Barracuda Summer

The calf weighed a thousand pounds. “Bet it was all muscle”. That’s what the farmers in town mumbled the next day. “Black Angus. Impossible to see at night.”

My mother chose the pattern and the material. It was an 80-piece Vogue pattern for a full-length camel hair coat. The picture on the front of the small flat packet was classic—a thin-wasted brunette with teased hair, smiling proudly while wearing the gorgeous coat.

In all of my 10 years in 4-H I am never encouraged to sew. I don’t think about it either, other than to occasionally feel grateful it has never come up for a serious discussion. My sister has been designing and sewing clothes for her dolls as long as I can remember. She wins championship ribbons at the State Fair year after year for her amazing outfits. To me, sewing pales in comparison to my entomology collection. My cases are filled with black and green beetles, creepy spiders, butterflies and moths—wings beautifully spread with silver pins stuck through crispy bodies. If you asked my sister she’d tell you my “bugs” and my “carrots”, as she refers to my award-winning vegetables, are nothing compared to her fine sewing. As we’ve gotten older we don’t fight about it much.

When I walk by the material sitting on the kitchen counter I stop and touch it because it looks like you should bury your hands in its soft, plush, yummy golden heap. I think to myself, “I wonder what this is?  Is my sister starting a massive new project?” I continue on through the kitchen. “I’m glad sewing is not my thing,” I think. My mother, who is standing at the stove, calls me back. “Do you like this material?” she inquires. As she pushes the pattern toward me she asks, “Would you wear a coat like this?” I am confused about why she is asking me.

Then she tells me about her arrangement. She has hired Vivian Vinneberg to work with me to sew the coat. I have heard of Mrs. Vinneberg. She is supposed to be the best seamstress in the whole state of Kansas. She has a son who goes to my High School but I don’t know him. He is loner. I’ve overheard kids who ride his bus say he lives way out in the sticks. Did my mother actually just tell me I would be spending my precious summer with these people?

I feel as if all the air has been sucked out of me. I am trying to comprehend the meaning of what Mom told me. I feel completely pulverized! Isn’t a coat kind of a big undertaking for a first sewing project? My mind plummets. I can’t believe I am supposed to give up my entire summer to learn something I care nothing about. Is Mom really going to make me spend it with some old lady out in the sticks! How am I going to hang out with my friends?

I hate my mother for setting up impossible situations like this! The projects she picks for me always include some ulterior motive. She has some kind of fantasy that I will “feel good about myself” when I have completed them. How can she fail to grasp that it might not feel good to get credit for something someone has done for you? The thought of this happening again makes me miserable. Why does Mom assume she knows what I need? I sulk off to my room to figure out how to get out of this predicament.

Out in the sticks takes on an entirely new meaning the first time Mom drives me out to the Vinneberg farm. It takes a good 40 minutes until we turn off the asphalt highway onto a gravel road that has tall grass and sunflowers growing down the hump in the middle. After a while the gravel road turns into a rutted, one-car dirt path that bends into an even iffier 800-foot dirt driveway. The buildings have suffered years of neglect and many of them are falling down. The house is a typical wood-frame 2-story farmhouse that needs paint so badly it is impossible to tell if it was ever been painted. I slump down in my seat and fold the foil wrapper from a piece of Juicy Fruit gum as small as I can before I flick it out the window. I am furious!

I see Vivian Vinneberg standing, looking out through the screen door as we drive up and park in front of the house on the parched grass. She is thin and has deep wrinkles in her face that look like you could fall into them and never find your way out. Her bronze skin makes me think of Native Americans. She stands tall and has a shy smile. As we step onto the porch she holds the screen door open and looks down. When she doesn’t make eye contact, Mom starts talking nervously in short sentences. As Mom prattles on I get the sense Mrs. Vinneberg isn’t listening to her either.

Anger is rising in my body, tensing the muscles all the way up into my head. I don’t really want to find out if Mrs. Vinneberg is nice. I don’t care if she wants to share what she loves with me. My life, my entire summer, is being ruined by having to learn to sew. Mrs. Vinneberg has agreed to be a part of my mother’s latest scheme to make me into what she wants me to be. Mrs. Vinneberg, by participating in Mom’s egregious plan, is now the enemy. Taking on my mom will do no good. The only power I have is to be cruel to Mrs. Vinnegerg. I will pretend to be nice but will pour venom into every word, every look, and every smile.

