HANK BLAIR INTERVIEW

   

   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Karen Underhill for Northern Arizona University.

We're here at Totsoh Trading Post in beautiful downtown

Lukachukai, with Hank Blair.  It is Thursday, August 13,

[1998], at 11:00 a.m.  [Also present are Lew Steiger, who is

operating the recording equipment, and Brad Cole from

Northern Arizona University.]

   

   Underhill:  Hank, we'll start with where and when you

were born.

   

   Blair:  Well, I was born May 26, 1947, in Farmington, New

Mexico.  We lived at Red Mesa Trading Post, but Farmington

was the nearest hospital, so that's where I was born.

   

   Underhill:  And who were your parents?

   

   Blair:  My dad was Bradley Blair and my mother was

Carolyn Reknee [phonetic spelling] Blair.

   

   Underhill:  And how did your dad come to be at Red Mesa?

   

   Blair:  My dad was from Kentucky, and he was one of three

brothers who eventually ended up in the trading post

business.  The oldest brother, Raymond, who was the first to

come to Arizona, was in the Marine Corps in China in the

thirties.  And the lady that was to become my Aunt Marilene

[phonetic spelling], was the daughter of George Bloomfield

at Toadlena Trading Post.  Her sister, as I understand, put

her name in a pen pal magazine, and my uncle who was in

China, in the Marine Corps, started writing to her, and of

course she said, "If you're ever in Toadlena, New Mexico,

come see me."  He was discharged, I guess, in California,

and he rode a freight train to Gallup and hitchhiked to

Toadlena, and when they saw [each other], I guess they just

said, "This is it, we'll get married."  And then my dad was

in World War II, and he came out after he got out of the

service, and my Uncle Raymond's brother-in-law, Roscoe

McGee, offered my dad a job at Red Mesa Trading Post, and

that's how he ended up out there.  And then Elijah, my

younger uncle, is also considered a World War II veteran.  I

think he got out in 1946, and the same guy, Roscoe McGee,

offered him a job, so the three  brothers all ended up in

the trading post business.

   My mother is from New Britain, Connecticut.  She was a

schoolteacher, and she was a teacher at Teec Nos Pos

Boarding School--two teachers.  She taught the second grade.

I guess the other lady taught the first--Sophie Prucop

[phonetic spelling], she's still alive.

   And my dad--at Red Mesa, Teec Nos Pos is fifteen miles

away, and that's where they got the mail.  My dad went to

the trading post and the guy who was the trader there--I

can't remember who he was--but he said, "There's a cute new

schoolteacher up at the school."  So that's how my dad and

mom met, and that was in 1945 or 1946, somewhere along in

there.

   

   Underhill:  What are some of your early memories from Red

Mesa?

   

   Blair:  From Red Mesa?  Well, for a kid, you know, what I

remember, it was just a great life.  You know, I mean, you

were out in the middle of nowhere and you had goats and

sheep and horses and cows and dogs.  The store was filled

with all kinds of strange stuff--saddles, the merchandise

and everything.  For a kid, it was the neatest thing in the

world.  You could go a hundred miles in any direction and

not hit a fence.  I think that scared the hell out of my

mother, from New Britain, Connecticut.  She used to tie us

on a leash to the clothesline.  She was afraid we'd run away

or something.  I mean, if we went, it was just, like I said,

forever to go anywhere.  Like I said, for a kid, it was just

neat.

   My mom taught us at home 'til I went to the second grade.

I lived with my grandmother in Farmington, but then we came

back and I think she taught me until I was in the sixth

grade.  And my sisters--I have three sisters, and later one

brother--much  later.  There was no electricity, [we had]

outdoor plumbing.  We got water from the windmill, and I

remember we had a tank and running water, as far as I

remember.  And I know that they used to go down to the

spring and haul water in a bucket, but there was a windmill

there.  And a wood stove.  I remember taking a bath every

Wednesday whether you needed it or not.  (chuckles)  I think

the stove was half propane--or in those days, it was butane--

and half wood.  I remember my mom heatin' up water, and we

had a big washtub in the middle of the kitchen.  Either

Coleman lanterns or kerosene lanterns, and takin' a bath,

like I said, every Wednesday night.  I have a sister that

they still do, every Wednesday, whether you need it or not.

(laughs)  They live in town.

   Like I said, especially for a kid, I just really have

fond memories of it.  You're out there by yourself.  The

trading post, you weren't so busy that you were always doin'

something.  It wasn't like there was a customer there every

day, every hour.  It was kind of a casual, leisurely life.

   

   Underhill:  And what did you think of the customers when

you were small?

   

   Blair:  You know, we were fascinated.  I think because my

mother and father didn't grow up around here, they were

fascinated by the Indians and the culture and everything

like that.  They passed that on to us.  It was just a neat

life.  We used to go to ceremonies and stuff like that.  Go

to squaw dances.  And we'd go stay with neighboring families

when we were little.

   It was kind of different at Red Mesa, compared to some

other trading posts.  There was no mission, no school, so

you were kinda by yourself.  One thing that you didn't see,

you didn't have like a family that lived right next to the

store or something like that.  You didn't have a mission, so

you didn't see the same people.  Most of the other trading

posts, there was a mission or a school or something right

next to it.  This was kind of isolated by itself.  The

windmill actually--it wasn't our well, it belonged to the

Navajo Tribe, so that was in your leases, and it's still

probably in the leases today, that you had to…  You know,

that was your well, you couldn't block it off, you had to

provide access to Navajo livestock.  So people came to the

store with sheep and goats and�you know, like I said, my mom

was always afraid we'd just go with 'em when they left, and

sometimes we did.  I mean, as we got older, we'd just go

home with 'em and stuff like that.  As a kid, it was really

pretty neat.

   

   Underhill:  And when did you learn to speak Navajo?

   

   Blair:  Well, you learned to speak in the store,

probably.  You know, you learned how to count and what the

names of all the stuff was, 'cause whether you wanted to or

not, you ended up workin' in the store.  So you learned

different  things, and you learned different things about

the livestock and that kind of stuff.  You learned how

to…  You know, because you bought livestock, you knew how

to say b��gashii tsa�ii, that's a cow or female.

Deen�sts�aa� was a buck or a ram.  So you learned those kind

of words.

   

   Underhill:  How were you treated by Navajo folks when you

were a kid?

   

   Blair:  You know, when I was a kid I don't really think I

thought about it.  Now, I see people that come by.  You

know, they come and they say, "I knew you when you were a

little boy," and stuff like that.  And we were really part

of the community.  I don't think you thought about it then.

You have people come by at my uncle's fiftieth anniversary.

Kathy and Rhonda's kids came and said, "I'm tired of

everybody sayin', 'I knew you when you were that big.'"  And

I said, "I'm fifty-one years old and they're comin'…"

(laughs)  You know, the same thing.  I can tell when I see

somebody come in the store, they'll come over here, and

they'll be lookin' at me and they'll be goin' like this, "I

knew him when he was that big," and I may not remember

exactly who they are.  We haven't lived at Red Mesa in

thirty-some years, but I still have kids my age, and older

people and stuff, they come in.  We made a lot of friends.

My dad was there twenty years, so he made a lot of friends

over the years.

   

   Underhill:  And what did you think you wanted to do with

your life when you were small?

   

   Blair:  Well, I wanted to be a cowboy!  (laughs)  And I

think my dad kinda…  He had an uncle that was a dentist

back in Kentucky, and he used to read all the--and I guess

in his office he had all the old, in the waiting room he had

all these old cowboy magazines.  I think my dad and my

uncles, they read all those, and they wanted to be cowboys.

We rode horses and we were out there yippie-ki-yi-yayin'

through the sand dunes and stuff.  You wanted to be a

cowboy, you know.  Or an Indian.  (chuckles)  We were the

only Anglo kids for 50-100 miles.  There were probably

others, but not very many.  We were the minority.

   

   Underhill:  How did the store operate then?  Were you

using a bull pen?

   

   Blair:  It was a bull pen store, old bull pen store.  The

clerk, whoever it was, had to get--it was one item at a

time.  And that's how you learned to speak Navajo, because

they want "(in Navajo) ____________," or "__________"

tomatoes, and you just go down the line and [point].

(laughter)  "Beans?"  "No."  And they go, "___________,"

that's beans.  Okay, I'll remember that.  I'll try to

remember that one.  And so that's how you learned Navajo,

because you had to learn the name of everything.  They'd

say, "I want …" something, and you'd have to figure out

exactly what it was.

   Everything was on credit, there was no cash money.  The

Navajos paid their bill in the spring with the wool, and in

the fall with the lambs, and odds and ends--like rugs or a

cow or different things like that.  But it was all credit,

or barter, I guess.  Even us, I remember going to

Farmington, to the Farmington Mercantile, which was the

wholesale house where we got everything.  I remember my dad,

we wanted to go out and eat, my dad would go down to the

wholesale house and draw ten dollars on their account, cash,

so we could go eat.

   I remember somebody comin' in when I was a kid, probably

came home from working on the railroad or somethin', with a

twenty-dollar bill and bought like a bottle of pop or

something, and my dad and mom were emptying all the piggy

banks and everything, trying to get change for a twenty-

dollar bill.  Especially early on, it wasn't a cash

business--it was all on the tab.  That's the way it was.

   

   Underhill:  And how often did someone not pay?

   

   Blair:  You know, I don't really remember that.  I know

there was a lot of pressure on people, on my dad, to collect

those bills, because that was--I'm sure it got a little

scary.  You waited six months to get paid, and they had so

much money on the tab.  You weren't talkin' about…  You

know, it seems nowadays people talk about in the millions of

dollars.  You're talking about a trading post was doin'

$60,000 a year.  And it was competitive.  People nowadays

talk about, "Gosh, what do you do with Basha's, competing

against Basha's Supermarket?"  My dad had R. B. Foutz on one

side, and So-and-So on the other side, and it was

competitive, because you had to take care of your customers

or somebody else would get 'em, and they wouldn't pay you.

But it was really--I think in those days it was a lot

[easier].  They needed you just as much as you needed them--

you know, the customers.  It was quite different.  You both

existed because of each other, you know.  You were selling

coffee, salt, and sugar.  We're not talking about…  Later

on he probably sold 'em Levi's and shoes and stuff like

that, but the whole inventory of the store probably wasn't

$10,000.  You basically sold basics:  flour, salt, sugar,

grease for the wagon.  I remember the axle, the hubs--those

metal hubs, you know--for the wagons.  We sold wagons.  It

was like a used car lot.  My mom has movies of puttin'

wagons together.  It was like a big event.  It probably came

in on the truck, we're puttin' new wagons together, people

helpin' us put the wagons together.  You traded 'em in.  It

was quite the deal.

   

   Underhill:  How much animosity was there between traders

in this competitive situation?

   

   Blair:  It was sort of like a friendly competition.  I'm

sure there were times that there was kind of…  I'm sure

you've heard this from others, but it was like, "These are

my customers.  Leave my customers alone!"  When you bought

the store, you bought the customers.  That was part of the

"blue sky" or whatever, you know, you bought the customers.

But it was sort of a friendly competition.

   A story my dad used to tell--he and Kelly McGee.

Everybody kinda knew how much everybody bought.  You knew

how much the business was.  So whoever the trader was at

Teec Nos Pos, my dad and Kelly McGee, they were hauling the

wool to town.  And so they took a bag and usually bought 200-

300 bags of wool.  Well, they took a bag and they put "Red

Mesa Wool, 400 and something" on it, like that, and set it

on the side of the truck, and then stopped where it was

showin' at the trading post, and went in and bought a pop,

and howdy and shake with the trader.  Well, the guy's

lookin' out there and he's going, "Geeminee Christmas!  They

bought 400 bags of wool!"  (laughter)  And they just had a

pop and went to town.  And by the time they got to town,

Teec Nos Pos had a phone, well, everybody in town had heard

about it.  You're talking about a limited number of

customers with a limited number of assets.  So if somebody

somehow got…  You know, man, what are they doin' that

they got 400 bags of wool?!  It kind of threw shock waves

into the deal, you know.  That was kind of a story my

dad…  I think Kelly McGee, they were kind of jokesters,

you know, they did that.

