Hills Like White Elephants

Often, when he was alone, Ted would think of that teddy bear, the only remaining tangible thing from that time. Not that he had the teddy bear, of course; he assumed she still had it, but then again, why? Why would she keep the only remaining tangible thing from that time? She did have it for awhile, at least. He knew that much. A teddy bear with a terrible secret living amongst all the other innocuous stuffed fauna that lived on top of her bed. When he'd walk into her room back then he'd see the bear staring at him with accusing jet-black cold pieces of plastic that passed for eyes. And now, years later, it was the teddy bear that still haunted him. He'd forgotten the little details of the rest, somehow... the little details that really mattered. Those were, thankfully, gone. The damned bear, however, remained in his memory, with its stupid sewn-on grin and lifeless black eyes.

They'd gone to a mall afterward, and Ted had bought the teddy bear and given it to her on the spot. Just another for her collection, or so he'd thought. Something they could look at that afternoon and hold, instead of looking at each other. She'd smiled a sad smile and stroked the bear's fur while Ted looked at his feet, trying desperately to only think of the bear and not the other missing thing. Missing things, rather, for several things were lost that day. Ted's purchase and gift of the bear was a somewhat feeble attempt to fill that emptiness, and emptiness that would just grow larger until it was an abyss swallowing him whole. But he couldn't know that at the time. No... give her the bear, look at your feet, think of nothing... especially don't think about that... and everything will be fine. If not today, at least tomorrow. Surely tomorrow things will be better.

Tomorrow was not better, nor the next day. The bear remained. Perhaps it was the bear's fault. Its stupid black eyes that stared at you, because it knew. Ted hated that bear. Things were fine before the bear, and then there was this accusatory teddy bear on the bed, and then things weren't fine. Ted couldn't believe that was just a coincidence. She, however, didn't seem to even notice the bear, and never talked about it.

Eventually she left, or maybe Ted left, but in any event Ted stopped thinking about that day and enjoyed a respite from the evil teddy bear's glare. However, there were times when something would be said or happen that would trigger a slight memory of that day... when he was alone and feeling unfulfilled or otherwise down... and the bear would come back, eyes black as ever.

And he'd wonder what that bear was doing now.

Talahi Diaries, September 10, 1966 / 2005

In a fitting piece of irony, synchronicity, coincidence... or whatever you may call it... the very first entry in the Talahi diary was written on the same day that the very last entry was entered, 39 years later:

September 10, 1966

Drove to Lake Geneva to look at property for a summer home. Went to Joerm [?] Realty. Mr. Clifford showed us several. We fell "in love" with a house in Indian Hills. [Grandpa]

That's the house they put an offer on two days later (according to the diary). The offer? $14,000. I don't know if that offer was accepted, but the house was purchased, and they closed on October 14, 1966:

Closed deal on purchase of property in Fontana. Will name it "Talahi" (our T.C. annual) which is Chippewa Indian for "Under The Oaks." Very appropriate w/ our oaks. [Grandpa]

"T.C" refers to St. Cloud State Teacher's College, as it was called then, and is where my grandparents met. Here's a picture taken just three or so months later, early in 1967:

Fast-forward 39 years to September 10, 2005. My grandparents were now living in Dallas, but were spending the summers at the lake house. However, we didn't want my grandfather to make the long two-day drive, so the last couple of years I'd drive them up there and fly back home. At the end of the summer I'd fly back up there and drive them back. After 2005 we didn't think it was a good idea for them to be up there for three months by themselves, so they stayed year around in Dallas. This particular September day was the last time my grandfather was at Talahi, and, as usual, I made a diary entry:

September 10, 2005

Breakfast at Hot Diggity Dog. Today we'll make the house ready for the winter. Will leave tomorrow in the AM. [Hank]

"Hot Diggity Dog" was a hole-in-the-wall eatery of the type that my grandparents were so fond. It was in Walworth, and was open from 5am to 1pm, basically serving breakfasts to local farmers and the occasional hot dog to tourists.

Now, I was up at Talahi last summer (2008) to load up a U-Haul full of furniture and boxes that I then drove back to Dallas, but I was unable to make a diary entry. I really wanted to, knowing that it was the last day I'd ever be at Talahi, but unfortunately the diary had been packed in one of the boxes and I couldn't find it. I contemplated "faking" the entry, adding it after the fact, but in the end chose not to. The entry of September 10, 2005, coming 39 years to the day after the first entry, thus, is the final entry.

