09/30/2026
This photo was taken at Shark’s Lounge with three men I’m proud to call friends, really, family. The two on the right are father and son. It’s one of the places I spend my time when I’m not selling cars, and another reminder that Akwesasne isn’t somewhere outside my life. It’s still part of it.
🧡Today is a day for Truth and Reconciliation.
I was born in Cornwall, but a big part of who I am was built in Akwesasne.
I had two fathers growing up. My mom and my biological father from Cornwall divorced when I was young, and she later married my stepdad, Steve Smoke, Humpty to just about everybody who knew him.
To me, he was Bubba. Tótaman.
From a young age, I grew up down Snye.
Bubba taught me the way.
Akwesasne was community. It was family. And when I say family, I mean family everywhere.
Bubba knew everybody.
When I was seven or eight years old, I was pumping gas at Mohawk Junction, meeting people all day long. Later, he worked security at the Bingo Palace and had Smokes Garage.
Some of my strongest memories are from working with him at Mohawk Springs in St. Regis. We'd load the truck with those big water jugs every morning, about 45 pounds each, and drive door to door delivering water throughout the community.
I got strong carrying those damn bottles.
We'd go fishing. We'd stop at Harry King's, Adams Marina, Chico's. CKON was always playing. Country music. Free Format Friday. Radio Bingo on Tuesday nights. Birthday requests. In memoriams. Voices and names you knew your whole life.
Family cookouts weren't twenty people.
Sometimes there were hundreds.
Volleyball games, food everywhere, kids running around, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends who might as well have been cousins too.
It didn't matter where you lived.
You belonged.
We were the Smoke family. The Cooks. The Lazores. And more branches of that family tree than I could probably ever write down.
Bubba was also one hell of a pool player. Funny, respected, and one of those people everybody seemed to know.
Maybe that explains a little bit about me too.
I left the reserve at 17 and ventured out into the world. I travelled, lived some life, and eventually settled into the car business in Cornwall.
And somehow life has a way of bringing you around again.
Today, a few nights a week, you'll find me back in Akwesasne playing pool at Shark's Lounge.
Seaway GM made a post today referring to Akwesasne as our neighbours.
And I understand exactly what they mean.
But when I read it, I thought:
Akwesasne isn't just my neighbour.
Akwesasne is my family.
Members of my own family were affected by the day-school and residential-school systems. Those stories are part of our history, and they're part of the reason today matters.
Truth has to come before reconciliation.
And truth isn't only found in history books.
It's carried in families.
In stories.
In memories.
In the names of people who came before us.
In the communities that raised us.
I'm grateful for Cornwall.
I'm grateful for Akwesasne.
Both communities helped make me who I am.
They say home is where the heart is.
My heart has never recognized the border between the two.
This is our home.
And that's just one small part of my story.
🧡
