"A Blue Desert Trail Home" for Bob Robideau (March 2009)

"A blue desert trail home"
for Robert Robideau, Anishanabe (1947-2009)by antoinette nora claypoole

"I looked out over a wide expanse of country below us.

Except for a few scattered trees it was barren for a far as the eye saw. I wondered how people could live in it, but as we continued on, I began to feel its spacious charm. We crossed a two lane highway, then headed down an embankment to an ice covered stream. The horses didn't hesitate as we urged them on, broke through the thin ice, moved the short distance across the cold stream, then took a short jump up and over the embankment to flat land.

….my thoughts traveled back to Oregon, and the beginning events that had unfolded… I had come full circle and I didn't have an idea what might happen next in my life. These events had swept me up and taken over my destiny. “

--Robert Robideau
from “NW AIM, 1973”

A book I was creating –“Ghost Rider Roads” --was ready to go to print. Words from a friend, old AIM guy, Robert Robideau helped infuse it with resonance. His story of the early days of NW AIM in Portland, Or. his days “on the dog” gave the collection a weave. A voice of the past coming back to tell us how to get to where we need to be. The final draft complete. I came to the desert of Northern New Mexico. Not far from the place where Annie Mae Pictou Aquash was confronted by old AIM, Peltier, Robert Rodideau and company. And where Robert Robideau spent many years working with Denver AIM. Not far from a huge part of his AIM legacy. The desert here is my home for very different reasons. But.That’s another story.

Many of Robideau’s archives, old flyers from political actions and writings never published were given to the University of New Mexico, by Robert. I had gone through those boxes before we became friends, years ago.

Last week, while I am in the desert, Mike Kuzma leaves a phone message on my cell. “Robert passed away last night, antoinette.” In the midst of so many things left undone, in the swirl of a “lover’s quarrel” intrigue, Robert is gone. I am still numb, I am like the flock of mourning doves converging in the pinon outside my writing table window. Scattering in the wind, chattering of family they were. This past few days. For Robert I believe. “ Badger”, Robert’s brother says it best: “what makes it so hard is that there was no warning, no way to know he was going to die”. Badger and Robert apparently were thinking about opening an art gallery together in Santa Fe. As soon as Bob came back. And now he’s gone. His spirit making the long trek to another home. Defying the barrenness some of us are left to roam.

How do any of us survive a lack of water, snows, the breeding of condos where once there was a winged mesa?

I never saw this coming. He is my age. Late fifties. Early sixties. Not a timeline in history. Simply the years we have been here. Robideau and I wrote just last month, via email, while he was in Spain. He talked about the small heater keeping him warm. In Barcelona. Before he left Portland, Or. last Fall I had said “lucky you. A wife and a place to go in Europe while the U.S. decides if they want to elect a man who speaks in complete, poetic sentences. Bob laughed and said “it’s not as exotic or glamorous as it sounds, antoinette. I am just going to Spain for a visit with the museum and maybe to collect a pension for my “old age”. I am not with a “wife” anymore.”

“ Well still lucky you. Where will I go to find a pension, kid? “ I joked back to him.

We talked about how activists who don’t claim the glitz and glam of Hollywood don’t have much to live on. In our “old age”. About how I loved his art, his stories about the old AIM days. And how he and I both knew that we are “starving artists”, leftover activists playing our songs on the B side of a hit single. Not popular because most people don’t want to hear the truth. And that’s what Robideau was best at. Truth. His “following” dwindling because of it. The sheep, the top 10 people, they just want to see and hear exotic be bop tales of a new age.

When Robert and I emailed last month my computer had just crashed taking with it 18 months of research/writings and Robideau giveaways. The dark cloud of sabotage loomed and I was asking him if he had copies of a piece I wanted to include in yet another collection of work I was putting together.

And I asked….” how are you kid?” He was as fine as us wanderers can be. “The heater still works” he said. I could hear a cyber laugh across the atlantic.

From a small room above the museum. That he had started while the Barcelona marriage still seemed possible. Said he was heading for the Canary Islands soon. Told me that when he got back home, to the states, he’d replace the files, photos and writings I had lost. Good friend.

