It was hard to reconcile the two. As I sat in Supai, Arizona, on Friday night, my niece, Ali, was in Orlando, FL competing in the Miss America Teen Pageant. A month ago she became Miss SC Teen, and the Deans of Charlotte were virtually the only members of the family who did not make the trek to the Miss America Teen pageant. But it was not as if we missed the festivities all together.
You see, last weekend was the annual Peach Festival in Supai. A pretty big Supain deal, and among the festivities were... you guessed it, the Miss Havasupai Pageant! The pageantry started at 7:00 p.m. (Well, it was actually 7:35 p.m. before the emcee welcomed us to the pageant, but who's counting.) The downtown "civic center" was the home of the pageant -- Supai's newly built outdoor basketball court, complete with bleacher seating, and extra chairs brought in by helicopter for the standing room only crowd... At about 8:05 p.m. -- not having seen a single Miss Supai contestant yet -- we left, but Don wanted to go back for the 9:00 p.m. concert, featuring "Midnight Red." So...
After putting the boys to bed, Don and I headed back down the street, hoping for some good evening music. It was 9:40 p.m. when we got there -- and the 3rd Miss Havasupai contestant was just on stage: "I haven't practiced anything for my talent... my mother kept bugging me, 'What are you going to do...' So... I think I'll... sing a traditional Indian song..." And this is where the obvious incongruity began to hit me. You see, Ali has practiced her original arrangement of "In the Mood" about 3.25 million times in the past three months (and she plays it spectacularly!), so as this little miss struggled through her traditional song, I thought of Ali, playing Glenn Miller's famous dance... and I looked around.
There were at least 25 dogs in attendance at the pageant. And occasionally, a bark from beyond the gym fencing would send 15 of them howling to that side of the stage growling and barking wildly. (If you're not a fan of leash-less pit bulls, I recommend another vacation destination!)
Several saddle-less horses ran through town, one "neighed" wildly -- sparking another bout of wild dog madness.
The 40+ children in attendance mostly gathered at the back of the audience, and beyond the fence, and spent the night loudly hooping it up, playing with the dogs, yelling at one another, tossing their glow-n-the-dark necklaces at each other. (Completely oblivious to Little Miss and her traditional song.)
Several of the contestants offered a traditional Indian "circle dance" as their talent, and as Don and I had walked through a gauntlet of teenaged Indian boys, who looked at us with great inquisitiveness, I was prepared to be unnerved -- but the piercing Indian war scream that was offered at an ear-splitting volume, over and over, just behind me was about more than my ears (and heart) could stand. I'm not prejudiced against Indians at all (the Havasupai prefer "Indian" to "Native American"), but I couldn't get out of my mind the image of the only two white men in the audience, scalped, hog-tied, and twisting over a spit, as the focal point of Miss Havasupai's celebratory circle dance -- just as her way of saying thanks to the judges!
Don and I kept looking at each other as the night wore on (the band was supposed to begin at 9:00 p.m.) -- and about 10:25 p.m. the emcee declared that the judges had made their decision. So, after a few more audience-participation traditional dances, "Little Miss" and "Toddler Miss" and the "Little Brave" were announced... and as the band noisily positioned their instruments and their stacks and stacks of speakers and amplifiers on the center of the stage, Tokea Euquala was announced as the 2009-2010 Miss Havasupai. There were a few claps, but they could barely be heard over the Bob Marley reggae that was now blaring from the loudspeakers. The emcee invited all the "royalties" to come forward for a picture (the runners-up would have to be announced the following night, since they were "almost out of time"!), and as they tried to find room on the stage, among the band members and their equipment, "Brown Eyed Girl" and then some R&B piece akin to "Gitt'n Jiggy With It" blared.
And I thought of Ali. And I thought of all those Miss Teens in their thousand-dollar dresses onstage in Florida... And I thought of Tokea. And as someone killed the stage lighting, to prepare for the band's light show, the outline of the Supai's red cliffs, and a billion trillion sparkling lights became visible. Through the middle of that sky, the Milky Way ran clear as a river of cloud, peering down on them both.
And I thought about Ali. And I thought about Tokea. And I realized that they live under the same starry sky, have the same basic hopes and desires, and are loved by the same infinite God.
Congratulations Ali (who made it into the Top Ten at the Miss America Teen finals), and Tokea.
