Fostering Understanding in Our Community: Chumash and Tataviam Stories with Chumash Elder Alan Salazar

Cornel Morton:

Good evening. My name is Cornel Morton, and I serve as President of the Diversity Coalition, San Luis Obispo County. It's a pleasure to be with you and to welcome you to this dialogue. And as we begin, I just want to share a couple of things with you, related to the Diversity Coalition. So we are a non-profit organization. We were formed in March of 2011. It was unfortunately, as a result of a hate crime in Arroyo Grande, in March of 2011, when a cross burning occurred in the yard of a black family in Arroyo Grande.

            A number of individuals from our community came together to support the family, decided after some time, to continue to work on social justice issues in San Luis Obispo County. And the short of that story is that, that created enough energy and dedication, if you will, to change in our county, which then formed the Diversity Coalition. As a non-profit, we're interested in collaboration with other organizations in the name of equity, social justice, and promoting diversity.

            We've worked closely with local schools, especially in the interest of reaching young people. And we've also done quite a bit of work with local schools in the name of teacher development and professional development, especially. So the Diversity Coalition was created to provide programs and resources, and in that way, tonight is one more example of that effort. We have a series that we've titled, Fostering Understanding in Our Community. Fostering understanding includes, making certain, we all have an opportunity to learn more about the individuals, the organizations that are a part of our community.

            We are interested in your continued support, and we would invite you to continue to watch out for other programs that are upcoming. Tonight, we are very pleased to have Alan Salazar with us. I'm going to introduce Alan, and I'm going to ask him to share with us, and then you'll have an opportunity to raise questions and to comment on his presentation. Alan Salazar, a Native American, consultant, monitor, traditional storyteller, spiritual advisor, and a traditional paddler of Chumash canoes.

            He's also been a preschool teacher and a juvenile institution officer. Alan is also a journeymen plasterer, and since being a young man, he's been around construction, for example, most of his life. Alan's family has been traced back to Chumash and Tataviam village of Ta'apu, now known as Simi Valley and the Tataviam village of Pi'ing near what is today, modern day, Magic Mountain.

            His ancestors were brought into the San Fernando Mission, starting in 1803. And he has been actively involved in protecting ancestral sites and tribal territories, which include the Malibu area. He's also involved in several Native American groups and the organizations and work that is underway. And for example, he is a founding member of the Kern County Native American Heritage Preservation Council and the Chumash Maritime Association.

            He's a member of the California Indian Advisory Council for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Alan has been a community advisor with the Ventura County Indian Education Consortium for over 18 years, and he's currently a member of the Environmental Review Board for the City of Malibu. As a member of the Chumash Maritime Association, Alan helped build the first working traditional Chumash plank canoe, in modern times and paddled in this plank canoe for over 17 years.

            He's been involved with protecting Native American cultural sites for more than 20 years and has been a consultant and monitor on sites in Ventura, in Los Angeles, in Santa Barbara, in San Luis Obispo and Kern counties. Alan explains that today, it's not easy being a proud California Native American, misinformation about the tribe is still out there. There are many obstacles to overcome, but as Alan says, "He was raised to be proud of his Native American heritage." He takes great pride in being a positive role model and a respected elder.

            He's also someone who has a very positive relationship with many of the native leaders and native people in California and he takes his responsibilities as an elder, very seriously. I'm sure you might want to add other aspects of your background and your experiences, Alan. This is just a brief introduction, but please feel free to share more about yourself, about your work and about the important things you're doing throughout California. And so on behalf of the Diversity Coalition, I want to thank you for being with us and I'd like to have you go forward now, with your comments. Thanks again for being with us.

Alan Salzar:

Thank you, Cornel. [foreign language 00:06:21], Alan Salazar. [foreign language 00:06:27]. Hello, I am Alan Salazar. I am from the Village of SFCA, what we now call San Fernando, California. I want to start my talk tonight, talking about my Chumash and Tataviam family. I get my Chumash and Tataviam ancestry from my father's side of the family and appropriately today, it being Veteran's Day, the first family picture I will start with is, my father when he was a young man.