Here's a picture of the house from 2004. (Click on it to see a larger version). In almost 40 years the pine trees at the front of the house have grown from about 3 feet high to about 40, and the new edition that we built onto the house is visible on the left. The composition is kind of odd, but I wanted to capture the feeling of the tall, majestic oaks that surrounded the house and property. They were, after all, the inspiration for the house's name:

New Money-Saving Anti-Socialism Idea!

I want to privatize the police and fire detartments. Why this socialized protection? We all should have to pay a monthly fee to something called "civil protection", and, after we've met our deductible (over $200 in theft/damages), then the police will come out and investigate. We'd still have to pay them a small "appearance fee", of course. I think the police force might even start showing a profit finally!

Of course, if our house had been broken into in the past due to a faulty lock before we started our civil protection plan, then the police wouldn't have to come if we had a new theft due to the preexisting condition of the faulty lock. Same thing with the fire department. Oh, you have a roof with wood shingles instead of composite? Well, that's not covered, then.

If you wanted to higher a private investigator/consultant, furthermore, you'd first have to get the approval of the board of directors of the civil protection plan/police force. If they approved it, their fee would be covered under the plan (less the small copayment, of course). Furthermore, this plan would just cover regular beat cops. If you wanted a specialist, say a homicide detective, that, too, would first have to be approved by the civil protection plan, after filling out 12 forms and making seventeen phone calls, but hey, it's the cost of freedom.

To make this civil protection plan more affordable, we could force your place of employment to offer a group plan, and pray and hope that they payed a portion of your premiums, because, dammit, obviously your home and property's safety should be the responsibility of your employer. Of course, if you were laid off and lost the civil protection coverage, the 911 dialing service on your phone would be disconnected. That's a shame, but if you just got a new job with a new employer who paid your civil protection plan, you'd be fine. Stop being so lazy. And oh: that old door lock, alarm system, and roof are now no longer covered since they're preexisting conditions, so let's hope the burglar comes through your back window.

Next up: My plan to end socialized military, because the private sector (Haliburton, Blackwater, et al), do it so much better and earn some green to boot.

Uncle Sam

It seemed that Sam had an attitude problem, but that wasn't Sam's problem; no, that was the problem of all the ingrates and losers who constantly made Sam's life a living hell. If Sam's misanthropic tendencies were allowed to play out, furthermore, this wouldn't have even been an issue. However, and alas, this was not to be the case. Sam was forced to share his day to day existence with whom he so lovingly referred to as "the scum of the Earth." Sam, it must be pointed out, was not what one would call "a people person."

Sam was, however, a "Sam person." Oh, Sam was a big fan of Sam. It was rare that Sam could ever get enough of Sam, and on those infrequent occasions when he got a bit bored with himself, he'd think of "the scum of the Earth" and a smug expression would wash over his face. Did I mention that Sam wasn't a People Person? Anyway, to continue:

One evening, after Sam had just finished admiring his check book balance and had reread all the cloying inscriptions written to his ten-year-ago self in his old high school senior yearbook, the phone rang. Sam, it must be pointed out, was not a fan of the phone, as it required a bit too much interaction with "the scum of the Earth" for his tastes. Social norms, unfortunately, dictated that he own such an instrument, and Sam was nothing if not a creature of social norms (at least since the advent of caller ID).

Sam looked at the phone display and noticed that it was yet again "Unavailable" phoning him, and oh how he hated Unavailable. He wasn't too thrilled with people he knew, remember, so Unavailable? Unavailable was "the scum of the Earth's" handmaiden. So he hesitated.

The phone kept ringing, using that annoying electronic tone that Sam was sure the Motorola corporation had invented just to annoy one person: Sam.

ring ring ring.

Finally Sam succumbed.

"Yes?!", he practically spat into the mouthpiece.

The other side was silent for a beat or two, just long enough for what passed for Sam's patience to be tested and broken into a thousand little pieces of misanthropic shards.

"WELL?!", Sam (impatiently) barked.

"Uh... Reverend Philips? Is that you? I just wanted to tell you that the new hymnals have arrived."

