At end of the day, may honor remain

THE DEBATE OVER where Jim Thorpe’s bones should be buried some five decades after the Olympian’s death raises plenty of questions, not the least of which is a concern common to most anyone who has mulled mortality.

Not remember in the sense of stumbling upon your name in a yellowed obituary clipping, courthouse record, family tree – or in Thorpe’s case, sports record books – but truly keep you in mind. Celebrate your life. Memorialize your passing. Reflect on you. Talk of you. Pay tribute.

Thorpe’s son, 72-year-old Jack Thorpe, understandably wants the celebrated American Indian’s remains returned to his native Oklahoma. A lawsuit recently filed in Scranton seeks to transfer Thorpe’s body to tribal grounds from his current resting place, the Carbon County community named Jim Thorpe – a picturesque town and popular weekend getaway that also bills itself as “the Switzerland of America.”

The crux of the lawsuit apparently involves a federal law designed to give Native American artifacts back to their tribal homelands. To those of us outside the courtroom, it seems a legal long shot. After all, the law most likely aims to recover from private collections and museums any funerary items that had been plundered from places such as pueblos, battlegrounds and sacred sites.

By contrast, Jim Thorpe’s body was interred in Pennsylvania by mutual agreement. Two merging towns (Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk) brokered a deal with Thorpe’s third wife, agreeing to rename the community in his memory.

A judge will decide what becomes of Jim Thorpe – the man and, to some extent, the town.

Regardless of the outcome, however, it should be noted that Carbon County’s residents helped to sustain and expand Jim Thorpe’s legacy, holding a yearly celebration in his name and sharing his story with visitors. In short, they honored him.

At the end, after dust returns to dust, isn’t that what you – what each of us – most hopes for?

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Opinion

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