            So my father was in the Marines and fought in World War II in Saipan and Okinawa. It's my father's side that I get my Chumash and Tataviam ancestry. This is my father later on in life. He lived till age 78 and worked in construction up until the last few months of his life. He survived the great depression and World War II. This beautiful woman right here, is my grandmother, Berra Ortega Salazar. This picture was taken in 1915, at her christening. My grandmother was a good Catholic and went to mass twice a week and lived well into her '80s.

            This gentleman right here, is my great-grandfather, Antonio Maria Ortega. My great-grandfather, Antonio Maria Ortega, was born in 1855. He was born at a time when it was extremely dangerous to be a California Native. A time when someone could have killed my great-grandfather and they wouldn't have been sent to jail or to prison, they would have been actually paid. The bounty system started in 1849 and lasted until 1873. So when my great-grandfather was born, well until he was a young man in his late teens, someone could have killed him and they would have been paid a bounty of $5, $10, $20.

            And the difference was, if you just killed a California Native in the 1850s, '60s, and early '70s, if you just in their scalp, you were given a smaller bounty, a reward of $5 to $10. If you kill the California Native and chopped off their head, you were paid a larger bounty, $20, $25, $30. Several hundred thousand dollars were paid out in bounties. So California Native people, the native people that trace their ancestry to the California tribes, like my family, survived one of the worst genocides in US history.

            Many people don't know that, there were more Indian massacres in California than any other state. There were over 300 recorded massacres in California. The first personal story I want to share with you, then I'll talk a little bit about the Chumash, a little bit about the Tataviam, then I'll finish up talking about something I'm extremely proud of, and that's my involvement with our Chumash, the mold, our Chumash ocean canoes.

            There's a book that was written about four or five years ago, it's called American Genocide. American Genocide is about that period I just mentioned, from 1849 to 1873 and the bounty system and the genocide of California tribal people. It's written by Dr. Benjamin Madley, it's a very well done book. He researched that history, in that time period, very thoroughly and can back up all his facts and all the numbers, which are extremely gruesome. It's a book that, there was times I could read 40 or 50 pages and couldn't wait to get to the next chapter, and then there were nights that I would read 5 or 6 pages and have to put the book down. So it's a difficult read, but it's a true story.

            And the reason I bring it up is that, for about 20 years or so, well, actually over 20 years, I've been helping organize a summer solstice ceremony at Mount Pinos. Mount Pinos is by Frazier Park. It's the highest mountain in Chumash territory, 8,800 feet. It's where the Chumash people, for tens of thousands of years have gone to do ceremony. And I started helping organize a summer solstice ceremony up there and it started in 1996.

            And in the early 2000s, I was up where we hold our little ceremony, which is a walk-in campground and there's a large parking lot, it's almost at the top of the mountain. And I was there a couple of days earlier, getting the campground cleaned up and picking up trash and raking and setting up our circle for our ceremony. And as I was walking back to my car, a gentleman walks up to me and he asked me a question that I've been asked thousands of times, "Are you an Indian?" I go, "Yes." He goes, "What tribe?" I said, "I'm Chumash and Tataviam."

            And he looks me dead in the eye and says, "I heard that the Chumash were cannibals." I go, "No, we weren't cannibals." He goes, "No, you were." I says, "No, I know several anthropologists and I've worked with a lot of archeologists and historians, and there's no mention of the Chumash being cannibals." He goes, "No, the Chumash were cannibals." And I realized, no matter what I said, I couldn't change his mind. So at that point I reached onto the back of his arm and squeezed it and went, "Mm, tasty." And that angered him and he stormed off, which was the goal I wanted to accomplish.

