Running Bear

On the bank of the river
Stood Running Bear
Young Indian brave
On the other side of the river
Stood his lovely Indian maid
Little White Dove was her name
Such a lovely sight to see
But their tribes fought with each other
So their love could never be

Running Bear loved Little White Dove
With a love big as the sky
Running Bear loved Little White Dove
With a love that couldn't die

Every time I run across this photo, I'm transported to North Rural Street in Indianapolis around 1960. That's when Johnny Preston had the hit song "Running Bear". When that song was playing, not only us kids acted like "Indians"...so did our neighbor Ginny and my mom. The photo shows Ginny sporting her son's Indian headdress and some warpaint--which was probably makeup. I think she's shooting a make-believe bow. My mom's on the left.

We played that song all afternoon, with kids and moms whooping and dancing like we were possessed by Geronimo. Based on the beer bottle in the photo, I think Ginny and Mom had a little "persuasion" for their warrior bravery. The last photo confirms my feeling that we had a record with this song on it. I don't know how the record kept from skipping with five kids and two adults stomping around the room.

Of course, this happened before Pong, Nintendo, Atari, and now Wii were invented. My favorite toy was my Etch-a-Sketch. That's about as advanced as civilization was in the late 50s/early 60s, but maybe we were better off. We used our imaginations and didn't rely on the imaginations of computer game programmers and analysts. We didn't spend hours staring at a screen, only exercising our thumbs.

Isn't it funny how something as simple as our little war dance made a memory that has lasted almost 50 years? You have no way of knowing what will make a memory for your children. Try to make them all good memories.