Growing up, I remember so many summers we would go to northern Minnesota (pronounced “Minnie’ Soh-da”) and we would spend a couple weeks at my grandparents on my moms side…Bill and Marie.
The grandfather on my mom’s side was “grampa Bill” and my grandmother was “Gramma”. Bill got a name but grandma was always just gramma. Grandpa Bill drank Schmidts beer, all day starting after lunch and smoked a pipe constantly with Prince Albert (in a can) tobacco. Grandma tended the stove making home made rolls, cookies, and pies. There was always the smells of fresh bread, pipe tobacco, and burning wood…smells that are still my favorites even today.
They lived in northern Minnesota out in the deep woods country. People out there were often farmers, hunters, fishermen…strong people who loved the great white north. It was a wild land back then…seemed untamed and we often heard stories of wolves and bears killing cattle and sheep…so to us it was like our own ‘wild west’ where it was just natural for everyone to have and carry a gun…including us.
The land was filled with dangerous animals…like I said…it was filled with stories of bears, timber wolves, and the Dickensons. The bears and timber wolves you could trust….but those “Got dammed Dickensons…” well they were just some of the worst sons of bitches you could ever come across, but Grandpa needed a villain for his stories….but I’ll get to that in one of these stories. For now, the Dickersons were a well to do family in the area that were notorious (at least to grandpa) for swindling and cheating and moving boundary markers when you weren’t looking.
Grandpa Bill grew up logging and trapping in this land. He was a woodman to the core. His house was in a small ghost town called Puposky, on the edge of Lake Julia, near Buena Vista and Bemidji. It was a 2 bedroom, one story, maybe 650 sf house that was probably built just after World War 2. This small house had no running water, no bathroom, and it was heated by a wood burning stove. Water was hand pumped every day from a well just outside the house …the outhouse was 20 feet from the house in a wooden shed and a pit underneath it (no running water, right?) …and the house and cooking were done by use of a wooden stove that had to be regularity fed hand split wood. Water for the house was hand pumped from the well into buckets that were carried into the house. It was a HARD life that we would never understand in today’s world. In northern Minnesota winters were particularly brutal with lows reaching -20 for weeks on end….and all those things you had to do outside like bring in wood, pump water, GO TO THE BATHROOM (!!) …you did those…day in and day out, whether it was 75 or -20. It was a different world, it was a different time. They lived the same way for as long as they were alive.
My grandfather died in 1986, 90 years of age, and my grandmother continued to live there another 10 years, by herself, until we brought her home when she was found wandering lost one day and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
In that area, in those parts of the Northern Territory, people look out for each other, people needed each other…and people were genuine…they didn’t have time not to be.
Unless you were a Dickenson….
I say all this to say something else.
My grandparents were poor by any standard you look at in the United States…but they were so rich in the color of their lives, abundantly blessed with hospitality and love, and it’s where I learned some of life’s biggest lessons. When I look back at growing up, it’s in those woods I learned to hunt, fish, to have freedom and adventures…and laugh with a man who was a key figure in my life. God how I loved them and I loved that farm, lake Julia that was a 5 minute walk, and the lands of wild northern Minnesota.
This little house had a garage like structure next to it, a “pump house” that housed I don’t remember what….but it had an old refrigerator that didn’t work that held old books, it had old bottles and beer signs, naked women calendars, vote for Ike buttons….it had a door on it that said “no minors”. For most of my young life, I thought ‘no minor’ meant that if you worked in the ore mines in the area, you weren’t welcome. I thought that was pretty rude and would be a teenager before I understood the message.
The pump house had all kinds of odds and ends, broken clocks, kids toys, AN OLD BAZOOKA SHELL (another “NO SHIT??!!!” story for another time) some ‘girlie’ magazines and calendars, and often a few cats…but the biggest thing about the pump house was the large bell that hung above it. Hundreds and hundreds of times Grandpa would encourage us to shoot this bell with a Crossman pump up air BB gun. Every time you hit it with a “PING” he laughed deeply and genuine…and then he’d encourage you to shoot something else. Usually a bird or something alive. My heart usually didn’t let me shoot something alive, but Grandpa made his life as a trapper, a lumberjack, so shooting things was just part of life up there.
