SOCIAL STUDIES

As most of you know, I’m a reader.  I spend a lot of time reading books.  Really, it is probably my favorite past time.

I recently completed the book, Killers of the Flower Moon.  Currently the book and the movie are getting rave reviews.  I was in a book store recently, saw the book, and purchased it.  I used to buy books all the time, but a few years ago gave it up for the library, much cheaper that way.  But when I saw this book, I grabbed it because the movie had just come out and I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie…. something I typically try to do.

Talk about being floored!!!  I had heard a little about the story, but not the deep details.  This is really an overwhelming story.  I did a little research and learned that David Grann, the author, had learned of this piece of American History and started digging deeper to get the details….and thus the book was born.  If you don’t know the story….it is based on the true story of what happened on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma in the 1920s.  Without going into deep detail, it is the story of multiple murders of Osage Indians for their oil rights.  It is heart wrenching in its details.  But that is not what got me sitting at the computer today.  What got me to the computer is what happened immediately after I left the movie theater.

As I was leaving the theater I was visiting with a young girl, probably 12-13 years old and her father.  She was very excited about the movie, she said she wanted to see it because they were studying the topic in her Social Studies class!!!!   Really???  What????  I thought such topics were off limits in our school systems these days. 

I didn’t get to spend any more than a couple of minutes with her, but I was so surprised and pleased by her comments, that her school was sharing some of the darkest moments of our country’s history gave me hope…. that maybe, just maybe the youth of our country have a fighting chance for a more positive tomorrow.

Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio will no doubt get Oscar nods and the movie should definitely get an Oscar, but that little girl…..she made the entire 3.5+ hours more than worth my day.