"Great," Reverend Sam Philips intoned as he made a sarcastic smile at the phone handset before hanging it up so forcibly that his "World's Greatest Uncle" coffee cup fell from the nearby shelf and shattered into a thousand little pieces.

Sam always hated that coffee cup.

Talahi Diaries, July 28, 1967

In a previous Talahi Diary entry, I erroneously stated that the May, 1967 entries were my grandfather's last. As it turns out, there was one more, and this was his actual last diary entry:

July 28, 1967

Hankie, w/ popgun, basket of grapes & jar of fire flies, goes to sleep by himself in tent @ 8:00pm - Awakened at 1:30 am, & came in. [Grandpa]

The tent in question, here, was a small, two-man pup tent. I remember this night well, and I remember it was thunder that woke me up and frightened me enough to want to go inside. What I didn't realize then, however, was that evidently my grandparents were very concerned about me sleeping alone in the tent (in the front yard, mind you... not even in the back) and kept wanting to go out and tell me to come inside. My mom, however, was one of these "let him learn things on his own" types, and kept telling my grandparents to let me be, that I'd be okay, etc. Followed by my grandmother doing some more worrying and asking again if maybe I should come inside, followed by my mother getting more aggravated with them and forbidding them to "rescue" me.

I find none of this surprising in the least, as it fits with everyone's personality traits to this day.

Not mine, of course; it's not like I'm still afraid of thunder. Just so we're clear.

Moon Over Talahi

Forty years ago we watched and waited for Neil Armstrong to take his first step on the moon up at the lake house, Talahi. We'd invited two other families up for the weekend, the Muellers and the Flannerys. The Muellers had five kids, the Flannerys had seven kids, so it was rather crowded. The two-bedroom addition had yet to be built on to the cottage, so us fourteen (!) kids slept in this huge army-surplus tent outside. At least, it seemed huge to my five-year-old self. I remember the smell of wet, rotting canvass that was the tent.

It was dark, and we were watching the landing on an old black & white 19-inch TV that got horrible reception, but we didn't care. When my mom told me that the module had landed, I went outside and looked up at the moon, trying in vain to see the little astronauts walking about on its surface. Needless to say, I did not succeed, and it had to be explained to me that the moon was very far away.

I based "farness" when I was young on how long it took to drive up to the lake from Oak Park (about two hours):

How far away do great grandma and grandpa live? Answer: it's like driving to and from the lake four times.

How far to California? Fifteen Lake House Round Trips. (LHRT).

"How much longer do we have to drive?" "Only about one more LHRT".

So, when I asked how far it was to the moon, I was told it was something like ONE THOUSAND LHRTs:

"Well, if we drove to the lake, turned around and drove home, we'd have to do that one thousand times in order to get to the moon!" my dad told me.

I thought he was nuts, and it sounded like a booooring trip, but it was no wonder I couldn't see the LEM on the moon that summer night in 1969.

So here we are, forty years later, and nothing really more has happened vis-a-vis manned space exploration. By now I expected us to all to be able to have cottages on the moon, for chrissakes.

Oh well.

Talahi Diaries, May 5-7, 1967

In 1966, when my grandparents decided to purchase a summer house near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, they were given a little red diary by their friends Grace and Army. They were to use this diary to record all their time at the cottage. My grandfather made several entries at first, but then stopped after about a year. Several years later I found the diary and started to make entries every time I was up at the lake, and this continued for the next 30 years or so until my grandparents decided to sell the house a year ago (it's still on the market, by the way). I'm going to transcribe all of my grandfather's entries here, in chronological order, but I'm going to start with his entries from the weekend of May 5, 1967, because this is where I randomly opened the diary just now. As it turns out, these were the last entries he made, so it's sort of appropriate. I'll offer any associated memories I have with a given entry. Won't this be fun? ;-)


May 5, 1967 (Friday):

Drove up from O.P. [Oak Park] w/ Grandma & Grandpa Toti & Hankie. Fixed nice fire in fireplace. Arrived about 7:30 pm after having burger @ Marengo. [Grandpa]

When we'd make the two-hour drive from Oak Park to the lake house in Fontana, Wisconsin (one of three villages on Lake Geneva, the other two being William's Bay and Lake Geneva), we'd often stop at a burger joint named "Yum-Yums" in Marengo, IL. If ever a place warranted the "joint" moniker, it was this joint. A hole-in-the-wall right across from the local high school, it served shakes, malts, and "char-broiled" burgers, including my favorite, the "pizza burger" which of course had mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce on it. The color scheme was late 60s "harvest orange" and brown, and it had the requisite booths with faded vinyl seats in said color with rips where the stuffing was coming out, cigarette burns on the tabletops, and a juke box in the corner. It was great.

