December 4, 2011
answering machine message

It's me, Bomp.  You don't have to call me back.  I'm driving through Northeast Colorado on my way to Milwaukee, Wisconson with a load of--listen carefully Matt Brannon (that's my husband)--Miller Beer!  That's right!  Ha ha! (My dad doesn't drink at all--he has never been interested in alcohol.  But he knows Matt likes beer.) 

And I'll tell you this: the Miller Beer area of Milwaukee is pretty interesting.  It's like a perfectly restored, I don't know, turn of the century kind of place.  If you ever go to Milwaukee, it's worth a tour just to see all the old buildings and stuff.

Alright, so I am signing off. 

Just tooling along through the snow, listening to my Christmas records.  I've decided the best of the three--and they're all kind of crappy--is the Burl Ives.

Thanksgiving Highlights

My dad was deeply disappointed when he learned he would not be able to make it to my house for Thanksgiving.  I felt sad at the thought of him spending another holiday alone in his truck.  Then things turned in his favor.  Suddenly there was a load to drop in Seattle, so Dad would get his home time after all.  On his way here he discovered a route that took hours off his drive time, so he arrived early.  My neighbors said it would be fine for him to park his truck right outside my house (I live in a sort of wooded neighborhood with wide streets, and on a corner, so he could park Big Blue out of the way.)  So, to our mutual surprise and delight, he pulled in just an hour after my sister and her family arrived, surprising them all.  It was a happy way to meet.  In the last couple years I have seen him only for brief periods of time at the truck stop 40 minutes away.

Here are some of the things Dad did during his visit:

1.       Played Barbies.  I’m not crazy about those half-starved, spiky-heeled creatures, and yet they have infiltrated our home.  Most of them have been to the kid-scissors hair salon, have had permanent ball-point makeup applied and are looking a little worse for the wear (why should I protect them when I dislike them so?).  Dad got hold of an old, beaten-down mermaid doll with matted hair and a scratched fin.  He named her Barbara and made her an antagonist.  “Oh it’s OK,” he said, “She’s just got a few hard miles on her.”  He gave her a rough, gravelly voice.  She shouted, “Where are my cigarettes!!!”  This has become one of my daughters’ favorite new phrases.  He also had her do a lot of cussing.  I could hear the string of kid-friendly profanity from three rooms away: “Manure, diaper, droppings, underpants, bottom!”  My girls thought this was the best game in the history of the world.  I muttered things like, “Oh dear.”

2.       Got Choked Up.  At Thanksgiving Dinner he started to say something about how glad he was to be with everyone, and then paused for a moment.  I figured he had lost his train of thought, when he said, “Boy, I’m getting a little choked up, here.”  He then managed that this was the best Thanksgiving he can remember since the last Thanksgiving before his mom died. 

3.       Placed his Order.   Dad’s a big fellow and, I’ll say, no longer spry.  When he finds a comfortable spot on the couch, he is likely to stay there for a spell.  The morning after Thanksgiving Dad was comfortably sitting and called out to my sister and me, “Excuse me, don’t bring me any coffee.  I don’t care for any, thank you.”  Shan said, “Oh no, Dad, did I forget to take your order?”  “I have been sitting here for nearly four minutes,” he said.  Shan poured him a steaming mug of black coffee and delivered it to him at the couch.  He said, “Couldn’t I get some kind of English tea biscuit to go with this?”  Shan came back to the kitchen and told me, “Dad wants an English tea biscuit.  That means he’ll take anything sweet.”  We looked around and found some leftover pumpkin pie.  Shan delivered the plate of pie, along with a napkin and a fork.  Dad said, “Now, can I get a little fork?  I like to take tiny little bites, so my pie will last for my whole cup of coffee.”  Shan dug around until she found the largest, heaviest serving fork I have, and brought it to him with a smile.