I don’t notice when my father parks the new car at the end of the driveway one evening after work. I look out my bedroom window and wonder who is visiting. I have no idea the car is ours. It is a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda coupe---red with black vinyl interior. A large moon roof spans the entire back of the car, giving way to thoughts of stargazing and drinking beer with friends. In the past, my parents have always bought enormous Chryslers with big fins—never anything this sporty and fun.

It takes me a while to realize I will be driving the Barracuda every day when I go to Mrs. Venneberg’s—by myself. When this hits me all my animosity disappears. I ask to take the car for a spin. As I cruise down Main Street I feel “seen” as people turn their heads wondering who is in the awesome car. I can barely feel the railroad tracks’ bump as I drive out of town. I turn onto the straight road out by the grain elevator and put the accelerator pedal flat to the floor. The car responds like a dream. Before I know it I have reached the next little town and need to turn around to go home.

I got my drivers license when I turned 14. That was 3 years ago. It is hard to get “driving time” in my family because either my sister wants to drive or Mom is going somewhere, always late—so she has to drive fast to get there in time. Mom doesn’t encourage me to drive. I know she thinks I’m not very good at it. I actually feel pretty confident. I have never driven by myself, though, until this evening. I am looking forward to finally driving a lot this summer!

Cutting out 80 pieces of fabric takes days. Without talking about it, Mrs. Venneberg decides the best way to deal with my shitty antagonistic attitude is simply to ignore me. She pins the pattern pieces to the material as if she is helping a young child who is eager to learn. Her perky attitude annoys me! I cut around the little pieces with pinking shears, opening and shutting their jagged mouth forcefully, like a shark closing in on dinner. All summer Mrs. Venneberg sets up the next step and the next and I cut or sew or do whatever she tells me to do. My refusal to pay attention or learn anything from what we are doing does not stop the coat from taking shape. I have to admit it is a thing of beauty! I take no credit for it and struggle with what I can say when people compliment me.

Each morning I arrive at the Venneberg farm at 9. We work straight through the day and stop at 4. Then it is just the Barracuda, the open road and me. I back the Barracuda up onto Mrs. Vinneberg’s scraggly lawn to turn around, and then ease down the driveway. The bumpy dirt road bumps and bounces me around in the car. I am extra careful to maneuver the car so I don’t fall into a rut. When I reach the gravel road I pick up my speed a little. I like hearing the thump, thump, thumping of the sunflowers as they hit the front of the car. At the end of this road I come to a complete stop. I pause and carefully look both ways for traffic before I turn onto the two-lane asphalt highway leading home.

For a while the road, which is situated on the top a gentle ridge, makes you believe you’re driving along the top of the world. Looking out, it is astonishing how you can see pastures forever in all directions. The road emboldens me toward speed. I have been with Mom on this road when she’s driven a hundred miles an hour and she didn’t even realize it. I sit back in my seat and push down steadily on the accelerator pedal until it starts to feel like I’m flying. I see no other cars today. I decide I will slow down later when I reach the last five miles before town. That is the hilly stretch. If a car is coming toward you there, you can’t see it until it pops over the hill. I can feel the enormous smile growing across my face. I am lost in thoughts of what independence feels like. I decide I like being an adult and driving fast.

The next day Mrs. Venneberg tells me the coat will be finished on Friday. We work with focused determination all week. Then it is finally Friday. When it is 4 o’clock, our usual stopping time, we still have more finishing touches left. We take a break so she can make her husband and son and me some dinner. She fries some chicken and brings out a dish of cole slaw she’s covered carefully with saran wrap. She asks me to place little sweet pickles she put up last summer onto a relish plate. I pour water into glasses with ice cubes while she goes out to the barn to find her family. I feel nervous and totally out of place eating with her family. Mr. Vinneberg tries to chitchat about the weather when he sits down. The silence throughout the rest of the meal is interrupted only by the embarrassing sounds of mouths mushing food. I am glad to be finished with dinner so I can clear the plates and help her clean up the kitchen before we go back to sewing the coat.

When the coat is finished I open the screen door and step out onto the porch and into the night. I can barely see anything it is so DARK. I drape my coat protectively over the passenger’s seat and make sure the plastic Mrs. Vinneberg has slipped over it is entirely covering the coat. I edge slowly down the driveway. I have never driven at night before. It is different than I imagined. My vision is dramatically reduced and is limited to just what the headlights illuminate. It doesn’t take long before I feel happy again! “I am done with my coat! I don’t ever have to come back here!” I scream out my open window.

