Elliot and I arrived in Waupaca last night around 9pm. In the last few minutes of the solstice sunlight we walked Main Street and drove to the lake where we will leave Dad. I tried to give as much detail as I could about the places we observed, but my lack of knowledge was frustrating.
On this trip, I have to constantly let go, to let Elliot have his experience – just as I had mine when I came here with Dad. But of course, detail is precious now that the source of the information is gone; I want to be the Bob Babin tour guide, but lack the “experience”.
So, I rely on the wealth of record both Dad and I created. There is his book, “My Boyhood in Wisconsin” and the audio notes he put down before writing it. I’m relying on video I shot on a trip he and I took here in 1996. Now on my lap top, this two hours of video in which I sat him down in front of many of the sites here in Waupaca is a Rosetta Stone. After watching again last night, I realized the place I have in mind to leave him is the final place we visited on the video tour.
Last night as sleep finally crept in, I mused about why leaving his ashes in a lake had a firm logic. I began to recall his stories about swimming in a lake with the other boys; they had a long rope tied to a tree limb, and there was a great swinging out over the water and a release that gave them a giddy moment of flight before the plunge. They swam naked, and one of the boys wore only a belt around his waste. Dad described a train locomotive resting at the bottom of the lake and told of the boy with the belt diving down, getting hooked onto the locomotive and nearly drowning.
In the early 90’s, I struggled to write a screenplay based on episodes from my father’s life. The boy who is our hero is faced with this emergency and rescues the drowning victim. Did Dad really do something like this?
Fact and fiction are intertwined; I don’t know what is truth. It doesn’t matter, and now, ironically, I don’t want to know “truth”. What is becoming clear is that the lake represents a carefree spirit that only childhood and adolescence offer. It represents the unknown, the danger beneath the surface of existence. It was a total, sensory emersion, a cool relief to a bunch of boys on summer days in the 1930’s when cares were few.
So as all these metaphors swirl about, I’m filled with love and appreciation for his life, mine and my son’s.
On this trip, I have to constantly let go, to let Elliot have his experience – just as I had mine when I came here with Dad. But of course, detail is precious now that the source of the information is gone; I want to be the Bob Babin tour guide, but lack the “experience”.
So, I rely on the wealth of record both Dad and I created. There is his book, “My Boyhood in Wisconsin” and the audio notes he put down before writing it. I’m relying on video I shot on a trip he and I took here in 1996. Now on my lap top, this two hours of video in which I sat him down in front of many of the sites here in Waupaca is a Rosetta Stone. After watching again last night, I realized the place I have in mind to leave him is the final place we visited on the video tour.
Last night as sleep finally crept in, I mused about why leaving his ashes in a lake had a firm logic. I began to recall his stories about swimming in a lake with the other boys; they had a long rope tied to a tree limb, and there was a great swinging out over the water and a release that gave them a giddy moment of flight before the plunge. They swam naked, and one of the boys wore only a belt around his waste. Dad described a train locomotive resting at the bottom of the lake and told of the boy with the belt diving down, getting hooked onto the locomotive and nearly drowning.
In the early 90’s, I struggled to write a screenplay based on episodes from my father’s life. The boy who is our hero is faced with this emergency and rescues the drowning victim. Did Dad really do something like this?
Fact and fiction are intertwined; I don’t know what is truth. It doesn’t matter, and now, ironically, I don’t want to know “truth”. What is becoming clear is that the lake represents a carefree spirit that only childhood and adolescence offer. It represents the unknown, the danger beneath the surface of existence. It was a total, sensory emersion, a cool relief to a bunch of boys on summer days in the 1930’s when cares were few.
So as all these metaphors swirl about, I’m filled with love and appreciation for his life, mine and my son’s.
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