In 1983, I was a sophomore living in the dorms at Kent State University.
Some time that year, we got the diagnosis that my father had colon cancer. Now that I come to write about it, I realize I don’t have many details. He had surgery to remove part of the colon and when they opened him up, they found that the cancer had metastasized to the liver.
My parents were living in Sylvania, Ohio at the time.
Some time in 1984 or ’85. Our good family friends in Southfield, Michigan, lent me a giant, dark-green Ford so that I could commute back and forth from Kent to Toledo while my father was dying. I spent the summer drunk, screwing a number of non-boyfriends, dancing to reggae bands upstairs at Mother’s Junction (above Ray’s), and going to see the Numbers Band at JB’s down.
I can’t remember what job I held. I do remember the heart-wrenching misery of driving to Toledo every Friday night and returning every Sunday. The long dark road, I-80, where deer/car collisions were a regular occurrence and the tail-end of the Appalachian range flattened completely by the time you’d reach Northwest Ohio. Some damn ugly land. I remember how everything in me screamed not to go. If I didn’t go home, would he not die?
Richfield, Ohio, Kita Lyons’ property. I had written in my book that this is July 13, 1985, 2 days shy of my 23rd birthday. One of the necklaces I’m wearing belonged to my Tante Nelli, but she died in May 1986. I wonder if she gave me some jewelry earlier than I remember.
My father died in August 1985.
I decided to make my pilgrimage the following year. My mother bought me a used, silver Toyota Corolla/Tercel, a model that they made for only a short time. I think it cost 4 thousand bucks. I have no memory of how many miles it had on it. I do remember going to someone’s house to check out the car, how their driveway looked, dark black asphalt. I would pay my mother back from my aunt’s estate when I received that money. My father’s only living sister, Nelli Landau. She died 9 months after him. I know it was a broken heart, for she loved my father and had no husband or children of her own.
I decided first to drive east. I would be staying mostly in youth hostels, but also had a few connections to stay with people I’d never met. Friends of friends. I miss that spirit. I miss it.
I am not sure any more all of the places I stopped. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I stayed in a governor’s mansion because my friend’s friends were the caretakers. The wife was a New England blue blood, going back several generations. She was a fiber artist, had a studio set up in the house.
They steamed mussels we picked up fresh from a little fish shack in town. I’d never eaten mussels before. I learned what a Widow’s Walk is. I toured the rose arbor in the back yard. The wife’s name was Sydney. This is how people name their children in New England.
One night, we drove past oceanfront mansions, stopped on the damp ocean beach, got high, and watched the sunset.
I next stopped in Cherryville, Maine, the famed place of an annual blueberry harvest which gathers hippies, loafers, stoners, and other back-to-nature types for seasonal farm work. Now I realize that there must be real migrant workers who go there, not just the educated white children of middle class families.
The hostel was really an old hippie commune. My first of so many things, again. I used an ATM machine in the quaint town. I got poison ivy (sumac?) on my legs. I stood in a circle with a couple dozen other people, stoned, holding hands, swaying, singing om om om. I learned what a Clivus is and determined that some day I would have one.
Maine, Bar Harbor, a little boat trip around some of the islands where I saw seals and puffins. The first time I heard the word shoal. Acadia where I walked on some barnacled rocks for a few hours, did nothing else, and left. I met a guy at the youth hostel. I remember eating a meal, walking around the town. Saying Bah Haba like the locals over and over, laughing, tschoke shops, lobster everything everywhere. I gave him a ride to the Greyhound station in Boston. A kiss in the rain. I didn’t even like him, but he was friendly. Dark hair, not too tall.
One very clear memory is of driving on the interstate in Massachusetts and the giant granite rocks on either side, with their trees and lichen, roots, gray and yellow stains. I think of it still when we go to Boston on I-90. I remember.
I started this post thinking about every car I’ve ever owned because my 2000 Toyota mini-van is up near 160K miles and creaky.
Let’s call this Installment One of Old Girl, the story of the first half of my cross-country trip after the death of my father.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hey, I’m not saying I like this, but I went to see them live a lot back in the day. The first video is kinda shaky to start, still good to see them looking good and playing after all these years.
You’ve always been a hippy girl at heart. I miss The Numbers Band.