4.       Told Stories: He told me about the foundered horse his dad bought for cheap at an auction, and how they spent months caring for her and nursing her back to health.   She turned out to be a wonderful animal.  He told me a story about truck-driver coffee that he was certain would make his “yuppie children…swoon with hatred.”  He talked about the first time he visited the Grand Canyon, and the excruciating donkey ride down that sounded to me like a metaphorical trip into his own, personal deep canyons. 

5.       Disappeared Into the Night:  At about 9 p.m. on Sunday Dad, or “Bompa” as my girls say, fired up Big Blue and drove off into the mystery of the darkness and the road and the vastness of the country’s great territory.  My four-year-old, taking a short break from cussing and shouting out for cigarettes, started to cry.  “Where does Bompa live?” she said.  “What if he gets lonely?  What if he feels scared.”  A couple days later he assured her over the phone that he was quite happy, sitting outside in mild California sunshine and doing a crossword puzzle.  This helped her to feel a little better, though she still imagines him alone in the night and prays that he’ll be OK.

Shelter: A Tent Trailer, Sweet Butter and a Cinderblock Acky-Tack

It was the middle of July at Crater Lake, high in the mountains of Oregon.  They stopped there for just one night, on their way to someplace else.  The first thing Dad did was walk with his father, Ancel, to find the “acky-tack.”  Ancel always liked to know where and under what conditions he would be relieving himself.  After all the outhouses, bushes and dirt holes they had used on wilder trips, the heated, lighted cinderblock restroom was a palace of comfort.

His mom Ruth, meantime, was back at the campsite, standing at a picnic table with her curly hair and wide, round hips.  Maybe she was smiling.  She could have been humming.  She made some simple sandwiches, then locked the big block of commissary butter in the metal cooler.

After dinner the air turned cold and the family climbed into their snug Apache tent trailer, where a gas lantern hissed and glowed.  Wrapped in a sleeping bag with a Hardy Boys novel, my dad was happy.  I mean, so safe and happy and whole.

Sometime in the middle of the night— in the middle of July—it began to snow.  The hush of the falling flakes gave a dreamy kind of softness to the scraping, clattering noise just outside. A bear had come through the trees.  She tried in vain to reach the sweet butter Ruth had locked away.  Ancel woke, stuck his top half out of the trailer and banged a spoon against an iron skillet to scare the bear away.  That butter must have smelled so sweet, though, because the bear wouldn't give up.  Finally, in the early half-light, Ancel climbed out, trudged through the now deep snow, opened the scratched, dented, ruined cooler, tossed the butter into the woods, and went back to bed. 

When the sun had risen, Ancel and dad walked their route to the acky-tack.  There they found a motorcycle that hadn’t been there before.  It was half buried in snow and parked crooked with the front tire butted up against the cinderblock wall.  Inside a man dressed in leather lay curled on the bathroom floor, sound asleep.  He woke when he heard them moving around and explained how he had come to be there.

Seems that just the night before, the summer sky and cool air had lured him out for a ride.  He was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t even think of turning back.  He climbed higher and higher, and got farther and farther away from cities and towns when the air grew suddenly colder and the snow started falling hard and fast.  The roads were buried almost instantly and he could hardly get his bike to move at all.  It was difficult for him to differentiate between the road and the white expanse on either side.  He became disoriented and afraid, wondering if he would freeze to death, when he saw a light shining through the trees.  He didn’t know where the light was coming from and didn’t care.  He steered his motorcycle toward it, and went skidding and sliding along until he bumped into the building.  He went inside and lay down, grateful for the simple pleasures of shelter and warmth.

This is a story my dad told me, and I’m recalling it from memory.  I'm sure some of it is wrong.  I wasn’t there.  I can’t tell you exactly how life was for my dad when he was a boy.  I can tell you that his childhood memories glow like that gas lantern.  They are golden with rubies.  They levitate.  They hum. 

Hunting Krugers

Notes:
1. This is a letter my 4-year-old daughter received this week in the mail.

