This series is a
little bit biographical and a little bit imaginary about my dad and a road trip
he took in the summer of 1946, when he turned fifteen. He and a friend
hitchhiked from Loring Park to Duluth, into Canada and back again. He was gone
from home for a month. I was astonished and fascinated by the tale. So, I added
some speculation about things I've always wondered about and this series is the
result. To read earlier SHORT LONG JOURNEY NORTH clips, click on the label to
the right, scroll down to and click OLDER ENTRIES seven or eight times. The
FIRST entry is on the bottom of the last page.
“I know. I’m trying to make us laugh,” said Tommy Hastings.
“Why?” asked Freddie Merrill.
Dripping wet and still shin-deep in smelly water and mud,
Tommy looked up at the road and said, “‘cause I think the Socialists are still
after us.”
“They can’t be! We left ‘em behind and wrecked their truck!”
“I’d guess not. That was them in another truck.”
“What do they want from us?” Freddie cried out.
"Not what they want from you, Freddie. It’s what they want
from me. That want the picture. The one Ma has sitting in the cabinet in the
kitchen. And the worse thing is that she don’t know that they want it. So when
they get there, they’re gonna blast her away with machine guns and blow away
Dad and June and Earl and then go in and take it anyway! So this will all be a
gigantic waste of time and it’ll all be my fault ‘cause I wanted to go swimming
at Lake Minnetonka!” Then he sat back down in the water and suddenly started to
cry.
Freddie stared down at him, eyes wide. He stared for a long
time; so long that he could feel the sun burning down on his head through his
thin blonde hair. Finally, he managed to say, “Ain’t your fault what your Ma
and Pa did when they was young. Plus, neither one is stupid. And those Finnish
Communists ain’t stupid, neither! They ain’t gonna go down there, shoot up your
folks and you sister and her boyfriend – he was in the Navy! – and figure that
they’ll get away with it! So it ain’t your fault, and ain’t nobody gonna
get killed over a portrait, and the
worse thing they’ll do is break into your house and try and steal the stupid
thing. So we gotta get goin’ so we can beat ‘em down there and set it up so’s
we can jump ‘em when they get there,” he paused, gulped air, and kept on, “Hey!
We can let know Lars know and he can do a stakeout! They’ll get those Commie
for sure!”
Tommy looked up at Freddie with bleary eyes. He stared at
him for a long time before he finally climbed to his feet and said, “Damn
straight, buddy! We gotta get down there before they do!” He scrambled up the
side of the ditch, wiped a little bit of the mud from his face, and started off
down the road. Freddie stood, staring after him. Tommy turned and called out, “You
don’t think I can take on them Socialists by myself, do ya? I need my best
friend with me to do, so come on!”
Freddie scrambled after him and pretty soon, they were
walking down the road side-by-side, sometimes stepping back to let a car roar
past; sometimes sitting in the shade of a gnarly tree growing alongside the
road. The sun rose to noon then started its long, lazy summer slide to set.
Suddenly Freddie said, “I’m itchy.” They walked in silence. He said, “I’m itchy
in my privates.”
“I didn’t need to know that,” said Tommy. “But now that you
mention it...” They kept trudging until Tommy said, “I don’t remember seeing
any lakes.” He paused, adding, “I sure wish we could go into Minnetonka now.”
“There’s no other lakes…”
Tommy busted out laughing.
"What?”
“We’re almost to Mille Lacs! It’s one of the biggest lakes
in the state!”
Once they came across a roadside not far past the Creamery
turn off. It even had a faucet and they were able to wash off the worst of the
mud, then kept on. When they saw a little sign that said Malmo, they started to
run.
When they saw the first glimmer of sunlight on water, they
were off the road, through another ditch, and had started to peel off their
clothes. The shore was rocky – but by then, they dove together and the cold
water just ender the surface brought them both up laughing, screaming, and
clean after days hiking on the road and swimming in muddy ditches.
It also brought a small group of men watching them from
across the road…Image: http://fscomps.fotosearch.com/printcomp.aspx?filepath=CLT/CLT002/s9543.jpg&papersize=24x36&paperstyle=crop&paperborder=0
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