Second Daughter Disappears: Fort Lauderdale 1996

When we first moved to Fort Lauderdale--after our stint at the Riverside Hotel--we rented a house on SE 10th Ave in Victoria Park. It was a decent small house in a very nice neighborhood with a wonderful Montessori elementary school (VSY) a few blocks away. We had a horrendous landlord--but that's a different story.

The house--like a lot in South Florida--did not have a laundry room. Many homes had hook-ups in little covered spaces in carports. Our house had hook-ups for a washer and dryer in a too-small garage attached to the house, though there was no door from the garage that led into the house. So, to do laundry one had to go out the front door, down the little steps to the walk, go to the driveway and to the garage door, open the garage door, and there was the washer and dryer. It was a bit of a process, especially when you take into account the carrying of dirty or clean clothes.

By September or October of that year, we had life pretty well settled after the move from Illinois. Fru was working at Sun Trust on Las Olas, I had classes at night at FIU in North Miami, First Daughter was attending kindergarten at VSY (Virginia Shuman Young) and Second Daughter stayed home with me during the day while I took care of all the mundane chores of regular life in America.

Okay.

But one weekday, while I was doing the chore of laundry and only Second Daughter was home, I went about my usual routine, toting baskets of clothes back and forth out the front door, leaving it and the garage door open whilst doing so. But then, then I go back into the house and Second Daughter is nowhere around. I look and look and call her name--but no sight of her, no answer to my calls.

This is strange. We had never had issues of our daughter's whereabouts, of them wandering or running or hiding, of not answering when we called . . . I looked all over the two-bedroom house, went back out the front door and checked the garage, checked the yard, the whole while calling her name. Now I began to panic. Where was she? She was three years old at the time, but why would she run off? Had someone taken her? I held my thoughts together, but I was beginning to think some very dark things. It made no sense. I had been out in the garage for only minutes, if she had come out she knew what I was doing, where I was, she would have come to me . . . Where was she?

I was upset now.

Then, on one of my trips back inside and around the house, I heard her. I went into the girls' room. I looked in their sliding-door closet. There Second Daughter was. She had been hiding. She was giggling, smiling. I yanked her out of there.

I was so angry. I had been so worried. She--of course--did not fully understand this. I gave her a quick spanking, told her never to do such a thing again, to not hide and always answer when I called. She felt bad. I felt bad for swatting her. I was also relieved, to say the least. I calmed and talked to her, explained why I was so upset. She never did such a thing again.

But that's how it is having a child, having children. You create a thing that is so important to you, that you love beyond anything, beyond your spouse or yourself--you'd easily give your own life for your child. And this thing--this child--is a fragile thing, is something that needs constant monitoring, attention, affection, education, love. And if this thing were taken from you it would quite literally ruin your life.

That's the scary part about having a child.

If you lost them, life would be irrevocably altered--for the worse.

But for me, it had just been a game. She had only been hiding, playing a trick on me that she must of learned at some friend's house (there were other little kids right on our street that she was already good friends with--kids First Daughter's age, too--which was another good thing about renting that house in Victoria Park) or via a TV show or kids movie. It was not a crisis. It was not irrevocable. It was but a temporary panic.

And I never want to go through that again.

Walking Orange Street: Missoula 1990

When Fru and I lived in Missoula, we lived on Rollins Street. The closest main street from there was Orange. The city of Missoula is laid out in opposing angles, that is--I was told--because two of the founding fathers had differing ideas as to which way the streets should be gridded. So, one group laid them out one way, the other another way and when the opposing streets met it made for some interesting connections (Malfunction Junction comes down mind on Reserve Street). Anyway, Orange Street had its own direction as it headed towards downtown with its bridge over the Clark Fork River. But what I'm thinking of--remembering--is the street before it reached that bridge, the part of Orange Street that encompassed our neighborhood.

I had lived in walkable towns before: Iowa City, Champaign, Santa Fe, Seattle was a pretty walkable city. But I'd also been in places where walking wasn't done much: Los Angeles, South Walton County. So, it was nice to be in Missoula and be able to walk places--both Fru and I enjoyed it.