I search the sky for the moon. Maybe the cloud cover is hiding her? I can’t see any stars either. Once I get away from the house it is completely black! I poke slowly down the uneven road, watching carefully for anything the bright lights might highlight all the way to the highway. Once I turn onto the asphalt I still hang back. I’m not as comfortable cruising along at my usual daytime speed. Once I open all the windows and crank up the radio, though, my confidence is restored and the Barracuda begins to hum.

When I reach the section of the road where the hills start I see headlights from a car in front of me. Headlights do weird things when you’re driving in hills. They disappear and then reappear so quickly it is nearly impossible to judge distance. I catch up to the car sooner than I anticipated and have to put on my brakes because they are driving at a snail’s pace. After following them at a safe distance, I can tell by the way the car speeds up and slows down the driver has been drinking. They are weaving all over the road. There are several places between here and town when you can pass. I think I remember where they are although the road looks different in the dark. I have never passed another car but I’ve watched Mom do it a billion times. When she passes someone it looks and feels like sailing. I’m guessing it must be easy.

We must be climbing up a hill because we are going slower and slower. When speed picks up and I start cruising again I know we have crested over the top and are on the way down. I am pretty sure one of those passing places is coming up. When I reach the spot where the road flattens out I put my foot down hard on the accelerator. The powerful movement of the Barracuda clutches at my stomach and thrills me as I pull out into the other lane. The car responds instantaneously and I easily pull up even with the front of the other car. I look over and see we are neck and neck. I look back at the road, headlights peering into the night. All of a sudden I see a looming dark shadow up ahead ringed by the hazy glow from the headlights. The shadow is imposing but I can’t make out what it is. I quickly blink my eyes to make sure there really is something there. At the last moment I see what it is. A black cow is standing sideways in my lane. In that split second of recognition its enormous brown eyes lock with mine. By then there is nowhere for me to go. I can’t pull over into the other lane because the car is there.

I glance down at the speedometer and see I am driving at 80 miles an hour. The impact is a deafening sound of animal and steel. Instantly my windshield is completely covered with shit and the night goes completely away. The cow seems to be riding on the hood, pressed up against the windshield. The impact turns the car. It feels like I am careening sideways.

At first time is suspended. Then it moves in slow motion. I struggle to see, to make sense of what is happening. I know I am moving fast by the pull of centrifugal force on my body. Am I traveling through the air sideways? Should I take my hands off the steering wheel? My senses are on high alert, my mind completely shut down. My entire awareness is on movement. My body is intensely zeroed in to the unnatural feeling of being airborne. I see a picture of myself in a coffin with people filing by crying. Is this the last moment of my life?

At last I feel the tires rolling, dragging on the Barracuda. The sensation of slowing down is almost imperceptible at first. When the forward motion finally stops and car rocks side to side a few times. I sit in silence, not breathing. I can’t tell if I am still moving or not. I look around, trying to see anything through the blackness. I am frightened by a sound that I realize is my breathing—uneven and strained. My teeth are chattering and I can’t stop shaking.  Adrenaline surges through me but I cannot move. I hear a loud low moan and remember the cow. In my mind I see its eyes, begging me to let it live. Now it agonizes with groans that scream out desperately into the wounded night. As they grow more insistent I feel a sad heaviness and complete helplessness I can only guess is grief. Fear keeps me where I am. I cannot move to get out of the car. “Help me!” I scream into the punishing night.

For what seems like a long time I sit in the silent darkness. By now my breath is too shallow to detect. I am numb. Lifeless. I have lost all sense of time. It feels as though all the nerves in my body are wildly active while at the same time totally shut down. I am saturated with panic. The pitch black is disorienting so I close my eyes. With my eyes shut it feels like I’m still moving.  The claustrophobic confinement of the dark enclosed space is overwhelming. I become fixated on the feelings brought about by thinking, “I almost just died!” I feel blood racing chaotically through my body. My heart is beating uncontrollably. Even though it is a hot summer night, I am freezing and cannot stop shaking. I don’t know what to do. How will anyone find me? How will they know where I am? I don’t even know where I am.

Suddenly I think I hear a man’s voice. My door opens slowly. With the light from his flashlight I recognize Mr. McDowell. His brother rents the house across the street from my parents. I shut my eyes when he shines the flashlight directly into my face to see if I am okay. I burst into tears and it feels like an eruption of gratitude. He says he’ll be right back and disappears. It isn’t until the deafening silence following the gunshot when the groaning stops that I know the cow is dead.