            And then I read American Genocide and in American Genocide, Dr. Madly talks about the early settlers that came out for the gold rush, over a hundred thousand people in one year. And they were told when they were leaving the East Coast to come out into the West Coast, that all the Indians in California were savages, which is what they said about all Indians throughout all of North America. But they said we were very warlike and we were cannibals. So of those three things, we were none of those.

            For the most part, California Indians were not warlike. We would have disputes every now and then, but for the most part, we traded extensively. The Chumash are famous and well-known for having trade routes and certain villages that were major trade centers, that other tribes and other villages from 50, 60, even 100 miles away, would come to Chumash villages to trade because we had so many resources here and we had our shell bead money that was considered to be valuable.

            And I thought about that gentlemen, who I could not convince him that we were not cannibals. And when I read that in Dr. Madley's book, I tell that story to young people all the time. That when a label is put on a group of people, that this whole group of people are lazy, this whole group of people are stupid, and that this whole group of people are inferior, sub-human, savages, those labels can last, not just for years, but that label was put on in 1850 and in the year 2002 or 2003, whatever year that was, that label was still there.

            So I tell young people, you have to be very careful when you use a label on somebody. And if labels do stick for that long, let's start using labels of how loving people are, how kind and generous people are. And the Hispanic population that comes to California, are extremely hardworking people. And I know that because I grew up in Bakersfield, in Hanford, California, farming country, and I saw the start of the Farm Laborers Union. My father met Cesar Chavez and said, "He was a wonderful, soft-spoken man, very humble." My father was very impressed when he met Cesar Chavez.

            So labels are something that I've fought against all my life, when people try to put labels on my tribes or put labels on me. I'm a human being. I have the same feelings and emotions and the same abilities as anyone else. I'll talk briefly about the Chumash. I'm going to assume, that since all of you are from the central coast area, that you know a lot about the Chumash. I'll point out five things, and if anyone has questions, I'll expand on those during the Q&A.

            When I go to schools, I tell the kids that the Chumash are famous for five things. We're famous for our shell bead money, and the word Chumash actually means, shell bead money or shell bead money makers. So we would get very small olivella shells, there may be at best, a half-inch long, and they're very delicate and difficult to work with. And we would make perfect circular beads and drill a hole in the center.

            And I found, I was on Santa Rosa Island last week and while we were excavating, I found two, not much thicker than a sewing needle, and about an inch long and they were made from chert, hard stone, sharp stone. And those were the drills used, to drill the small hole in the center of that bead, that is at best, a quarter-inch, three-eighths of an inch in diameter, very small, less than a half-inch in diameter. So we're famous for our shell bead money, that was traded throughout all of California, Nevada, Arizona, and well into New Mexico.

            We're famous for our canoes, our tomols, our plank canoes. So they're not made from one tree like a dugout canoe. We would literally, make our own boards, our own 2 x 6s, 2 x 8s, and we would drill holes in them and glue and tie them together, putting board on top of board, and they look like this, that one down there on the bottom. They're very unique, only two tribes in all the West Coast made plank canoes and they're both here in Central and Southern California, the Tataviam, Gabrielino and the Chumash. So they're very unique canoes.

            We're famous for our basket weavers. Our basket weavers were some of the greatest basket weavers you'll find anywhere in the world. And you can go to museums all around the world, England, Germany, Australia, Russia, France, Spain, they have Chumash baskets at their museums. Our basket weavers made some of the most beautiful and functional baskets anywhere. Our rock art is considered some of the most beautiful, unique rock art, you will find anywhere in the world. And if any of you that have had the opportunity to go to Painted Cave or to Painted Rock out in the Carrizo, that's some of the most spectacular rock art, that archeologists, not the Chumash people, that's what archeologists and anthropologists say about our rock art.