   

   Underhill:  Were there other kinds of things you remember

like that?

   

   Blair:  Not … really.  But like I said, you knew most

everybody, and some of 'em, they were family.  A lot of the

families were related.  I grew up callin' everybody my aunt

and uncle.  My Uncle Raymond, who had married into a big

Mormon family, the Bloomfields, they were related to

everybody.  So they called my mom and dad aunt and uncle,

and it wasn't until I was in high school I realized that we

really weren't related to all these people.  (chuckles)  It

was kind of a close-knit deal.

   

   Underhill:  In terms of the business relationship at Red

Mesa, how did the partnership work for your dad?

   

   Blair:  You know, Roscoe had about six stores, I think--

Roscoe McGee did.  He had about six stores, which my dad was

a partner in one of 'em.  Like I said, my dad was lucky to

get involved with it, 'cause he was a nice guy, he enjoyed

the reservation, he enjoyed the Navajos, and he passed that

on to my dad.  He enjoyed livestock.  That was a big

part…  You know, the Red Mesa, they were always trying to

improve the sheep, the cows:  they would bring bulls out and

sell 'em, bring rams out and sell 'em--horses--try to

improve the stock.  It wasn't an altruistic deal--if they

have better sheep, better wool, then they can buy more

stuff.  They have better cows.  Roscoe was kind of a

frustrated cowboy.  He had a ranch and stuff, and he enjoyed

that kind of stuff.  That became part of the business.  We

were always sellin' rams and bulls and stuff like that,

tryin' to improve the stock.  And still, have good stock

there.  I remember when we moved to Kayenta, the traders

there didn't buy or trade livestock, and you could tell by

looking, the sheep and everything, the quality of 'em, the

cows and everything like that, weren't as good, because the

trader, that wasn't his interest.

   I remember when we moved to Kayenta, you'd see the sheep

people.  My dad started buying livestock.  Nobody had bought

livestock, so you'd see, "Gee, these are scabby-lookin'

sheep."  (laughter)  And my dad, I'm sure, started doin' the

same thing, started sellin' bulls and stuff like that.  But

they had a good relationship, you know.  Roscoe, I think,

helped my dad out a lot.  My dad and my uncles made him

quite a bit of money and it worked out.  I think my dad was

there twenty years, and my uncles off and on were in

partners with the same people--basically the same family.

   

   Underhill:  When you were a child, what was the lamb and

wool season like?

   

   Blair:  Well, for a kid, gees, it was just like your dad

bought 3,000 new pets for you (laughter) during lamb season,

you know.  We had, I'd said, 3,000 lambs.  And then when I

was a young kid, at the end of lamb season, they herded them

to Farmington and loaded 'em on the train, you know.  It

took two or three weeks, and I would go out and stay with

Harry Clark and Keet Seely Bynanni [phonetic spellings] in a

tent, you know.  It seemed like that I went the whole way.

My mom said I'd stay one night and want to come home

(laughs), have to take a bath or somethin'.  We had ticks in

our ears.  Like I said, for a kid, it was like your dad just

bought you 3,000 new pets.  We got to play with all of 'em.

   In wool season, they were bringin' the wool in, weighin'

the wool, sackin' the wool, and had a big ol' tin barn my

dad built.  Don Walker built it for my dad.  He was the guy

that was kinda the reservation handyman.  He could

carpenter, plumb, electrician, and he built a lot of the

trading posts.  He was the guy that always came out and

added-onto 'em.  I remember him gettin' mad at me for

drivin'--you know, I got a hammer and a bunch of his nails,

started drivin' 'em into everything that was laying around

on the ground--two-by-fours and everything else.  It was

excitement, it created excitement around the store.  People

came to the store.  White people used to bring their wool to

the store in wagons and stuff like that.  That was big time,

that was a lot of fun.

   

   Underhill:  And when did your dad sell Red Mesa?

   

   Blair:  In 1966, I believe.

   

   Underhill:  And you moved into Farmington, though?

   

   Blair:  Well, yeah.  I went to high school there.  We

came out on the weekends, about every weekend we'd come back

out to the store.  They built the highway in 1962, and my

dad moved the trading post about seven miles to the highway.

In 1962, he built the new store out on the highway.

   

   Underhill:  What did he have to do with the Navajo Tribe

to move the trading post?

   

   Blair:  You had to get the lease approved.  And at that

time probably we were dealing more with the Bureau of Indian

Affairs.  It was about that time, though, that they started

turnin' it over to the tribe.  But I would say a lot of it

was with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  You had to get a

lease, you had to get permits to drill wells and stuff like

that.  And we moved to the highway.

   

   Underhill:  And how did that move to the highway change

the nature of the store?

   

   Blair:  Well, the building on the highway, it changed the

business.  Red Mesa was kind of a poor community, a

livestock community, and everything like that.  You weren't

doin' any more business, but you had to pay for that

building.  So I think it was kind of a traumatic experience

for my dad with that.  You built a brand new building, but

you're doin' the same amount of business.  The highway

didn't bring that much more business--probably took some of

it away.  It was kind of a slow business.

   

   Underhill:  What kind of services did your mom and dad

early on, and later your dad, provide to folks, other than

just the dry goods and…

   

   Blair:  My dad was a railroad  retirement  agent, and I

don't exactly understand exactly what it was, but that took

care of the people that worked on the railroad.  You know,

they signed up to work on the railroad, signed up for

railroad unemployment, I think is what it was, railroad

retirement.  And again, that was to create business.  You

know, your customers had no jobs, had no money, so you were

tryin' to find 'em a job.  We used to haul people to Idaho

to work in the sugar beets, Colorado to work in the sugar

beets, pick potatoes.  Fire fighting--you used to take

people, you know, they had crews.  You were tryin' to get

people jobs, you know, so they'd have money to spend at the

trading post.

   You signed people up for Social Security.  I remember

that bein' a big deal because a lot of 'em didn't even have

Social Security numbers.  So they got 'em Social Security

numbers, got 'em a name that you could write down and read.

You know, you named 'em so that they would have a name that

they could get a Social Security card.  They didn't think

they should get Social Security because they hadn't worked,

and so you had to show that they had had income over the

years and stuff like that.  I remember that was a big deal.

You translated, people would get letters, you sent the kids

off to school.  That used to be a big business in the

fall�every kid got a trunk�we used to have �em in here.  I

mean, sell hundreds of trunks, 'cause every kid got a trunk,

'cause they sent 'em all off to school.  They went to

Intermountain; Shawaukwa [phonetic spelling], Oklahoma;

Shemaiyo [phonetic spelling], Oregon; Brigham City, [Utah]--

they went everywhere.  And that was a big business, to send

everybody off to school.

   

   Underhill:  Was that a mandatory thing?

   

   Blair:  Yeah.  They fought it for a long time--they

didn't want to send the kids to school.  But during the

fifties, when I remember, they started sending…

Everybody didn't go to school, they always seemed like they

kept one or two home to take care of the sheep and take care

of the cows.  When the kids went to school, I always wanted

to go with �em.  I didn't know where Brigham City, Utah,

was, but I used to think, "Man, that's gotta be the place!"

'cause all my friends were goin' to Brigham City, Utah.

"Man, I wanna go!"  Brigham City sounded like a big place.

   

   Underhill:  So what was Farmington like in high school in

those days?

   

   Blair:  We were like the country kids that went to town,

and it wasn't really a pleasant experience.  We lived with

our grandmother, she wasn't too thrilled to have us all

there.  (laughs)  That was one thing.  I remember we had

cousins that lived in town.  We used to go to town and stay

with them on the weekend or something--sometimes go to a

movie.  We were just the country bumpkins when we'd go

downtown to the Roy Rogers serial.  They'd give you a

quarter, go to the movie and stay all day and eat popcorn

and drink pop.  It was a hard adjustment.  Like I said, you

had 3,000 pets out at the trading post.  On a good day, run

around and do everything, and it was quite an adjustment to

go to town.

   There were a lot of cultural differences.  We were

outsiders.  You know, you got it from both sides--especially

in high school, I think.  You know, when you're an

adolescent, you're a lot more sensitive to that kind of

stuff--the racism and the different things like that, that

went on.

   

   Underhill:  Can you describe some of that?

   

   Blair:  Well, like I said, we were at the trader's, you

know, and we had the people who said, "Well, you're just

robbin' those poor Indians.  You're takin' all their money."

And then it's probably the same people goin', "You're

hangin' around with them damned Indians."  You were "robbin'

them poor Indians," and then there were the people that

didn't like you 'cause you associated with them.  You were

kind of buffeted back and forth.

   I think I related this incident once before.  I was

comin' home from school, probably in junior high school or

somethin' like that.  There was a guy up the street, a

grouchy guy, I don't even remember what his name was, but we

all kind of stayed away from his yard, you know.  I was

walkin' down the street, and he said, "C'mere, Blair kid."

I came walkin' over, I was kind of scared.  Like I said, he

kinda knew everybody on the street--the grouchy guy, that's

all.  My sister one day said, "Hey, you remember the grouchy

guy…"  And he called me over and he said, "Tell your dad

we don't want them red niggers comin' down our street."  I

really didn't know…  You know, I was old enough, I kinda

figured out what he was talkin' about.  We had Navajos, they

worked for my dad.  They'd come to town, they'd need

somethin', they'd come to the house.  My mom had people that

helped my grandma babysit, wash clothes, and stuff like

that.  So you had that kinda deal goin' on, you know.

   Farmington, at that time especially, was during the oil

boom.  You had a lot of people from Texas and Louisiana and

they were a bunch of rednecks, basically.  You know, there

was a lot of prejudice and things like that.

   

   Underhill:  And how did that make you feel?

   

   Blair:  Like I said, it was tough.  You were torn because

as a kid you want to fit in and everything like that, but

then you have your friends and your family and stuff like

that, that you don't want to give up and everything like

that.  So I think it ended up bein' we were kinda outsiders.

And not just me, but I think a lot of the traders kids put

up with the same thing.

   

   Underhill:  Were there any Navajo students at Farmington

High School?

   

   Blair:  Very few.  At that time, the Navajo Methodist

Mission, which is right there in Farmington, was a big

school.  Most of the Navajos went there.  But considering

the size of the population [of] Farmington, there were

probably ten or fifteen that went to high school there.

Most of the Navajos went to Navajo Mission.  Navajo Mission

beat Farmington High School in football and everything.

They kinda recruited, you know.  They picked the cream of

the crop of all the Navajos on the reservation--education-

wise or things like that.  The chairman of the Navajo Tribe,

one of the past ones, he went there.  And the reason he went

there--first they turned him down, and then he had an older

brother that was like six-foot-two, 240 [pounds], and the

football coach saw him and said, "We want that kid."  His

mother said, "Only if the little one, the skinny one, goes

too."  They kind of recruited.  So it was a powerhouse.  I

mean, sports-wise and academics-wise.  You'll find, like I

said, the [chairman] of the Navajo Tribe.  They kind of

picked the cream of the crop of the kids.  A lot of 'em have

gone on to bigger and better things.

   

   Underhill:  What did you do when you finished high

school?

   

   Blair:  I wanted to be a surfer.  (laughter)  That was

when the Beach Boys were big in 1965.  I went to California.

(laughter)  Me and a friend of mine named Wally Price, went

to California, we were gonna be surfers.  We found out the

water is cold and that board is heavy and you can drown!

(laughter)  Then I went in the service from there.  I was in

the Marine Corps--went surfing in Vietnam.

   

   Underhill:  How long were you in the Marines?

   

   Blair:  Two years.  Spent sixteen months in Vietnam or

overseas.

   

   Underhill:  What kind of unit?

   

   Blair:  I was in AMTRAX [phonetic spelling], which is

like an amphibious tank, is what it is.  On my DD-214 is

says "sixteen months and one day."

   

   Cole:  Were you drafted?

   

   Blair:  No.  Well, I was in California and my mom wasn't

really talkin' to me.  I would get this bundle of mail about

six weeks late, and it said, "Report to your induction

physical September 23," and it was like the twenty-first.  I

didn't have a car or anything like that, so I didn't go.  I

went in and enlisted in the Marine Corps, and when I was in

boot camp I think I got a warrant for my arrest or something

like that, 'cause I hadn't showed up…  Or, I got nasty

letters, at the worst.