2. When my dad realized his father was making a joke about using pitch forks to get rid of "Krugers," he felt a great sense of relief.  See, until then Dad had always assumed that his parents enjoyed visits from the Kruger family, because of course they tried to be polite and welcoming whenever the group popped in.  Dad said it something like this, in a squeaky, mock-cheerful voice: "Oh, hi, wonderful, yes it's Sunday afternoon and we would just love to stop relaxing quietly and cook a big meal for you while your children tear our house to pieces.  Oh boy."

Dad had always assumed that he alone dreaded the Kruger visits.  On that day he not only figured out the grown-up joke on his own, but came into a sense of common understanding with his mom and dad.

3. "Unga" is a nickname we grandkids developed for my dad's father, Ancel.

The ol' Fig Newton

November 15, 2011

7:30 a.m.

I’m in Andrews, Texas.  That’s in the panhandle.  Last night I slept in Lubbock, Texas, birth place of Buddy Holly.  And speaking of that, on another occasion I slept in Clear Lake, Iowa, where Buddy Holly passed into the arms of Jesus, as they say, over an abandoned corn field.  I was parked along the same corn field where he was killed.

It’s like I told your brother, Chris: it’s just another Mike Dugan Brush with Greatness.   I could write a whole book about it.  It would be all about me standing in a ditch or me with a bunch of shopping carts or me next to a corn field, but it all ties in with famous people one way or another.  Hey!  Remember the time I almost ran over Bill Nye the Science Guy on his bike and he gave me the Fig Newton?

No, I told him.  I don’t remember.

So he told me about a trendy little pub near the Fremont Bridge in Seattle where famous people like to have their lunch.  It was years ago.  He had just left work in a company pickup, and was only blocks from this trendy pub when he realized he had forgotten something.  So I wheeled into a parking lot to turn around and I’ll tell you (here his voice gets a little small and squeaky when he says) I was being a little bit aggressive with my driving.  Anyway, in comes Bill Nye on a ten speed.  We were on a collision course.  I had to slam on the brakes and kick up all kinds of gravel just to avoid killing him.  He probably talked about it on the David Letterman show later.  Brush with greatness.”

Also there was the time Curt Cobain was in my insurance office.  This was before they got super famous.  I was chatting with him about how he and his associates had been on this tour of the Deep South, wearing their grunge style clothing and whatnot.   You can imagine how that went for them.  You know, “Hi.  We’d like to order some hamburgers, please.”  “Get out of here you hippie, faggot communists!  Go eat your hamburgers in your home country of Russia!”

Note: "Fig Newton" is my dad's word for "finger."  When I was a child he might have said, "Poke it with your fig newton," or "Come here and hold onto Dad's fig newton."  Of course, in Bill Nye's case, we're talking about one Fig Newton in particular.

P.S. I learned today that Dad wasn't able to get home time for Thanksgiving Day.  So, think fondly of him as you sit down to feast.  He'll be alone with Big Blue, eating truck stop nachos and hard boiled eggs.

The Moon's Healing Nectar

4:30 p.m. on Thursday

Dad says, "Livvy, the full moon in North Dakota is beautiful.  Yesterday, in Nebraska, I took a picture of the full moon at dusk.  I used my little camera phone.  I don't know how the picture turned out, or if it's even still on the phone somewhere.  But the moon was perfect.  Now, tonight, it's full dark in North Dakota, and the moon is shining."

Sidebar from Spokane: last night late I walked into the dark kitchen and saw the world outside the glass door glowing with a kind of translucent indigo.  So of course I walked right outside in my bare feet and pajamas.  The ground beneath me might as well have been the surface of the moon--that's how cold it was.  I stood there, shivering for a moment and whistling for my dog Ginger, who bounded cheerfully through the sea of soft light and warmed me with a flurry of unsolicited licks. 

I'm glad I don't have to travel all the way to Nebraska or North Dakota to get a look at the full moon.  What a generous body it is, to share its light so freely.  I'm glad my dad receives moonlight for free no matter where he is, and that he drinks it up like nectar, growing strong, a god of the highway on his throne, looking down with benevolence on all the little Fords and Chryslers.