            And the Chumash are one of the oldest tribes in North America. When I was on Santa Rosa Island, not this time, but the last time, last year, I went by where the Arlington Springs man was discovered. And the Arlington Springs man is just the leg bone of a Chumash bone, it's just the leg bone of a Chumash man that was found in 1959. But when they did carbon dating testing on that leg bone of that Chumash man, it was determined that that leg bone is between 13,000 to 13,500 years old, making it the oldest human remains found in North America today. So the Chumash are one of the oldest tribes in North America.

            The Tataviam, we're a very small tribe. So I'm on the Elders Council of the Fernandino, like San Fernando, Fernandino Tataviam Band of Mission Indians. Our territory covers most of the San Fernando Valley, the Santa Clarita Valley, and my family actually, traces back to a village called Achoicominga and Magic Mountain is literally, built over it, and going out towards Gorman and out towards Palmdale and Lancaster.

            So we were a very small tribe. They estimate it, to when the mission period started, there might've been 1,000 to 1,500 and by the end of the bounty system in 1873, there was less than 100 of us, so we were pretty close to being extinct. And my Chumash family, we traced back to the village of Ta'apu as Cornel said, which is in modern day, Simi Valley.

            And let me say something, I was going to apologize, but I think this is a good point. The information that I sent Cornel was about five years old. So since then, I've been able to do a little bit more research, getting into San Fernando Mission records, talking to some anthropologists, John Johnson and various anthropologists like that. And we've traced back, that my family was brought to the San Fernando Mission starting in 1799 and we traced back, that instead of the Village of Pi'ing, that my great, great, great grandfather came from the village of Achoicominga.

            So like many California Native families, we're always researching our ancestry and learning more about villages and tribal connections, it's an ongoing process for many of us, you have to be a detective. So like I said, the Tataviam, the one thing we're famous for right now, is many tribes in California, do not have federal recognition, we're federally non-recognized tribes. The Ventureno Chumash from the Ventura area, the Barbareno Chumash from Santa Barbara, Northern Chumash from San Luis Obispo County.

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:23:04]

Alan Salzar:

Northern Chumash from San Luis Obispo County, the Island Chumash, the Mountain Chumash, the Chumash that lived in the mountains. We are all federally not recognized. The Fernandeno Tataviam are a fairly non-recognized tribe. But we are currently under review by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And we're through phase one. We have to try and explain one of the qualifications, which is, are we still what is called an historic tribe. A tribe like the Navajo, the Hopi, the Lakota, the Sauk. And it's a difficult process to explain. So to kind of give you idea of when you're not fairly recognized, mostly it's because we've lost our land. So our land was taken away from us. We believe our land was stolen from us. We never signed a treaty and agreed to give our land to Spain, Mexico or the United States of America.

            So if you're an Indian tribe and you don't have land, BIA (Bureau of Indian affairs) and US government does not recognize you. But there's this big, long process. And we've been working on it for close to 30 years. We've been under review for 3 years and we're just almost through the phase one, phase two, we'll take 4-5 more years and that's... We're on what is called the fast track. You could believe that? That's the fast track. There's another process that gives a little bit more leeway but it takes much longer. So we went with the fast track and we're willing to take the risk of some of the shortcomings of the fast track. So I'll be 70 years old in a couple of months. I'm hoping that I live long enough to find out if my tribe gets their federal recognition so that my kids and grandson will have some benefits that I would never have. And I'll answer questions about the Tataviam later.

            So that's my family history, my tribal history. I'm involved with a lot of different things. I've been involved with Indian causes and issues, which as you can tell by what I've said so far can be extremely complex, very frustrating at times. I was interviewed by a cultural anthropologist from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and she asked me some of the same questions that she did, some of the other tribal members or tribal president senators and some of the other elders on the elders' council. That she said, "It doesn't seem like the Fernandeno Tatavium did tribal activities from 1900-1950". And I explained to her as best as I could without getting angry and frustrated that one, I was born in 1951, so I wasn't alive during that time, but I heard many a family stories from my pap and my grandmothers and my aunts and uncles.