   

   Underhill:  And why was your mom mad at you?

   

   Blair:  Probably [because] I wasn't goin' to college or

somethin'.  I don't remember exactly.  I was a rebellious

teenager kind of, I guess.

   

   Underhill:  So what did you do when you got home in one

piece?

   

   Blair:  Well, I worked in California for about a year.  I

had worked, before I went in the service, at a machine shop,

Douglas Aircraft, and I worked there for about a year.  Then

I called my dad and asked if I could come home, and I came

home in 1969, I think.  I just got [top man?].  There were

just too many people out there, you know.  You couldn't go

anywhere without…  I think two weekends in a row I went

to the beach and got hung up on Highway�101 or whatever it

was, Pacific Coast Highway, and you could get out of your

car and go to Taco Bell and eat and then get back in your

car and wait another ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, because

the traffic was so bad.  In 1969, I came home.



   Underhill:  How much did the cultural revolution that was

going on in society at the time…

   

   Blair:  Oh, the sixties or whatever?

   

   Underhill:  Yeah, how much did that impact the Navajo

Nation?

   

   Blair:  Well, I think it impacted the whole country quite

a bit.  You had all these kids my age that had been sent off

to school and everything, comin' back.  And the radicalism

that was goin' on in the whole nation was goin' on on the

Navajo Reservation too.  Civil rights was a big thing, and

not just in the South, but on the Navajo Reservation too.

So there was a lot of activism goin' on in the late sixties

and seventies.

   

   Underhill:  American Indian Movement?

   

   Blair:  American Indian Movement.  There was some of that

goin' on around the reservation, but I didn't know anybody,

really, personally, that was in that.  But like I said, the

kids my age who had all been off to school and everything

like that, they came back.  The social programs that the

government had come up with, that really impacted the

reservation--it impacted the trading post business.

   

   Underhill:  For the better or for the worse?

   

   Blair:  Well, as far as the trading post, you had

customers with money.  All of a sudden you had jobs and you

had food stamps and all that stuff.  You weren't dependent

on the wool and the mohair and the lambs, two times a year

money comin' in.  Moving to Kayenta was a lot different.

Red Mesa was a poor, backward kind of a place.  Kayenta had

the school and the post office and everything like that.  It

was interesting, at Red Mesa, you had very few people with

traditional--you know, their hair in a knot like that, men

or women--but nobody spoke English.  There were people I'd

say, "Yeah, they speak English," but in retrospect, you'd

see 'em, and they really didn't.  They couldn't hardly speak

English.  In Kayenta, I remember when I came home from the

service, when I came home on leave and stuff like that, and

you'd go in the store, and I'd be helping people and they'd

be dressed traditionally with their velveteen blouses and

everything, and dimes all over, and you'd speak Navajo to

'em, and they could all speak English.  It was amazing, to

me anyway.  It was a different place than Red Mesa.  Red

Mesa was poor--it still is.  It's a poor community.  There

was a lot of difference.  Kayenta, comin' back from the

service, it was a fun place.  It was "a happenin' place,"

for me, anyway.  It was a lot of fun.

   

   Underhill:  And what was Kayenta like then?

   

   Blair:  Well, it was a big city, compared to Red Mesa.

There was a school, a public school.  There was a Bureau of

Indian Affairs school.  They had two or three trading posts

and a motel.  There was all kinds of stuff:  social, sports,

dances, and stuff like that.  It was a different place.  It

was a lot of fun, I enjoyed it, it was neat.

   

   Underhill:  How were the dances at that time?  Were they

also different from the Red Mesa area?

   

   Blair:  I'm talkin' about dances like bands and stuff

like that--country western dances and stuff like that, which

at Red Mesa…  I remember goin' to Mexican Water, you

know, when we lived at Red Mesa, goin' and watchin' Tony

Curtis in that world-famous movie where he plays…

   

   Underhill:  A Roman?

   

   Blair:  I don't know, but he's an English guy and he has

the Brooklyn accent.  I remember watchin' that on a sheet.

That was entertainment!  At Red Mesa, that was

entertainment.  You didn't have entertainment at Red Mesa.

Then at Kayenta, like I said, there was all kinds of stuff

goin' on, compared to…  I don't know how many people

lived there then, but it was the big city compared to Red

Mesa.

   

   Underhill:  And how long did you work there in Kayenta?

   

   Blair:  I worked there for three or four years in

Kayenta, and for my dad at the trading post.  My dad,

Bradley and my Uncle Elijah owned that store, and they owned

the Whetherlin [phonetic spelling] Motel.  My dad had bought

the store and the motel.  He didn't want to buy the motel,

but the guy wouldn't sell the store without the motel.  My

dad didn't know anything about the motel business.

Everybody that he knew in Farmington had gone broke in a

motel, and so he didn't want to buy it, but he finally ended

up, he and my Uncle Elijah bought the store and the motel.

The store was probably about the size of this store.  It was

a small store, and it was really not the--the Warren Trading

Post was the bigger store--I mean, as far as business-wise,

because I think [he was] a more aggressive trader at the

time.  My dad started buyin' livestock, that nobody in

Kayenta had done.  Started buyin' wool and stuff like that--

doin' the trading post stuff.  And so he really transformed

the business there.  By the time he left, the store was

about ten times as big as it was when he went there.

   In 1967-1968, when they had the big blizzard, they also

had a big pi�on crop the next year, and my dad bought

several hundred thousand pounds of pi�ons.  And with the

money, he expanded the size of the store.  So he really took

that store from, like I said, about 2,000 square feet to

about 10,000 square feet.  It turned into a big deal.

   

   Underhill:  And how heavy was the tourism there?

   

   Blair:  At that time it was a lot compared to--you know,

you had the Monument Valley, you had tourists coming.  You

know, like I said, compared to Red Mesa, it was like bein'

at Disneyland for us.  They made commercials and movies, and

there were all kinds of tourists and stuff like that comin'

in.  It was actually the Whetherlin Motel, and then there

was a Monument Valley Inn, which is now the Holiday Inn.

Reuben Heflin and Mildred Heflin, who had owned Kayenta

Trading Post and the Whetherlin Inn, had built that Holiday

Inn out on the highway out there.  So there were two motels

there.  In the wintertime it was like one traveling salesman

staying at the __________ motel business wasn't very great,

but it turned into bein' a big asset, as far as business-

wise. There was Bill Crawley's [phonetic spelling] Tours.  I

think there was just one tour company then, but people

takin' people out to Monument Valley.  And Bill Crawley and

his brother--I can't think of his name right offhand, but

they were doing tours, and they brought all the commercials

in, and the movies, they worked on the movies and stuff like

that.  So that was exciting, got to see John Wayne, and a

bunch of Italians.  They used to make those Italian

spaghetti westerns out there.  It was exciting.

   

   Underhill:  And was that when you were in the movies?

   

   Blair:  I tried out for deals.  I worked on the movies, I

worked as a wrangler and my sister did.  We used to rent our

horses to commercials and stuff like that.  Like I said, it

paid better to work on 'em than it did to be in 'em, unless

you had a union, SAG [Screen Actors Guild] card, or

something like that.

   

   Steiger:  What was John Wayne like?

   

   Underhill:  That crossed my mind too.

   

   Blair:  Tall guy.  They made a deal for John Ford.  It

was like a documentary, a tribute to John Ford, and they had

a lot of the old stars:  John Wayne, Andy Devine, and a lot

of people that had been in those old John Wayne movies,

Harry Goulding came back, and his wife.  A lot of the

Navajos that had been in all the old movies, Stagecoach--the

Stanleys, there used to be three brothers.  I was watching

Stagecoach the other night.  There's Johnny, Jack, and John--

big, tall guys.  They were always in the front of the Indian

crowd scenes.  They were all there.  I think John Ford, John

Wayne, and those guys were famous for (chuckles) drinking a

little bit.  I think that's what they did, drink and play

cards while they were down there filming this documentary

and stuff.

   

   Underhill:  And where did they stay?

   

   Blair:  At Gouldings' where they had made all the movies

at.  Andy Devine, I met in the store.  He was a great big

guy, and they had to fly him in by himself, because the

airport at Monument Valley at Gouldings' is kind of short,

and they had to fly him in and out by himself in the plane,

because he was so big--a large person.  He was a big guy.

   

   Underhill:  Who are some of the other famous people you

remember coming through?

   

   Blair:  Just different actors.  Robert Blake.  They made

Electroglide in Blue, out in Monument Valley.  I've seen

Robert Redford and different people.  And then they had a

lot of people that just came to see Monument Valley.  My

brother-in-law, my wife's brother, we were at the Holiday

Inn and Robert Blake was sitting behind us, and I said,

"That's Robert Blake."  He said, "Who in the hell's Robert

Blake?!"  I said, "Remember Tell Them Willie Boy is Here?"

I don't know if you remember that movie, but Robert Redford

was in that.  So he goes, "Oh, I know who that…"  Well,

he's thinking of Robert Redford.  He's looking at this

blondy guy over here, and Robert Blake is sitting right

behind him.  So he starts going, "Robert Blake, kick his ass

anytime."  And I'm goin', "Gees!"  And finally I said, "He's

sitting right behind you!"  And he goes, "Who?"  "Right

there."  And he said, "Oh, I was thinkin' about that blondy

guy."  (laughs)  Robert Redford!  Robert Blake was just

sitting behind him laughing.  "I could kick his butt any

day."  (laughs)

   Charles Bronson, him and Henry Fonda.  And they made Once

Upon a Time in the West, they made that one, a bunch of

Italian yahoos.  They were bad.  They were just ugly

Italians.  Instead of ugly Americans, they were ugly

Italians.

   

   Underhill:  And what did your Navajo friends think of all

the movie makers and Italians?

   

   Blair:  Around Kayenta, they were kinda used to it,

because they had made a lot of movies there, and a lot of

commercials.  Remember they put that Mercury up on top of

that bluff?  Then Clint Eastwood, I never did see him, but

they did film that movie The Eiger Sanction.  I don't think

he may have even been there.  They climbed that totem pole

in the movie.  It was somebody else did it, but anyway his

double.  Eiger Sanction.  Like I said, the Japanese ramen

noodle commercial my sister did.  We got cases of ramen

noodles and stuff like that to put in the…  We didn't

know what they were, they were all in Japanese.  We had

octopus ramen noodles, and squid ramen noodles.  (laughs)

But we worked on that one.

   

   Underhill:  To back up just a little bit, how active was

your family in the rug business?

   

   Blair:  You know, kind of passively.  I guess we sold a

lot of rugs.  What you did is, you bought the rugs and then

these rug dealers came around and a lot of times they'd

trade you jewelry from Gallup for the rugs.  I'm trying to

think of the guy's name from Farmington.  He was a famous

one.  And he'd come around.  This is not very many rugs.  I

mean, we have in our house, just stacked up--stacks of 'em,

with rugs.  These guys, they came around.  We didn't go out

and sell 'em, we just traded 'em to rug dealers and things

like that.  Alvey Turney [phonetic spelling] out of Gallup,

we'd trade jewelry, which we sold to the Navajos for the

rugs.  You could probably get buried in more rugs than you

could sell, so you were tryin' to move those rugs.  And in

Kayenta you had tourists comin' around, so that was an added

bonus.  That probably took over, we probably sold more to

tourists than we did wholesale.  We still wholesale a lot of

rugs.

   Jackson Clark--he's passed away now--but he was a big rug

dealer out of Durango, Colorado, had the Toleptin [phonetic

spelling] Gallery.  And how he got into the rug business was

he was the Pepsi Cola dealer.  He was the Pepsi Cola

distributor, and people would say, "Can't pay you now, but

how about $500 worth of rugs?"  He was interested in it, so

he, you know…  But even at Kayenta, I remember we used to

trade him for rugs at Kayenta.  But his Pepsi

distributorship, his franchise, didn't extend that far.  The

guys in Flagstaff got mad at him for delivering Pepsi out

there, so he had to quit.  But that's how--we traded rugs

for Pepsi, traded rugs for down payment on your car.  The

rugs were something you were always trying to move.  Like I

said, you could buy more than you could sell, so you had a

lot of rugs.

