During the latter part of last week – and even now – we’ve driven through many Indian reservations. Some large, some small.  But all a vivid reminder of how different our lives are. The reservations are sad places. Many are desolate.  Miles from anything. And they all look alike.

The government calls it “manufactured housing”.  In New York in the past when we’ve had major flooding FEMA has brought some of this “manufactured housing” to the area.  And families who used it were very eager to get out of it.  They are nothing more than very temporary housing with little or no insolation for the cold winters.  Throughout South Dakota and Montana the Indian reservations are nothing more than clusters of these trailers.  They all look alike.  They all sit on a portion of bare yard and they are invariably surrounded by a number of rusting automobile .  The poverty is palpable.

A reservation in one place looks just like the reservation in another.

But we’ve noticed another similarity as well.  One that makes me smile. Fireworks. The Indians all seem to really enjoy them. When we stood on the hill at Wounded Knee and contemplated the events that had happened there, we were surrounded by the sounds of bottle rockets going off all around us. Every reservation has a fireworks store or two at the edge. Closer than a place to buy bread and milk. But the actual magnitude of this issue was hammered home by a sign on one of the fireworks stores:  “Buy your Fireworks Here! We do PAYROLL Deductions!”

Bang.