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When I was a
boy there was a hill a half mile or so from our house that kids used to dare
each other to go down on skateboards. I’d stand warily at the crest, staring
below, then decide for the millionth time that having a chicken liver was better
than getting it smashed out of my carcass in a plunge down that slope.
It has probably
been 30 years since I made my last decision for intactness at the top of that
grade, and a funny thing has happened: it got smaller. I thought briefly of
trying to convince my son, now 12, that someone must have whacked it down a
couple of hundred yards with a fleet of backhoes but figured it’d be just as
futile as screwing up the guts to zoom down it had once been.
We were
supposed to have been on a three-day father-son weekend with a group from
church, one we’d planned for months. But a crunch at work killed our Friday
plans and then slithered into much of Saturday. I’d looked forward to this;
why’d I have to grow up to be so blasted responsible?
Still, there’s
more than one kind of responsibility. As I loaded up for the drive home, it
occurred to me that the weekend still had a day and a half left and that there
might yet be a better way to spend it than moping. I grabbed the phone, called
my boy, and told him to pack a bag.
“Where are we
going?” he asked. The question only seemed unreasonable because I had no idea.
As the Dad, he generally expects me to know these things.
“Uh, I’m not
sure. You tell me.”
San Francisco,
Clear Lake, Nevada City, Fort Bragg, Tahoe, and Virginia City all came to mind,
but we settled on a visit to Sacramento with a side trip to the area of Folsom
Lake near Loomis where I grew up.
For my son,
Sacramento was the big draw, with its malls, restaurants, and historical
district. Grandma Jo lives there, also a great attraction. As for me I’d have
been happy just about anywhere as long as I could have some much needed time
alone with my son. Not that we don’t get any, but too much of it lately has
been homework and other endeavors under the heading of “duty” – that darned
responsibility again. A little fun was long overdue.
I’ve noticed that these one-on-one getaways with the kids often start me
thinking of my own childhood. I usually keep those thoughts to myself, not
wishing to pester away their youth with endlessly rehashed tales of mine. That,
and the stories they like to hear tend to be the ones I don’t much like to
tell. As the warning goes, “anything you say can be used against you...”, and
besides, they seem perfectly capable of dreaming up their own mischief without a
jumpstart from me.
It’s funny how we can still think of the scene of our childhood as “home” years
after we’ve left. I have no family in Loomis anymore, only one friend that I
keep up with, and haven’t lived there myself in over 25 years. Even if there
really isn’t anyone roaming the back roads rearranging hills with backhoes, the
biggest difference was that I didn’t recognize a soul, the thing that had most
made it home.
Which meant nothing to my son. What did seem to have significance for him was
that this was where Dad grew up. Despite my fear (and his, I suspect) that he’d
be bored into a coma, I think he enjoyed it as much as I. We walked my old
schoolyard at his request, saw where my wife and I were married, the houses I
lived in, the lake I swam in.
He re-lived the latter part of my childhood without me. The water was too cold,
and I was too old.
Sometimes the
weekend (or the week, or the year, or the life) we plan isn’t the one we get.
I’ve come to understand that if you won’t wallow in the disappointment, that’s
not always such a bad thing.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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