My Father Was Sometimes the Emily Post of the Spokane Indian Reservation

essay

My father, Sherman Alexie, Sr.

---

I get jealous when I hear other men tell stories about hunting, fishing, and camping with their fathers. I grew up in the middle of an endless reservation pine forest but my bookish father never taught me about the outdoors.

Of course, my life has become exponentially more bookish than my father’s ever was. But I still find myself wondering how it would’ve felt to watch him build a campfire. I imagine being six or seven years old and dousing that campfire the next morning as he looked on.

Make sure everything is safe, he might’ve said. Leave everything the way you found it.

But that camping trip never happened. My father wasn’t an REI Indian—a REIndian—and neither am I.

But there were other things that my father taught me—things of the interior.

When I was twelve, my father, brother, and I rented tuxedos and formal shoes for our cousin Jackie’s wedding. And it was there, in the church dressing room, where my father educated us.

As we donned our tuxes, he said, “You always wear black socks when you dress fancy.”

Then he handed my brother and I new pairs of long black dress socks. I’d never previously worn socks like that. They felt strange. My calves itched.

A few minutes later, as we took group photos with the wedding party and families, I noticed that the groom and his friends, all white men, were wearing white athletic socks with their black tuxes and black shoes. They looked awkward. It was one of the few times in my childhood where I felt like I was maybe the equal, or even a little better, than white guys.

It’s so easy for Indians to feel inferior.

But I was proud of how I looked that day. My father had taught my brother and I that black socks can be a vital part of a ceremony. Black socks can play the same function as a powwow honor song.

I didn’t climb a sacred mountain to learn that lesson. And my father didn’t, either. He wasn’t a holy man. He was just an Indian guy who learned about formal dress when he was a boy in elementary school. He’d learned how to knot a necktie not long after he’d learned how to tie his shoes.

Black socks, black socks, black socks. Such a small and simple detail. But, every day and all around us, the small details accumulate and become wisdom.