   

   Underhill:  And what did you look for in a rug?

   

   Blair:  You looked for how straight it is, the design,

the artistic quality, the technical quality, and then you

look to see how cute she is (laughs)--the lady that made it.

That's what my dad…  My mom would be looking through the

rug pile, and she'd say, "Goll, how much did you pay for

this?!  Why did you pay so much for it?!"  My dad would say,

"She was really cute."  (laughter)

   You kinda looked at what would sell, you know.  You were

kind of the liaison between the weaver and the buyer.  More

so nowadays, you'd say, "What would match people's couches?"

They'd come in with the wild colors and you'd say, "You

gotta go with the more vegetable dyes or the more pastel

colors.  Softer colors, natural colors."  I'd look at rugs

that we bought in the sixties and the seventies, and yellow

was really big then.  Your Wide Ruins, your y�iis and all

that were yellow.  And now, they bring 'em in like that,

they just don't…  Like I said, somewhere in Aspen they're

not matchin' their couches, they got different colors.

Well, that was your part in tellin' the weaver what kind of

rugs to make.  You didn't really tell her artistically, but

just kind of "leave the yellow out," and stuff like that.  I

don't remember anybody havin' a yellow couch, but it must

have matched somebody's furniture, because [in] the sixties

or seventies, look at all those old rugs with a lot of

yellow.  Like Wide Ruins is the whole--that yellow, which

was a vegetable dye.  It was a big-time color then.

   

   Underhill:  And with three posts in Kayenta, how did that

work?  Was there friendly competition there?

   

   Blair:  Well, there was one guy that was kind of a jerk.

He shall remain nameless, but he was a crook.  He worked for

Babbitts [and how they] did it, was they paid 'em kind of a

commission, and they were well-paid, but Babbitts was just

happy as long as they were making money.  I think this guy

in Kayenta cost Babbitts a lot of money in the long run,

because Babbitts wanted to build a big supermarket in

Kayenta.  And because of this guy, it kept 'em out of there

for a long time.  And like I said, Babbitts, they didn't

know what he was doin'--and they may have.  They may have

known, but gosh, that money comin' in is good.  He was a

crook.

   

   Underhill:  How did the small traders view the Babbitts,

in general?

   

   Blair:  You know, we never…  Until we moved to

Kayenta, they were mostly on the western side of the

reservation.  Kayenta and Keams Canyon--Oraibi was probably

the farthest east they came.  When we moved to Kayenta, we

had Kayenta, Cow Springs, Toadlena, Tuba City, and then down

at Oraibi.  They had Cedar Ridge.  I don't know how many

they had.  So you came in contact with 'em.  We bought

stuff--they were a wholesale supplier.  We bought Pendletons

from 'em, hardware from 'em.  I don't remember any

animosity.  They really were easy competition, really.  They

were, what do you call it, distant manager.  They ran it

from Flagstaff, so they weren't a lot of competition.  So

probably people thought they were, you know, give 'em a

couple more stores.  (chuckles)  They weren't, what do you

call it, absentee management.  So they really weren't that

competitive.

   

   Underhill:  How would you describe traders as a group?

Was there a strong sense of community, or people were fairly

isolated?

   

   Blair:  I think overall there was probably a sense of

community.  Because my parents weren't from there, and we

weren't part of that family--there's a lot of family petty

jealousies and stuff like that also--but I think as a group,

pretty much you got along with everybody.  There were some

cliques, you know.  I think just like any organization or

group of people in the same business, you had people that

didn't like other people.  And like I said, I don't know

whether it was just my parents not being part of that, as

far as being a blood or long-time deal, or my parents'

character.  My parents weren't really people that feuded

with other people, or something like that.  We kind of got

along with everybody.  You really, running the store, you

didn't have time to be real social.  And I've heard other

traders' kids say this.  I've looked in the window of every

trading post on Sunday, when they were closed, 'cause that's

the only time you got to go.  You'd take off and drive down

and you'd look in the window.  I remember lookin' in the

window at Red Rock across the mountain.  The roads were not

paved or anything.  It wasn't like you were, "Gosh, let's

drive over eighty miles of dirt road to visit somebody!"

(laughter)  It was the fact that people worked hard and they

worked a lot.  There wasn't a lot of socializing, but there

were--you know, you knew a lot of the people, you grew up, I

went to school with 'em and stuff like that.  I think the

eighty miles of dirt road, that would kind of--you know,

when it takes you three or four hours to do that…

Nowadays, you'd just be there in an hour or so.  I think

that kind of isolated people a little bit.

   

   [END SIDE 1, BEGIN SIDE 2]

   

   Underhill:  This is Karen Underhill with Northern Arizona

University in beautiful downtown Lukachukai, Totsoh Trading

Post.  It's Part Two of an interview with Hank Blair, and it

is Thursday, August 13, 1998, and it's noon.

   Hank, we were talking about transportation, and how

difficult it was to get around in early years.  There's a

story about your mom?

   

   Blair:  Well, I remember we had a 1950 or 1951, two-door,

Ford coupe.  There was my mom and myself, and then my little

sister.  I couldn't have been much more than a toddler, and

my sister, I don't know if she could walk, but we were goin'

to Farmington in that Ford, and at Rattlesnake, which is

just before Shiprock, the motor mounts on the car broke, and

the engine went into the radiator, and here was my mom

stranded out on the dirt road with two little kids.  I

remember we rode in on a big truck.  [I found out] later it

was a propane truck.  The roads were bad.  The earliest

memories that I have are of being stuck somewhere.  We'd be

playin' in the sand and my dad's over there diggin' and

cussin' and cuttin' down sagebrush to put under the wheels

of the car.  I remember we got a 1958 GMC pickup, used, from

somebody--and that was the first pickup truck we had.  And

four-wheel drive, we probably didn't get one of those 'til

they paved all the roads.  The roads were bad.  I remember

taking two hours to go sixty miles on a dirt road in a car.

   About gettin' picked up by the propane man:  about four

or five years ago, I was in the mall at Christmas with my

mom, and some guy comes up and goes "Carolyn!" and she goes

"Ed!"  And they talk.  "This is Hank."  "Oh, I haven't seen

him since he was this little," or whatever.  So the guy

leaves and I said, "Who in the heck is that, Mom?"  She

said, "You don't remember him?!  That's the guy that picked

us up in the propane truck on the side of the road."  And I

said, "Mom, I was this tall!  I don't remember Ed, the

propane guy."  (laughter)

   The roads were bad.  Some of my mom's relatives from

Connecticut came to visit her one time, and after drivin'

out on the dirt road they said, "Carolyn must really love

this guy, to live out here in the middle of nowhere!"  But

the roads were bad.

   And getting back, like I said, my earliest memories of

bein' stuck.  I told my mom that, and she said, "It was your

father!  He was always tryin' to make it through that sand

dune!"  Instead of takin' the long way around, he was gonna

go across that wash.  And the washes would be runnin', you'd

go to…  Between Shiprock and Farmington, if it rained,

there were two or three big washes, you know, that you'd

have to sit and wait 'til the water went down before you

could cross 'em.  And if you tried to cross, there was

always a car buried in the sand to give you that warning,

"Don't try it!" 'cause there's quicksand, and it'd just suck

you right up when the water was runnin'.

   My dad one time--Jake Yellowman's youngest son, he was

born, and the mother was in her forties then, and she had

what they call a prolapsed uterus or something like that.

My grandmother, who was a nurse, was there, and there was a

missionary lady around who was a nurse also.  They came to

this trading post and they said, "Somethin's wrong."  So my

dad took my grandmother, who was a nurse, and this

missionary lady who was a nurse, out there.  And they

thought, "Well, these two nurses will fix it."  They were

just scared spitless, they didn't know what to do.  And so

Old Man Jake, who was an old, old-timer, and he was quite a

bit older than the lady, he went and got some herbs and

stuff and washed up and everything like that, and he used

his fist to push the uterus back into his wife.  And then my

dad and my grandmother took her to the hospital in Shiprock,

and the wash was runnin' and it took 'em about all day to go

sixty miles.  So the roads were…  And there was no phone.

   I remember we had a shooting at the old store at Red

Mesa.  They were having a branding up by the mesa, and a

guy, I think his name was Roy Palmer, he was drunk and he

had a rifle, and he crawled up on top of the mesa with a

lady.  And he was either gonna shoot himself or jump off.

And a guy name Bizwoody [phonetic spelling] walked up to the

base of the mesa to talk to him, and Roy Palmer shot him and

killed him.  And I was little, and everybody came to the

store.  We didn't have a phone, I don't know how they got

the police out there.  Somebody probably had to drive to

Teec Nos Pos to the phone.  But I remember people stayed up

on the hill above the store to watch for this guy to make

sure he didn't come to the store and shoot somebody else.

But that was scary.  That just came to me.  _____ other

story.  But you didn't have a phone, the doctor was sixty

miles away, at least.  It was in the Wild West.  You were

out in the bushes.

   

   Underhill:  How prevalent was crime?

   

    Blair:  You know, people would steal stuff, but it

wasn't like it was dangerous or anything like that.  The

Navajos had been in this situation with the dominant society

for a long time, with the Spanish, and they raided back and

forth between the Spanish and the Mexicans.  And then the

Anglos came, and so it was sort of like a game, "I'll steal

this from you, and if you catch me…"  And probably on the

trader's part, it was probably a paternalistic fear maybe, a

little racist.  You didn't take it seriously.  I mean, you

took it seriously, but it wasn't something you called the

police over.  A lot of times, if somebody stole something,

you worked within the Navajo culture.  I remember my dad had

some new stoves out on the trading post porch one time, and

somebody stole one.  And so my dad went and got the hand-

shaker, the crystal-gazer, to find out what happened to the

stove.  And she turned in one of her nephews or one of her

relatives, and we got the stove back.  Like I said, it was

kind of like a game or something.  It wasn't dangerous or

anything like that, but it…  I remember one time we came

back to the store and the screen door was gone off the

house.  "What the heck?!  Who stole the screen door?!"

Well, a month later, or somethin', we went down to just go

picnickin' and visit some families down there, and here was

the screen door.  They had an apricot orchard, and they

needed the screen door to dry the apricots.  The thing

that's interesting--I mean, they lived about ten miles away.

It wasn't a deal where, "Gosh, let's just drive over to the

trading post, and let's ride our horse over to the trading

post, find a screwdriver and unscrew the screen door.  Gosh,

that screen door would make a good deal to dry apricots on!"

(laughter)  Like I said, there was stuff goin' on, but it

wasn't…

   There used to be a store at Four Corners before I was

born, and they left a sixteen-year-old Anglo kid there to

guard the store, and he caught somebody stealin' somethin',

and the guy took his gun away from him and shot him.  And

that guy, I grew up knowin' the guy that killed him.  He got

out of prison.  He was around there.  Zahnie's boy or Aneth

Nez--I can't remember what the guy's name was.  But I

remember just knowing that as a kid, that he had shot the

night watchman at the trading post.  This was in the early

forties or somethin' like that.

   As far as crime, that shoot in Deswood was the most

serious thing that I remember happened to anybody.  I don't

remember any…  As far as alcoholism, there wasn't as

much.  You know, it wasn't as prevalent.  They used to have

a bootlegger--I think his name was Joe Lansing.  And how he

used to do it was, he would hide like a pint of wine behind

a post in the corral, and then he would collect the money

and tell the people, "It's over there behind that post in

the corral."  And when we were kids, me and Harrison Clark,

a little Navajo kid, we would watch him hide it, and then

we'd go around and take it!  You know, find the wine, and

then he'd have disappointed customers.  He'd tell 'em, "It's

under that rock over there," and we'd already taken it.

   

   Underhill:  And what did you do with it?

   

   Blair:  Well, I don't remember drinkin' any of it, but I

don't know what we did with it.  I think we just gave it to

my dad, and he poured it out or somethin' like that.

   I remember goin' to a squaw dance, and there would be one

drunk, and he was like the…  At the next squaw dance you

went to, it would be the one guy.  There wasn't really a lot

of drinkin' or anything like that.  There just wasn't much

access to it, although one of the big sellers in the store

was raisins and sugar--they used to make raisin jack.