Mr. McDowell comes back and gently helps me out of the car. My legs are like rubber so he puts a steady arm around my shoulder and helps me over to his pickup. Once I am in the passenger seat he fastens his shotgun in the rear window of his truck. He hands me a blanket from behind the bench seat and I pull it around me as we ride to town. He tells me he was driving this way and when he got to the hills he saw the lights from my car go haywire. The lights from the other car kept going. “I got to you as quickly as I could. I knew something bad had happened.” He told me I had gone sideways for a quarter of a mile starting in Riley County and ending up in Pottawatomie County. “That is the only piece of highway in the state of Kansas that has no signs or posts for that quarter of a mile. “If you had hit even a small post your car would have rolled and rolled. You would definitely be dead. You are lucky!”

When we see the first lights from town, reality hits and I start to wonder how my parents will respond to my having a car accident. I’m pretty sure they won’t take away my driving privileges.  I am absolutely certain they will be angry! Sure enough, when I tell them the story they don’t believe me. Mr. McDowell assures them I am telling the truth. My father is furious about the damage I’ve probably done to the new car. He keeps repeating, “I knew you were a bad driver.  I should never have let you take the Barracuda.” As I listen to him rant, all I hear is how I’m not an adequate person. Finally Mom, who has been silent, suggests we drive out to where the accident happened. I am relieved when Mr. McDowell says he wants to go.

We stand on top of the world in the dark. Flashlights reveal significant damage to the front of the car. While they are looking, I open the Barracuda’s back door and reach in for my camel hair coat. I pull it out and slide the plastic up and over the shoulders. The soft plush fabric makes me want to hug it. Hugging brings the comfort I so desperately need. I slide into the backseat of my parents’ car and lean my head on the window, embracing the coat. All the way back to town my father keeps talking about the accident and the cow. Thinking about the cow causes sadness so deep for me, I don’t think I will ever come back. I refuse to listen to him. The only thing I can do is pull into myself as the warm coat enfolds and holds me. Long after we get back home my father continues his tirade. I go to bed and still hear him going on and on to my mom. She answers him with muffled grunts implying colluding agreement.

I lie under the covers in the dark shaking, immersed in anguish. I wonder if my parents are scared? Did it occur to them I might have died? Do they care? I feel hopelessly alone. I wish my sister were home from college. She would sit with me. She would hold me. This experience is changing my world. I will never be the same. Tears run down my cheeks in an unending stream as I cling to my camel hair coat.

“WHERE ARE WE?”

The sun wakes me gently with an expansive beam cascading playfully over my bed. When I open my eyes I can tell from the intensity of the light it is going to be another hot summer day. I listen as buzzing insects upstage the birds’ harmonious medleys. Does every place in the world have some kind of morning conversation with nature? I only know the Kansas version, with its familiar sounds that mean “home”. I like waking up in the summer without an alarm clock or an intrusive knock at the door. Awakening to the sweet cacophony of morning sounds delights me and starts my day out “right”.

In my mind I slowly begin to piece together my activities for the day—like an intricate needlepoint design emerging one tiny stich at a time. It will be a “regular” summer day. Grandma is expecting me at her house first thing this morning to work in her yard before it gets too hot. Then there is the delima of how I am going to convince my mother to let me go to the swimming pool to meet up with my girlfriends in the afternoon. I am in high school after all, and need some autonomy and control over my own life! It is too far-fetched, though, to think Mom will give in easily without a fight.

I puzzle about why my friends only talk about boys these days. I listen, baffled by why they care about them so much. Boys our age are awkward and know very little about how to express themselves, especially around girls. My little “party of five” as we are known have been close friends since kindergarten. Going through school year after year together has solidified our connection. We know each other backward and forward. Even this new development of “boy-crazy talk”, while confusing to me, brings up strong feelings of loyalty and “being there” for my friends no matter what.

I love my girlfriends. I appreciate our companionship and how real we can be together. We laugh a lot when we’re together. How can they possibly want more than that? Why do they even think boys could ever top what we share? I like being loved without question. My family has so many strings attached to their loving. It is a relief to be able to be myself, knowing my friends accept me no matter what I do. I might be a little afraid that boys could take my friends away.