My grandfather loved to give us a Crossman pump BB gun to shoot everything and anything from beer cans set up, to home made wind chimes he made, or anything that happened to be scurrying or flying around as we were out shooting. He always laughed and was impressed with our marksman skills. He also loved and encouraged us to fish, getting a neighbor at the lake to loan us a row boat. My brother and I were crazy wild boys with all kinds of energy and endless curiosity that was perfect for such a place as this to turn us loose in. It was an outdoor paradise.
As much as we loved to explore, shoot, and fish…there was always some work and some special ‘project’ my father took on every time we went up there. He would use the 2 weeks to fix or repair something that needed fixed. Once it was a roof on the house, once it was to pull the siding off the house and insulate it, once it was digging a new outhouse for the bathroom. Whatever it was, it was dad’s summer project, and thus OUR project.
There were two worlds up there when we visited. One was dad’s world of ‘projects’ and work…one was grandpa’s where kids had adventures, played and explored of fishing at the lake or wandering with BB guns or 22 rifles or exploring the pump house or barn.
I’ve never thought of this before, but there was always a colliding of worlds when we went to grandpa and grandma’s. Our world back home belonged to dad and work and responsibility and more work. Grandpa’s world had adventure and exploration and freedom. We often had to walk the line of both worlds when we went there. We got to explore and shoot and wander and row on the lake…but we also had those adventures interrupted by dad’s world…his projects.
Today I still try to live in those two worlds that I cannot seem to get to be at peace…I am either all the way in one, or all the way in the other….in my world they do not, and can never coexist.
The dichotomy of my father’s and my grandfather’s worlds was never so incredibly vivid as the story of the wood box.
You mention ‘wood box’ story and mom will start laughing at the thought of it. It is probably her favorite story and my father laughs at himself when the story is told, but there’s still a little bit of saltiness that comes along with it too for him.
so…the story of the woodbox.
Grandma cooked off an old cast iron wood burning stove. You fed split wood down into it, it heated the house and cooked the food. It was the only heat, it was the only way to cook and wood for it would often need to be brought into the house and stacked in this old woodbox that sat next to the stove.
My dad must’ve decided at some point that the wood box was pretty tattered and worn out and seeing how dad had great carpentry skills, he decided to make her a new one. It would be a quick and easy afternoon project for him…or so he thought.
So on this day my father decided he was going to build grandma a wood box. Dad started off on his usual measurements, found a couple sheets of plywood and began cutting away to construct this box. My older brother Brad and I were always his clueless helpers. We held the dumb end of the measuring tape when he measured, we held the wood when he cut, held the flashlight when it got dark, but we never got to use the saw or hammer the wood or pound nails…and we never had any clue what he was doing, but like rowers on a pirates ship, we were chained to the oar and we were there to ‘help’ or (sometimes and…) go down with the ship.
Now my dad has an uncanny ability to do anything carpentry, can take anything and everything apart without any working knowledge of said item or engine. It was dumbfounding to my grandfather who did NOT have such skills. My grandfather was a woodsman, hunter, logger, and farmer. How he survived without those skills in such a brutal environment, I don’t know. But dad would show up and see all the projects that needed to be done and would set to work on at least one big one every summer. But this day, above all days, dad would be sorry for the little task he had set his mind on. It would have the best of him.
So, out in the yard, my dad started with measurements and a drawing and two clueless sons. Soon the pieces were cut, and the box took shape…sort of.
At some point, something was off and the box wouldn’t fit together…and my dad’s temper began to flair.
A word of finesse here, dad’s temper could be bad and at times… and sometimes it could nuclear. Now, when dad got mad, and you were working with dad, you were worried that his temper might go nuclear and make you the object of his anger…so when dad started to get mad, Brad and I got quiet and worried.
But we were at grandpa’s.
And grandpa thought dad’s temper was funny.
So when things started to go astray and my dad started to get mad that the wood box wasn’t going together, grandpa pulled up a chair from the yard to watch.
And give comment.
And to laugh.
Two worlds in tension.
