There
are a number of my boys’ friends who have come to stay with us for awhile for
various reasons, but none as much as Steve.
Steve is my oldest son, Ben’s best friend. There have been times since they first met in
middle school when Steve has stayed with us for not only days but sometimes
weeks and even months. At different
times he has spent Christmas mornings with us and we have taken him to the
hospital with broken bones. Even now
that he and Ben went away to different colleges, Steve always comes and stays
for at least a little while. Steve is a
part of our family, and Karen and I have always considered him one of our own.
Steve writes
and over time I have watched him really developing his voice as a storyteller
and a poet. He likes the works of the
writers of the Beat Generation and he has a somewhat restless and wandering soul,
so I nicknamed him Kerouac.
One
night this summer he came out into my studio and sat down on one of the barstools
facing me over my bench. He said, “Tom,
can I talk to you about something?” I
stopped what I was doing and said, “Sure, Kerouac. What’s on your mind?” He told me that he was thinking about taking
his junior year off and maybe traveling a bit.
I asked him to tell me more. “I’m
just not sure I’m being challenged right now and I’d kind of like to get out
and get some experience instead of sitting in some classroom where I don’t feel
challenged.” When he said this it caused
me to have a sort of flashback to a time when I felt exactly the same way.
The
summer before my sophomore year at Illinois I went down to my mother’s studio
in the laundry room, jumped up to sit on the washing machine and said to
her. “Mom, I don’t think I’m going back
to school this year.” She looked at me
and said, “Hold on a minute. Let me get
your dad.” She called my father and he
came downstairs from the kitchen. “T.S.
doesn’t want to go back to school this year.”
My dad looked at me inquisitively.
“Why, Tom?” He asked. I said, “Well,
for a lot of reasons. First, I don’t
feel all that challenged right now.
Second, it’s likely I’m going to have to come back for awhile anyway. Finally, I kind want to get out and see the
world not just study it.” My father
crossed his arms, pinched his lower lip like he always did when he was thinking. He said, “Let me talk to your Mom.” I left and went to my room to wait. Not long later he came to see me. He sat on my bed and he said, “OK, here’s the
deal. We’ll go along with this but these
are the rules. If you stay home, you
work and you take some classes at the community college. When you’re not doing that then you can do
whatever you want. You can travel, be
with your friends, whatever.” I just shook
my head. “OK,” I said. That was the first step in my quest for
experience.
After the
summer was over and those that were going went back to college I enrolled in
some general education courses that would transfer to Illinois or wherever else
I might go next. I got my old job at the bookstore back so I’d have money to go
out with my friends who were still in town, and build up enough bank that I
could get out on the road. During the
first couple of months of my year off, and then throughout the year, I spent a
lot of time down in the city with my friend, Claudia, who lived in Lincoln Park. It was the first I had spent much time in
that part of town. She and I would walk
her roommate’s dog in the park, scour all of the old bookstores on Clark Street
and play lots of Scrabble with her friends.
They were a bohemian lot and I loved being there. One day we came home and found a note on the
refrigerator from her roommate. It just
said, “Gone to follow the Dead. Take
care of Grover please.” Very different
world than the suburbs.
That
fall I took my Dad’s Buick Skylark and drove for a short weekend trip to
Hannibal, Missouri. I love Mark Twain and somehow I got it in my head that I
had to see the place that had inspired Tom
Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. On the way there I got a lost and stopped at
a gas station to ask a man how to get to Hannibal across the river. He spread out a map on the hood of my car and
in excruciating detail showed and told me how to get there. His directions were filled with landmarks I
was to look for and he digressed a lot into stories about the people and history
associated with those milestones. When
he was done I thanked him and started folding up the map. He said, “You’re quite welcome.” He folded
his arms inside the pockets of his coveralls. “Of course, you can’t there that
way.” I think I did a double-take. “The
road is out.”Another session of directions ensued. When I finally got to Hannibal, it wasn’t
exactly what I expected, but I was able to look past Aunt Polly’s Diner and the
Becky Thatcher gift shop, and focus on the streets, the white picket fences and
the houses. I was able to let my
imagination loose and that was enough for me.
On other
weekends I would take weekend trips to see my sister and old dorm mates at
Illinois, and friends at other colleges.
After Thanksgiving I took some time off the road to build up some more
cash and to get ready for some surgery I was going to have after the
holidays. I spent time with the girl I
was in love with who had come home to visit from DC. I did a lot of writing and
reading and didn’t get back on the road again until spring.
One of
my last trips before everyone came home from school for the summer was one down
through Indiana. I went to visit a town
called Elkhart, where my mother and father lived when they were first married
and my mother was working as a kindergarten teacher while my father finished
college on the G.I. Bill. I then started toward my grandmother’s house. On the way I went through Amish country. At one point I pulled off to the side of the
road to take a picture of an old tin sign advertising Schlosser’s Dairy. That was where my grandfather first worked they
all came back to the town my mother was raised in. Across the field from where I stood taking
the photo I saw a group of Amish kids in front of simple farmhouse holding
hands and dancing in a big circle. I
watched them for a bit and I wondered what it would be like to live in their
world, to live a simple life of humility, equality and peace. Then I thought, no, I am too attached to things
like electricity, cars, zippers and screws to ever make a good Amish person. Besides, black is not my color and I have
never looked good in hats.
While I
was staying with my grandmother, I drove one afternoon to visit with my Uncle
Cecil and my Aunt Jean. My father must
have spoken to Cecil before I got there because he gave me no small amount of
teasing about my wanderings and my quest for experience. Jean tried to defend
me but she couldn’t stop laughing. The
one thing Cecil did say and I don’t know if it was in jest or serious was this.
“Tom, you should never look for experience unless it’s job experience.” I said, “What do you mean by that?” He
scratched his ear and said. “I think experience just comes with living. It finds you.” Later the spring I went into my Dad’s home
office. “What’s up, Bud?” he asked. I said, “I just mailed my papers to
Illinois. I’m going back in the fall.” He smiled, and just said, “OK.” I have never lost my love for being on the
road but I’m more open now to letting experience find me than I am in looking for
it.
After we
talked, Steve eventually made the decision to take the year off. He’s got an apartment in Los Angeles now and is
working in a club on Sunset Boulevard. I
imagine he’ll do some traveling, and I imagine a lot of experience will find
its way to him and make him an even stronger writer. In fact, I bet it will.
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