We often strolled up to the Orange Street Food Farm. This was a local grocery store. Nothing special, except the oddish name. But it was the walk that made it special for us, going to get a few groceries that we could comfortably carry. It was pleasant--even fun and romantic--to walk together to gather the ingredients for our meal, for snacks, a bottle of wine. I also used to walk up to the little laundromat that was there and do our clothes (we had a washer and dryer, which we'd used in the cabin in Stevensville, but there were no hookups for them in our little cottage on Rollins and they sat forlornly on the miniature porch off the miniature kitchen), and I'd walk with the dirty-to-clean clothes. We also often made trips up to the little Greek place. This place sold gyros and had an ivy plant inside that had been trained to go all around the wall. The people there knew us and we loved our gyros. (There was a more formal Greek Restaurant across the street where we went maybe only once or twice--probably owned by the same people.) Fru and I used these walks to keep life slow, to stay in tune with each other, to enjoy our own company. We used Orange Street to get to downtown a lot of times--to go to the Crystal Theater or the ice cream shop. We also walked back and forth to the University of Montana, but did not use Orange to get there.

I think of Chicago and New York, where I did plenty of walking, yet those huge cities also required the El and the subway. In Santa Fe and Iowa City I had no car, so walking was not just a choice but sometimes a chore. I had no car for a while while in Grayton Beach and had to rely on friends to get places, to get weekly groceries. In Seattle I, we--Brock and Matt and I--walked mainly by choice. We would walk long distances to downtown and Pioneer Square, sometimes we took the monorail. We all had cars but rarely used them. I didn't walk much in Des Moines--rode my bike a lot until I learned to drive. And L.A.? Are you kidding? Who walks in L.A.? But I've always loved walking places. I love the slow pace, the time spent observing and thinking, never thought much of it as exercise (walking wasn't exercise, running was [but as a kid running wasn't exercise either, it was just running]). So I enjoyed it when I lived somewhere where I could walk a lot.

But Montana--Missoula--was maybe the best walking town despite it's groveling winters. It wasn't just the mountains or its many trees, it's olden funky downtown, it's because--for me--Fru was there. We were in love. We were married. And we could go out our door, amble down the sidewalks to Orange Street, holding hands, chatting, looking at the world together, and go to the Orange Street Food Farm for some chicken and potatoes, cheese and bread, milk and wine, or we could go get a gyro. And we could walk back to our miniature house--the cottage--knowing that we'd walk somewhere again tomorrow.

Simple stuff.

Everyone knows the simple stuff is the best.

Birth Day #2: Champaign 1993

So, come the day Second Daughter was to be born, we--Fru and I--had already been through it. We had an almost-two year old and Fru had been through pregnancy before (we were Mommy and Daddy already) and we knew what to expect. So, when Fru woke up early on an early spring day and said she was having contractions, I was ready.

I think I went back to sleep.

I think she told me to sleep because she knew the contractions were far between and that it would be a while and that it would be a long day. Okay. So--I think I went back to sleep.

But, by a-little-less-early in the morning, I was up and about and getting things in order for the trip to the hospital: packed the bag, contacted the pediatrician, contacted Fru's sister and father so that one of them could watch First Daughter while I took Fru to have Second Daughter. Stuff like that. I was also writing a screenplay at the time--had just finished it--and was supposed to fax it out to Los Angeles that day for the co-writer to look over and shop around. (This sounds a lot more exciting than it was--it was a screenplay adapted from an unpublished novel of mine, co-written with Craig from U. of Iowa days, who was now a film/cartoon editor out in L.A. and a struggling screenwriter [nothing ever came of it, though manuscript is still out there to this day].) So, there was a little back and forth between Fru and I as she sat there with her contractions and I stood there with my screenplay and finally I went out and faxed it away--because her sister (I think) had come over--and then I was back and then we went to the hospital.

With the second baby we knew where the hospital was this time (unlike the 1st where we had to stop and ask someone in the street). So, it all went well getting there and meeting up with the doctor and all that. But . . . But, as we had known, the second baby in the womb had refused to turn. That is, she had finally turned but--according to ultrasounds--she had left one leg up and one leg down. So, the doctor decided that the safest thing was a Cesarian. C-Section.