The Record Player

I called my dad and, as usual, he was driving.  The rush of road noise mixed with a blaring radio made it difficult for him to hear me. 

"Hello?  Hello!  Oh, Olly!  Hold on a minute, let me turn down the record player."

Tooling Along

Today's answering machine message:

I’m in Colorado, and yes, it’s snowing like crazy.  Last night I had to go over a big pass IN the heavy snow, AND it was officially closed to everybody except people with chains. I was counting on tooling over going (uphill) about 30 miles per hour to keep up a little headway, you know, so I wouldn’t spin out.  Some guy ahead of me (another truck driver in a "fancy Peterbilt): 5 miles per hour!  And there were 2 or 3 other guys between me and him, all tooling at about 5 miles per hour.  I was hoping I wouldn’t skid.  Sometimes, when you’re going that slow, the load overcomes the traction.  But anyway, I made it over.  Now it’s sunny and nice.  OK.  I love you, bye bye.

Follow-up conversation
Dad asked, "Did you get my anwering machine message about going over the pass?  Oh, that was the trip from Hell!"
 
Apparently one of the truck drivers stuck behind the slow poke decided he'd had enough.  "So he pulled out and gunned it.  Now the rule is steady pressure--don't stop or speed up too fast--but he pulled out and starting getting on it too hard.  Pretty soon you could see all this slushy snow shooting out from the tires and the truck starting to slide.  The guy tried to get it back under control.  You could see him trying, but it was too late.  Once you break traction you're kind of screwed.  Pretty soon the truck went into a skid, and boom, jackknife.  We all just kept going, slow and steady and sort of weaved around him."

Conditions were so awful that my dad pulled off in a turn-out and thought about sleeping there for the night.  He put the tractor brakes on (he says he never uses the trailer brakes in the cold weather because they can freeze), tried to park, but the whole truck started sliding backwards down the hill.  "I thought, OH, Jeez, I better just try to make it through this."

A Small Logger Burned a Hole in his Canvas

Note:  Foster is my 7-year-old nephew. "Bompa" is a child's mispronunciation of "Grandpa," and "Tee Tee" is a child's mispronunciation of "auntie," sometimes shortened just to "teat."

The Cheapest Milk in Town

Report from the road:

Dad called a few days ago.  He was driving through the mountains of Montana, about a hundred miles outside of Billings.  The cell phone reception was patchy at best, and he knew he’d cut out at any moment, but had to tell me that he had just driven past a place called Adam and Eve Lingerie & More.  Right next door there was a store called Teasers.  He was trying to puzzle out what sort of product might be available at these shops.   At Adam and Eve Lingerie & More he assumed he could pick up some lingerie, obviously, but also possibly some “work clothes, hair care products, maybe some small, sliced snack items.”  That’s the great thing about “& more.”  It covers everything.  “They probably have the cheapest milk in town.”

As for the shop called Teasers, he guessed it must be a place to buy either fishing bait or cat toys.  It’s the most sensible assumption.   Probably cat toys, he said.  (“Jimmy!  Leave the cat alone!  But mom…I got these teasers.”)

My Sister is a Terrible Hostess

I spoke with my sister a few days ago while Dad was still there for home time.  She read to me a note that was posted on the refrigerator at her house.  Dad had been home all day while Shannon and her family were off at work and school.  It’s important to know that Dad speaks a rare dialect constructed of mispronounced Dugan-family baby words.  Here are a couple of words you must know in order to understand the note.

GooCoos: a child’s mispronunciation of “cookies.”

Aggs: a child’s mispronunciation of “eggs.”

Titi: a child’s mispronunciation of “auntie.” In this particular case, Titi is me.  It also, depending on the context, is my sister’s name, as we are both, technically speaking, aunts.

Here’s the note, reproduced according to his original composition.

ATTENTioN!

Residents, There are no GooCoos on top of the fridge, so don’t bother craning your little bird necks around to see up there.  P.S. Even if there were snacks up there, I’m pretty sure they would be off limits to all bad aggs (eggs: Titi baby talk).