Certain people, they'd come in and buy five pounds of

raisins and ten pounds of sugar or whatever, and they made

raisin jack out of it.

   

   Underhill:  You mentioned maybe a slight paternalistic

streak among the traders.  What characteristics do you think

a lot of traders shared in common?

   

   Blair:  As far as being paternalistic?  I don't really

know how to answer that.

   

   Underhill:  What makes a good trader?

   

   Blair:  I think you have to be a people person, because

any kind of a retail business--I don't know if you've ever

gone into any business somewhere, and you can tell that guy

ain't very good at it.  If you can't get along with people--

people who are of a different culture, don't speak the same

language as you--if you're a racist, mean, grouchy guy, your

customers know that, and it doesn't…  I think the people

that were good traders were good people--people people.

They liked people--didn't matter what color they were, or

what language they spoke, or what religion.  The ones that I

can think of…

   You know, they always talk about traders being

characters.  Well, they had to be.  If you could be workin'

in the post office in Aztec, New Mexico, with health

benefits and goin' home to your house every evening, why

would you want to move to Sheep Snot, Arizona, or somethin'

like that, and live in a tent with outdoor plumbin', no

electricity, and haul your water from a spring?  A guy had

to be a little bit of an adventurer.

   It's not the safest life.  I think especially in the old

days, if there was a safety concern, you were out there by

yourself.  You couldn't call a policeman or anything like

that.  So I think they had to be a little different.

   

   Underhill:  And why do you think a lot of folks stuck

with it?

   

   Blair:  A lot of it, I think people our age don't realize

that comin' out of--my generation--comin' out of the

Depression--and even before that I don't think times were

that great--that havin' a job or makin' a livin' was a big--

you know, it was a big thing.  And I remember my mom

thought, being grateful…  You know, after the war, a lot

of young couples, you know, the guys got out of the service,

they were married, and she was grateful that they had a

trading post to themselves.  There were a lot of places

where people were working at the store just for a place to

stay and something to eat.  Like I said, a lot of the young

couples, the men had been in the service and stuff, and

they'd come out, and they were just at the store--they had a

place to stay and somethin' to eat.  I remember my uncles

and people would say, "I worked at the trading post for a

month before I knew whether I was even gettin' paid.  I was

just happy to have a job.  I didn't know how much I was

makin'.  I figured they probably would pay me at the end of

the deal."  So they were happy to…  Times were a little

tougher, so they were happy to be employed and be able to

eat.  One of my older uncles used to tell us, I guess where

he worked you couldn't eat anything out of the store.  There

were chickens, and you could eat all the eggs you wanted,

and kill one chicken a week.  That was your board.  You got

paid room and board, and my uncle wouldn't eat an egg for--

'cause that's all they ate was eggs.  So I think times were

different.  They were happy to have a job.

   

   Underhill:  Not all traders were good.

   

   Blair:  Not all traders were good, and not all traders

made a livin' at it.  I don't know, there's a tendency to

think everybody got rich, but there were a lot of traders

who went broke.  There were a lot of traders that didn't

make it, as far as financially.  It was a tough way to make

a living.

   

   Underhill:  For the few who were corrupt, what kinds of

corruption have you heard about?

   

   Blair:  They talk about guys, they'd have an ax next to

the cash register--they didn't even have a cash register--

but they'd charge it to every customer that came in, like it

was his.  I've heard that--different things--short changed

people and stuff like that.  You know, short weigh, when

they brought the lambs and the wool in and stuff like that,

they would short weigh stuff like that.  You know, the

butcher havin' a heavy thumb when they weighed somethin',

and things like that.

   

   Underhill:  What would other traders do if they thought

someone was corrupt?

   

   Blair:  I don't know that you could do anything.  I think

they just let the…  There's a tendency to think that

these poor Indians are too dumb to…  And that's a racist

thing.  If the traders were robbin' 'em, these Indians must

have been pretty damned dumb, to not know that.  And the

thing is, the Navajos knew it.  I would say around those

stores and stuff--you know, we talked about this deal of

stealing things back and forth--I'd say they probably got

even pretty…  Like I said, I think that's a racist…

You know, I mean, you hear people sayin', "You're robbin'

those poor Indians," like the Indians didn't know what was

happenin' to 'em.  They're not dumb.  There were bad traders

and corrupt  traders, but I think the good ones lasted

longer than the bad ones did.  The deal used to be a lot of

times people would come out and they'd think they're gonna

make a fortune in five years and move back, buy a hardware

store in Farmington or something like that.  I think the

majority of the traders…  Like I said, there was a lot

goin' on that was sort of…  There was an adversarial…

These Navajos had been in conflict with the dominant society

for a long time, and they prospered.  I mean, there's

250,000 right now.  They did pretty well, they survived and

they did well.

   

   Underhill:  So in the stores that you were involved with,

how active were you in the pawn business in the early days?

   

   Blair:  You know, we did pawn in both places up until

1973, or whatever it was when the FTC hearings came out.

   

   Underhill:  What do you remember about the hearings?

   

   Blair:  It was a traumatic deal.  No matter what was

right or wrong about it, it was a set-up deal.  They came to

hang the traders.  The media was all focused on that, and

the outcome was never in doubt of what was gonna happen.  It

was kind of scary.

   

   Underhill:  At the time were you aware that there was an

agenda?

   

   Blair:  I think it was pretty obvious.  The whole bent of

the country at that time, there was a lot of "the poor

starving Indians.  These guys are robbing the poor starving

Indians."  It was only gonna go one way--right or wrong,

that's the way it went.

   I just gave a talk.  I speak at Din� College up here, and

I just gave a talk on pawn a couple of weeks ago to a class

up there.  And I had done it before, but I learned.  Every

time we talk about it, and the questions that they ask--all

the students were Navajos--and the questions they asked and

everything like that, it opened my eyes to a lot of

different things.  The pawn business has changed.  When they

cut it out on the reservation--the kind of pawn business we

used to do at the trading post has very little to do, is far

removed from the pawn business today.  It was just another

one of those things that you did at the trading post to

circulate money, or goods.  What you were doing, it's a cash

loan business now.  Then we did it, most of it was for

trade.  Somebody came in and got five dollars' worth of

groceries and left a bracelet or somethin' for collateral.

The traders kept stuff for…  (chuckles)  It wasn't a

business-like procedure.  It was a completely different

business.  People think in the pawn business that traders

pawned that, they wanted to keep that stuff.  Nowadays in

the pawn business they have a computer program, and if you

don't take your pawn out, they won't pawn to you.  You

accumulate points, and I think it's seven points.  If you

are late payin', or let pawn go dead, if you accumulate

seven points, they cut you off.  And a lot of the pawn

places will cut you off at four points, because they're in

the money-lending business, they don't want that stuff.  And

a matter of fact, the things that go dead, and most of these

places that are successful in the pawn business, they have

less than 1 percent of the pawn goes dead.  Friends of mine

that are down in Tse Bonito, they have 24,000 pawn

contracts, and less than 1 percent of 'em go dead.  And like

I said, in the trading post, the way we did pawn, it was

little old ladies that wanted five dollars.  You weren't

loanin' people money.  At this class, they asked, "Well, how

much was the most money you loaned?"  And I said, "Probably,

at the most, $100.  Most of it was just little pawn deals."

And for us at Kayenta, our business was gettin' so big that

the pawn was actually a pain in the butt.  You were runnin'

a big business, and then you were havin' little old ladies

that came in and want to pawn for two dollars.  You're

fillin' out a pawn ticket, and you're payin' somebody--at

that time minimum wage was $1.50 or somethin'.  I don't care

how you work it out, you're not makin'--it was a pain.  So

we were kinda glad to get out of it, because it was a

different kind of a business than what they're doin' now.

We were kinda glad to see it go, because we were…  You're

talking about slow-moving things, and clashin' with the

hustle and bustle of modern commerce.  It was one of the

remnants of the old trading post business.  We were kinda

glad to see it go.  [We were] havin' to stop, slow down, and

deal with this person.

   Somebody asked me in that class, "Why are all the trading

posts turning into convenience stores?"  And I said, "Why do

you think?"  And they said, "Well, because nobody wants to

run a trading post," or this and that, "and the tribe shut

down all the trading posts."  And I said, "The reason all

the trading posts are turning into convenience stores is

because you can make more money in a convenience store.  In

a trading post, what you're doing, you're running twenty

different little business."  You were doin' pawn, you're

buyin' livestock, you're buyin' wool and mohair, you're

sellin' hay, you're fixin' flats, you're writin' letters for

people, you're runnin' a bank.  I mean, I still do that.  If

people get to cash their checks on the first of the month,

they leave $300-$400 in the vault, I dole it out to 'em $20

at a time.  They come in, and you're doin' this stuff.

Well, at a convenience store, you're sittin' there, somebody

wants a pop, you just sell it.  They give you a dollar, you

give 'em a pop.  There's none of this, "Let's charge that.

Let me pawn my bracelet for that car battery, $59.00."

Somebody just comes in, they want a car battery, they hand

you sixty bucks, you give 'em a car battery.

   I've had these guys like Thriftway and these guys [tell

me], like a guy put it, "All this community service stuff

costs you money.  So let's quit doin' that."  You don't go

into the Safeway supermarket and say, "My husband's in jail,

can you give me $400 to get him out?"  That doesn't work.

At the trading post, that's what happens.  People call

up…  Yesterday a girl calls up, she's in Salt Lake City,

her husband's going to school up there, "Please send my mail

and everything up to Salt Lake City."  Well, that doesn't

pay too much to go get an envelope and put sixty-eight

cents' worth of stamps on it and send her check and her food

stamps up to Salt Lake City, but that's what you did at the

trading post.  Like I said, at a trading post, you were

runnin' ten different businesses:  signing people up for

railroad retirement for $50 a month, that was your pay.  At

one time in the fifties, it was probably $25.  That was

probably the only cash money my mom saw in a month, so it

was a completely different thing.

   

   Underhill:  When did you acquire Lukachukai?

   

   Blair:  In 1984.  I was running…  My dad and my Uncle

Elijah owned the store at Kayenta together.  My dad passed

away in 1983 and it became my mom and my Uncle Elijah, and

they did not get along, and I was right in the middle.  I

was living on Rolaids and Maalox for--I say years, but my

wife and I think it was about a year, a little less than a

year, actually--about a year--and it was about to kill me.

They just didn't get along, and it was my mom's fault.  You

know, her husband had been killed in a plane crash and she

wasn't in any…  We probably could have been a little more

considerate of her.  It was driving me crazy, so my wife and

I, the opportunity came to come over here, and it wasn't

that simple, but we ended up with the store.  There'd been

about five guys here in four years, and gone broke.  This

was built by Vernon Jack in 1962.  He'd been a long-time

trader, off and on, over probably thirty or forty years.

He'd been at Greasewood, right down the road from here.  And

he had heart trouble, and his son came out here to run it,

and his son didn't really like it.  He moved to Kayenta and

got a job with the coal company over there.  I asked him one

time why he left the trading post, and he said, "I thought

it was about time I got a real job."  And to me, I was

scared.  I had quit my job over there at Kayenta and looked

around and everything.  I was afraid I was gonna have to get

a real job.  That's the last thing I wanted to do, was get a

real job.  I wanted to be in the tradin' post.  He said, "I

thought it was about time I got a real job."  So he just

basically walked off and left this.  He sold it to somebody,

but they didn't last very long.  So we've been here since

1984, fourteen years.

   

   Underhill:  And what was involved with the sale?  Did you

have a lease?  You had material goods?

   

   Blair:  No, had no lease.  There was hardly anything in

the store.  The only reason the store hadn't been burned

down was because the post office was here.  They kinda kept

the door open to keep the post office goin'.  The first time

I came over here to look at it, it was probably the first of

the month or somethin', and the parking lot was full of

cars, and I thought, "Man! these guys are doin' some kind of

business!"  And I came in the store, and there was not--you

could have starved to death in a day.  There was not enough

to eat.  I mean, there was nuthin' in the store.  Everybody

was here to come in the post office.

   Another time while we were looking at it, I came over,

and it happened to be some check or something was paid--

everybody was here--and there was absolutely nuthin' in the

store, very little.  And I thought, "Man, if that many

people come to the store, I can make a living doing this.