            And she goes, "Well, it doesn't appear that the tribe, the families, and there's only three families in the whole Tatavium on trial." Like I said, we're a very small tribe. And she goes, "But it doesn't seem like those three families that the tribal families that were alive from 1900-1950 did tribal things. They didn't seem to get together, have gatherings. If an elder died, it didn't seem like, I don't see anything of the families coming together to honor that elder". And I try to as graciously as possible explain that the stories I've heard from my grandmother, my aunts and uncles and my pap was that it was extremely difficult to survive the depression. That my family was a typical poor family in America trying to survive the depression, hand me down clothes, shoes with holes in them. I remember my pap telling us stories of how when he was a very young boy, 6, 7 years old, 8 years old, shining shoes for a nickel, for a penny in downtown San Fernando.

            That he had his shoe shine box, and he would set up in front of the barber shop and he was shining shoes to help bring in money for the family when he was just a little boy. And when you're the smallest minority, the smallest ethnic group in an area, you're the last person on the total poll, usually to get the jobs, to get the handouts and things like that. So I tried to explain to her that I know that the depression was extremely difficult for my family and the other families. They stayed in touch, but it was a matter of putting your head down and working. And most people of color know exactly what I'm talking about when I say there's times you just have to put your head down and do the work.

            I've done it. Many people have done it to survive. And then my family, my father, and many of my older cousins and older uncles served in World War II and had to survive the war and then come back and start their life all over again. Try and get jobs. My family, as Konara said, my grandfather worked in construction. My father worked in construction, me and all my brothers worked in construction. I was the only one that would also do other things. Teach preschool and worked juvenile probation. I've always enjoyed working with kids. But it's a long process to get federal-recognized and our odds are stacked against us. It's probably about 90% of the petitions from tribes that are trying to get federally recognized or rejected. At best 10-12% are approved. But knock on wood, if anyone could send us some positive energy and prayers for the Tatavium before I died, we'll, I'll just be happy to know one way or the other. So now I want to talk a little bit about our canoes our tomols.

            This is the one I've paddled in for the last 10, 12 years. This is moved to mine. It's owned by San Ynez. This is a 32 foot plank canoe. You can see the black lines, that's one board glued and tied to the board below it and the board below that and the board below that. It's about six boards deep. They're very heavy.

            The first one we built that I helped build, 1997. This one here, which is Elyewun. She's 24 feet. Hope I'm not getting too much glare from the light. But she's a lot lighter. The 24 foot Elyewun that made the first crossing in historic times. So let me give you a little brief history of our tomol, our canoe culture with Chumash people. We've been building these ocean canoes for at least 3000 years. I believe more like 7, 8,000 years. They're flat bottom plank canoes so that we get boards, make our own boards, and we glue it tight together. The reason we make flat, bottom is flat bottom canoes carry a lot of weight. We build them to take trade items out to the islands, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel. Those four islands off our coast were Chumash islands.

            So we took trade items back and forth through the islands. Visited family and friends on the islands. And then also to go out into the ocean and fish and bring back fish to our villages along the coast for food. The 24 foot canoe, tomol like Elyewun can easily carry over 300 pounds of fish or 300 pounds of trade items. We know this because flat bottom canoes are very tippy, they rock back and forth. If you put some weight in your canoe and get some of it under water, that stabilizes it. Then it only rocks a little bit. So we put about 300 pounds to 350 pounds of sand bags or ballast to get some of our tomol or canoe under water to stabilize it so it's not tippy. So that's why we know it can carry 300 pounds. We can catch 300 pounds of fish in it easily. The 32 footer weighs 500 pounds empty.