Grandpa and grandma Toti were my grandmother's parents, and thus my great-grandparents. They lived about 800 miles away in Eveleth, MN, but my grandfather would drive them down to the Chicago area once a year or so to visit.

May 6, 1967 (Saturday):

Hankie woke up about 5:45 am. Built kite for Hank. Broke 1st time but Hankie got to fly it at College Camp Field. Poppy did a lot of yard work - Nice day. [Grandpa]

My grandfather made this kite out of a paper bag from Carson Pirie Scott and strips of wood, and some rags for a tail. The night before we'd glued and tied the sticks together in a cross and the cut the bag to a kite shape and glued it to the cross. I was anxious to play with the kite right then, but my grandfather told me the glue would have to dry first. I was very impatient. He also made a kite string caddy and wound what seemed like miles of string around it in preparation for the next day's event. I of course was so excited to fly the kite that I woke up really early; I remember the sun wasn't up yet, and see now that it was 5:45 am. My poor grandfather. I still can clearly see my grandfather struggling to get the kite aloft in the relatively calm morning. I still don't know where College Camp field is in Lake Geneva, maybe someone can enlighten me.

I'd never heard my grandfather refer to my great-grandfather as "poppy" in my life; it was usually "Fred", and occasionally "papa", rarely "Bona Fede" (his real name), but never "poppy". I don't know what that was about.

May 7, 1967 (Sunday)

Left for O.P. about 7:00 pm on May 6th [Grandpa]

I don't know why he entered this on the next day rather than on Saturday, but I include this entry for completeness.

And yes, my grandfather called me "Hankie" his entire life.

Gramp's Memorial Service

Whistling

My grandfather used to tell us that when he was a teenager he "worked from sunrise to sunset for two bits a day", riding a horse herding cattle in Minnesota during The Depression. Usually he'd remind us of this when someone was complaining about how much something cost, or how much work they had. He never said it begrudgingly; he was proud of his cowboy days and recognized the color this story, and others, brought to his "Grandpa Biography". Back then, of course, he rarely talked about his past, saying he didn't want to bore us with such stuff. However, as he grew older, and especially during these last few years, he shared more and more stories.

However, what I'll remember about him most, and the image I'll always have of him will be of the strong leader of our family, the person everyone turned to when they needed something... emotionally, financially, or just guidance or to ask questions. He was the one constant in my life, especially my early life. He was full of life and always happy, a strong man who would still get emotional about the plight of a child or the death of a pet. He became the Assistant Superintendent of the school district where I grew up outside of Chicago, and was loved by all his teachers and staff who called him "Dr. Wes" and who knew to expect a hug or two from him whenever he'd visit their school or they were at the administration building.

He was one of those that believed that hard work and "keeping your nose clean" would get you anywhere you wanted to be in life. Even while busy twelve months a year with teacher contracts, teacher recruitment, curriculum, and other stressful school administrative tasks, he still found time for his Lions Club, doing many fundraisers for the blind including selling candy at el stations, writing the newsletter, and even becoming president of his local chapter. He also was the head of the area's American Legion, which, among other things, awarded scholarships to outstanding local students each year. He'd march with them, holding the American flag, each year in our Memorial Day parade, very proud of his students and his country. He was a very patriotic man, having lived the American dream and having fought in World War II for that dream, and it is because of him and his beliefs that I get so incensed when some try to claim love of country and patriotism as the sole ownership of The Right.

Sometimes I'd be at my grandparents' house, and my grandmother and I would always know when my grandfather was home from work because you could hear him whistling from a block away. I'd look out the window and see him walking his usual very brisk walk, Hamburg hat on head, whistling away with a smile on his face as he approached the front door.

That's how I'm going to choose to remember him right now. I wonder if he's whistling again, finally.

PyroPeep

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by ahsv

Live from Todd's wedding: Gizzie burning a peep, for heresy I'm guessing.