So, I think they gave Fru some medication to stop the dilation and for the operation and I was given a gown and cap and booties and went in with her to the operating room and stood off to the side--held her hand--as the doctor opened her up (I recall seeing the tubes that must have been connected to the "suction" and the tubes were suddenly filled with red red blood--and I mean a lot of blood) and pulled out a baby. A baby girl. SECOND DAUGHTER!

And after cleaning her up a bit, she was handed to me and I held her and held her until they took her from me.

They tell you that a C-Section is easier but don't let them tell you that. Fru was in pain. She had a big cut and stitches and could not maneuver very well for weeks. It affected her ability to breast feed, her ability to hold First Daughter after Second Daughter was born.

As for First Daughter, who was about a month shy of being two years old, she was happy. There were no questions or resentments about having a sister. We--First Daughter and I--went to the hospital to visit Fru and the new baby and First Daughter was delighted with Second Daughter. In the confines of that little private hospital room, we were a family: Fru in the hospital bed, Second daughter either with her or in the roll-in crib from the delivery room (or wherever), First Daughter either curled up in the bed next to Fru or on the little couch and me, me there with all three of them. It was nice. It was March--March in the midwest being one of my least favorite months, what with the long winter trying to be over and the promise of spring and yet the undecidedness of the month as it shifted from warm to cold to messy--and it was just nice to be a father again, to have a new life for us to tend to and love.

Babies.

And people came to visit and then Fru got to go home, where the house had been decorated for the arrival. And the day we got to bring Second Daughter home was a beautiful day. Spring had finally blossomed for real and it was sunny and light-lighted and the first flowers were up, the trees held leaves, and our new baby came home to the house on Miller Street in Champaign, Illinois.

Pacing in La Paz: Mexico 1990

I'd taken the bus down from Tijuana, from Baja Norte into Baja Sur and stopped in La Paz--the capitol of Baja. The ride had been interesting, going along the sea and then crossing through a strange bouldered desert, then the Gulf of California, then back into a flat desert full of cacti and vultures and odd towns, then into La Paz.

after a bit of walking, I found a nice moderate place on a side street. It wasn't far from the main town, not far from the beach. I was hungry and tired. I was uncertain of myself. I was alone in Mexico.

What should I do?

I knew I should go out and explore. Get some food, see what was what, meet some other humans. But I didn't want to. I don't know if I was strung out or scared or just--as I said--uncertain, but all I really wanted to do was stay in my room and pace.

Just walk around in circles and get ahold of myself.

Oh, I chided myself. Here I was in my first solo destination in Mexico and all I wanted to do was hole up and be strange. I felt bad, I argued with my desire. Yet, ultimately, I gave in. I decided that, if it's what I wanted to do, then I'd do it, Mexico or not.

So, I did that. I paced my little room, thought my thoughts, decompressed and aclimated the way my brain and emotion was telling me to aclimate.

And . . . it worked.

It wasn't too long before my confidence and sense of adventure returned. I did go out. I went to a meal along the beach where two or three waiters kept bringing me all these little bowls of condiments or side dishes and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with them (EAT THEM!) and then, after, I wandered the town looking at the houses and the seaside and stopping in a bar where the TV was on and some locals were discussing the politics of the TV. "Tu eres un politico?" I asked, not sure what the hell I was really saying and the guy looked ta me, smiled, and said no. I don't know what he thought, if he thought I knew what they'd been saying (which I didn't) or if I was just some idiot interrupting their day. But at least I'd stuck my neck out and said something.

So, maybe the pacing about wasn't so bad. Maybe I had to walk out the confines of my cell before tasting the freedom outside.

Davidson Park and the Dog That Wasn't Mine: Champaign 1994

Since I stayed home with the two girls when they were babies, toddlers, little kids, in spring summer and fall I'd take them around to the parks in their stroller. At that time they watched a movie called Totoro, which they loved. In Totoro two young girls would find acorns (among many other things in the movie) and so, as I walked them in their stroller, both little blond-headed girls riding in the cart, they'd look for acorns. And there were plenty. Because if nothing else, Champaign had some wonderful trees. I'm talking great big oaks, maples, catalpas, tulip trees and many other big hardwoods--but especially oaks.

