But when we arrive, a bony old Percy-Kilbride caretaker tells us tonight all the campsites are full.
Our vehicles slink from the campground, tailpipes between our wheels. Shoulda reserved. But we spot a parking lot below a small hill. This’ll do. We haul essentials up and make camp in the long grasses under the trees. It’s a ways to walk for water and the last restrooms we’ll enjoy for a week, but up here no neighbor’s playlist or clatter on macadam intrudes. Even the Ponderosas sigh.
I decide to walk to the lake. I emerge from the evergreens to behold, as if dropped from the clouds, my beloved sister gazing at the water. Framed by soft turquoise waves, her slender form sways ever so slightly on the pebbly shore. Sweet flash of the best of our childhood: up at the lake.
Whoops, hollers, huge hugs. Those deep, familiar, kind, kind eyes. That delicate skin, her blunt cut dashed with chestnut. People mistake her for Diane Keaton, not only because of her looks. By nature, Ro shares that delightful “La-di-da” quality and those self-effacing, syncopated cadences.
After a quick catch-up, we fall silent, staring up in admiration and fear at a big fissure in the glorious mountain.
“I think that’s our horse trail tomorrow,” I venture. How much of what Jim told me should I tell her? Eight hours in the saddle. Trail broiling in the open sun, slippery with scree. Horses might shy. We’ll be sore for two days. But she’s talked to him herself.
“He told me there’s a sheer drop-off on one side. We might get frightened and light-headed. Have to dismount and walk. The guide might not even stop to let us pee. They just keep going. He said we only get one little water bottle apiece, to keep the saddlebags light.”
“I’m not giving up my chamois cream! I googled saddle sores. It’s what professional bike racers use. But you know how bad I am when I’m dehydrated.”
“God, I hope we’re up to this.” We look at each other and scream. “Aaaahhhh!” Then laugh.
“But this time tomorrow the worst of our trip will be over, right?”
“Jim says we’ll just float and fish and read. Right?”
Returning to camp, Ro and I are touched to discover our considerate nephew Don not only packed sleeping bags and air mattresses for both of us, he brought and erected “Big Agnes,” a peachy little two-person tent. His aunties will have shelter and privacy in the wild.
What a great guy! Thoughtful, always willing to help. And that sweet open face—if you look fast and slap on a mental mustache, why, it could almost be my Dad’s.
The Oaken Field
In his early fan photos, Dad could have passed for Clark Gable’s less rakish, undimpled brother: same dark hair, generous brow, mustache. And he wasn’t even on camera yet.
Here in our ’50s dining room, he presided at our long, heavy, Spanishly-dark oak refectory table, curly swerves carved into the massive ball feet and the matching chair backs. If our family were a piece of furniture, it would be this weighty, battered, accommodating, honest table. The most stimulating, philosophical, and entertaining conversations took place here; later, some of the most traumatic.
The grand rambunctious parliament of dinner: huge table, edged with eager us, tipping in the carven chairs, yearning to tell what we learned in school, to ignite some grand discussion, to contribute to it, make some rare, insightful point: to solve the very sound of the tree falling by itself in the forest.
Get the dictionary! Look it up! Semantics! Standard English! And always, if we talked enough, we’d come to the Nature of God.
A stone too heavy for us to lift. But we would try, as surely as we’d try to lick our elbows for the hundred dollars Dad promised on nonsense nights when we played The Rhyming Game, or Puck, a hockey of the hands with a milkbottle cap, or Dad made Clown Sundaes, or told funny stories, or invented games, word games, games of love, Mom laughing and abashed, proud and alarmed at her brood. In the best of times.
Which is where we will start.
With the December night in 1952, Dad hatched a clever way to teach us table manners. (We have it in writing.) I like to imagine how it came about.
Long Live the Milkman
The swinging dining room door squeaks on its hinges and through it comes pudgy fourteen-year-old Mary Kay in snug, flour-dusty dungarees. Her hair—a clumsy-curled banister-brown page boy—hangs limply, and her pointy black cat-eye glasses are slipping down her nose. She lugs the ungainly half-gallon glass bottle of milk as if it were a baby on her hip and fills each bright aluminum tumbler.
“Everybody wash your ha-yands,” she calls. No response. “Pineapple cake for dessert,” she adds. Pogo, twelve, and Tom, ten, thunder down the stairs, muscling into the tiny half-bath, grinding powdery Borax hand soap into their dirty-from-dirt hands. Three-year-old Skip (John’s childhood nickname) tries to nudge his way in. I’m ready to go into my high chair.
With one small reddened bird-ish hand, Mom plucks up her Pall Mall, takes a drag, stubs it out on discolored melamine. She hefts the boiling stockpot to the sink and dumps it, draining the egg noodles, then coats them in margarine and poppy seeds. One delicate wrist pushes an errant strand of cocoa hair from her steam-filled dark eyes. She straightens up, resecures it in her Lucy poodle-updo, and tugs the bow of the organdy apron tied round her slim waist. Dad’s home for dinner.
In fact, he’s smiling a few feet away, shaking the silver bullet, and pouring their first nightly round of martinis on olives and ice.
He still looks good at thirty-nine, though strain is stamped around his eyes. It has taken months to recover from last year’s heart attack.
But he’s back at work now, writing and delivering two radio broadcasts a day. He can stand proudly at the head of the dining room table.
Before him, like symbols in a saint painting: a stack of plates, a steaming pot roast, and ravenous young faces.
“Betty, you found the carving fork!”
“St. Anthony suggested looking behind the stove and there it was,” says Mom, sipping from her icy glass.
“Who’s Sainanthony?” asks Skip. His booster seat is Webster’s Unabridged, as it was and will be for us all.
“The patron saint of lost objects. We pray to him when we lose something and he helps us find it.”
Crish, crish. Dad hones the long knife on a steel, slices and plates the fragrant gelatinous meat. Each plate passes from hand to hand to Mom for noodles, salad, and green beans.
Pogo, dark and darting king of imps, nimble of body and mind, pinches a nibble as the last plate goes by. He, too, is nearly recovered. He fractured his skull in the fall of that cardiac year and had to lay low for six weeks.
“Pogo! We haven’t said Grace!”
“Grace is Gramma’s name,” offers Tom, ever aware of relationships. He’s as blond as Pogo is dark, as conscientious as Pogo is spontaneous.
“But, Mommo, it’s Grrrreaat!” roars Pogo.
“No commercials at the table. And please don’t eat with your fingers. Where are your manners?”
“Ask Saint Anthony,” Mary Kay quips.
Dad leads the Sign of the Cross: “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Then Grace before Meals: “Bless us oh Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The instant it’s over, the cutlery clatters.
“Mary Kay, please change your fork to your right hand and put your knife down before