow blindly. That seems to be what’s happening. I own and refer to the Hippie Bible which shows Christ as a bearded, sandal-wearing hippie holding nonstop Love-Ins in fig tree groves with his buddies. (I almost wrote a breaded hippie!)

      3. David Crosby Lyrics

        Escucha “Time I Have”

        People do so many things that make me mad
        But angry isn’t how I want to spend the time I have
        Cognitive dissonance they call it
        And I wonder just how small it
        Could be made to be in me

        So much disturbing short sighted shit
        They have to do better than live with it
        I’m looking to find some peace to embrace
        To bring that smile back to my face
        And sometimes I’m winning

        Life in the city is so densely packed
        Fear of each other is an accepted fact
        Fear soaks into concrete just like grease
        Fear is the antithesis of peace

        ‘I have a dream’ – a great man said
        Another man came and shot him in the head
        Yet the dream floats out there visible
        Still alive, still alive

        Those who rule the middle kingdom hate the old man in the robes
        They put up road blocks everywhere he goes
        He says: ‘Have no anger in your heart for them’
        ‘They know not what they do’
        Does that sound familiar to you, to you?

        Life in the city is so densely packed
        Fear of each other is an accepted fact
        Fear soaks into concrete just like grease
        Fear is the antithesis of peace

        Life in the city is so densely packed
        Fear of each other is an accepted fact
        Fear soaks into concrete just like grease
        Fear is just the opposite of peace

      4. I know we’ve only known each other for about a decade now which is a pittance in your galleria of lost souls museum. But fight is in our bones.

      6. Yes, a decade, sounds more impressive than ten years. Forgetting stuff is a bane. Did you know bane used to mean poison/murderer? I didn’t till I got to thinking about the ways (some frighteningly wrong) I use bane in the English language. I’d like to take this opportunity (?) to nominate bane as the most important word of 2025. I don’t think any other common English word is even close. If I’d stumbled upon the possibilities of bane before you posted on Easter, I would have torn up and down your comments section with how bane is related to Easter eggs and the Unabomber and I would have thrown in that guy who ghost-gunned the insurance executive. You would have thought a horse with a burning tail had jumped through the open window of your blog. This would have led to a low-level mass consumer chicken fight on the beaches of California. Some of your followers yelling prayers into the Easter surf while others screaming for low interest home loans. What disaster will happen next? No one knows, and there-in lies the real terror of bane, the obvious word of the year. Love. Duke

      7. Who would eat an Easter Egg blessed by Trump and spread the bane throughout the land, detected in sewage plants like typhoid and the measles now on the rise? I’m opposed to any violence – even against those Tesla tanks but this glorification of greed and capitalism now erupting and fed by MAGA minions will, I believe, explode. Especially as the cheerleaders wear giant gold crosses around their Botoxed necks, ban dyes except those that bleach hair or hide the grey, create databases of the unfortunate but rig the markets for the rich while cutting programs for the poor. Will the brandied fulcrum of banality, brutally applied in an orgy of complete incompetence, spouting continual contradictions as if to hide faults and blame … will it end up in a bane for all? Yes you’ve probably stumbled upon the word of the year … Love Jan

    1. My grandmother was the daughter of immigrants and couldn’t understand why the Native Americans didn’t want to assimilate into the American culture the way her parents had. Her father died when she was a baby and her mother had to survive however she could and raise two infants – in North Dakota which is a very cold bleak state. She saw the People getting all this help from the gov’t and yet not thriving.

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  8. I just wrote you possibly the greatest comment I’ve ever left on anyone’s blog, including yours. And it is lost in me being forced to subscribe to your blog for the millionth time. It had to do with Easter and the Unabomber. Duke

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      2. Better choice. I looked at your blog and my writing would not fit your general approach. On the other hand, Jan is perfect. Thanks. Duke

      3. Duke is much too modest. He’s a brilliant writer … not always for everyone but often able to ring a golden chord. Given his knowledge of the world and all its ugly places, one can hardly blame him in his hours of bleakness.

    2. Thank you for the offer! That’s very kind of you. I’m currently working on some minor rewrites to my first book “Flipka” which I’m hoping to republish before my birthday. May 26th. So I’m barely able to manage one or two shorts posts a week! Perhaps later this summer I’ll ease up on myself. But so lovely of you to ask!

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    3. I forgot to add, even Hitler loved dogs. In fact his laws to protect all animals were harsh. I love dogs more than most humans. Twain was right, “the more I learn about humans, the more I like my dog.” Incidentally, the first person I ever heard make that Hitler comment, came from a prostitute I was sitting with back when I was 17 years old and her words led me to the life and death of Blondie. So you are right about Jan. This is the sort of stuff I write. It is not for you. Thanks. Duke

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      1. That is absolutely the probing thinking I welcome. Hitler I hear was also vegetarian? And didn’t he murder his dog when he took his own life? We are all of us complex

      2. Blondi was a German shepherd – a breed which is closer to a wolf. In fact my friend Ford owned several wolf/shepherd mixes and had to keep them in a pen. You can’t really tame a wolf breed.

  10. I am so far behind on emails etc. as you can see. I love this post, though would guess our family would miss the the opportunity to be beautiful family of the year. I would like to read more about grandfather- very interesting.

    I do not know if I ever shared cousin Georges interaction with grandmother McKee, when she and RB senior returned from Southern California to the medical mecca of Montana. George met them at the airport and grandmother came off the plane first and spoke with disdain that grandfather (who had a brain tumor) had wet his pants on the airplane and she was aghast and asked George to get him off the airplane.

    I will read this again and look up- White Elk, Colonel Alexander McKee.

    Thanks for sharing.

    Jane

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  12. Our shoes match, and I would bet I received the adorned dress after my big sister outgrew it. Unfortunately, I never caught up on the growth and remained shorter throughout life. little sister

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    1. I had to wear corrective shoes because I dragged a leg (as the result of water on the knee) but as I remember, you had to have everything I did and so wore them just in solidarity.

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    1. I was told very little about my father’s family growing up and have discovered most of what I knew through the internet and some ancient family documents and photos. My Easters will always belong to the Seagrass family and that one special day!

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      1. Nice!
        Interesting. I know very little about my father’s family. He left when I was 4.
        Yay for you and the Seagrass family!

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