One park that had tons of these big trees--maybe the prettiest park in the city--was Davidson Park. It was off Church Street, up a ways from Miler Street (towards downtown) and was a very pleasant walk to get to. The park had some grand homes around it--all under leafy shade with big yards--and the place itself was a nice smallish horseshoe of a park, a round drive around it, with swing set and slide and jungle gym. It also had those huge spreading mature oaks and maples and sycamores all among it: lots of shade and birds and acorns to find. The girls loved it--but then, they loved about anything at that age. I probably appreciated it more then them, but it made a fine destination for a stroll. And, on the way back, you could stop at Hubers and buy them candy from the window.

Anyway. One time while we were there, a dog showed up. It wasn't a big dog, also not a small dog. It was rambunctious but not as puppy. It was a bit troublesome but also a rather comical dog. It ran around and tried to engage my little girls in play, but I found the dog (not a stray, you could tell) to be too rough for them, so, we left. But as we left the park--the girls in the stroller--the dog followed us.

The girls were fine, so I made no effort to shoo it away. But as we walked down Church--before Hubers and the candy--a youngish guy came walking towards us and he had a dog and his dog was on a leash. Well, the troublesome dog trotting next to us ran right up to this guy's dog and began yapping and nipping and just plain teasing the leashed pet. When we got up to them the man looked at me, giving me the evil eye.

Ah! He thought it was MY dog!

"That's not my dog," I said and strolled right on by. And the guy, realizing he'd been giving me the evil eye for naught, went about trying to shoo the dog-that-was-not-mine away--without too much success.

Dogs.

I was glad I had babies.

Kitty Cat Stone: Champaign 1995

When we first moved into the little rented house on Miller Street there was an old man who lived in the house directly behind us. As I did yard work and as a couple of years passed, I talked to him a bit but never really got to know him. He lived alone and kept to himself, as best I could tell. I did notice that he had a cat. This was a big Tom cat, orange and long-haired. The cat--like the old man--kept to himself. It wasn't a mean cat or a nice cat, it was your classic independent cat.

Well, while in that house, we had our first child and then added another and we went about our business as a young family. We had two cats--M.R. and Jack--and then Jack got run over by a car on Church Street and then we had one cat who was low on the totem pole of attention because Fru and I had our baby daughters. But later on I did notice that I didn't see much of the old man anymore. I still saw his cat, but not him. Then, from our next door neighbors (who'd been there forever) I found out that the man had fallen ill and had been taken to live with his daughter in Ohio (or maybe Indiana). I believe that he then died--but am not sure. Yet, his cat was still around. No one had come to take him.

Hmm.

So, being who I was and still am, I started leaving food out for him. He appreciated that and got over his fear of me and would let me pet him and would come to see me when I was out in the back yard. And then winter came. The big Tom was still living outside and seemed to have someplace to sleep and keep from being frozen and I continued to feed him. But then the hard part of winter came--a big snow, below zero temps--and I thought, okay, I better get that cat inside somewhere, maybe my garage.

By then he trusted me enough to let me pick him up. So, after feeding him in the evening, I did just that. No problem. But when I went to take him inside our house, he didn't want to. He didn't scratch or bite, he just struggled a bit and showed his fear and displeasure, but I took him in anyway. I put him in the garage. He did not like this at all. I can't recall if I kept him there all night or what, but the cat felt that he had been captured and so I let him go, go out into the snow and frozen world and he appreciated that. And so for that winter and all the rest of our winters in Champaign, that was the arrangement: he was an outdoor cat no matter what.

Because we had little kids and because we had glass French Doors that opened up to our back yard and the big Tom would come up to those doors and sit there and look in and wait to be fed, we had to name him. So, I named him Kitty Cat Stone. The girls called him Kitty Cat Stone and we even had a song about him which I'm going to sing for you right now . . . (Joking--we had songs for everything back then, dumb little ditties that the girls loved). Anyway, I did end up building this gawd-ugly cat house for him so he at least had some shelter to sit in in the winter as he waited for me to feed him, but he was living somewhere--under a house or in a shed--that kept him alive in the winter. It was not unusual to wake up on a cold-bitter-cold snowy morning and turn on the light and see Kitty Cat Stone standing there at the window with ice sickles all around him. (Sort of like that.)

