“I always kicked myself that I didn’t. Got married at nineteen and had a baby at twenty and that was it, the doors closed. No reason for you to make the same mistake. I didn’t even see New York City until I was seventy-two years old. What a comment!” They were driving back to Lake Wobegon from Fisher’s Supper Club in Avon where she’d taken him for the deep-fried walleye. She’d had a whiskey sour and a glass of champagne. She was feeling gay. She handed him the check. “Do what you want but don’t use it to pay your bills, for heaven’s sake. Have some fun.”
Sarah was opposed to the parasail, afraid he’d crash to his death. So many stories about homemade aircraft crashing. Famous people, rich, accomplished, going up in the air in some flimsy contraption and a gust of wind comes up and they spiral down and splatter on the rocks. “Think about me,” she said. “Thinkhow I’d feel.” He’d taken it up on a test flight over Lake Minnetonka in June and it was glorious, the best cheap thrill he could imagine, better than a roller coaster.
*
His friend Duane Dober had an 18-foot speedboat with a 75-horsepower outboard. Duane wore pop-bottle glasses and lived in dread that a ray of sun might catch a lens and burn a hole into his brain and leave him a helpless cripple who makes ashtrays from beer cans so he wore long-billed caps and stayed out of the sun as much as possible but he loved to race around in his boat with the prow up in the air and smoke dope and listen to the Steel Heads. When Kyle called and said, “I need you to tow my parasail so I can deposit my grandma’s ashes in the lake,” Duane saw it as a chance to thumb his nose at the fishing community. They gave him a hard time about his wake. Well, he’d show them. He imagined he might race around at top speed towing Kyle and rock the fishing boats in his wake and they’d yell and shake their fists and then a cloud of ashes would descend on them. “I’ll be there,” he said.
Kyle remembered what convinced him to buy the parasail—it was a letter from Grandma, along with a check for $500—her beautiful handwriting on little sheets of pale blue paper—
Dear Kyle
I’m in Columbus GA, attracted here by the name “Chattahoochie” on my road map, which is the river between GA and AL, but you probably knew that. Anyway, it is spring and so delicious I’m stopping here and not going on to FL after all. The town is just a riot of flowers and sweetness,magnolias and the like. The B&B was full up but they gave me a little shotgun cottage across the street, tucked into a bower of jasmine and honeysuckle and I don’t know what all, the air is like spun sugar. I have a little porch, a sitting room, bedroom and bath, and a tiny kitchen, plus a clock radio, a few books, soap and towels, a box of cheese straws and am happy as can be. Also a kerosene lamp in the bedroom, a real one, and last night I woke up and got a whiff of kerosene and it made me teary-eyed thinking about Aunt Josephine and her kitchen at night, her washing dishes in hot soapy water, me drying, and the lamp lit. I will tell you about her someday. She was a saint.
This is a street of old frame cottages with lawns of silvery grass, where I know nobody and nobody knows me, which suits me just fine, kiddo. I am a pilgrim and it’s good to be on the move so we don’t get attached to possessions and place. I am also a romantic and we need to travel so we don’t get too disillusioned by people. I am thinking of the school board’s move to require the pledge of allegiance, but don’t get me started.
I am also trying to escape from your mother’s birthday, darling. Nothing makes you feel old like when your kids get old. That’s the killer.
Deprivation is exciting, don’t you think. It’s one reason to travel, to strip down to essentials. I always pitied poor Flo her vast salt-and-pepper shaker collection which began when she inherited a couple hundred of the damn
Sarah was opposed to the parasail, afraid he’d crash to his death. So many stories about homemade aircraft crashing. Famous people, rich, accomplished, going up in the air in some flimsy contraption and a gust of wind comes up and they spiral down and splatter on the rocks. “Think about me,” she said. “Thinkhow I’d feel.” He’d taken it up on a test flight over Lake Minnetonka in June and it was glorious, the best cheap thrill he could imagine, better than a roller coaster.
*
His friend Duane Dober had an 18-foot speedboat with a 75-horsepower outboard. Duane wore pop-bottle glasses and lived in dread that a ray of sun might catch a lens and burn a hole into his brain and leave him a helpless cripple who makes ashtrays from beer cans so he wore long-billed caps and stayed out of the sun as much as possible but he loved to race around in his boat with the prow up in the air and smoke dope and listen to the Steel Heads. When Kyle called and said, “I need you to tow my parasail so I can deposit my grandma’s ashes in the lake,” Duane saw it as a chance to thumb his nose at the fishing community. They gave him a hard time about his wake. Well, he’d show them. He imagined he might race around at top speed towing Kyle and rock the fishing boats in his wake and they’d yell and shake their fists and then a cloud of ashes would descend on them. “I’ll be there,” he said.
Kyle remembered what convinced him to buy the parasail—it was a letter from Grandma, along with a check for $500—her beautiful handwriting on little sheets of pale blue paper—
Dear Kyle
I’m in Columbus GA, attracted here by the name “Chattahoochie” on my road map, which is the river between GA and AL, but you probably knew that. Anyway, it is spring and so delicious I’m stopping here and not going on to FL after all. The town is just a riot of flowers and sweetness,magnolias and the like. The B&B was full up but they gave me a little shotgun cottage across the street, tucked into a bower of jasmine and honeysuckle and I don’t know what all, the air is like spun sugar. I have a little porch, a sitting room, bedroom and bath, and a tiny kitchen, plus a clock radio, a few books, soap and towels, a box of cheese straws and am happy as can be. Also a kerosene lamp in the bedroom, a real one, and last night I woke up and got a whiff of kerosene and it made me teary-eyed thinking about Aunt Josephine and her kitchen at night, her washing dishes in hot soapy water, me drying, and the lamp lit. I will tell you about her someday. She was a saint.
This is a street of old frame cottages with lawns of silvery grass, where I know nobody and nobody knows me, which suits me just fine, kiddo. I am a pilgrim and it’s good to be on the move so we don’t get attached to possessions and place. I am also a romantic and we need to travel so we don’t get too disillusioned by people. I am thinking of the school board’s move to require the pledge of allegiance, but don’t get me started.
I am also trying to escape from your mother’s birthday, darling. Nothing makes you feel old like when your kids get old. That’s the killer.
Deprivation is exciting, don’t you think. It’s one reason to travel, to strip down to essentials. I always pitied poor Flo her vast salt-and-pepper shaker collection which began when she inherited a couple hundred of the damn
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