Next Meeting -Tuesday, Dec. 6 - SPECIAL TIME! SPECIAL PLACE! LINDA BERGREN is in charge of this one, and she's planned one of our “Late Day Socials.” We'll meet at 5:30 PM in the Rigadoon Room, for munchies, holiday music on the piano, and a social hour. There will be a cash bar, and bring your spouse, significant other, prospective new member, whatever. A chance to take a break from the holiday frenzy, visit with friends, have a bite to eat and enjoy the Lion atmosphere!

At our last meeting, Pres. JIM opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, LINDA led the song, (on a “higher plane”) and SCOTT GROVER gave the invocation, reminding us to remember how blessed we are, and consider once again what we can do for others, who may not have much to eat, anything to wear, and/or no roof over their heads. That's the beauty of belonging to Lions - your individual effort is pooled with that of thousands of others, and a lot of help gets delivered.

LINDA BERGREN is coordinating our bell-ringing for the Salvation Army this Thursday, Dec. 1. At last report, she still needed one or two more Lions to fill our schedule. Check with her if you can help.

We had lion cookies for dessert last meeting, courtesy of sometime member Paddhe Heinen, who was visiting again. DALE MUELLER's wife Gwen was a guest as well.

The Holiday Treats are in! Please get your orders from LINDA as soon as you can, so we can get them out of Steve Keip's office. As usual, there is stock available for additional sales - check with LINDA to see what she has. It will be available at the “Social”.

SCOTT GROVER says he always needs a couple more volunteers to work the Kohl Concession stand. That's one way we generate funds for our service work. He also has a couple T-shirts left, including one XXXL. There are no pole marks from Ringling Bros. on it, but the sale is on. He missed Black Friday, but we think next week will be Gray Tuesday.

It was announced that there will be Vision Screening in cooperation with Head Start in January. The East Club is working out a schedule. Hopefully we will hear more later and be able to help.

Patty Loew was introduced as our speaker by STEVE BRIGGS. Many of us remember her as a Madison TV anchor, and she is now on WHA-TV, and is also a writer and producer of TV programming for Public Television. She is a member of the Bad River Band of the Ojibwe, one of Wisconsin's Native American Nations, and told us a great deal about the original inhabitants of our State. Wisconsin was sort of a borderline, with Algonquinian-speaking people to the east (and moving westward under pressure from white settlements) and Siouxan-speaking plains Indians to the west. Thousands were moved out in 1830, but kept returning in small groups for the next 50 years. The early efforts of government to deal with Indian peoples were mostly attempts to stamp out the Indian heritage and assimilate them into the white society, which greatly damaged their tribal identities and traditions. The Indians believed that their relationship with their land was a relationship to the Creator, and they depended on the land for hunting and gathering. The Ojibwe were displaced from northern Wisconsin, but their tribal legends were of “the place where food grows on the water”, which of course was the wild rice that they still prize today, and so they kept working their way back to that area. These legends do much to explain the current tribes' fierce defense of the lands and rivers in their territories. Also contained in the ancient legends are events scientifically traced to solar eclipses, and stories of contacts with visitors that presumably were the Vikings. Presently, the federal government treats the tribes as “sovereign” , but there are all sorts of legal skirmishes over what that means. A very interesting program - there were a lot of things the editor didn't know he didn't know.