I hesitate before putting my feet on the floor. I know once I am up, I will be pulled into the world and it won’t feel as comfortable as now. I am also certain if I don’t get up soon I will surely get Mom’s “lazy lecture”. I don’t feel like spoiling my morning with a rant.

My sister left last weekend for her freshman college orientation. It is odd being the only kid in the house. I didn’t experience much of a shift when my brother left home seven years ago. Our age and different interests guaranteed our lives rarely crossed paths. My sister, however, is both my nemesis and ally. We bicker about everything, all the while knowing we have each other’s back. I am surprised by how much I am missing her. I am beginning to realize what it means to be the single focus of Mom’s attention. My sister’s relationship with our mom has always felt easy compared to mine. My first memories are of my sister running interference between Mom and I. She has only been gone one week and I can already feel tension building.  What am I going to do?

I meander into the kitchen. Just as I reach into the refrigerator for milk Mom comes around the corner. My shoulders stiffen and I realize I am holding my breath. “Good morning, Honey! How did you sleep?” I am shocked to be greeted kindly, like a real person. I know something is up because our typical interaction is usually fraught with judgment, restriction and control.

Then she tells me, “I have planned a picnic with the family this evening. Can you be back from the pool by 5? We’ll be leaving at 5:30 to pick up your dad and meet everyone at Aunt Grace’s at 6.” I can’t believe what I am hearing and quickly agree. Wow! I have just been given permission to go to the pool without asking or having a fight!

After spending the afternoon at the pool I come home a little early. When I walk into the house at 4:30 I can see Mom has been busy preparing for the picnic. The old wicker picnic basket is sitting next to the door, full of fried chicken, potato salad and deviled eggs. The blue and white cooler, packed with ice and drinks, sits next to it. There is even a washtub covered with an old rag rug that I know contains a metal canister of homemade ice cream. I cannot overlook how peculiar this situation is. My aunts always share the cooking by bringing a dish to pass. Grandma always fries the chicken. This time Mom has spent the entire day doing everything herself. Something weird is definitely going on.

We pick Dad up from work and drive out to Aunt Grace and Uncle Jimmy’s farm. My two aunts and uncles, several of my younger cousins, and Grandma and Grandpa are all waiting on us, as usual. The adults decide we will take 3 cars. I ride with my aunts and the cousin closest to my age. I am so used to not knowing what is going on, it doesn’t occur to me to ask where we are going. I sit up and looked around when we stop. We are stopped at a pasture. Dad is getting out of Grandpa’s car. He slips the wire loop over the hand-hewed pole. Then he pulls the wire gate into the pasture until it is open enough for our cars to pass through. He carefully shuts it when all the cars are in the pasture.

This is when I begin to seriously pay attention. Mom is driving in the lead with Grandma sitting in the passenger seat and my youngest cousin bouncing around in the back. She is driving like a bat out of hell—the same terrifying way she drives when we’re on the Kansas Turnpike. Looking out in front of the car I see there is no road! We are driving across a wide expansive prairie and are traveling too fast for me! Where are we? I’ve been to my relatives’ farms many times but have never been here. Are we on someone else’s land? How does Mom even know about this place? Why did she bring us here? Is everyone wondering the same thing?

My aunts are trying their best to follow the family code of conduct of not talking about what is actually going on. Even with all their years of experience at staying silent, this situation eventually gets to be too much even for them. I hear Aunt Grace say a little too loudly to her sister, “Where in the hell is she taking us?”

I grab the edge of the bench seat; increasingly alarmed at the speed we are traveling. Several times Mom stops, gets out of her car and turns around in circle slowly. I barely recognize her as she gazes out far away. Then she gets back into her car and tears off again. One of these stops Grandpa and my aunts catch up with her. They hastily roll down their windows to talk. There is a heated exchange but I can’t understand exactly what Mom is saying.

I am feeling really frightened now. Mom’s behavior is all wrong. I have never seen her act in such an erratic way. She is always dependable, resolved to do what she is supposed to do. She never does what she wants and “caves in”

to whoever is around, especially her family.

We have made our way up the hill and are high up on a flat mesa that stretches several miles ahead and behind us. I have no idea where we are. There are no recognizable landmarks to provide a clue. Our car slows down and Grandpa’s comes up alongside ours. I can hear loud but muted quarreling coming from inside his car where the men are riding. Their voices are raised and they sound really angry.

