felt part of his life, but rather an interference. Dad needed Molly more than he needed me.
Even with Anna, the belonging I once felt in the old homestead just wasn’t there anymore. I was intruding in her private life. She washed my clothes and fed me like a lumberjack, but something was missing. Reminders were everywhere of what used to be and wasn’t anymore. They were Nature’s subtle ways of pushing me out of the nest, pressuring me to do my own building, but I just wasn’t ready to pour the foundation.
With my job at the machine shop, I could contribute to the household and put aside some savings, but I loathed the place. What had happened to Dad was happening to me. I looked at the painted windows that kept out the sun. Rooted at my thread-grinding machine, I became a robot with programmed moves. Motherly women in the department delighted in making me a guinea pig for their recipes, and I ballooned from a trim 180 to a paunchy 215. I became restless, irritable, and silently critical of my fellow workers. Many had been in the shop all their lives. No end was in sight other than retirement or death. I saw a life sentence in a world of whirring belts, turning gears, and monotonous repetitions. Not for me.
When Anna remarried, I glimpsed the daylight I had been seeking. Jim Anderson was a good, hardworking man who loved Anna and the kids just about as much as I did. I knew I could trust him to take care of the family. With the yoke of responsibility off my shoulders, Dad’s dreams of the land of the Midnight Sun came back to me. I began to hear the voices that came on the wind and stirred the leaves and furled the surface of the pond on the way to Siberia. Alaska was in the sound of the geese. It was in the first glow of morning, and in the flames of a sunset. It was all I could think about.
I made my plans. Slowly I readied the essentials of my gear. If I needed other things, I could pick them up along the way or send for them when I got settled. I scrubbed the South Pacific out of my seabag. That old veteran was going to be moving out again. I splurged on a pair of custom-made, ten-inch moccasin boots from L.L. Bean, along with some heavy shirts and a pair of Ballard cloth pants. I decided to head for Seattle, Washington. That would be my jumping-off place to the North.
And then it was time to actually say my good-byes. I drove to Dad’s studio the night before I left, my mouth dry.
“I wish I was twenty years younger and a whole lot richer,” Dad said, looking beyond the walls of the studio. “There’s a thrill in heading off somewhere, but there’s a bigger one in coming back. There’s a difference between motion and action, too. I hope you discover that someday.” He squeezed my hand, grasped my shoulder, and drew me into him.
“I want to hear all about it. When you see that first big bear. When you see the northern lights. When you tie into that first rainbow.” His eyes twinkled. “And don’t forget to look what’s at the end of him.”
I hurried out of the house and into the darkness. I didn’t want him to see my tears. That big guy had always been a shelter I could run to in a storm, and now he just didn’t seem to be there anymore.
I HAD DECIDED TO TAKE A bus instead of a plane. That way I would have more time to think about what I would do when I stepped off in Seattle. Anna drove me into Boston to the Greyhound Terminal. Her four kids were in the backseat. In my pocket was an envelope that the neighbor had dropped off with instructions to not open it until I was on the bus. The handwriting on the front was Dad’s.
Anna stopped in front of a huge travel poster. It depicted a dizzy sweep of mountain peaks spidered with snow. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “They’re so beautiful and scary at the same time.”
I didn’t like the shivery tenseness building up inside me. A knot writhed in my stomach, untying and pulling tight again. Even though it was still an hour before my departure, I felt it was best to get the good-byes over with. I kissed Deena and Betsy first, then baby Joyce. Skip, the little man at eight years old, screwed up his face and pushed it up close with his eyes closed.
“Men shake hands,” I said. His hand was warm in mine. He laughed nervously, then turned away.
“Time to go, Anna,” I said. “If you need anything….”
She pressed her hair against my cheek, her arms tight around my back. “Jeepers,” she whispered. I kissed her. Her blue eyes glistened. Gee, I thought, she looks so much like Mom. She turned abruptly and walked away, the kids scurrying in her wake like baby quail. Deena turned to shout, “The mukluks, Uncle Sam. Don’t forget!” I tried to swallow the lump growing in my throat.
To kill time after checking my seabag, I decided to get a haircut. The barber left his newspaper almost reluctantly, motioned me to the chair, and tucked the apron hem into my collar in a tired way.
“Just a trim,” I said. “Not too much off the top.”
“Coming or going?” he yawned, flicking a comb through my hair.
“Heading out,” I said. “I’m off to Alaska.” The way it sounded sent a thrill through me.
“Married?”
“Uh-uh. Not ready for that yet.”
With sluggish motions he moved the electric clippers up the side of my head. “No hurry,” he breathed, half to himself. “Get yourself a bundle. Don’t go into it with nothing. You’ll be in debt for the rest of your life.”
There it was again. This man was serving his sentence, too.
I walked out smelling of hair tonic and sat down on a bench to examine my string of tickets. Wisconsin … Minnesota … North Dakota … Montana … Washington. They’d be new places for me. I’d seen Idaho and Oregon in my Civilian Conservation Corps experience, building a truck trail and dwelling at the Fire Guard station in LaGrande, Oregon. I had my wallet in one breast pocket and my Traveler’s Cheques in the other. Both flaps were buttoned down. When the loudspeaker announced loading time, I moved out, my small bag in one hand, my two fishing rod cases lashed together in the other.
The same feeling came over me that I had had so many times as a boy. I used to drag my sled up the hill that loomed white and awesome against the night. Once on its summit, I would wait until all the others were sliding away fast. Alone up there I felt kingly as I surveyed the down-swooping path of frost, my breath condensing in clouds and evaporating against the stars. I waited until all forward motion of the sledders had stopped. Then I rushed at the slope, slammed belly down on the sled, picking up speed, plummeting over the crust….
“Their ride is over,” I muttered to nobody in the bustling bus terminal. “Mine’s just beginning.”
Author’s journal, July 9, 1952
The big day at last. The knot of nausea in my stomach, writhing there as if untying. Almost wanting to throw up and yet I knew the feeling. I’d had it many times before. When you leave something, when you leave persons you love, you feel that way. You feel sick inside and wonder why the hell you have to leave.
CHAPTER 2
The Jumping-Off Place
The Greyhound growled out of the terminal, past the parked taxicabs and into the traffic stream of Boston. It was raining. I fingered Dad’s envelope out of my pocket, hesitated for a moment, then ripped it open with my thumb. His words were to the point:
I
