21 years ago next week, my father died. It was early in the morning and I, after driving through 5 red lights, managed to get to the hospital just minutes after he died. After 21 years, I still feel lost at time without him and I thought maybe, if I talked about some of my memories of him, I might finally stop feeling quite so lost. So, for the next 6 days, I'm going to post every day. And each post will bring out another bunch of memories.
Since Thanksgiving was yesterday, that's where I'll start. It wasn't his favorite holiday. He just didn't like turkey. He'd eat it and he loved so many of the other goodies on the table but he really didn't like turkey. I remember him telling me once, why can't we just have a good steak or a really nice roast? But he did love the turkey soup my mom would make from the remains. So I think, for all his grousing, he put up with it just so he could get the soup a day or two later.
My dad was someone who loved life. He didn't do a lot of extra things with his family; there was always something else to use the money for. But as a child, we used to go camping in Vermont every summer. We'd head out with the coolers packed and sleeping bags until we got to Coolidge Park. We tried to always get the same lean-to, the last one on the road, called Poplar. A bit farther up the road, near the top of the hill, there was a small playground. I remember that right near the lean-to, there was one tree that curved downward before growing tall. I used to go to that tree and read because you could sit there easily in that curve.
So, imagine it, 4 girls, mom, dad, Dick, all in this one lean-to. Big old fireplace about 3 feet in front of it where we cooked everything. No garbage left over because they did have wildlife there, including the occasional bear. The coolers went to the back of the lean-to and were always locked before we went to bed. The rest rooms were down this one trail, probably not that far away but I remember it feeling like it was miles and miles.
Now, my dad was always a heavy sleeper. It took everything to wake him up. And my mom, well, she was a worrier. She'd hear a noise or smell something and then she'd try to wake up my dad to go 'check it out.' Not that it worked that well because first you had to wake him up and then you had to deal with the fact that he just didn't have the same keen sense of smell my mom had. But this one camping trip, that ability to sleep deep really played into the fears of sleeping basically in the wild.
We heard my mom first, trying to wake up dad. "Jimmy, I hear a noise in the back. Go check it out." Nothing. And from behind the lean-to, we could hear something trying to get into the stuff, rustling the bags, hitting the sides of the coolers. "C'mon Jimmy, get up." My dad grunted, the thing behind the lean-to grunted and we all tried to go deeper into the sleeping bags. I remember thinking I could feel this animal's breathing, even though the lean-to was built pretty sturdily of logs and whatever between the logs they'd used to keep out the rain. After listening to this go on for a while, Dick finally got up and went around back. By then, the animal was gone. Our stuff in the bags was somewhat strewn across the grass, and you could see a few claw marks in the cooler but nothing that really let us know what it was. My dad got up in the morning, had no recollection of my mom trying to wake him up, and was surprised to see the claw marks. It was one of the greatest camping trips we ever took. It was also one of the last ones we took, if I remember right. But it's something I'll never forget.
I wanted to add a picture but I have none. Pictures from Coolidge state park in Vermont can be found here: http://www.vtstateparks.com/htm/photo_coolidge.htm There's a picture of a lean-to in that album. Enjoy!
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