Week 27 – The Great Outdoors

 

The older I get (I know, it’s hard to believe, but I’m a great-grandmother already), the less I like to be outdoors in the summer. Winter time? It’s really never too cold for me. I can always bundle up, but you can only take off so much, right? I grew up in the ‘60’s where we played outside until dark, and for us lucky few, we had a swamp cooler if we had to be indoors for any amount of time.  We never paid a bit of attention to mosquitoes – although I did step on my share of honeybees due to the clover that covered our entire yard. Shoes were optional, apparently. This week’s topic – The Great Outdoors – is about my more recent generations, my own family’s version of National Lampoon’s Vacation, and coming to terms with loss…

I know I’ve told you plenty that I was a daddy’s girl. My dad almost always had a project either in his garage, or outdoors. My mother, on the other hand, went outside only to step from the front door to her car. I remember being no more than four or five, and my mother would give me sharp scissors to go to the giant lilac bush in our backyard to cut her some blooms. It just occurred to me that I don’t ever remember her telling me not to run with those scissors.  Probably a good thing because I would have just to see what would happen since she told me not to.  As I was saying, I spent as much of my young life outside as I could. I was maybe 6 or 7 when my dad and our neighbor brought home this enormous tractor tire. I can’t tell you how big it really was, but to a little girl, it was the biggest tire there could ever be. As they began digging out a circle in our backyard, it quickly became apparent my mother was going to have a tantrum. The tire was the makings of a sand pile…for me. My backyard became a paradise – a sand pile right under the massive mimosa tree (my favorite tree of all to climb), and the “house” that I built for myself out of discarded wooded pallets that my brother had brought home.

In the summer of 1968, my trip to Moberly with my grandmother was cut short by a family vacation to the Grand Canyon. The first, and only, family vacation I ever went on with my parents. My mother’s brother, Uncle Joe, lived in Roswell, New Mexico. The first leg of our trip took us there for several days. Uncle Joe was my fun uncle. He had the best sense of humor of just about anyone I’ve ever known. If you’ve been playing along these past weeks, he’s the uncle who united all the Ditmore’s via the internet back in the last century (LOL). Uncle Joe had a motorcycle, which I thought was pretty cool. My mom…not so much. Although Uncle Joe and my dad tried to coerce her into letting me go for a ride, I had to be satisfied with a photo taken on the back.  With Uncle Joe, Aunt Willadine and my cousin, Steve in tow, we all headed for Scottsdale, Arizona for our next stop with my oldest brother and his family. 

In Scottsdale, I pretty much was left alone with the “grown-ups”. My youngest brother (still older than me) had just graduated from high school and had been spending his summer with my oldest brother, travelling out there a few weeks ahead of us. My oldest brother was twenty years older than me, and his children were almost my age. As we were all almost teenagers, my two nephews and a niece had places to go and friends to see.  The one single thing I liked about Scottsdale…my long blonde hair, that went down below my waist, dried in about five minutes if I went outside after my shower. After a few days of sheer boredom, I was so ready to be on our way. We headed next to Pasadena, California for a visit with my mother’s other brother (try and say that three times fast), Uncle Vernon, and his two sons.

Uncle Vernon was my cool uncle. He drove a GTO and wore sunglasses. He was the epitome of the TV show bachelor dad (he was divorced with two sons). Like virtually everyone in Southern California, my uncle had a pool in his back yard. My mother had always been afraid of the water so whenever an opportunity arose for me to learn to swim, she put her foot down.  She didn’t trust anyone with my life except for her. Since she didn’t swim, I wasn’t going to either (I would like to note, however, that I learned to swim when my oldest daughter was two when we took swimming lessons together). While everyone else played in the water, I was remanded to the indoors. I had certainly had enough of California and was so excited when we finally packed up for our final destination. The convoy, now consisting of our family, Uncle Joe’s family, and Uncle Vernon’s family headed off for northern Arizona, where we were being met by my brother and his family.  The Grand Canyon!!!   Hiking! Horseback riding! Tent camping! Sleeping under the stars!  Cooking over an open fire outside! It was soon to be the vacation of my dreams!!! 

We left early in the morning to drive the close to 500 miles that would take us to our campsite. As we got closer, I was looking at every turn for a glimpse of the canyon itself.  I have no idea where we parked, but I hadn’t yet seen it. We arrived sometime in the late afternoon, as best as I can recall. The tents were pitched, the fire lit, and my mother and Aunt Willadine started cooking supper.  We had hotdogs and I remember burning marshmallows over the fire (a first for me). I was having a great time! But I still hadn’t seen the Grand Canyon – tomorrow morning I was told. Then it was time for bed. My grandparents had some old army cots and when we visited them, it was always fun to sleep on one. We had borrowed them for this trip, but my younger brother, cousins and nephews all had sleeping bags and were sleeping on the ground outside (which is what I wanted to do). I should have known that was never going to happen. It obviously didn’t matter that a bear might come out of the woods and take one of the boys, but my mother was going to make sure that bear didn’t get me! At least that’s what she said.

But then…I had to go the bathroom.

I do not know why it never occurred to my mother that I might have to potty, but I was certainly capable of going by myself. I was almost a teenager by this time. There was a tree within a few yards that the boys had used and I saw no reason why this was even an issue.  I must say, on the rim of the Grand Canyon at night, it is dark. There are no city lights to illuminate the sky and I’m guessing no moon when we were there.  When Aunt Willadine offered to take me, we all came to the realization that it wasn’t so much about me going alone, but that my mother was not going to let me go in the woods. Mom was afraid of the woods about as much as she was afraid of water. I don’t know where she expected to go, either!  After listening to me whine that I needed to go…bad (by now), and my mother refusing to let anyone take me, my dad started gathering up our stuff and loading the car. We drove straight to a gas station…and then headed home. I never saw the Grand Canyon.

Shortly after my dad died in April of 1998, I bought a tent, a camp stove, a sleeping bag and other necessities. In July, I packed my car and headed for the Grand Canyon, by myself.  I needed some alone time. The very first thing I did when I got there, after getting my camping pass, was to park at a lookout point along the Desert View Drive. There it was in all its splendor! It was breath-taking. I spent several days having the time of my life (up until that point) doing all the things I had dreamed of doing those thirty years before. I did not, however, anticipate the monsoon that would almost drown me, and my tent, as I stood in the middle holding it up with my arms. Nor did I anticipate the lightening that would strike so near that the ground shook. It never once occurred to me to let the tent go and run for the car. Throughout the, what seemed like hours of pouring rain and thunder, I was never afraid. I had gone to the Grand Canyon in memory of my dad. In the years following my first trip here, I mentioned to my dad that at some point I wanted to go back and actually see the Grand Canyon. He really had felt bad that we had left so abruptly and said he wished he had taken me back (without my mom). I came to the realization that he had never gotten to see it either. I’ve heard it say when someone near you dies, you take a little of them with you wherever you go. I know the reason that I was never afraid…my dad was there with me.