35 Years

Daddy in about 1978 or 1979.

photographer unknown

It's been thirty-five years since my daddy died. There's a lot I don't remember about him. It's weird knowing that most of my stories about him are second-hand ones told to me by Mom or Nana or other relatives.

Here's what I do remember. We used to have an above-ground pool by my grandmother's house. It had yellow sides and was about three feet deep. You had to climb the ladder to get in. Unless you were Daddy. He climbed over the sides. Every time.

Daddy was a good swimmer.  He could swim underwater for what seemed like forever. In reality it was probably only a minute or two, but he would let me climb on his back and ride while he swam around. I can still remember the way the water beaded up on his back.

He used to take me with him sometimes to his favorite beer joint in town. All the old men there would buy me Cokes and M&Ms and tell each other stories. I'm sure none of those stories were fully on the side of truth. I wish I could remember them, but I was too busy eating chocolate to pay much attention. It's possible they played cards or dominos, but again, chocolate clouds my memory.

He built me a treehouse one afternoon because I asked for it. Before I left for school, I said I wanted a treehouse. When I came home, I had one. It occurred to me only later (much, much later) that he was only home because he was sick. I cannot imagine how exhausted building that treehouse made him, but he did it. And it wasn't poorly built either. It lasted for years.

His was the first funeral I remember attending. It rained. Not a heavy rain, but enough to be noticed.

Because he was a Marine Corps veteran, his coffin was draped in the flag. I remember at least two Marines were at the funeral, and they folded the flag and presented it to Mom. I didn't fully understand the significance of that at the time.

After the funeral, when people were still visiting and reminiscing, Mom asked me and my niece to take the flag to the car. We were almost there when footsteps came pounding up behind us. It was the Marines!

"We folded that wrong," one of them said and took the flag.

The stripes were visible and not the stars. Being only eight, I had no idea there was a right way and a wrong way to fold a flag. I still wonder if that's true for every country, or if it's an American thing.

The Marines quickly refolded the flag--stars out--and handed it back to us. It felt less solemn that time. But I think Daddy would have gotten a kick out it.

Vacation: Washington, DC

We hit Washington, DC late in the afternoon during rush hour traffic. Ugh! I am so glad I don't have to drive in that mess every day.

Our first stop was Arlington National Cemetery where we saw the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

We also saw John F. Kennedy's grave with the eternal flame.

Along with two of the most famous sites in Arlington, we saw some lesser-known ones. Those included the Canadian Cross honoring Americans who served in the Canadian armed services,

the Columbia Memorial honoring those who died aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia,

and the USS Maine Memorial honoring those who died aboard the USS Maine.

The next day we visited the National Zoo. We saw lions,

tigers,

and gorillas.

Then we went to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). I was really looking forward to this. When I was in graduate school, I worked on a federally-funded grant project called Four Directions. The purpose of the grant was to provide curriculum development through the use of technology on Indian reservations around the country. As part of the grant, I worked on the reading incentive project If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything. Another aspect of the grant was a virtual reality project with NMAI in New York City. I was able to travel there with a group of students from Marty Indian School in South Dakota. They took pictures of items in the collection and wrote brief reports about the objects. All of this was for an online exhibit at NMAI. That project is still online (note: you'll need Quicktime to view the collection).

When I worked with NMAI in 2000, the construction of the museum on the Mall in Washington had just begun. Finally, I was able to see the museum in all its glory! First, we ate at the Mitsitam Cafe. I had fry bread, of course. I also ate a fiddlehead fern salad with fiddlehead ferns, cucumbers, parsnips and golden beets. Quite tasty! I also had the broccoli with pumpkin seeds in lavender butter. Also good. In fact the fry bread was the worst part of the meal because it was too thick. But the drink I had! It was amazing! It was a Saskatoon berry maple agua fresca. So yummy! I had two of them. I still wish I had bought a third. It was just so good.

Then we took a brief stroll on the Mall past the Capitol

before going to see the Korean War Memorial.

My daddy was a Marine and fought in Korea. Part of the memorial is a wall etched with the faces of men and women who served in the conflict. One of those faces looked an awful lot like Daddy.

And then we visited the Wall.

Even though I don't really know anyone who served in Vietnam and was born after the war ended, the Wall always makes me cry. The mementoes,

the people remembering fallen comrades,

and all those names.

It's just devastating.

It rained on us while we were at the Wall. It even hailed for about ten seconds – mothball-sized hail! A loud crack of thunder hurried Mom and I back to the bus stop and on to our hotel.