After three more stops my mother parks her car and walks toward the West. The sun is low and is hiding behind some clouds. The high-pitched drone of the cicadas and the colors in the sky capture my attention. I watch Dad and my uncles carry food and chairs over to a spot behind the only tree. They are attempting to light a fire for us to sit around but are having trouble because of strong gusts of wind. When it blows, tall brown grasses bend almost to the ground. They keep trying to light the fire long after they know it is of no use. I suspect they are just anxious and trying to do anything to make the evening take a turn for the better.

My grandfather sits silently like a stone, alone in his car with the windows up. I can tell by his profile he is FURIOUS. My cousin and I are restless to get out of the car but my aunts tell us with a look to stay put. They lean in toward one another and whisper in low voices so muffled it is impossible for me to understand the words. I can tell from their animated gestures and facial expressions they are upset.

I look out over the countryside below, letting my eyes follow my body as it involuntarily turns and circles the horizon. It is so beautiful it takes my breath away. Farms with fields a thousand shades of greens and golds are planted in rich black dirt. They spoon the hills and dot the landscape like a patchwork quilt. I am caught up looking deeply into this amazing panorama when a sudden movement to my right catches my eye.  When I turn in that direction I see my mother. She is near the edge of the mesa facing the setting sun. Her aura is highlighted in a thin pink glow. The colors in the sky are wild. Intense purples, pinks and oranges blaze across the azure sky.

Her arms are outstretched to the heavens. The image of golden light pouring through her into the earth comes to me. I quietly open my car door and slip out into the cool air. I edge forward, riveted by her hypnotic choreography. Sitting on the hard ground nearby I am mesmerized as her story unfolds.

She is beautiful. Her blond hair falls onto her shoulders and I have to do a double take because I can’t tell if she looks young or old. She has braided some of the dry grasses and they sit on her head like a crown. As I watch, her arms sway back and forth as she slowly makes her way around a large circle. I can hear her softly chanting a song I do not recognize. I don’t think she is even aware I am here. I hear Aunt Janelle snap to her sister, “Has she lost her mind? She seems too happy!”

From the first moment I lay eyes on her I am suspended in a timelessness that feels like it contains the past as well as the future.  Excitement electrifies me as I watch. Her dizzying movements inspire me and render me speechless as she paints a picture of her life right in front of me.

Released from the internal torture and lofty expectations that imprisoned her all her life, my mother is free at last. As she stretches her arms to the sky I see strong elegant wings lofting upward. She rises, letting go of the earthbound weight that has always taken away her life’s meaning. She is peering down now, observing her life from her own new vista, and glorifying the miraculous catharsis with immersive joy. I am awestruck in the face of her emboldened power. As she moves through her ritual, she gracefully occupies her life like the dream she has never lived.

I am brimming with Mom’s “celebration” and feel extraordinarily happy and satisfied. The dichotomy between the Mom I’ve always known and the one she is today is mindboggling. I am so taken by the whole experience I actually can’t remember the sequence of events that gets me and my family from the pasture to Aunt Grace’s house. I vaguely remember scurrying to leave when the fire doesn’t start, the wind won’t stop blowing and darkness begins to close in. At my Aunt’s house we have our first “inside picnic”. Everyone is agitated and out of sorts but no one talks about what just happened.

Not a day goes by without this experience popping into my mind. I treasure the profound images and know I have been given a precious gift. Many questions remain unanswered. Perhaps I’ll never know where we were that night. I don’t know why Mom took us there to witness the transformative moment when she reclaimed herself. This memory is forever imprinted upon my heart. It is the only time I ever saw my mother express who she truly is. Every time it comes to me, I am astonished all over again. Seeing Mom celebrating her life gives me strength, power and joy. I can’t stop smiling!

Lost

In every story he ever heard about his mother she was referred to as “Libby”. He clung to her name with the desperation of a hungry puppy latched to a tit. So when I was born a voice rose up inside him and he pleaded with my mother to call me “Libby”. “Libby Lou Smith”. My mother flatly said, “NO!” expressing her willingness to call me Elizabeth instead. “That was her given name, after all”, she explained. He would not give up his small child’s view. His mother had always been called “Libby” and nothing my mother could say would change that in his mind. In the end, my mother won out as usual but compromised by giving me the middle name of the woman who had supposedly taken my father in. Her name was Elaine. So, Paula Elaine Smith was the name I was given before the tw0 week’s stay in the hospital was over and I went home.

