Like Desperados

Waiting for a train that has no schedule, no track number and nobody else sitting on the platform to board. It’s just him, and he’s waiting for he knows not what.

My father flew B17 bombers over Africa, Greece, Italy and Germany while still in his teens. “Flying Fortress” they were called and he named his “Lucky Lady,” for my mom he says.  He was awarded the highest honor a pilot can receive, the Distinguished Flying Cross, for bringing his bird home to nest on only one engine after being shot all to hell and losing many of his crew. My dad is a hero for many reasons, this being only one.

A sailor, a fisherman, an outdoorsman, a hunter, an accomplished wood worker, a singer, a naturalist and a docent at the zoo,  a dedicated husband and father….and he tied his own flies. He was a career officer in the US Air Force….the Army Air Corps when he first joined up in 1943. When I was just six years old our family, older brother parents and I, were transferred from the Washington DC area (the first of two postings at the Pentagon),  to Anchorage, Alaska. This was in 1954, a full four years before Alaska gained statehood. My dad bought a new Chrysler four door, built a luggage rack on top, fashioned a plywood platform that extended the backseat forward to the back of the front seats so my brother and I had more space to spread out, and off we went driving to Alaska. We traversed the U.S. east to west and continued on north over the Alaskan Highway (known as the ALCAN highway) camping all along the way. At that time the ALCAN was 1390 miles of washboard dirt road through some of the roughest country imaginable from Dawson Creek in British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska. My dad drove the entire way, windows down except when the dust was unbearable, unfiltered Camel dangling from his lips, sleeves rolled up and a grin as wide as Texas. He loved to drive my dad….still does although he no longer has a license.

We moved every three years or so, the bane of the career military life. From Ohio to DC to Alaska to Alabama to England to Texas we trekked as required. Along the way my father found the means to explore the out of doors, to fish, hunt, raise and show Beagle hounds, sail and sing. That’s right, he sang well and for many years was an avid member of the San Antonio Chordsmen, a four part harmony barbershop chorus. In Alaska we camped and fished at every opportunity. I remember boarding a train in Anchorage one summer, telling the conductor where to stop so we could disembark and hike several miles into the bush for a two week stay along the banks of a tumbling river boiling with spawning salmon. We hiked out at the end of our time there to wave down the returning train for the trip home.

In Alabama he hunted and fished as always, but dad also raised beagles. I remember going to field trials, I can still hear the soulful exclamations of a pack of hounds trailing a cotton tail through the hollows and the brambles of rural Alabama. And our dogs won too, trophies and ribbons as both field and show dogs. Dad was good with those dogs. It was during our time in Alabama that I was included in hunting trips, and memories abound of early morning squirrel hunts and late night rabbit runs, sitting out on the rural golf course listening to those hounds run under a big fat moon.

In England where we moved when I was 13 it was, for me, all about sailing. My dad had built a small sail boat from a kit when he was in his teens and had fallen in love with the sport. In England he met some Brits who had a sailing club that met periodically at local lakes (ponds really) to race a fleet of dinghies around the marks. I became my dad’s crew for these events, was severely bitten by the sailing bug and have been addicted ever since.  I remember one race in which, on a down wind leg, I mistakenly dropped the center board as we were ripping along in a stiff following breeze and the weight of the board caused us to flip right over.  We laughed so hard.  I have vivid memories of post-race dinners of spicy hot chicken curry as skippers laughed over sailing stories of the day.  I still love chicken curry!

In Texas we hunted quail and deer and fished for bass and perch in rivers and lakes around San Antonio.  I wish I had been less busy running after young girls and more available when he would ask me to go fishing with him.  “Nah dad, I’m busy on Saturday.”  He would be so disappointed, and I would be so stupid.  I finished high school in San Antonio and went on to college in Austin while my parents moved once again to his second posting at the Pentagon.  Dad bought a sweet little 25′ sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay and summer weekends were spent on the Bay sailing “Escapade” from one pristine anchorage to the next.

Around retirement time he and my mother built a wonderful house on Canyon Lake in the hills of Texas near San Antonio where they spend their weekends still.  Our family has spent so many memorable times here where now I live full time.   In his wood shop, equipped with old Delta power tools passed on to him from his father, dad has built kids toys, mind tickler games, repaired furniture, created dozens of whimsical canes and walking sticks, built a cedar strip canoe so light I can pick it up with one hand and a Carolina dory fishing boat so darned solid it hardly lists when you step aboard.  Today he goes into his shop and sits for hours on end.  Just sits.  I recently asked him to assist me in making some of the mahogony kitchen tools, spoons and spatulas, he’s made so many of through the years.  “I can’t remember how to start” he whispered as we stood over the band saw.  We stood there a good while he and I.

In his fly tying and tackle room a big turkey feather lies on the bench waiting to become the tickle that some trout will grab for grub.  Dad used to tie all his flies and has won awards for his creations to say nothing of the fish he’s caught.  The proof is in the pudding.  Now I go in there and just sit in an empty space filled with his spirit.  “So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen” wrote Guy Clark in reminiscing about his old side kick.  I feel that way sometimes.

My father has dementia.  We don’t know how long it will be, but his train is coming on one track as his memory leaves on another.  The station is empty except for him, no luggage so no porters.  The train will be rolling in unannounced, it’s painted black and has  no windows, he will shuffle aboard and take his seat.  There’s nobody to take his ticket….he’s paid his fare no questions asked.  When that train leaves it heads into a dark, dark tunnel with no end in sight.  I’m hoping dad will hear the hounds as they trail their swift and cunning little prey through the orchard in the light of a full moon and he will smile and remember.  For now he’s like a Desparado waiting for that train, I think I’ll sit and wait with him.