Roy Cook arrived by 10am and found the doors opened and the tables set for the meeting. Jonathan York of the IHRC had prepared all fixtures for the meeting. Manuel and Celia Flores along with William Buchanan and Josie were there too. Also attending is: Jean Vigenault, Barbra Shrank and Ruth Cervantes with Nellie Ruiz. Additionally, the donut boy, Ben Nance, Justin Four horns and Elizabeth Strangfield were there. Rose Davis, Serena with ‘Pinky” lately brought in the latest copies of the Indian Voices newspaper. There were a number of good reasons to celebrate being alive in this Thanksgiving and Holiday time.

Our blessing today is by the new TONKAWA President Vickie Gambala and with the prayer goes our wishes for and the health of our family in town and far away and also friends having a hard time. Prayer is particularly good at this stage of our elder’s life with medical procedures and medication prescriptions dominating much of the current life experience of the members. It is all good when we can gather together in thanksgiving and feast as we enjoy each others’ life experiences and good company.

We ate up the fine selection of the TONKAWA potluck selections: turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and yams, vegetables in a butter sauce, pasta, Mac and cheese, cranberry jelled and other, homemade pumpkin pies with cooolwhip, coffee and Pepsi.

We were pleased to see some of our faithful members and new visitors to the monthly gathering. This meeting had a sparkling, lively spirit and good turnout of our faithful TONKAWA membership and friends. There were lively conversations of various ends of life practices: tribal and others too. The entire meeting was spontaneous and rich with personal stories of past life experiences and current travel plans.

Our Holiday meeting is the 9th of December at the Sunshine Buffet and will have a Xmas theme. Jean Vigenault is coordinating the go/no go list and finances for the hosted member and one guest list, call her: 858-581-1979 wk for more details and directions or Google it.

We chatted up political results and future community activities in addition to upcoming holiday dinner and recent conferences intersperse with a lively and exchange of jokes and humorous episodes of our TONKAWA Elder’s long lives.

Finally, about 1:45pm, as we cleaned up the room and were ‘dividing’ up the potluck leftovers we were wishing each other better health options as we made our way out the door to catch up with other late Sunday afternoon activities like football viewing and napping!

(We are always recruiting Elders to be TONKAWA members!). It is always nice to see new members and guests drop in and are encouraged to return. This is a real nice down home noon meeting to attend. We are also very pleased to enjoy the regular attendance of TONKAWA along with community guests and family members. Our next meeting is at noon Dec. 9, 2012.

We thank the Creator for allowing you this day to be a part of the life of the Real People and being there today, Mehan and Aho.