AND THIS MEANS

Y-O-U!

Shan: My friend was here so I asked her to read the note and tell me what she thought it meant.

Friend: Well, it means don’t eat the cookies.

Shan: No, no, see, it’s an invitation to eat the cookies. 

(Translated it means: “Dear Family, I bought some cookies today.  They’re on top of the refrigerator.  Please help yourselves, you good little children.”)

As Shan was telling me this, I could hear Dad offering a number of comments in the background, but couldn’t make out all of what he was saying. 

Liv: What’s he talking about?

Shan:  Well, I’m trying to clean up a little.  His mom—when he was a kid, it really bothered her when she was a guest in someone’s home and that person would clean up while she was there, right in front of her, instead of sitting down to visit.

Dad: Something—blah, blah, blah—regarding Shannon’s “skills about being a hostess.”

Shan: You’re right, Dad.  A better plan would be for me not to clean anything for the whole five days of your home time.  I won’t wash any of the dishes or wipe the table.  I’ll just leave all the dirty clothes in piles.  It will be really comfortable and pleasant to be here at the end of this time. 

Dad: I don’t think you’d be this upset if you weren’t feeling a little guilty.

Shan: You’re right.

Dad: You know I’m right. 

Shan: My new tactic is to just agree with everything he says.

Dad: Indecipherable exclamations in the background.

Shan (calling out): You’re right, Dad.

Dad: I know it!

An untrained observer might feel uncomfortable to be present during such an argument, but Shan was perfectly relaxed.  That’s because this wasn’t actually an argument at all.  This is just a regular Dugan-style conversation that qualifies mostly as a mutual joke.

(Here's Shan, by the way.)

Liverwurst and Spearmint Tea

My daughter Norah said, “Well, Bompa, mom brought spearmint from our garden into my classroom, and then we did science with it.  We are trying to grow roots from some cuttings.”

Dad said this via speaker phone:

Oh Norah, let me tell you something about spearmint!  When I was growing up we had a bunch of spearmint growing wild in our ditch.  We didn’t know you could make anything with it.  We just mowed it.  It always smelled really good.  Well, we had these neighbor kids, Francis and Roy.  Their mom was from Germany.  One day she came and knocked on our door and, in kind of a shy way, asked if she could have a little bit of that spearmint from our ditch.  “Oh, sure!” my mom said.   “Take it all.  Put it in a wheelbarrow.  It’s yours.”

Francis and Roy’s mom from Germany made her own liverwurst.  At her house she gave us liverwurst sandwiches on homemade bread and mint tea to drink.  I didn’t necessarily like liverwurst, but I went along with it because of the concept.  There was something magical about the way she put it all together.  I mean, she got that mint from our ditch, and then made tea out of it?  Come on!  It was compelling, like a Rod Serling script.  She even spoke with an accent.  Woohoo.

Space Music

My sister Shannon and her husband Dan drove to Seattle a couple of weeks ago to see Seattle Symphony Sci-Fi Favorites.  The show’s official description is as follows: Travel to distant dimensions with Seattle Symphony as the Orchestra performs the music from your favorite science fiction films and television programs, including Star Wars, Superman, E.T., Star Trek and more! Featuring narration by TV celebrity George Takei and a laser light show.

Wow.

So, while they were gone, their answering machine recorded this message from Dad:

Hey, it just occurred to me that you guys are probably on your... ah... date listening to space music.  I hope you dressed nice in your space suits.  I hope you don't space out and get lost on the way up there.  I hope there's plenty of space at your feet so that you're comfortable.  Perhaps at uh, intermission they'll serve coffee and Spacetries.  If you see Sissy Spacek or Kevin Spacey, tell them I said hello.  ... pause...  Aaah, let me think... (chuckling)…(now full, hearty laughter). I just kill myself with this stuff.  This is quality.  The kind of material Johnny Carson would pay for.  I especially like the part about Sissy Spacek and Kevin Spacey.  I just thought of those at the last second.  OK.  See you later bye.

