02 June 2016
Triggers: This story from when I was young……
The road to Floyd
the speeding ticket
Goodbye to the lake
The winter was so long
Pepsi and Popcorn
Zach slouched down on the couch, leg thrown over the arm, sandwich dripping from one hand, cell phone absorbing him in the other.
“Zach, You’r mother will kill you if she sees you in here with that! And I’ll help bury the body. So get back to the kitchen.”
As with any growth spurted young teen boy growing to man, the legs and arms moved seemingly at odds with each other as he unwound himself and his sandwich from the chair, silently, sullenly, dragging his body back down the hall.
Ah yes being the father of a teen boy is always an adventure. It had been only a month since we had closed up the cabin at Floyd lake. Zach had still been a boy then. It had been a wonderful golden summer of sunshine and relaxation. The exuberant boy in full freedom of self and content to spend the summer at the lake with his parents and the other families that have been going there for generations. That boy changed upon his return to school, facing competition for girls and the drop of his voice by 2 octaves…most of the time. There is a man stuggling to emerge from the boy; neither no longer one, nor yet the other.
Some of us are trapped in that in between phase for a long time. Some never grow out of it. Zach will make it, most likely no matter what I do. I learned that from my dad after what had been my last “boyhood” summer as this one had been for Zach. I was just his age. ,
This was in pre AC time when summers in the cities were unbearable. And if you were well off, or like me, had a grandfather who grew up in Floyd in the north prarie plains and built his own house on the lake, you had a place to escape the heat. Floyd was one of the few hllly parts of Minnesota, surrounded by pine forest and occasional stretches of open pit iron mines.
Floyd and its lake were actually a product from an earlier time. As the ore petered out in that part of the Mesabi iron range, mining towns disappeared and the pits filled with water. Floyd had been luckier than most to have been able to turn itself into a summer tourist town. Of course winter was so long, that only the heartiest of those norwegian settlers stayed through the months of solid snow and ice. The temp rarely rising above freezing. This was the days also before snow mobiles and winter tourism. A few scrufty hunters would somehow make their way in on frozen roads. It was they who sustained Rosie’s, the all purpose general store, bar and closest thing to a restaurant for a hundred miles.
If the weather was not too bad and the roads open, my family would occasional make the 6 hour trip up from the city for a winter holiday week. We would shovel snow off the lake in front of the grandpa’s cabin to give us space for ice skating and imagined hocky games. If we’d done our jobs right before closing up the house and saying good bye to the lake the prior end of summer, there would be a big stack of logs piled up in the shed, waiting to be put in the iron kettle stove that sat at the end of the large all purpose, pine paneled room. The dog and cat would lie as close to the stove as they could without roasting.
I curled up with them, staring out the large picture window that overlooked the lake. The green of the pines, with their hats of snow, framed the frozen lake that glistened in the sunlight. I felt alone and unknown. All I did was eat, read and sleep. I declined offers of going out skating or hiking the trail around the lake. All things I had enjoyed before. The world was cold and there was no one who could understand. Or so I thought.
“So Robert, is this what you are going to do on vacation?” It was less a question from my father than an implied order to get moving, to do something.
“I am doing something. Im looking out at the lake and the snow.”
“And what is it telling you?”
“I dont know. I suppose that it’s cold out there.”
“Yes, well, it is winter, and this is Minnesota.”
“Not that cold, Dad,“ – implied idiot father tone dripping from my voice.
“I mean it so cold out there. People dont care about me.”
“Robert that’s not true. Your mom and I love you and you have lots of friends.”
“You’re my parents. You have to. And nobody really likes me.”
“So Ok Robert, what are you going to do about it. If you are not happy about something, you know you have to take responsibility to do something about it.”
“Yeah Dad, I hear that from you all the time. I know. I know. I cant blame others for what I do.”
By this time, we had gone into the kitchen and Dad handed me the pot we used to pop corn as he reached up onto the shelf for some corn to put in. Automatically, I had opened the fridge for some butter and we began the ritual of cooking corn on top of the stove burner, shaking it as it starts to pop and holding it just a bit above the heat to keep the popped kernels from burning.
He turned the kernels into a large stone bowl and I put on the salt. It was just ordinary routine, something we had done many, many times in my yet young life. Dad returned the butter to the fridge, bringing out two pepsi bottles before closing. After popping the tops he looked at me, “Bottle or glass?”
“Dad, you know I always drink it out of the bottle.”
“Yes, but you can always change your mind. Each time you can chose.”
By now, I already had a fistfull of corn in my mouth. It muffled my adolescent, snarky reply to point out that he always said that. In a way though, being unable to speak, made me have to think a bit, and spark of understanding was planted in my brain. I finished my mouthful with a chug of pepsi and sat for a second, looking at my father, sitting there at the table, contentedly munching his corn, just a kernal or two at a time, taking a sip of pepsi from his bottle. He stopped and smiled at me.
I stood walked over to the cabinet, opened the door and reached up for a glass.
“Do you want one, Dad”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
And our conversation had started from there. His gentle, positive way, letting me struggle, being there when needed Being clear I had to find my own way at some point but letting me know he had faith in me and my decisions. He helped me through that time. And I grew, and emerged, a responsible man.
Ah yes, it now means being a responsible father too. It is a scary challenge that you make one decision at a time. I followed Zach down the hall into the kitchen. Zach was standing over the sink, tomato juice and mustard surrounding his mouth. He was rinsing the dish and cleaning the counter as best he could.
“Sorry Dad, I didn’t think about Mom. I know she doesn’t have that many rules.”
We stand for a moment, saying nothing.
“How bout a Pepsi?” I ask him.
“Ok Dad. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I think I’ll drink it from a glass today.”