This is neat."  And you're dealin' with the tribe, and they

are the most screwed up--if my wife was here, she would tell

you--she's a Navajo--and the process that they use to give

the leases away is the most degrading, humiliating…  Like

I said, my wife would be levitating off the ground.  It was

really…  Their business practices are lacking.  It was

like a circus.  We would come over here, we'd go to the

chapter house, and we would talk to the people in the

community, and we applied through Economic Development--or

whatever they called it then.  We spent like a thousand

bucks getting a performa made up, financial statements,

financial projections.  I mean, we had this slick--for a

trading post guy, it was a pretty slick presentation.  And

they had like six or seven people that had applied for the

lease.

   

   Underhill:  For this place?

   

   Blair:  For this place.  And like I said, it was an

interesting cast of characters (chuckles) that had applied

for it.  Al Greeve [phonetic spelling] and his wife, who are

friends of ours, they had applied for it.  And Vicki and

myself.  There was a guy that owned a topless bar in

Continental Divide, New Mexico.  What he was gonna do with

it, I have no idea.  There was a missionary guy, and another

guy who was a crook--they had applied for it.  The

missionary guy was from here.  We would go to the chapter

house, and there would be four or five people there--six

people, ten people.  They said, "Well, we're gonna vote."

So we came to vote and here is like 100 people there, and

the missionary guy has this joy bus, he is unloadin' people.

And as they came in the door, they would instruct them,

"Vote for this tall, skinny…"  He was a tall guy, Doyle

Johnson was his name.  And so they're sayin', "Vote for this

guy."  So we all got a color, I think is what it was.  All

these missionaries that were friends of his were bringin'

their congregations in.  So we had like a hundred and some

people vote, and he got 112 or 113 votes.  We got 14, we

came in second.  And like I said, the proposal--we had

submitted this professional proposal.  One of the guys in

Window Rock showed me their proposal, and it was written on

a spiral notebook in pencil, about this long.  But they got

voted in.  And they lasted six months--I don't think even

that much.  I'd say about three or four months.  And my wife

and I were livin' in a house with the electricity turned

off, and no phone.  The phone only worked because my wife's

cousin worked for the phone company, and she'd gone in the

back and flipped the switch and the phone worked.  We had

everything we owned in a horse trailer and a pickup.  We

were gettin' ready--it was like Friday--and we were gettin'

ready to move to Farmington, and I was gonna have to get a

real job.  Wendell Mortenson [phonetic spelling], who's a

Navajo guy who worked for Economic Development--and I

happened to know him, have known him for a long time, and

his family--he called up and said, "Those guys have gone

bankrupt--basically have gone bankrupt--and if you want it,

be there tomorrow morning."  So that's how we ended up with

this place.  Like I said, it was a circus--it was

ridiculous, humiliating, degrading, and you just ended up,

because you were already sucked-into the deal…  I mean,

it was terrible.  The money that we had to open the store we

had spent trying to survive for the six or eight months that

this circus went on.

   

   Underhill:  Would you do it again?

   

   Blair:  No, I wouldn't.  I would choke them sons of

guys…  I mean, if I was in the same circumstances, like I

said, I needed a job and everything like that, I'd probably

do it again, but I wouldn't like it any better.  And if I

was cognizant of the fact that I had done this before, I

would have a serious talk with myself about doin' this

again.  If I had the awareness that I had been stupid enough

to get involved in this before.  But you couldn't borrow any

money.  The banker, everybody said, "Gees, there's five guys

[who have] gone broke in there."  And everybody owed

everybody.  You would call up and want to get something, and

you'd call up and say, "Hi, this is Hank Blair from Totsoh

Trading Post," and the lady would go, "Herb, get the gun,

it's Totsoh Trading Post!"  (laughter)  I mean, the guy that

was here just before us, I think he wrote like $40,000 worth

of bad checks.  The missionary guy gave this one guy--I

think he told Vicki, my wife, that he gave his partner

$33,000.  So there's $33,000 in less than six months, plus

$40,000-some worth of bad checks, plus the NTUA, the utility

company.  They owed everybody.  It was a mess.

   They had left some of their bookwork here, and this Doyle

Johnson is a nice guy.  He's a missionary in Mexico now.

Tall, cowboy-looking guy, just the nicest guy, but just--as

my Uncle Elijah would say--slower than a wooden watch.  Just

a ________.  And they left their books.  What they would do,

they would do like $1,000 or $1,500 in a day, and they would

take 10�percent for God, for Jesus, off the top.  And then I

think his partner--and how they got together, I don't know--

was taking 10�percent for Ron off the top.  You'd like to

net 10�percent in a business, much less just take 10�percent

off for Jesus right off the top.  But it was an experience.

Everybody said, "God, you're gonna go broke!  Everybody's

gone broke in that business."

   

   Underhill:  So how'd you do it?

   

   Blair:  My father-in-law, Mr. King Mike, Sr., loaned me

$10,000.  He's my Navajo guy from Kayenta.  He loaned me

$10,000, and I paid him back with interest in about six or

eight months.  I paid him about 20�percent interest.  I gave

him $12,000 back.  I had some money.  At Kayenta I had money

in a profit-sharing plan, and I drew some of that out.  My

wife ran the cash register, I mopped the floor and cut the

mutton and stocked the shelves.  We used to do like $400 a

day.  I remember someone had all the shelves all faced up.

Someone would come and buy a can of beans, and you'd go over

there and face it back up.  It was just work--work hard.

   There had been some crooked guys here and stuff.  It was

hard to earn the confidence of the customers.  You had to

really prove yourself to the banker over there, and then to

the customer here.  Like I said, we did all the trading post

stuff.  I mean, we sold live sheep on the hoof, and we

bought lambs, and we bought wool.  We just hustled.  Like I

said, my wife ran the cash register, I was sweeping the

floors and pumpin' the gas.  At that time we didn't have--

the gas pumps, we had to go out and put it in.  We finally

got that deal, self-service.  That was kind of an exciting

thing--it was fun.

   

   Underhill:  Now, Hank, you mentioned when you first came

that the only reason it hadn't burned was because of the

post office.  What do you mean by that?

   

   Blair:  Well, the post office was still open, and the

tribe had an interest, and the community had an interest in

keepin' the post office open.  It's what they call a

contract post office.  And gettin' back to…  We get paid

$425 a month for doin' the post office.  It costs us about

$600, at least, in wages, but it brings people.  Everybody

comes to get their junk mail, at least, every day.  So

you've got people comin' in and out of the store.  The store

wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the post office.  That's

what kept it open.  It would have been gone.  I think there

were five people that went broke in the store before we got

here--in about four years.  There were some guys with a

bunch of money.  There was a guy that inherited a bunch of

money and decided he was gonna get rich in the trading post

business, and he lasted about a year or somethin' like that.

   

   Underhill:  How has your business changed since 1984?

   

   Blair:  Well, even just in this short time, you're doin'

business, to start, with a lot of older people, livestock

people, and stuff like that, and your older customers are

just dyin' off.  Your old-time Navajos, the "real" Indians,

so to speak, are dyin' off.  It's evolved more into a

convenience-type business, a grocery store rather than a

trading post.  We don't buy livestock anymore, we don't buy

wool and mohair anymore.  We don't buy lambs anymore.  Part

of that [is] people don't have as much livestock as they

used to.  They just don't have it.  It's changed.  But like

I said, you're still the bank.  The electricity goes off in

Lukachukai, nobody calls the Navajo Tribal Utility

Authority--they call the trading post.  And it's your job to

call.  You're still doin' all that kind of stuff.  You're

the center of the community.

   I have a friend of mine, a Navajo guy, Roy Begay--he was

a councilman at Klagetoh.  And the Klagetoh store closed

down, and he tried to get me to open it up.  He said, "If

the store goes, there's no community, because that's why

that community was there, basically, was the store."  That's

where the identity of the community comes from, is from the

store.  Finally they got somebody to open it up.  The store

is the center of the community.  This is where you come and

sit down and sit out in front of the store and talk to

people.  That's the way it's always been.  They camped, and

we had the whole front of the store with benches, and people

would just sit out there all day long--come to town.

   For the older people, that was their social life, goin'

to the store.  I mean, other than goin' to ceremonies and

stuff like that.  You go get to see people.  And it's still

that way to a great extent.  But that was their community.

At Red Mesa, before they built the chapter house, they had

the chapter meetings right on the porch of the trading post.

Our mom has movies of Paul Jones, who was the chairman of

the Navajo Tribe, having a meeting on the front porch of the

trading post.  My sister and I used to sell Kool-Aid and

lemonade up there, a penny a little cup, at the chapter

meeting.  You know, it was a chapter meeting on the porch of

the trading post.

   

   Underhill:  Do you have a lease now?

   

   Blair:  After ten years, I finally got a lease.  I kinda

wished I didn't…  All this time, "Gosh, I wish we had a

lease."  When they finally came around to give it to me, I

was, "Gees, I don't know whether I want this thing or not."

   

   Underhill:  And how long is it?

   

   Blair:  Well, it was twenty-five years, but ten years of

it was up.  Like I said, the reasoning…  I felt very

fortunate.  It was supposed to have been a fifteen-year

lease, so I felt very fortunate that they didn't give me the

fifteen-year lease and tell me I only had five years left.

Now we have ten years left--roughly ten or eleven years

left.

   

   Underhill:  And how does your lease work?  What do you

give the tribe?

   

   Blair:  We pay the tribe a certain percentage of our

gross sales.  There's a minimum, and you pay 1� percent of

the gross sales.

   

   Cole:  Did you pay that over the years you didn't have

the lease?

   

   Blair:  Yeah, we paid it anyway.  I kinda quit for a

while.  I got mad because we didn't have a lease.  You read

in the paper, and they had a big supermarket in Window Rock,

and they finally just closed up and went bankrupt, and they

owed the Tribe $500,000.  They don't check.  I'm behind

right now, I don't know how much, but the Tribe doesn't know

that, they don't have any idea.  They don't pay attention.

They're always talkin' about "We have no revenues!" or

whatever, but they don't take care of it.  I just got mad

and said, "Gees!  It'd take twenty years to get where I owed

'em $500,000!  So these guys owe 'em $500,000 and just walk

off and leave it!"  They're always talkin' about, "We have

no revenues," and then you don't collect the ones that you

have?!  I mean, you look at leases, something will be up for

lease, and you'll say, "I'd like to lease that," and they

say, "Well, you gotta pay $190,000 back rent."  Well, the

business isn't worth $190,000, and they want…  You're

gonna have to spend $200,000 to get it…

   

   Underhill:  How would you describe Navajo politics?

   

   Blair:  Well, considering at this present time we've had

"The President of the Week Club" for the last month.

They've impeached the president, then the vice-president

became the president.  They impeached him.  Then somebody

else became president for a day--Kelsy Begay.  He was

president for six or eight hours, then they got Milton

Bluehouse in there.  I think it's in a sad state of affairs

right now.  It's in a transition period right now, and I

hope it changes into somethin' better, but I don't know.

   

   Underhill:  How involved are you in the local politics?

   

   Blair:  Not really.  I can't vote.  You become so much a

part of the community that they don't realize that you can't

vote.  They wonder why you didn't vote.  (chuckles)  Well, I

can't vote!  You know, they think that you're part of the

community.  It's a system that's dominated by certain older

factions, because a lot of the younger ones--it's still

important that you speak Navajo, and that disenfranchises

probably 20 percent or maybe 40 percent of the Navajos

because they don't speak Navajo good enough to go down there

and participate.  There's gonna have to be some changes

made.  The government at the local level concentrates on

grazing, fights, here and in Lukachukai, 'cause you have the

farms irrigation.  That's what their focus is on.  That

eliminates about 60 percent of your people, 'cause they

don't have livestock, they don't have farms or anything like

that.

   

   Underhill:  You mentioned Vicki.  For the interview, when

and how did you meet Vicki?

   

   Blair:  I always say I met her at a dance in Kayenta at

the chapter house.  The first time I saw her, I remember

seein' her.  She was kinda cute and I thought I'd like to

meet her.  I knew her brothers.  My wife's brother is

married to my sister, also.  And they teach at the college.