The thing was, we also had a squirrel that came to the back door to be fed. Her name was Lula and she would eat from your hand. The squirrel was not afraid of the cat and sometimes both of them would sit right next to each other and look into the house. Both were hungry. I don't know why Kitty Cat Stone left Lula alone--he was much bigger than her--but such is the nature of free food. I also recall that, being a cat, sometimes he would vomit up his food and it would freeze there on the porch and then, then, the starlings would find it and have a feeding frenzy over his frozen vomit. Yum!

When we left Champaign I informed both next door neighbors about Kitty Cat Stone. I gave the woman next to us what cat food I had and the gawd-ugly cat house. She said she'd feed him, as did our other next door neighbors, the Christians (or something like that). And then we moved away, down to South Florida where there was no snow.

It was a few years later when Fru's sister--who lived in the same neighborhood in Champaign by then--sent us a clipping from the local paper, the News-Gazette. It was a photo and the photo was of a big orange cat on a porch in the snow, taken just down the block from our old house.

Of course it was Kitty Cat Stone. He was still alive. He was still living his independent life in the snow.

Leaving Vancouver: 1967

I could be wrong about the year. It could have been in 1966, but I think it was the winter of 67 that we packed up and left Washington and moved to Tennessee. My father had bought a brand new 1966 Ford Falcon Wagon--a dark metallic green--and after the moving vans had come, we all piled into that car (seven of us) with a multitude of belongings and we took off. Must have been 67.

It was still winter, so we took the southern route through California with stops at Yosemite and San Fran, Los Angeles and across through Arizona (must have stopped at the Grand Canyon, but maybe not that trip) and into New Mexico. It was one of the classic long car trips of my childhood. I do recall wanting to see Albuquerque because my best friend back in Vancouver (Joey Hanes) was from there.

The whole trip was full of long rides and adventure. I usually rode in the very back, among blankets and boxes, sacks of snacks and suitcases. I had a little spot burrowed out there along the back window and side window, a comfortable nest where I could watch new worlds go by as Father drove. Of course it would be illegal now, but back then you just rode whatever way you wanted and no one used seat belts. We stayed in motels mostly--small places, sometimes a Holiday Inn which we considered to be extravagant, a luxury resort. My father liked to drive all day and into the nigh, he liked to get going before the sun rose sometimes. I do get that trip mixed up a bit with all the other long trips we took, but I do recall specifically a time in Texas.

In Texas--the panhandle, I think, around Amarillo--we were up before dawn. I was in my cubbyhole in back and I remember, distinctly, the sunrise. It was a big fat orange sunrise with the empty lonesome highway and that endless nothing nothing land all around and the sun came up and lit it all, showering it with pinks and grays and requisite purples. Orange and yellow and the beginnings of blue. And it struck me. I was nine or ten or whatever and it hit me that this was a beautiful moment. Not just the sunrise, the the sunrise in Texas and the way I felt, the texture of the moment, the context of the trip and the unconnectedness to any home or place or community. We had no idea what Tennessee was or expectations. We as a family--at least how I see it--had only ourselves and our slim belongings and the car, had motels and new horizons. We had only the moment.

Man, that was a long time ago. I don't think I can even conjure up any of that feeling--that feeling of childhood and being in my family, that world of brothers and sisters, of toys and newness. That long passages of time. Maybe I can get that feeling--I mean, I can remember it, I just can't feel it.

Anyway. We moved from Vancouver and most of us regretted that. We didn't know at the time, but we did regret it soon enough. For a very long time I considered Washington State--the Pacific Northwest--considered Vancouver to be my home. Though I'd been born in South Dakota and was there till the age of five (or almost the age of 5), Vancouver was home. I don't recall being sad about us leaving. I remember walking home from school and thinking: "I'm moving to Tennessee!" I was excited. But I--we kids--didn't say Johnson City, we just said Tennessee. We had no idea. But we left. We'd done it before--a big move--and we just went along with this one as well. We were kids. But that long drive was something. That move. I grew into a new consciousness on that trip--I became more aware of the world, the innate beauty of the physical world but also the inner beauty of my own nomadic existence--on that morning in the Texas panhandle.