(Many thanks to Shannon for transcribing and emailing me the message.)

Son of a Biscuit Eater

Dad just spent five days of home time with my sister on the coast.  While he was there he sat down and read the blog for the first time.  He said he’s really glad to be doing it, though the quick summary of his life (The Best Feeling, posted Sunday, October 16) caused a little sting.  Aside from noting some historical facts I got wrong he said reading it made him feel like “a weak-willed son of a biscuit eater” and “a heartbroken little dork.”

Olivia: Should we change it?

Mike: There you go everyone.  There’s Mike Dugan, naked.  Let’s take a look at the big fella!

O: Tell me what you want to add or take away and I’ll do it.

M: No, don’t change it.  It’s exactly the truth.  That’s exactly how the slope into the toilet was angled.

O: This is your deal, too.  We never have to post anything you don’t want.

M: You know, with your own paintbrush you never paint yourself completely accurately.  You take out that big dent in your forehead.  Straighten out the crooked nose or the lopsided chin.

And really, how would I like it if my life story were condensed to a series of blunt summaries covering all my weak spots and misadventures? 

My face was badly scarred in a car accident when I was five years old.  At school I struggled, with hand-me-down clothes and a number of ticks.  My parents divorced, and my siblings and I were left alone all the time.  I crash-landed into my own adolescence with a bottle of Southern Comfort, a pack of Marlboro Lights and my pants yanked firmly down around my ankles.  And this feeble little person?  This wretched wreck of a girl? It isn’t me at all.  It’s just a collection of sad stories that stirs up a lot of drama.  I also think of it as rugged terrain—dangerous land that I have traveled and survived. 

Dad told a story once about coming down out of the woods having run out water.  He was dirty and grubby and raced into a convenience store to fill up his water jug.  Outside he gulped furiously, spilling little rivulets from the corners of his mouth.  He laughed later when he thought of himself, because he said, to observers, he must have looked like some “wild-eyed mountain man.” 

And that’s what he is, really.  Consider the metaphorical rocky peaks and treacherous trails he has walked, often without basic necessities such as water, and always he has survived.  Dad is a hero in his own epic tale, and he has stored treasure more valuable than a cellar full of food or a suitcase full of gold.  He’s got humor and story which, in terms of the heart’s wilderness, make shelter and a feast.

For years now, any time I talk to him on the phone, I can’t resist taking notes because I don’t want to waste the things he’s saying.  He’s like a rare plant that drops a handful of valuable seeds with every bloom.  I’ve been hoarding them, though, not knowing what to do with the stacks of scribbled pages.  So, in all my efforts to record, it has still been wasted.  Writing this blog is the only way I can think of to plant the seeds and let them grow.  Someone has got to tend the garden.  It doesn’t matter if no one ever reads it.  The seeds will grow just the same.

A few years ago I had a dream that I traveled to the ocean to see my dad, though he has never actually lived at the beach.  In this dream I arrived at a little house with cool, gray waves rolling and roaring just beyond.  I had with me a ragged young woman, bent at the waste and vomiting onto the yard.  She was just ridiculously drunk and deeply sad.  I knew, quite clearly, that the girl was me as I once was, and I had brought her there to be healed.  My dad didn’t answer the door when I knocked.  Instead, he appeared from around back, from the direction of the water.  He was young and thin and had the most calm and peaceful look about him.  At first I mistook him for my brother.  He didn’t say a word (which is unlike him).  He just smiled, and I knew this girl would get the help she needed.

That dream has always been an important one for me for a number of reasons.  But today I’m thinking about how, even at his worst, and even if he can’t always find it, Dad contains this strong, peaceful presence.  Even when he is feeling angry or helpless, like a weak-willed son of a biscuit eater and a heartbroken little dork, he still has a healing force strong as the ocean behind him.  We all do.  And that’s the point.

A Simple Lesson on the Nature of Evil

What was it?
A phone conversation during which Dad was driving.