There my Grandpa sat in his lawn chair, beer in one hand, pipe in the other, to watch this unfold a little more…and to poke at my dad. Those of us who knew dad, knew those words were like poking a bear. But grandpa wasn’t scared of dad when he got angry…he’s the only person I have ever known that was not scared of my dad when he got angry. Thus, the more UN-amused my father got, the more amused my grandfather got.
So, we’re working in the yard and this ‘simple’ project dad had started and the box is not quite coming together, and dad is frustrated…and grandpa is amused. My brother Brad and I were bug eyed as we thought grandpa was pretty funny but scared that dad was going to turn on us. But these two great worlds were at odds with each other this day, and Brad and I had front row seats to the showdown.
After a bit of back and forth, Dad’s adjusted a couple times, gotten the box together, and dad’s ready to claim victory over the whole affair. Dad, carrying his work of art, walks across the yard to the house in what would be his GREAT TRIUMPH that would silence the laughter of my grandfather. He climbs the two steps of the side of the house, balances the box on one knee while he flings open the screen door…
…and jambs the wood box squarely into the frame of the door, not quite getting it inside the door.
Dad readjusts his grip on the box and turns it a couple times and tries again and again.
There’s a moment when heaven and earth stopped and, for a moment everything was dead silent…waiting for my dad…
to realize…
The wood box will not fit through the door of the house.
My father erupts in profanity fitting of a pirate in the high seas
…to which….
My beloved grandpa Bill erupts in laughter, doubled over gasping for breath, tears forming in his eyes. Grandpa’s laughter brings mom to laughter and tears as she couldn’t help herself.
Picture this. Grandpa and mom have tears in their eyes and are having a hard time breathing. Brad and I are bug eyed nervously giggling…fearing what dad may do…and my dad is unleashing a tirade of profanity on the situation…furious at the box, furious at the laughter…and my little brother Jamie walks into the yard, trying to make sense of it all..and says…in a 4 year old Charlie Brown voice,
“Is daddy angry?”
Grandpa and Mom erupt with howling laughter, both her and Grandpa were laughing so hard at this point they couldn’t breathe, their faces turning purple, tears streaming from their eyes. My mom trying to be apologetic to my dad, trying to give him support and sympathy, but couldn’t breathe.
My brother and I were worried of the consequences, but the site of mom and grandpa doubled over with tears in his eyes, gasping for breath brings us to laugh too. Jamie is too confused to do anything and is too afraid to either laugh or cry. He will someday probably need therapy that will point back to this moment.
I don’t remember exactly what dad did, but know he gave up and went to cool off and finished the wood box later…and it would fit through the door this time. He will laugh at everything later after beers in the cool of the evening and all would be right with the world again.
My two worlds collided that day over the wood box. I was scared and I was laughing…I thought it was funny AND I thought I might get killed. Grandpa knew we wouldn’t die that day because Grandpa wasn’t scared of dad when he was mad, I have wondered why. He is literally the only person that I have ever known that wasn’t scared of dad. Why? I guess I will have to ask him when we meet again.
Those two wolds are still at war in me…
One world hell bent on successes, one wanting to explore and be free.
One world where the world squeezes the life out of the heart, one where the heart squeezes life out of the world
One world wanting and driving towards success and perfection, one world wanting to leave all behind to chase the setting September sun.
Maybe all men have this…I don’t know. But I always gravitate to those who were a little like grandpa. They, from time to time, like to fall off the grid and disappear for a few days to rid themselves of boundaries and showers and ‘safe behavior’ and explore new lands, to walk off the flat earth…to the place where the sign says “dead end” or “beyond here, there be monsters”. We smile when we see these signs…because you know that this is where the map ends and the adventure begins. If you’re smiling right now, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
In my grandfathers world, there was no work that really had to be done when we were there. He wanted us to go and explore and be wild. He celebrated our wildness and adventures, he fanned the flames of explorations, and he encouraged us to test our strength. In our worlds back home, there was none of this. Grandpa knew this…so when we came to his world, we were indoctrinated into it, set free in it, given old world skills and old world freedoms. We were given BB guns and 410s and rowboats. There was no land that we could not wander, no place on the lake we could not row to…our only boundary was ‘lunch’ and ‘dark’ that brought us back…
…eventually.