A veteran of a war. That is much more than history. A war for respect and human rights which some Native people continue to fight. There’s no history about any of it. The stories are still going on. And while his family waits for Spain to send his body home, they know fiercely the realities of fight and death in Indian Country.

Robert worked endlessly to unravel the brutal truth about the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. He was “obsessed” is how Mike Kuzma, one of Peltier’s lawyer sees it. Hmm…..obsessed might not be the right word. I explained to Kuzma. It’s simply that Robert was the one old AIM person who had the courage to say what needed to be said about Annie Mae. To everyone in Indian Country. Over and over again.

Things like…Why didn’t someone in AIM stop the murder? And where are the “leaders” who left her to die? Robert survived the shoot-out at Oglala, the subsequent trials, a shake-up in AIM, tribunals and confrontations with John Trudell and years of work for his ailing cousin, Leonard Peltier. Unlike some of the other AIM vets, he died with authentic commitment to the People folded into his “anyway heart”. The glitz and glam, front and center stage never took hold of Robert. His voice an authentic one.

Today the desert’s mourning doves are quiet. I am frozen like the peaks claiming slivers of winter on Taos Mountain, far north from this warm and windy day. Robert had become a rock for me, he was a strength for me as the murder of Annie Mae continued to be unresolved and we both sought a truth which eludes many humans. The lost Humans stretching to become a marquee about rags to riches movies rather than telling a story about the murder of human rights. Activists.

Robert and I had our snits about how to tell the story. Yet we would always come back to a respect for time spent on the front lines. That shared trenches reality, his hours on the phone with me explaining intricacies of surviving the sharp dried thistles piercing through my stocking feet walking a deserted, weathered Earth of barren friends. He, Robert Robideau, gave harmonics to my voice, once so steeped in Indian Country, and with his passing it is unclear to me how my words, my voice will prevail.

I look toward Jemez peaks for answers. And I remember winged things.


Today. There is no feather on the sand no clickity clack on tree branches. Flicker friend who greeted me when I arrived here. Is gone. The silence is daunting. Leaving a memory, a vacancy, like the cracked façade of adobe motels built in the 50s. A wondering of why those we love are taken from us inside a dust devilled legacy.

Living without Robideau means the flicker is in good company. Leaving me to memories of Spring. And the winter of family needing his compassion.

“It ain’t easy” an old cowboy song plays on the radio. “Friends are all we have….however hard it gets.” This is still the wild wild west. The cowboys learned those lyrics from the b-side Indians, I’m sure. And yet. A lonely road to petroglyphs persists. I trust… as Robert seemed to do so well. I trust. The destination’s worth the trip. With all that’s going down, he continues as he always did, to make the journey easier for all of us to map.

NOTES FROM 2011

&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&

Robert’s family is organizing a public memorial for Robert. It will be held in New Mexico the weekend of March 14th-15th.

Here is a note from Starr Robideau about helping. The bank info is UPDATED ans she apologizes for any confusion about prior info that went out on the internet:

“As with the passing of a loved one, an account has been set up to assist the family with the financial responsibilities of laying Bob to rest. If you would like to help, please send donations to:

In the benefit of Robert Robideau
US Bank
153662026936
*You can send it to any US Bank in the United States, via mail or transfer, or walk-in.

Your positive thoughts, prayers and assistance are greatly appreciated during this time.

On behalf of The Robideau Family, Thank you!

Respectfully,

Starr Robideau

a memorial service for Robert is scheduled in New Mexico,

March 14-15th.

Here, a note from his family:

(and a tribute, written by me, below)

Hello,

Please help us celebrate the life of a great Warrior.

We will be needing any information of any chapter of Aim, LPSG's, or individuals interested in attending. If possible please pass this on.

We will be having an honoring ceremony, a celebration of the life of Robert Robideau, co-defendant of Leonard Peltier, and an honoring feast in the Albuquerque area approximately the second week of March. Exact dates to follow soon.

There will be host homes, tenting places, and food for anyone that comes.

Thank you for any and all assistance!

contact number 505/286.5432

Nantinki Rose and Badger..... Bob's brother