What did he do?
He interrupted himself mid-sentence with a sudden exclamation: "What?  Hey, what are you...you gotta be...me?  What are you flipping me off for?  Oh, you are a BUTT face. 

(Pause)

Let me tell you something, Livvy.  Occasionally, out here on the road, I encounter a butt face.

The Moral
Hey, it happens.  Just keep driving.

Moonlight, Mountains and Swimming in Lakes

When I asked, "Well, who are you really?  Sum it up," he had this to say:

Recently I’ve been driving along with a harvest moon down through southern Colorado.  The land there is flat as a pancake for as far as I can see, and glowing with this beautiful light.  I’ve always believed you have to hang onto certain images that comfort or inspire you, because they mean something.  These can be anything.  For me it’s three things: moonlight, mountains and swimming in lakes. 

Here’s what I told Kylie (his youngest daughter and my little sister): “When you’re a grown-up someday and life gets weird and complicated, when you start feeling tweaked-out and desperate, like you’re on the verge of doing something crazy, find one of those images.  Go outside.  Search.  Do what you have to do or go where you have to go to get close to those images that have by now become part of who you are.”

I don’t know if that’s who I am, but I have those images in my head all the time.

The Best Feeling

My dad, Mike, and his father, Ancel, used to take horseback trips up Mt. Rainier.  They slept in a canvas tent, threw rocks into Mystic Lake, and once watched from a distance as an avalanche crashed down the cliffs of Willis Wall.  His mom, Ruth, had curly hair and wide, round hips.  She sewed pillow cases out of old flour sacks and baked red velvet cake.  She grew a garden and canned green beans. 

He camped with his parents in their small Apache tent trailer.  Sometimes they traveled to high, cold places.  Sometimes snow fell at night, while inside the gas lantern hissed and glowed.  Wrapped in a sleeping bag with a Hardy Boys novel, my dad was happy.  I mean, so safe and happy and whole.

Some of this might be wrong.  I wasn’t there.  I can’t tell you exactly how life was for my dad when he was a boy.  I can tell you that his childhood memories glow like that gas lantern.  They are golden with rubies.  They levitate.  They hum. 

Here’s what happened: Ruth died.  That’s when the lantern ran out of gas, and that warm, comforting light succumbed to the cold that had always been pushing at the walls and creeping through the cracks.

Ancel, overcome with grief, sold every square inch of their land for nearly nothing and moved with my dad into a little trailer.  He didn’t hold onto a few acres to one day give his only son.  He threw it all away.

Here’s a summary of how things went after that:  He went to college and met my mother.  They both dropped out of school to get married, had four children (I was the first) and eventually, for a number of complicated reasons, got divorced.  Well, I should say that my mother left him.  During the same time Ancel dide.  Dad went a little crazy with sadness, and was fired soon after from his job as a heavy equipment mechanics instructor at the local community college.  Eventually he got married again, had a fifth child and divorced again.

Over the years he was fired from a string of low-paying jobs and lived in a series of dreary, cluttered duplexes, apartments and houses. He held onto objects that reminded him of better days.  Empty paint cans, stacks of newspapers and hard-boiled egg slicers.  There were wrenches, old boxes of nuts and bolts and a motorcycle parked in the living room with pizza boxes and banana peels balanced on the seat.  Somewhere beneath it all, tragically lost and reeking with decay, was a dish of rotten broccoli.  He rented storage units and filled them with stuff, and all the time he fantasized about leaving it behind.

He always longed for a feeling of coziness in a world that too often left him feeling exposed and uncared for.  Since I can remember he talked of building a tiny, one-room log cabin deep in the forest, or converting an old school bus into a miniature home.  His plans always included a prominent wood stove where he could build a “roaring fire.”  It would be cold outside, but he would have hot chocolate and bed socks.  He would be warm and protected.

