the next phase

Tomorrow, Elliot and I depart for Waupaca Wisconsin, my dad’s home from infancy until the age of 16.

Throughout his life, over and over, Bob returned to Waupaca. As much as he hated cold weather and the parochial disadvantages of life in Waupaca, when he got to talking about it, an air of reverence and poetry emerged from stories of his youth.

He traveled there many times over the years; he would bring his wife and son to meet the women who raised him: his Grandmother Mini, his aunt Esther, his aunt Alta, and his cousin Bernice. He attended many high school reunions.

He told me often of his early years on the farm: doing math problems on a black board by gas light; life without indoor plumbing; the rare visits from his mother, never knowing, always hoping that one day she’d take him back. It’s easy to romanticize his struggle early in life, but the elements can’t be denied.

When he was an infant, Bob’s mother left him in the care of his grandmother. The culture of these northern Europeans was as cold as the winters that paralyzed the landscape each year. In his 16 years, “I love you” was a phrase he never heard. He was bright enough, with tutoring from Esther who was a school teacher, to skip two entire grades – a stimulating thing for his brain, but a challenging one for his social life. One day, when he was 16, they packed him off for a “visit” to his mother, now working in Washington, D.C. The visit was in fact “goodbye”, but the women lacked the emotional fortitude to be forthright. It was however the best thing that could have happened.

It was Dad’s intellectual abilities, stoked by the right adults at the right times that propelled him into a profession that brought enormous satisfaction and allowed him to break free, move to “sunny California”, call the shots himself. He lived a good life.

In the late 1980’s dad finally wrote a book, “My Boyhood in Waupaca”. He had a vanity press turn out a few dozen, hard bound copies which he gave away with pride. A copy sits in the library in Waupaca.

Tomorrow, we’ll take dad’s ashes back and leave him to integrate on the molecular level with his place of origin. My son and I will breathe; feel the air, soil and water, and say “goodbye” and “welcome back”.