"When we are young it seems that time is either too short or too long. Summer vacations are much too fast and it seems like the school year is forever.

But something happens to time as we age. The older we get the faster it flies. Remember the old saying; "Time is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.

Out here on the Northern Plains we have another form of telling time: It is called Indian time. It means that a meeting will start when everybody gets there and the meeting will last as long as all of the people have had the chance to voice their opinions. Indians didn't spend their lives with one eye on the clock because they had to deal with that thing called time long before they ever saw or heard of a clock.

Time was measured by the movements of the sun, stars and the moon. You've all heard about using the moon to gauge time. "It will be many moons before I see you again." There is a town in Wyoming called Ten Sleeps. It was named because from one point on the map it took 10 nights of travel (10 sleeps) to get to that location. Where the journey originated we don't exactly know, but it must have been a well traveled destination from that locale to make it important enough to name a town after the journey."

Get the Story:
Tim Giago: Is there still a place for Indian time in this busy world? (The Huffington Post 12/7)

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