            We put 6, 700 pounds of ballast in her and six paddlers. So we're pulling well over 2000 pounds of canoe when we paddle from Channel Islands harbor, which is Oxnard, California, that's where we usually leave from. Because from that harbor, it like 20 miles to the [inaudible 00:32:59], the Island that we call Santa Cruz. And we went for the first time in 2001. And why I say the first time in historic times, we've been building the canoes, ocean canoes for several thousand years and then somewhere around the 1830s or 1840s during the mission period, we stopped building them. Because we were the slave laborers, the farm workers, the ranch hands, the cooks, the maids for everyone in California. When it was under the control of Spain with other control of Mexico. And when it was under the control of America. And we were slaves during American, during the first 15 years of California's history, they called us adventured servants, but we were slaves.

            So we stopped building our tomols in the 1830s. So there was 150 years that a traditional Chumash canoe did not make any trips from the mainland out to the islands. And I was part of that first crew, part of the 25, 30 paddlers that left September 8th on 2001. And we've gone 12 more times since then. We didn't go in 2019 because it was windy. And we didn't go this year because of COVID. And next year will be the 20th anniversary. And I was just messaging one of our just brilliant, strong women paddlers Eva Pagaling, and we both miss each other. We both miss our canoe family or tomol family. To not be on the water this year was really rough for many of us. And as I said earlier I'm getting towards the end of my paddling career. I'll be 70 next year when we go out to Santa Cruz Island, but I will paddle. And I will paddle a full shift of 2-3 hours.

            Our canoes are very deep. So you have to paddle on your knees or paddles are made out of wood. They're over 11 feet long. So it takes a lot of upper body strength. I work out religiously. I go to the gym 5 days a week and lift weights. And the trainers there all think I'm crazy because I do the same 7 or 8 exercises over and over and over. All I want to do is build up paddling muscles which are my shoulders and my back. Because we're on our knees you don't use your legs or your core that much but a little bit.

            So I'll show a couple more pictures of our tomols. I think they're beautiful. This picture here is from 2001. We left at 3:45 in the morning. That's Gilbert and Sweater to a dear friend of mine. My son is right behind him. So I've paddled with my son on that first crossing. And my grandson is 12. I hope they paddle long enough to get my grandson in and paddle with him. So we left at 3:45 that's about 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. It took us over 11 hours and we're carrying the smallest shore. Then we had a big ceremony and we camped out and told stories and sang traditional songs.

            It was a great date. I said we leave when it's dark. Now we think a little bit earlier. So these two pictures here are from 2017 and we leave about 3:00 o'clock in the morning. Now, for a couple times we've left about 2:30. The first crew are called dark water paddlers because they leave when it's dark. It's an honor to be a dark water paddler. I've been in that first crew about seven or eight times, I've lost count. The honor is, to be in the first crew, to paddle when it's dark, which is an incredible experience. And we would mostly, our strongest, most experienced paddlers because they'd paddle from whatever time you leave. One morning we left at 2:30 in the morning and I was in that first crew. And we paddled from 2:30 to 6:30. Cause we wait for daylight so we can safely see and make a crew change.

            So as I said, that's us making a crew change. We get a fresh paddlers. We put them in those rubber zodiacs with a little motor and we bring them out to the tomol. And one person gets out of the tomol and into the zodiac, or one person gets out of the zodiac and into the tomol. But the first crew paddles at a minimum 3 hours, sometimes 31/2, 4 hours. So dark water paddlers are very respected. If any of you, after I'm through talking, want to see a video, Google this, I hope you can see that it says, "Dark Water Journey, Eva Pagaling". So the young lady that I was messaging and sending messages to just before the program started, and we both signed off with love you and miss you.

            They made a video about the dark water paddlers and Eva Pagaling was one of the first, she was a second, we've had one other woman be a dark water paddler. And her father is one of our captains, Reggie Pagaling, he's one of my dear friends. And I feel pretty confident that Eva, without a doubt is one of our stronger paddlers. And let me be clear on this. She's not one of our stronger women paddlers. She's one of our strongest paddlers. If I was going to pick a crew of six best paddlers, strongest paddlers to be in the tomol, moved to mine with six paddlers, she would be one of them. But I think I try encourage her and mentor her as much as I can. She's like a niece, even though we're not related and much like the Hawaiians and many other cultures, we all call each other cause anyway.