What gave it away? The hairy armpits, the utter disregard for deodorant, the dirt under my fingernails? Nah, I can’t stand dirt under my fingernails, I don’t like the Grateful Dead, and I love my A/C. I must be some strange mix of a spoiled suburban middle-class girl and a hippie wannabe. But you snagged me. Lucky for both of us.
I love, love, love this post.
What a spectacular picture! Your eyes are amazing.
And also, I’m sorry you lost your father so early.
Thanks, Katharine. That photo was taken with my mom’s old German Retina camera. I miss that kind of black and white photo. If you search for Retina camera, you can pull up my post about it. But it’s long.
My eyes don’t seem to look like that any more, but I also am not as slouchy or sad.
I don’t think about my dad much, but this came pouring out. Sometimes it’s time for more. I’m still sad and I was pretty young, not as young as some people though.
Thanks again, the other Katherine
Wow, I learned so much reading this even though I was with you during some of those earlier years. I don’t even remember that you knew your dad was dying or that you went home all those weekends. So much was going on for us all back then. I’m sorry that we lost touch during some of your hard days after he died and that I wasn’t there for you. As far as the Numbers Band, the video’s sure do bring back memories of seeing them with you at JB’s. You taught me how to be cool! 🙂
Nah, you were cool in your own way.
It’s funny what we do and don’t remember. Sometimes it’s a jumbled mess when I try to fit the different parts together. You were off doing your own thing by this time I think.
Thanks for stopping by, Connie! I love you! Kath
Oh twinks, I loved this too. It has such an easy way to it, not self-conscious at all. And that photo of you made my heart melt. Were we ever really that young? I guess so.
damn.
Thanks, O’Brien. Yeah, my face does not look like that any more, it’s so round in this photo. I don’t exactly recognize myself here. Like part of me is absent.
I do think this was one of my best pieces of writing that I’ve put on my blog. I like a lot of them, of course, but this isn’t as silly as some of my other favorites.
Thanks for the comment, as usual, Erin. K
Wow, the photo of you brings back a flood of memories, both fun and painful. It was a fun, free and painful time for me. You had your own pain with your dad dying and I had my mom’s alcoholic nightmare going on. The Numbers Band was an escape from all that stuff. Fun to just dance and let go…
I am glad you were there during those years…you were an instrument in much of my growth and a support too. Wish I would have been more supportive to you…it seemed unreal what you were going through then…death, when we were so young. Love, Heather
road trip!
ptd
From one old hippie to another younger one….so much to relate to…nice images, good writing.
Aw, thanks, Melinda. I was a little too young to be a hippie, but it has been a life-long influence anyway, end of the ’60s was my early childhood. How could it not have had its effects? I love it!
Hi there, I’m sure you don’t know me, but my name is Carlos Jones, and I was in a reggae band called First Light, who used to play at Mother’s in the early to mid 80’s. It’s quite possible that you may have heard us a time or two. A friend of mine found your blog and posted a link to it in our Facebook group.
Anyway, I was touched by your writing and recollections and enjoyed reading them. You write kind of like, how I think, you know what I mean? So I felt like I could almost hear your voice in my head – isn’t that weird? I could really relate to the sweet sadness, the nostalgia, misty memories, the sense of wonder and the adventures – however aimless or spontaneous they may have been, tales of a life being lived in the moment. It fits my mood as I feel the transition of the seasons and start to say goodbye to the summer.
Being someone who also uses words to paint pictures, I just felt moved to reach out and say, hi and thank you for sharing. I hope that life, with all its ups and downs, joys and pain, complexities and subtlety – has been a pretty good ride for you so far, and that you still find the inspiration, and the humor in all of it. I look forward to reading more.
Peace,
Carlos
Oh yeah, I also played with I-tal, which was from 1979 – 83, so it could have been that group you saw. Mother’s was the coolest spot! I had my greatest acid trip there. 😉
Welcome, Carlos, and thanks for the supportive input. I’m glad you liked this post. It’s already from so long ago. I just reread it and had forgotten things. This is why I love blogging. It helps me retain my memories.
I’m so inactive writing on my blog and it makes me glad to know there’s still content to folks to keep busy. I sure hope to get back into it some time in the near future…
Thanks! Katherine