He was the wilderness of manhood, celebrating my 10 year old need to run and explore and swing an ax and fish ALL DAY. He put guns and firecrackers and axes in my hand and trusted me not to kill myself or blow the world up…he loved us enough to set me free from the world that forces a young man to conform. He was the kind of grandfather that every ‘safe’ mom would fear, yet only the most blessed of us were mentored by him and the northern wilderness. To this day his gifts of time and freedom are still alive in me, still bearing fruit. I still seek adventure, still seek those times untethered to the world of deadlines, dollars, and duties…the things that kill my heart.
I am not belittling my father or his contributions to my character, the lessons that one must instill for a boy to become a man…they are most necessary in the manhood transformation…you must become a man that contributes to the world. That was no easy feat for me and a bunch of rowdy brothers like mine. But my grandpa Bill has a special place, in my life, for embedding and embracing the things that the heart of a man needs to survive.
Said another way, there are things a man must do to survive.
Do not confuse those with what a man must do for his heart to thrive.
My dad was tasked with instilling me with what I needed to survive.
My grandfather was blessed with the easier yet crucial role of tending to the heart of a young boy…which was to set it free from time to time…because the ‘wilds’ are still where I go to find
‘life’ that cannot be acquired any other way.
The wood box is physically and symbolically important…the wood box holds the wood that feeds the fire in the house, and symbolically holds the wood that fires the heart. Grandpa and dad are the struggle within me to tend to my heart. The wood box “incident” showed the polar opposites that existed in my world at the time both then and now. The tension in what must get done to accomplish things and what must get to do to set your soul free, to keep your heart alive.
The ‘wilds’ are still where I go to set my heart free…to loose my 10 year old to explore and test my strength and look for treasures. It’s often where I go to find myself again.
I write this with all respect to my father and in respect, love, and tribute for Grandpa Bill and Grandma Marie, who lived near the town of Puposky and Lake Julia in northern Minnesota, forever my Neverland.
Growing up, I remember so many summers we would go to northern Minnesota (pronounced “Minnie’ Soh-da”) and we would spend a couple weeks at my grandparents on my moms side…Bill and Marie.
The grandfather on my mom’s side was “grampa Bill” and my grandmother was “Gramma”. Bill got a name but grandma was always just gramma. Grandpa Bill drank Schmidts beer, all day starting after lunch and smoked a pipe constantly with Prince Albert (in a can) tobacco. Grandma tended the stove making home made rolls, cookies, and pies. There was always the smells of fresh bread, pipe tobacco, and burning wood…smells that are still my favorites even today.
They lived in northern Minnesota out in the deep woods country. People out there were often farmers, hunters, fishermen…strong people who loved the great white north. It was a wild land back then…seemed untamed and we often heard stories of wolves and bears killing cattle and sheep…so to us it was like our own ‘wild west’ where it was just natural for everyone to have and carry a gun…including us.
The land was filled with dangerous animals…like I said…it was filled with stories of bears, timber wolves, and the Dickensons. The bears and timber wolves you could trust….but those “Got dammed Dickensons…” well they were just some of the worst sons of bitches you could ever come across, but Grandpa needed a villain for his stories….but I’ll get to that in one of these stories. For now, the Dickersons were a well to do family in the area that were notorious (at least to grandpa) for swindling and cheating and moving boundary markers when you weren’t looking.
Grandpa Bill grew up logging and trapping in this land. He was a woodman to the core. His house was in a small ghost town called Puposky, on the edge of Lake Julia, near Buena Vista and Bemidji. It was a 2 bedroom, one story, maybe 650 sf house that was probably built just after World War 2. This small house had no running water, no bathroom, and it was heated by a wood burning stove. Water was hand pumped every day from a well just outside the house …the outhouse was 20 feet from the house in a wooden shed and a pit underneath it (no running water, right?) …and the house and cooking were done by use of a wooden stove that had to be regularity fed hand split wood. Water for the house was hand pumped from the well into buckets that were carried into the house. It was a HARD life that we would never understand in today’s world. In northern Minnesota winters were particularly brutal with lows reaching -20 for weeks on end….and all those things you had to do outside like bring in wood, pump water, GO TO THE BATHROOM (!!) …you did those…day in and day out, whether it was 75 or -20. It was a different world, it was a different time. They lived the same way for as long as they were alive.