Well, my brother-in-law now, he's the controller of the

Navajo Community College.  He has an MBA from USC or

something like that.  My wife's the only one in her family

that doesn't have a master's degree.

   

   Underhill:  Wow.

   

   Blair:  Their mom and dad came from sheep camp, didn't go

to school 'til they were nine or ten years old, and all

their kids are educated.  They have done well.

   

   Underhill:  When did you get married?

   

   Blair:  March 15, 1972.  That's my anniversary.  My wife

had been married before, she had three daughters, and then

we have a son.  We have six grandkids at this time.

   

   Underhill:  Oh, my!

   

   Blair:  You're lucky they're not here!  They'd have been

knockin' on the door every five minutes.  They've been here

this week.

   

   Underhill:  What kind of ceremony did you have?

   

   Blair:  We were married by a justice of the peace, and

then we had kind of a traditional Navajo wedding.  Vicki's

grandma insisted on that.  So we had a traditional wedding.

At the time…  I don't know, it's a pain in the butt.  I

think women are the ones that like weddings.  (chuckles)

I'm glad we did have a traditional Navajo wedding.  I'd just

as soon have been married by Elvis in Vegas or something.

(laughter)  It was nice.

   

   Underhill:  I forgot to ask you early on if you have a

Navajo nickname.

   

   Blair:  Well, my dad's name was Bitsii� �izhinii, which

is "black hair."  The man, Roscoe McGee, who was there

before, was a red-headed guy, and his name was __________.

So my dad came, and he was Bitsii� �izhinii.  And then I was

_____________.

   

   Underhill:  Son of?

   

   Blair:  "Little black hair," __________, which is "son

of."  They used to tease me.  I used to stay with my Uncle

Lij, and they used to tease my mom that I was really his

son, instead of my dad's.  (laughter)  There's a picture of

my dad and Roscoe up there at Red Mesa.

   

   Underhill:  Well, what do you think Anglo folks should

understand about Navajo culture?  You've lived it your

entire life.

   

   Blair:  That it's a really rich culture.  I think a lot

of times, nowadays, most white people or Anglos, they want

to know more about the Navajo culture than a lot of times

the Navajos do.  In a lot of ways, it's this New Age stuff--

they're all into, you know, "the Indians have the answer to

everything."  If the Indians had the answer to everything,

there'd be more Mercedes dealerships.  You know, the Navajos

are trying to survive, and everybody's interested in their

culture.

   My kids have benefitted from my wife being a Navajo.  And

Navajo culture, I was talking to my mom the other day about

my son had a real good--he's socialized, I guess, very good.

When we were kids, like I said, when we went to Farmington

from the trading post, we were social bozos, I guess.  But

Navajos teach--you know, my son shakes hands with everyone--

all my kids do.  They know how to introduce themselves,

which is a big part of Navajo culture.  They know who they

are, they know who they are in relationship to their family,

their cousins, their grandmas.  They know their clans.  I

was telling my mom, because of Vicki and her family, my kids

have learned.  They get along real well.  My son can go

anywhere, because of being raised in both cultures.  That

causes a lot of problems, too.  My son's not very big, but

he's a tough guy--beat up his cousins.  And they said,

"Well, how come he's so tough?"  I said, "If you're the only

half-breed gettin' on the bus to go to school for eighteen

years, you get pretty damned tough!"  It comes from both

sides.  You're a little white guy, or you're a little brown

guy.  You're the wrong…  I think his Navajo culture has

really…  All my kids know how to introduce themselves in

Navajo.  They know their clans, they know…  And that

gives you a place, that gives you a starting point or a

foundation.  That's real good.

   

   Underhill:  Well, what do you think you've learned over

all these years?

   

   Blair:  You asked whether I speak Navajo or not.  I tell

people I know enough to get into trouble, and not enough to

get out.  I think I still learn, you're still learnin'.

When I was a kid, we wanted to be Indians so bad, because

that was, for us, the dominant culture.  I wanted to go to

school in Brigham City, I wanted to get on that truck with

my big trunk and go to school.  In a way, it's been hard,

because I'm never gonna be, I can't be a Navajo.  And I

can't be an Anglo, I can't be a white guy either, 'cause I'm

not.  I'm sorta stuck in the middle.

   One time a friend of mine came down from Utah.  We traded

horses and we went to a ropin'.  It was in Tuba City, and

there was probably a hundred people there.  He said, "You

know, we're the only white people here."  I said, "There's

two of us!  I've been the only white guy all my life."  I've

struggled with that.  Like I said, you want to be a Navajo.

My sister is married to a black guy, and her kids grew up

around the reservation.  Well, when the kids at the school

get tribal clothes--well, they didn't get tribal clothes,

'cause they're not Navajos.  Gees, that's a [hard]…  I

never had that experience myself, with the tribal clothes,

but I've had [others].  You know, you don't belong here, to

a certain extent.  You've had to deal with that your whole

life.  Like I said, I can't vote.  Ask me what's goin' on in

tribal government--I can't vote.

   Someone asked me the other day who the governor of

Arizona was, and I…  The only reason I know who it is, is

because she used to teach school at Chinle--Mrs. Hull, and

she's the governor of Arizona.  I don't belong there either.

I've known more tribal chairmen personally, or tribal

presidents personally, than I've known…  Like I said, I

just barely…  I know who the governor is, because she

came out here to visit one time, 'cause she used to teach

school.

   

   Underhill:  What do you think you've given back to the

communities of Kayenta and Lukachukai?

   

   Blair:  Like I said about being at Red Mesa, I don't

think you even think about that, but I think just by bein' a

good [person]--just like you do anywhere, whether you're a

good person, or a trustworthy person, a helpful person--

especially in the Navajo culture, if you help people out…

You have certain responsibilities.  Part of this, you know,

you have responsibilities to your relatives or to your

______ you've been a good in-law.  If you're a Navajo,

you're only an in-law to the people that you're in-laws to,

but if you're a white guy married to a Navajo, you are

related to every Navajo that ever lived or everything--and

it's whether you've been a good in-law.

   I know that when my dad died in 1983 and they had the

funeral at Monument Valley--my dad's buried in the cemetery

at Monument Valley--there was I don't know how many people

there, but 90 percent of 'em were Navajos, and there was,

I'd say, at least five…  It was just overwhelming, there

was a lot of people there.  And I don't think my dad ever

did anything because it was gonna have a big crowd at his

funeral or anything like that.  But he was a good person.

"He helped me out with my sheep when I needed a sheep.  He

let me buy a ram."  People will come up and say that to me.

I think it's the same in any community.  If you're a

productive part of that community, that's how you'll be

remembered.  I was over there at the college giving a

speech, a little lecture on something, and one of the kids

was there, and it made me feel pretty damned old, because

this girl said she's gettin' her master's degree, and she

said "Mr. Blair used to give me a dollar for every 'A' that

I had on my report card when I was in elementary school."  I

still do that.  Kids bring in their report cards, and I give

'em a dollar for every "A."  I'll have to watch, because

sometimes they'll bring the same report card in!--different

kid with the same report card.  But you know, little things

like that.  Like I said, it made me feel old.  The girl's

gettin' her master's degree and she said, "And Mr. Blair

used to give me a dollar for every 'A.'"  Gees, I'm…

First of all, when the pretty girls start callin' you "Mr.

Blair," it's over the hill (laughter), you're dead meat!

   

   [END SIDE 2, BEGIN SIDE 3]

   

   Underhill:  This is Karen Underhill, and this is Part

Three of an interview with Hank Blair at Totsoh Trading

Post, and it's Thursday, August 13, and it's now about 1:15.

   So Hank, just before we broke, we were going to ask about

United Indian Traders Association.  Are you a member?

   

   Blair:  I am not a member.  I used…  I never had a

store at the time when there were memberships available.  My

dad was a member, my uncle was a member.  I know my uncle

was an officer of it.  I think my dad probably was on the

board of directors at one time, or something like that.

    My dad kind of had a falling-out with 'em in the

seventies, and he refused to buy the membership.  The FTC

was attacking certain people, or filing charges against

certain people.  My dad felt that certain ones of 'em needed

charges filed against 'em.  He didn't want the United Indian

Traders to spend money defending…  You know, they came to

the United Indian Traders and said, "Pay our lawyers and

fight these deals for [us]."  My dad felt that some of 'em

were crooks.  One of the guys was a member of the Mormon

Church, and my dad said, "But the guy's a crook!"  And they

said, "But he's an upstanding member of the Church!"  And my

dad said, "He's a crook!"  So he kind of…  He may have

paid his membership, but just didn't participate.  He felt

if they were crooks, let 'em pay their own lawyer if they

were in trouble.  He just didn't want to be a part of it.

   

   Steiger:  I had one question--not to interrupt.  How did

you get started giving kids a dollar…  Why did you do

that?  Why did you give 'em a buck for every "A" they get?

   

   Blair:  You know, I think just there's…  You know,

there's a big dropout rate and everything like that.  You

just try to encourage them to stay in school.  And the

difference between Kayenta and Lukachukai, at the store,

when the kids would come in the store and you knew they

should be in school and you told their parents--or we used

to call the school and the truant officer would come over

and get 'em.  But at Lukachukai, you call their parents, and

they'd tell you to leave their kids alone.  "I never went to

school and it didn't hurt me a bit!"  You know, "I'm a dumb

son-of-a-gun, so my kids can be ignorant too!"  But we used

to do that in Kayenta.  My mom was a teacher, and she always

encouraged people to go to school.  I've just been doin' it

for a long time.  I've got a couple of kids that I give

eight or nine--you know, when they get an "A" in behavior,

that wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but…  You know,

"Lunch period.  He gets an 'A' in lunch."  But I still give

'em a dollar.  Like I said, I got kids, I've probably given

'em $100 in the last few years, if they get "A's."  And like

I said, I don't even remember the little girl--vaguely--but

when she said she was gettin' her master's degree, "Mr.

Blair used to give me a dollar for all my 'A's,'" and stuff

like that.

   They unload the bus right here in front of the store.

I've watched 'em.  There's one little girl named Andy--I

think it's Andrea.  I said, "When you get married, I'm

leavin'!"  She was born, she's about fourteen years old,

they get off the bus here every day, and you see 'em every

day.  So like I said, when Andy get's married--and I hope

she waits 'til she's twenty-two or twenty-three, but when

she get's married, that's enough, I'm leavin'!

   

   Underhill:  Why have you stayed so long?

   

   Blair:  Well, you can make enough to live, but you can't

make enough to leave.  (laughter)  It's one of those kind of

deals.  That's the truth, really, to a certain extent.  And

it's hard, you can't sell one of these places.  Nobody in

their right mind wants to buy a trading post for what it's

worth.  I used to see guys like Jim McJunkin [phonetic

spelling] down at Teec-Tso, and Don Jensen, and I think,

"Man, I don't ever want to be there…"  You know, they've

been there since Christ was a pup.  Don Jensen was at

Crystal, and he used to have a big chair, and he'd have a

foot up against a post, and this is how he ran the store.

When his customers came in, they would get what they wanted

and either put the cash in the cash register, or write it

down on their charge.  He'd raised most of 'em, and they

would seriously just…  You know, his good customers, he'd

be sittin' in a chair, he'd never get up.  They'd get their

groceries, add it up on the adding machine, write it down,

and put the ticket in the deal.

   

   Underhill:  And what finally happened to him?

   

   Blair:  He left.  My wife's brother, as a matter of fact,

bought the trading post.  It's closed now, but he [i.e., Don

Jensen] was there thirty-some years.

   Jim McJunkin was at Teec-Tso for thirty-two or thirty-

eight [years] or something like that.  And a character!  I

mean, they tell stories…  That's one Lij told about,

asked if they wanted to deliver bread, and he said--well,

Lij was politer, he said, "Piss on 'em!  Let 'em eat

crackers!"  (laughter)  They tell good stories about it, and

he was just a character.  Been there for thirty-two years.

I think he came there as an orphan or something and bought

it from someone.

   

   Underhill:  What stories do they tell about you?

   

   Blair:  About me?  Hopefully, givin' the kids a dollar!

(laughter) for gettin' "A's" on their report cards.