Eventually Dad found himself hopelessly unemployed along with thousands of others in a failing economy. He lost his house and rented a little upstairs bedroom, which he named “the nook,” in his ex-wife’s home.  It smelled like dust and cat urine and cigarette smoke.  The place was dark and mean, and he sunk in up to his neck there.  He watched television, ate chocolate chip cookies and breakfast sausage for a couple of years until, at nearly 400 pounds, he was unable to do most work.  “It is decidedly difficult for me to tie my own shoes,” he told me.  He lost a few teeth and a little more hair.

When his unemployment money dried up and the ex-wife threatened to throw him out, he used his last bit of savings to go to truck driving school.  He had worked for years fixing big trucks, and knew perfectly well how to drive them.  He aced the course, but just before graduating and taking the job that had been offered him he rear-ended a PT Cruiser in his own beat-up car.  This dented his insurance record enough to disqualify him from every truck driving job in the universe.  He was uninsurable, and therefore unemployable.  At this point, frankly, things were looking grim. 

Months and months passed.  He asked himself and he asked me, “What happened to me?  I used to be successful, respected. I had a big family and a good house. How has this happened? ” He started wondering if he could qualify for disability so that he wouldn’t end up homeless.  He said “People say you’re supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but what if you’re too depressed and tweaked out even to stand at all?”

It was a full year before a recruiter from a big trucking company called to offer him a job.  He didn’t believe her.  He said, “No, no, you don’t want me.  Take another look at my record.”  But she did want him.  After a year with no accidents his record had cleared.  At age 58 he rode a bus down to California for orientation, completed months of training during which he lived in a truck with a stranger, and finally received his own Freightliner ’09 Century with a Detroit diesel engine and a sleeper cab.

I took my two little girls to a truck stop outside of Spokane, Washington a couple of months ago to see him as he passed through.  He is slimmer now and smiling, and conducts himself with a sense of confidence and well being that wasn’t there before.  We gave him a bag filled with home-cooked dinner, hard-boiled eggs and vegetables from our garden.  He took us out to see his truck.  As we were getting ready to leave, he told a story. 

“I always leave these big curtains open so I have a view from my bed.  I travel through some pretty darn scenic territory.  One night I was down in New Mexico when this storm blew in out of nowhere.  The rain was coming down in torrents and then it started to hail so hard it sounded like chunks of metal were falling from the sky.  The wind was rocking this thing back and forth and howling outside and I was in here with the heat cranked and I had a book with my little reading light on and, man, it was cozy.  Oh, let me tell you.  That’s the best feeling.”

7,600,000 Cents

10/14/11, message left on answering machine:

Uh, it’s Bompa with another exciting missive from the highway.  This morning I went to the Denver Mint, where they make coins, and picked up a load of pennies, which I’m taking to Seattle.  44,935 pounds of pennies, and the value is $76,000 (laughter).  So sadly, because of my route, I will miss Spokane again.  I’ll come up from the river and cross the Menastash Ridge there at Ellensburg. 

 

Clara City!

10/12/11, message left on answering machine:

Uh, you don’t even need to call me back.  This message is going to be so stunning, you probably won’t even be able to use the phone.  It’s the Bomp (short for Bompa, a child’s mispronunciation of “grandpa,” which has become his nickname).  I don’t know if I mentioned the other day, when I was at Olivia, Minnesota, that it is the corn capital.  They have a gazebo there with a giant fiberglass ear of corn about 30 feet tall on top of it.  So I just passed within about 20 miles of Olivia, coming here through this new town, and you can’t believe what it’s called.  I’m in Clara City.  CLARA CITY!  It’s Minnesota.  It’s named after you guys.  I can’t even believe it.  Clara, that kitty will probably want to play with your hair even more now that it knows there’s a town named after you.  I can’t even believe it!  Kay bye.

My young daughter Clara said, "Oh, that silly Bompa."

Follow-up conversation:

Mike: "Olivia Minnesota.  It's the Corn Capital.  Says so right on the sign."

Olivia: "Of what?  Corn capital of the world, or just the United States?"

Mike: "I don’t think they have to justify that.  It’s the corn capital and that’s all you need to know, young lady.