My grandfather died in 1986, 90 years of age, and my grandmother continued to live there another 10 years, by herself, until we brought her home when she was found wandering lost one day and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
In that area, in those parts of the Northern Territory, people look out for each other, people needed each other…and people were genuine…they didn’t have time not to be.
Unless you were a Dickenson….
I say all this to say something else.
My grandparents were poor by any standard you look at in the United States…but they were so rich in the color of their lives, abundantly blessed with hospitality and love, and it’s where I learned some of life’s biggest lessons. When I look back at growing up, it’s in those woods I learned to hunt, fish, to have freedom and adventures…and laugh with a man who was a key figure in my life. God how I loved them and I loved that farm, lake Julia that was a 5 minute walk, and the lands of wild northern Minnesota.
This little house had a garage like structure next to it, a “pump house” that housed I don’t remember what….but it had an old refrigerator that didn’t work that held old books, it had old bottles and beer signs, naked women calendars, vote for Ike buttons….it had a door on it that said “no minors”. For most of my young life, I thought ‘no minor’ meant that if you worked in the ore mines in the area, you weren’t welcome. I thought that was pretty rude and would be a teenager before I understood the message.
The pump house had all kinds of odds and ends, broken clocks, kids toys, AN OLD BAZOOKA SHELL (another “NO SHIT??!!!” story for another time) some ‘girlie’ magazines and calendars, and often a few cats…but the biggest thing about the pump house was the large bell that hung above it. Hundreds and hundreds of times Grandpa would encourage us to shoot this bell with a Crossman pump up air BB gun. Every time you hit it with a “PING” he laughed deeply and genuine…and then he’d encourage you to shoot something else. Usually a bird or something alive. My heart usually didn’t let me shoot something alive, but Grandpa made his life as a trapper, a lumberjack, so shooting things was just part of life up there.
My grandfather loved to give us a Crossman pump BB gun to shoot everything and anything from beer cans set up, to home made wind chimes he made, or anything that happened to be scurrying or flying around as we were out shooting. He always laughed and was impressed with our marksman skills. He also loved and encouraged us to fish, getting a neighbor at the lake to loan us a row boat. My brother and I were crazy wild boys with all kinds of energy and endless curiosity that was perfect for such a place as this to turn us loose in. It was an outdoor paradise.
As much as we loved to explore, shoot, and fish…there was always some work and some special ‘project’ my father took on every time we went up there. He would use the 2 weeks to fix or repair something that needed fixed. Once it was a roof on the house, once it was to pull the siding off the house and insulate it, once it was digging a new outhouse for the bathroom. Whatever it was, it was dad’s summer project, and thus OUR project.
There were two worlds up there when we visited. One was dad’s world of ‘projects’ and work…one was grandpa’s where kids had adventures, played and explored of fishing at the lake or wandering with BB guns or 22 rifles or exploring the pump house or barn.
I’ve never thought of this before, but there was always a colliding of worlds when we went to grandpa and grandma’s. Our world back home belonged to dad and work and responsibility and more work. Grandpa’s world had adventure and exploration and freedom. We often had to walk the line of both worlds when we went there. We got to explore and shoot and wander and row on the lake…but we also had those adventures interrupted by dad’s world…his projects.
Today I still try to live in those two worlds that I cannot seem to get to be at peace…I am either all the way in one, or all the way in the other….in my world they do not, and can never coexist.
The dichotomy of my father’s and my grandfather’s worlds was never so incredibly vivid as the story of the wood box.
You mention ‘wood box’ story and mom will start laughing at the thought of it. It is probably her favorite story and my father laughs at himself when the story is told, but there’s still a little bit of saltiness that comes along with it too for him.
so…the story of the woodbox.