History has to do with the past. Facts pull into view aspects of an event outside of ourselves so we can remember. Memory brings the past into the present so we can grapple with the internal experience. Memory can be affected by all kinds of things: age, emotional awareness, perception, life events, and imagination, to name a few. Memories are akin to making up stories. That is why our memories often change from one telling to the next. Sometimes they become filled with magical thinking—and those are the times that the memories can become fantastical stories that have very little or nothing to do with what actually happened.

So, consider the story my father remembers being told about his mother. Libby is heating up water on the woodstove. She is a 32 year old, strikingly attractive farmwife living in Iowa. The sun is high up in the blue cloudless sky. Her husband, Will, is out on the land planting alfalfa. Her 2 older sons, 4 and 6, are playing outside near the house. She looks out the window and smiles as she watches her husband on the tractor making a large circle at the end of the row. Her 6-month-old baby lies in a basket kicking his feet wildly with joy. She is heating water to give him a bath. Suddenly, a flame catches her dress on fire. She cannot put it out, cannot get out of the dress because the flames are moving too quickly. Her blood-curdling screams bring Will running. He rolls her frantically in a worn carpet and the flames finally smolder out. For the next 2 weeks Libby suffers excruciating pain in their tiny farmhouse before she dies.

Libby’s story seems to end here. But, what happened to her family? Was the baby (my father) passed around from one good neighbor to the next family member to the next church lady? What happened to Will and the 2 other boys? To compensate for being too little to remember, as he got older he alleged to have been taken in and given a wonderful home with his mother’s sister, Elaine and her husband, Otis.

When he was 5, his memory kicks in and he is living with his father and brothers in a tent with a dirt floor in Kansas City. The next memory that he occasionally shared is factual. He is attending the University of Kansas on a football scholarship during the Depression, going to school and football practice during the day and working as a janitor in various buildings on campus at night.

Did his higher education and marriage to my mother, a woman from a very different social class, provoke a separation with his father and brothers? I do not remember his ever talking about them, nor did I meet any of them. Their complete absence was such an integral part of my life, it never occurred to me to ask about them.

What was it like for him to lose his mother in such a horrific way at a young age, his father and brothers as a young adult? How did these events influence his sense of Self? Did setting him loose on his life journey, like a baby floating aimlessly in a basket, eclipse entire parts of his psyche? These are questions that come up for me when I try to make meaning of my memories of the man I called “Dad”.

My mother occasionally told a story about Dad. When I would hear this story, it emoted the feelings and the image I had of my dad in most of my memories of him. They had just met at the University of Kansas and my father called her up and asked her out. She was a popular girl on campus and not lacking for boys’ attentions. She declined. He insisted, saying it was necessary that she come downstairs from her dorm room immediately. She reluctantly acquiesced. When she rounded the corner and started out the door—she saw him standing there with 2 ice cream cones.

I cannot for the life of me comprehend why my mother married my father. He was a constant source of irritation and embarrassment to her, his family and our community. She did an excellent job covering up for his inadequacies and kept him isolated from herself, my brother and sister and me. During the short time after my mother died and before he remarried, I spent a little time alone with him. I was shocked with his shortcomings and inadequacies that were painfully obvious and uncomfortable to be around. 

To me, he felt like a little child. Not childlike exactly, but powerless. He did not possess the power adults’ carry. Consequently, he was the one all the other adults in my world blamed for everything. Everyone in the family projected something negative onto him. I could feel these projections when I was young but could not sort them out or separate them from my actual experience. Negativity therefore became the foundation of how I thought about him.

In my memory he desperately wanted a family. Not his own family with Mom and us kids—but he yearned for parents and siblings. So he looked to my grandparents devotedly and could not wait for the next family gathering to visit for hours with my aunts and uncles. They made fun of him behind his back, in front of me. I started to believe that if he was such a loser as they implied, then perhaps I was, as well. This thought kept me isolated in silence and despair.

Sentimental is how I would describe him. Along with having a sentimental emotional streak running just below the surface he was also sentimental about things he saw. He could tell you in great detail and with deep emotion about a hay bale he had seen decades before. I often wondered if this sentimentality left his unprotected heart vulnerable to other people taking advantage of him?

When I was little I thought he was intelligent and clever. I watched as people at my grandpa’s lumberyard waited in long lines out the front door for him to figure up what materials they needed for their projects. For not having any formal training, he naturally demonstrated tremendous creativity and talent. You’d think this would have brought him some positive recognition. But, like everything my father did, this backfired, too.