            But I think she's going to be our first woman captain in modern times. It was the brotherhood of the tomol that build the canoes and where the paddlers and the seamen and the fishermen. But there's an old Chumash traditional story that says one day the wot, which is our leader, our chief, the wot's daughter was out fishing in her tomol. And coyote played a trick on her. Now there's a myth and legend that's thousands of years old. And that story is a very old story about the chief's daughter going out fishing on her tomol. There's a very good chance that women have paddled in our tomols for thousands of years. And the Chumash are one of those cultures that we've always had women leaders that lots of times the wot or chief of the family, the spiritual leader would pass on his title to his son.

            But lots of times he doesn't have a son, he feels his daughter will be a good leader, he passes it on that leadership role that chief that wot roll to his daughter. And to give you an example, when the European people, the Spanish first came down the coast of California, it was reported by the Spanish that on the islands, the villages on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel, and they're all pretty close, they're all within 5, 6 miles of each other that each wot, each leader of each village from the islands would have big meetings once or twice a year. And they would pick the head wot of all the wots of all the leaders.

            So there might be 20 leaders from 20 villages on these three islands and they would pick one to be the leader of the leaders. And at European contact in the 50s, in the mid 1500s, late 1500s, the head wot of all the islands was a woman. So we have always honored and respected our women. And if they're capable of being great hunters, fishermen, paddlers, and leaders, they will, they have, and we'll be in the Chumash culture and Tataviam are very similar.

            Before I open it up for Q&A, I'll tell a little story because everyone loves a good story. I learned this story from Tony Romero, a very respected Chumash elder from San Ynez. I've never seen it written down I just heard Tony tell it dozens of times. And after hearing him telling it, I asked him for permission, if I could tell the story and he gave me permission to share this story about Bubo, the great horned owl. Now long ago, was not an owl. He was a songbird. Bubo was originally a songbird. He didn't look anything like Bubo the great horned owl. He had a round smooth slick head, he had little brown beady eyes. And a the long pointy beak that he would whistle and sing beautiful songs. And all the animals would come to listen to move Bubo the songbird sing his songs. And one day Bubo the songbird was up at a tree and Ursus the grizzly bear came by as he was whistling and singing his songs.

            Bubo loved [inaudible 00:44:12] . I apologize for that. After a few minutes Ursus the grizzly bear goes, Bubo, come here I want to give you a hug cause I love your songs so much. I just give you a little hug and Bubo thought, "Well, he seems friendly, said he just wants to give me a little hug" and Bubo the songbird flew down. When he got close to Ursus the grizzly bear he saw how big he is. Claws as big as my fingers, 7 feet tall on his hind legs, 600 pounds and Bubo the songbird got scared and flew away. The next day Bubo the songbird was curious about Urus the grizzly bear. Was he friendly? Did he really want to just give me a little hug? And he went back to that same tree and Bubo to the songbird with his beautiful long beak, his round smooth slick head, those little brown beady eyes was whistling and singing beautiful songs.

Speaker 1:

You also left Frank once again.

Alan Salzar:

I apologize. Ursus the grizzly bear goes, "Bubo, come here. I just want to give you a little hug of appreciation cause I love your songs. They're so beautiful". Bubo thought, "Okay, he seems friendly. He said he just wants to get me a little hug". And he flew down. When he got close to Ursus, Ursus reached out and grabbed him with those big old paws. And he gave him a big old hug. He goes, "Oh Bubo I love your songs so much. I'm going to give you just a little hug". He went and he gave him a little hug but a little hug to a grizzly bears, a big hug to any of us and those feather ears, that Bubo the great horned owl has copped out. That's how he got them. And Bubo says, "Ursus don't get me any more a hug you don't know how strong you are". And Ursus the grizzly bear goes," Oh, let me give you one more".