I'm proud of both of you, and wish you, and your worlds, the very best.
You see, last weekend was the annual Peach Festival in Supai. A pretty big Supain deal, and among the festivities were... you guessed it, the Miss Havasupai Pageant! The pageantry started at 7:00 p.m. (Well, it was actually 7:35 p.m. before the emcee welcomed us to the pageant, but who's counting.) The downtown "civic center" was the home of the pageant -- Supai's newly built outdoor basketball court, complete with bleacher seating, and extra chairs brought in by helicopter for the standing room only crowd... At about 8:05 p.m. -- not having seen a single Miss Supai contestant yet -- we left, but Don wanted to go back for the 9:00 p.m. concert, featuring "Midnight Red." So...
After putting the boys to bed, Don and I headed back down the street, hoping for some good evening music. It was 9:40 p.m. when we got there -- and the 3rd Miss Havasupai contestant was just on stage: "I haven't practiced anything for my talent... my mother kept bugging me, 'What are you going to do...' So... I think I'll... sing a traditional Indian song..." And this is where the obvious incongruity began to hit me. You see, Ali has practiced her original arrangement of "In the Mood" about 3.25 million times in the past three months (and she plays it spectacularly!), so as this little miss struggled through her traditional song, I thought of Ali, playing Glenn Miller's famous dance... and I looked around.
There were at least 25 dogs in attendance at the pageant. And occasionally, a bark from beyond the gym fencing would send 15 of them howling to that side of the stage growling and barking wildly. (If you're not a fan of leash-less pit bulls, I recommend another vacation destination!)
Several saddle-less horses ran through town, one "neighed" wildly -- sparking another bout of wild dog madness.
The 40+ children in attendance mostly gathered at the back of the audience, and beyond the fence, and spent the night loudly hooping it up, playing with the dogs, yelling at one another, tossing their glow-n-the-dark necklaces at each other. (Completely oblivious to Little Miss and her traditional song.)
Several of the contestants offered a traditional Indian "circle dance" as their talent, and as Don and I had walked through a gauntlet of teenaged Indian boys, who looked at us with great inquisitiveness, I was prepared to be unnerved -- but the piercing Indian war scream that was offered at an ear-splitting volume, over and over, just behind me was about more than my ears (and heart) could stand. I'm not prejudiced against Indians at all (the Havasupai prefer "Indian" to "Native American"), but I couldn't get out of my mind the image of the only two white men in the audience, scalped, hog-tied, and twisting over a spit, as the focal point of Miss Havasupai's celebratory circle dance -- just as her way of saying thanks to the judges!
Don and I kept looking at each other as the night wore on (the band was supposed to begin at 9:00 p.m.) -- and about 10:25 p.m. the emcee declared that the judges had made their decision. So, after a few more audience-participation traditional dances, "Little Miss" and "Toddler Miss" and the "Little Brave" were announced... and as the band noisily positioned their instruments and their stacks and stacks of speakers and amplifiers on the center of the stage, Tokea Euquala was announced as the 2009-2010 Miss Havasupai. There were a few claps, but they could barely be heard over the Bob Marley reggae that was now blaring from the loudspeakers. The emcee invited all the "royalties" to come forward for a picture (the runners-up would have to be announced the following night, since they were "almost out of time"!), and as they tried to find room on the stage, among the band members and their equipment, "Brown Eyed Girl" and then some R&B piece akin to "Gitt'n Jiggy With It" blared.
And I thought of Ali. And I thought of all those Miss Teens in their thousand-dollar dresses onstage in Florida... And I thought of Tokea. And as someone killed the stage lighting, to prepare for the band's light show, the outline of the Supai's red cliffs, and a billion trillion sparkling lights became visible. Through the middle of that sky, the Milky Way ran clear as a river of cloud, peering down on them both.
And I thought about Ali. And I thought about Tokea. And I realized that they live under the same starry sky, have the same basic hopes and desires, and are loved by the same infinite God.
Congratulations Ali (who made it into the Top Ten at the Miss America Teen finals), and Tokea.
I'm proud of both of you, and wish you, and your worlds, the very best.
(The first picture is Amy and the boys with her sister and brother-in-law, in front of Supai's only hotel. The second is a traffic jam in Supai -- it was delivery time at the only grocery store. Pictures were not allowed at the pageant, but the grocery store is next door to the "civic center.")
No comments:
Post a Comment