Grandma cooked off an old cast iron wood burning stove. You fed split wood down into it, it heated the house and cooked the food. It was the only heat, it was the only way to cook and wood for it would often need to be brought into the house and stacked in this old woodbox that sat next to the stove.
My dad must’ve decided at some point that the wood box was pretty tattered and worn out and seeing how dad had great carpentry skills, he decided to make her a new one. It would be a quick and easy afternoon project for him…or so he thought.
So on this day my father decided he was going to build grandma a wood box. Dad started off on his usual measurements, found a couple sheets of plywood and began cutting away to construct this box. My older brother Brad and I were always his clueless helpers. We held the dumb end of the measuring tape when he measured, we held the wood when he cut, held the flashlight when it got dark, but we never got to use the saw or hammer the wood or pound nails…and we never had any clue what he was doing, but like rowers on a pirates ship, we were chained to the oar and we were there to ‘help’ or (sometimes and…) go down with the ship.
Now my dad has an uncanny ability to do anything carpentry, can take anything and everything apart without any working knowledge of said item or engine. It was dumbfounding to my grandfather who did NOT have such skills. My grandfather was a woodsman, hunter, logger, and farmer. How he survived without those skills in such a brutal environment, I don’t know. But dad would show up and see all the projects that needed to be done and would set to work on at least one big one every summer. But this day, above all days, dad would be sorry for the little task he had set his mind on. It would have the best of him.
So, out in the yard, my dad started with measurements and a drawing and two clueless sons. Soon the pieces were cut, and the box took shape…sort of.
At some point, something was off and the box wouldn’t fit together…and my dad’s temper began to flair.
A word of finesse here, dad’s temper could be bad and at times… and sometimes it could nuclear. Now, when dad got mad, and you were working with dad, you were worried that his temper might go nuclear and make you the object of his anger…so when dad started to get mad, Brad and I got quiet and worried.
But we were at grandpa’s.
And grandpa thought dad’s temper was funny.
So when things started to go astray and my dad started to get mad that the wood box wasn’t going together, grandpa pulled up a chair from the yard to watch.
And give comment.
And to laugh.
Two worlds in tension.
There my Grandpa sat in his lawn chair, beer in one hand, pipe in the other, to watch this unfold a little more…and to poke at my dad. Those of us who knew dad, knew those words were like poking a bear. But grandpa wasn’t scared of dad when he got angry…he’s the only person I have ever known that was not scared of my dad when he got angry. Thus, the more UN-amused my father got, the more amused my grandfather got.
So, we’re working in the yard and this ‘simple’ project dad had started and the box is not quite coming together, and dad is frustrated…and grandpa is amused. My brother Brad and I were bug eyed as we thought grandpa was pretty funny but scared that dad was going to turn on us. But these two great worlds were at odds with each other this day, and Brad and I had front row seats to the showdown.
After a bit of back and forth, Dad’s adjusted a couple times, gotten the box together, and dad’s ready to claim victory over the whole affair. Dad, carrying his work of art, walks across the yard to the house in what would be his GREAT TRIUMPH that would silence the laughter of my grandfather. He climbs the two steps of the side of the house, balances the box on one knee while he flings open the screen door…
…and jambs the wood box squarely into the frame of the door, not quite getting it inside the door.
Dad readjusts his grip on the box and turns it a couple times and tries again and again.
There’s a moment when heaven and earth stopped and, for a moment everything was dead silent…waiting for my dad…
to realize…
The wood box will not fit through the door of the house.
My father erupts in profanity fitting of a pirate in the high seas
…to which….
My beloved grandpa Bill erupts in laughter, doubled over gasping for breath, tears forming in his eyes. Grandpa’s laughter brings mom to laughter and tears as she couldn’t help herself.
Picture this. Grandpa and mom have tears in their eyes and are having a hard time breathing. Brad and I are bug eyed nervously giggling…fearing what dad may do…and my dad is unleashing a tirade of profanity on the situation…furious at the box, furious at the laughter…and my little brother Jamie walks into the yard, trying to make sense of it all..and says…in a 4 year old Charlie Brown voice,
“Is daddy angry?”