Working for his father-in-law brought him in close contact with a parent, which he coveted, while making it necessary for him to turn his back to the abuse that was being heaped upon him. When he did something my grandfather didn’t like, Grandpa would complain about him to my mother. Her anger would build throughout the day and into the evening until after we went to bed. Then, she let Dad have it with both barrels. “How could you be so stupid? Why did you tell Chester Kolterman the least expensive way to fix his window? Why did you order so many tubes of caulk?” The yelling seemed to go on for hours. My memories about this are muddled, as I was certain the verbal abuse was being directed at me.

When I was 4 (and loved my father with all my heart), my mother, after one of her tirades, loaded us up in the car and announced we were leaving and never coming back. When we started out, I looked back at the house and Dad was sitting on the porch steps with my dog. I was hysterical the entire 3 hours drive to Kansas City. I could not stop crying. Eventually mom said, “ Because you won’t stop crying we are going back”. Then I cried all the way home with the weight of this responsibility. When we pulled in the driveway, there he was, still sitting in the same place on the stairs, dog in his lap.

Our trust was broken during the only years I remember actually loving him. I was 5 and desperately wanted to spend time with him. One day he came home for lunch and asked me if I would like to go to the grocery store with him. I was ecstatic! We went to the store and picked up bologna and a can of chicken noodle soup, my personal favorites. On the way home we stopped at the old hospital. He bodily carried me inside and waited in the hall while Dr. Fleckenstein gave me a booster shot. I remember feeling the sizzling anger of betrayal for the first time in my life. I knew I would never trust him again. My feelings of loving him never resurfaced after that incident.

All through my growing up years he let other people think for him and did whatever they said. For instance, he was told to polish our shoes for church on Saturday nights, which he did religiously. His job was also to sort through the lima beans whenever he was told. More humiliating for everyone was when he was told by my mother to say something that was hard for her to say or do something that was difficult. He was oblivious to so much of my day-to-day life that when my mother sent him in to deliver a message, he would surprise me every time with his unhinged rage. At those times he was a loose cannon and even more dangerous because he hadn’t stopped to consider what he was doing.

When I got my first period and told my sister, he burst into my room, threw sanitary pads on the bed, then turned around and left without saying a word. Another time he slapped me in the face in front of my high school girlfriends because I was getting ready to go to the Queen of Courts Dance with them for an hour. By not questioning ‘why’ he was well suited to be able to do my mother’s frenetic dirty work.

He was physically incredibly strong and athletic. Much to everyone’s aversion though, he frightened us by sensationalizing physical wounding. Working at the lumberyard carried with it many possibilities for getting hurt. When this would happen he would describe in gory details exactly what had transpired and insist, with pressuring force, to look at his injuries. This sensationalism was also especially bullying when he cut up fish. He seemed to get a real thrill out of terrorizing us with blood and guts.

I often wonder what it would have been like for me if Libby had lived? Without the horrible wounding would Dad have had confidence to think and make choices for himself? Would he have been able to say to my mother, “Stop it, Alice, you are scaring the children”? Would he have protected and supported his children—been engaged in our lives? Would he have dealt with people differently and directly so that our relationship could have been spared his displaced anger?

Toward the end of his life I realized my father had never had any idea who I was. He had been around when I was growing up but absent from my life. It felt like he had never been interested in me and didn’t even like me. I could sense his anger at the opportunities my mother provided and he completely ignored all my creative and academic endeavors. From my earliest memory of him I could sense his disappointment in me. 

I don’t think about my father much anymore. Some of my memories have worn away like sandpaper rubbed smooth, others with colors faded from overexposure. But when I do occasionally bring them out I begrudge the fact that they are not tender and loving. Some part of me wants to remember him as a gentle person with a big heart. I want to see him in my mind’s eye with his love of people and his vast curiosity about life. I want to celebrate his creativity, his strength, his love of the land and animals. I want to savor his enjoyment of his tomatoes and vegetables. I want to experience again the special bond he had with my son. I want to feel compassion for him and form a picture with all these things in it. But, I cannot.

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If the role of fathers is to show you about the world, then I was shown how to give myself up for others, to have no boundaries, have no respect for myself and to allow others to abuse me. My deepest memories of my father are all about being repeatedly disappointed. Continually embarrassed. This was my experience. It is part of my story.