   I'll tell you the story about the thirty-five naked white

ladies.  You want to hear that story?  (laughter)

   

   Underhill:  Sure!

   

   Blair:  One day, there was an older lady up here, her

name was Grace Bin [phonetic spelling].  One of her

granddaughters got married.  As part of the dowry, they got

two cows.  Well, they butchered one cow, and on Saturday

they ate the cow for the wedding.  The next day after the

wedding was over, they were gonna butcher the other cow.

They showed it the knife, and it got away, and it took off

runnin', goin' home.  I think the son-in-law was from

Crystal or somethin', and this cow just took off down the

field.  So she calls up and she says, "Mr. Blair, you have

horses.  Can you come up and help us catch the cow?  It's

runnin' away."  So my daughter was here, Konea [phonetic

spelling], so we had two horses.  We saddled up the horses,

nothing to do in Lukachukai, so we're chasin'…  There's

like four or five of us on horses--a couple of her sons-in-

laws and kids on horses--and we're chasin' this cow along

the base of the mesa up here, and in through the cedar

trees.  You'd just see it like every mile or so.  We're

chasin' it, and we go way down here and we go over here to

where Totsoh Wash is, and Raymond Knockeye [phonetic

spelling] lives up in the corner up there, and his daughter-

in-law is havin' kind of a "get closer to your Maker," all

these white ladies up there, doin' a sweat and "get to be a

real Indian."  I don't know what the heck, how to explain

it.  But we don't know this.  We're chasin' the cow along

here, and there's three or four of us on horses, and there's

like four pickups.  It's just somethin'!  Everybody's havin'

fun, we're chasin' this cow around there.  So I come bustin'

out of the trees, right around the corner is the wash.  And

all these Navajos were in the truck, and they're goin'…

I said, "Where did he go?"  And they went, "He went down the

wash!"  So I whip and spur and come around the corner, and

here's thirty-five naked white ladies having a sweat lodge

over there.  (laughter)  They'll be tellin' that story, "And

Mr. Blair came roarin' around the corner on his horse, and

here's all these ladies!"  They weren't all naked.  They had

covered up, because they had heard these other guys.  But

all the Navajos were goin', "Send Mr. Blair down there to

chase that cow!"  (laughter)  So I go roarin' around the

corner and slammin' into the wash, and here's all these…

They were havin' a sweat down there.  All these ladies were

down there.

   

   Underhill:  And what did you do?

   

   Blair:  I turned around and calmly went back the other

way, and cussed everybody out for sendin' me down there!

Sendin' me down to the wash.  They thought that was pretty

funny.  We never did catch the cow.  They caught it, it went

home, and they went and got it again.  So that was a big

Sunday in Lukachukai--havin' fun in Lukachukai.

   

   Underhill:  When did the Thriftway come in?

   

   Blair:  To the reservation?

   

   Underhill:  Well, to here.

   

   Blair:  This one was here when we came.  Well, see,

Raymond Knockeye built the little store out there.  He was

the former chairman of the Navajo Tribe.  They had a little

gas station and everything, and then it's probably been

twenty years ago or more they sold it to Thriftway, and

Thriftway has been there ever since.

   

   Underhill:  And how does that affect you?

   

   Blair:  Well, there used to be three stores here in the

area.  There used to be the Kennedy Store, which was up here

on the hill, and then there was Upper Greasewood, which is

about four miles down the road, and they've both been gone.

So there's always been several stores.  When I came here,

this store was basically abandoned, so they had all the

business down there.  We held our own against it.  Everybody

was afraid of it.  Like I said, when we came here, nobody

thought you could compete against 'em or anything.  But

we're here.

   

   Underhill:  And how do you get your supplies for the

store?

   

   Blair:  They come, actually, all the way from Amarillo,

Texas.  It's Affiliated Foods, and it goes to Albuquerque,

and then there's a small outfit.  It's called General

Distributing Incorporated, GDI, which I think that's "God

Damned Independents" is what it stands for.  Then they add

about 10 percent onto it and bring it out here.  We're kind

of at the end of the line, so we pay more for everything

that we get.  It used to be, when I was a kid, you had

salesmen come out to visit you and stuff like that, but it's

really changed.  It's the same thing--you used to have your

mom and pop little grocery and dry goods store in every

little town, and we're basically that.  Wal-Mart has shut

down all those deals, so it's a different life, different

business.

   

   Underhill:  What are some of your favorite memories

associated with your years in the trading business?

   

   Blair:  You know, like I said, when I was a kid, it was

just fun.  You were herdin' sheep, ridin' in somebody's

wagon, doin' a lot of…  For a kid, it was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun.  You basically played all the time.

That's what you did.  In lamb season they were all yours.

There were 3,000 of those lambs, and a lot of times you had

what they called "pee-wees" you had to take care of.  You

fed 'em and we always had lambs and baby goats to feed, and

catch prairie dogs.  We had a prairie dog farm in our back

yard.  We had rabbits, we had a baby coyote.  Used to get

out there with a fly rod, and when the bats would be flyin'

around, and chase 'em with a broom.  For a kid, it was a

great life, it was fun.  Go arrowhead huntin', you know.

Everywhere you went around there, there was pottery and

different things like that.  My mother, like I said, she was

a teacher, so she…  Actually, like I said, she taught us

at home for our grade school years.  She integrated all that

into our learnin' about stuff.  It was interesting.

   As I got older…  Like I said, to be a trader, you have

to be a people person, and I think I'm a pretty good people

person.  I just enjoy meetin' the people.  Like my Uncle Lij

said, "kissin' babies and pattin' ladies on the butt."  It's

kinda show biz.  Everybody comes to the store.  You get to

see everybody and talk to people.  I think that's what I

enjoy about it.  You get to see people, you get to talk to

people.  You know, Eddie the Breadman--the guy that delivers

the bread was always known as Eddie the Breadman.  You know

all his kids, you know his family, you know everything.

That's the fun part of it.  Like I said, seein' the kids get

off the school bus every day, just watchin' 'em grow up.  My

brother worked for me for a couple of years, and he married

a girl that used to get off the bus here every day--Debbie.

Just watched 'em grow up.  Seein' 'em have little kids of

their own.  Makes you feel old sometimes.  I think that's

what I enjoy about it.  Any kind of business like that where

you meet people, you get to meet people every day, and

tourists come by.  You get to hear about different places.

Just people, meeting people, that's what's nice about it.

   

   Underhill:  Any regrets?

   

   Blair:  (sigh)  You know, sometimes the grass always

looks greener.  It looks like it'd be nice to have a job at

the post office or with NAU or somethin', where you had

health insurance--we don't have health insurance, can't get

health insurance.  But it beats havin' a real job.  I've

always kinda resisted doin' that, havin' a real job.

Sometimes you wish you'd…  You know, another ten years or

fifteen years, you'd have a check comin', be retired or

somethin' like that.  I've enjoyed it.  I doubt very

seriously if I'm gonna be doin' anything else for the rest

of my life, no matter how much I…  Like I said, I wish I

had health insurance or something.

   

   Underhill:  What do you think the future is for business

on the reservation?

   

   Blair:  You know, it's easy, the older you get, to become

more cynical.  I remember the Jacks sold Shiprock Trading

Post to R. B. Foutz in 1950, 'cause they thought the trading

post era was over.  They said, "It's done."  It's changed,

you know.  It's changed a bunch, but I don't think it's

done.  I might not recognize it in twenty or thirty years

from now, but I think it's gonna be…  Trading posts,

basically, it's a service business is what you're doin'.  My

mom and dad were more so, maybe--they were the liaison

between the Navajos and the dominant society out there, but

you still do that to a certain extent today.  I don't

realize how different a place this is, but people come and

they say, "This is a little different out here."  I may not

recognize it, but I think it'll be somethin' goin' on.

   

   Underhill:  What else would you like to add?

   

   Blair:  I told about all my stories, I think.  (chuckles)

Nothin' that I can think of.  It's only been two hours.  I

can usually burn up a day or two tellin' stories.  But

that's about all I can think of.  I'm sure I'll think of

somethin' when I leave.

   

   Steiger:  I have one kind of inconsequential question.

You were talking about when you were selling wagons, you

would take the wagons in trade?

   

   Blair:  Oh, yeah.

   

   Steiger:  So what would you do with those wagons?

   

   Blair:  Sell used wagons.  (laughter)  If people would

trade in their saddles, we sold saddles and stuff like that.

People would trade in their saddles and buy a new saddle.

You'd sell the old saddle to some guy that wasn't as well-

off.  My dad tells stories about people writin' home from

the railroad, you know, and would send a check to pay the

bill, or send money to pay the bill for their wife, and tell

my dad, "Make sure she feeds the horse.  Make sure she buys

grain for the horse."  In those days, especially, you were

the go-between between the Navajos and the dominant culture.

And I talk about doin' ten things in the trading post--

probably then you did a hundred different things.  It was a

struggle to make a living.  You had to do anything.  There's

an impression that "God, these traders got rich."  I know

most of 'em, they're just all gettin' Social Security

checks.  A guy one time said, "I heard your uncle made

$100,000 a year at Aneth."  You know, my uncle was at Aneth.

And I asked my uncle one time and he said, "Heck, our gross

sales were $60,000.  It's pretty hard to make $100,000 when

the whole business only did $60,000 a year or somethin' like

that."  So it's pretty hard.

   Oh, one thing I would like to [talk about].  In the

fifties, the first thing that came along was the uranium.

There was a uranium boom on the reservation.  It seemed like

everybody, all of a sudden you were seein' strangers at the

store, and everybody had a geiger counter and they were

gonna get rich.  (laughter)  I'm serious!  Everybody was

gonna get rich.  And Navajos were out there.  I remember one

guy that worked for us found a petrified log that was like

pure uranium, but that was it.  But everybody had a geiger

counter.  And so, boy, I was just a little kid, and this was

exciting, because all of a sudden you saw people at the

store, rather than the same customers.

   Then they had the oil field boom.  Red Mesa was just

below Aneth, Utah.  Red Mesa Trading Post was only about 200

yards from the Utah state line.  Whenever the surveyors

would come out, they'd pay me fifty cents or a quarter or

something like that, and I'd go show 'em where the stake

was, where the section marker was.

   But the oil boom came, and we didn't have electricity.

And we sold gas, and we had one of those old pumps that you

fill up.  You pump it by hand, and it fills up that glass

thing.  Well, if you were fillin' up like one car a week,

givin' 'em five dollars' worth of gas, that was big

business.  But then they had these Hal Burton [phonetic

spelling] oil trucks come, and they had 150-gallon tanks,

and you're goin' (pantomimes pumping gas) to fill that glass

thing up.  It probably held twenty gallons.  So my dad

bought a World War II K.W. surplus generator, and then we

had one light bulb hangin' in the kitchen.  At first we only

turned it on at night, or when somebody needed some gas

pumped--we turned the generator on.  That really changed the

whole…  I mean, like I said, there were no roads, and

then all of a sudden they were just bulldozin' roads

everywhere for this oil deal.  And that was cash business,

people comin' in there.  And the thing was, you were doin'

it all behind the counter.  It's not like a convenience

store where you just check everybody out.  That was a lot of

work.  And I remember my parents.  They were so eager for

the business, people would come by in the middle of the

night and want gas--they had a buzzer, people would get up.

So it changed the whole complexion of the business.

   

   Underhill:  And how did it impact the Navajo?

   

   Blair:  Well, they had jobs, there were things goin' on.

They ended up, by the trickle-down effect or whatever, they

ended up with jobs.  Guys that my dad got jobs at Superior

Oil or somethin' like that, probably started out as laborers

or somethin' like that, retired after thirty years.  It

impacted everybody.

   That's it!

   

   Underhill:  Do you have any other questions?

   

   Cole:  No.

   

   Underhill:  It's been wonderful--we knew it would be!

   

   Blair:  Well, thank you.

   

   Underhill:  We really appreciate the time you've taken to

do this.

   

   Blair:  Well, I'm glad you found the place here.

(laughter)  Brad's directions…  I told you two-and-a-half

hours.

   

   Cole:  You said an hour-and-a-half.

   

   Blair:  Did I say that?  No, I couldn't have said that!

   

   [END OF INTERVIEW]