Grandpa and Mom erupt with howling laughter, both her and Grandpa were laughing so hard at this point they couldn’t breathe, their faces turning purple, tears streaming from their eyes. My mom trying to be apologetic to my dad, trying to give him support and sympathy, but couldn’t breathe.
My brother and I were worried of the consequences, but the site of mom and grandpa doubled over with tears in his eyes, gasping for breath brings us to laugh too. Jamie is too confused to do anything and is too afraid to either laugh or cry. He will someday probably need therapy that will point back to this moment.
I don’t remember exactly what dad did, but know he gave up and went to cool off and finished the wood box later…and it would fit through the door this time. He will laugh at everything later after beers in the cool of the evening and all would be right with the world again.
My two worlds collided that day over the wood box. I was scared and I was laughing…I thought it was funny AND I thought I might get killed. Grandpa knew we wouldn’t die that day because Grandpa wasn’t scared of dad when he was mad, I have wondered why. He is literally the only person that I have ever known that wasn’t scared of dad. Why? I guess I will have to ask him when we meet again.
Those two wolds are still at war in me…
One world hell bent on successes, one wanting to explore and be free.
One world where the world squeezes the life out of the heart, one where the heart squeezes life out of the world
One world wanting and driving towards success and perfection, one world wanting to leave all behind to chase the setting September sun.
Maybe all men have this…I don’t know. But I always gravitate to those who were a little like grandpa. They, from time to time, like to fall off the grid and disappear for a few days to rid themselves of boundaries and showers and ‘safe behavior’ and explore new lands, to walk off the flat earth…to the place where the sign says “dead end” or “beyond here, there be monsters”. We smile when we see these signs…because you know that this is where the map ends and the adventure begins. If you’re smiling right now, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
In my grandfathers world, there was no work that really had to be done when we were there. He wanted us to go and explore and be wild. He celebrated our wildness and adventures, he fanned the flames of explorations, and he encouraged us to test our strength. In our worlds back home, there was none of this. Grandpa knew this…so when we came to his world, we were indoctrinated into it, set free in it, given old world skills and old world freedoms. We were given BB guns and 410s and rowboats. There was no land that we could not wander, no place on the lake we could not row to…our only boundary was ‘lunch’ and ‘dark’ that brought us back…
…eventually.
He was the wilderness of manhood, celebrating my 10 year old need to run and explore and swing an ax and fish ALL DAY. He put guns and firecrackers and axes in my hand and trusted me not to kill myself or blow the world up…he loved us enough to set me free from the world that forces a young man to conform. He was the kind of grandfather that every ‘safe’ mom would fear, yet only the most blessed of us were mentored by him and the northern wilderness. To this day his gifts of time and freedom are still alive in me, still bearing fruit. I still seek adventure, still seek those times untethered to the world of deadlines, dollars, and duties…the things that kill my heart.
I am not belittling my father or his contributions to my character, the lessons that one must instill for a boy to become a man…they are most necessary in the manhood transformation…you must become a man that contributes to the world. That was no easy feat for me and a bunch of rowdy brothers like mine. But my grandpa Bill has a special place, in my life, for embedding and embracing the things that the heart of a man needs to survive.
Said another way, there are things a man must do to survive.
Do not confuse those with what a man must do for his heart to thrive.
My dad was tasked with instilling me with what I needed to survive.
My grandfather was blessed with the easier yet crucial role of tending to the heart of a young boy…which was to set it free from time to time…because the ‘wilds’ are still where I go to find
‘life’ that cannot be acquired any other way.
The wood box is physically and symbolically important…the wood box holds the wood that feeds the fire in the house, and symbolically holds the wood that fires the heart. Grandpa and dad are the struggle within me to tend to my heart. The wood box “incident” showed the polar opposites that existed in my world at the time both then and now. The tension in what must get done to accomplish things and what must get to do to set your soul free, to keep your heart alive.
The ‘wilds’ are still where I go to set my heart free…to loose my 10 year old to explore and test my strength and look for treasures. It’s often where I go to find myself again.
I write this with all respect to my father and in respect, love, and tribute for Grandpa Bill and Grandma Marie, who lived near the town of Puposky and Lake Julia in northern Minnesota, forever my Neverland.
Die On Empty 