RESPONSIBILITIES

About 58 years ago now, I found myself, (wow. 58. That’s the year I found my healthy self and finally felt like I was going to be whole again. Wow) 

literally my first really clear memory of my father, in the front seat of his Austin Healy - it is a tight little roadster convertible slung low to the ground. My memory says it was navy blue with black leather seats. The most notable as the even as a tiny thing of 5, I could see well enough over the dash to get a clear picture of the road ahead. Dad said we were going for a ride. The reason this stands out so is because by this time I had 3 younger brothers. Mom and dad were really good at making babies, for sure. 

The other notable was it was the middle of winter. Memory says it was a cold, crisp day in Minnesota which meant we had a ton of snow everywhere and the blue sky stood out in stark contrast to the blanket of white.

“Where are we going, daddy?”

“You’ll see”

I can’t emphasize enough how unusual this was. Dad wasn’t around much. He was either teaching or performing - so mostly gone in the evenings. He taught mostly ballet but some jazz and modern as well. Mom and he had a ballet studio in town and he also taught full time at the College of St. Theresa.

He smiled down at me as he helped me get situated - “you hang on if things get dicey, eh?”

No seat belts and certainly no car seats.

I tucked my legs up underneath myself and surveyed the territory.

As we got closer and closer I realized we were headed down to Lake Winona.

Curious was and still is my middle name. I’d already begun to read voraciously and devoured detective fiction so I was on my game. We weren’t in the station wagon - this sweet little ride as he called it, only held two so it must be a destination. For what?

As we rounded the last curve, the expansiveness of the lake came into view with the rolling hills in the distance, all blanketed in the same, blisteringly bright white of weeks of snow with no thaw in site.  

All these little cars checkered the parking lot and there were cones and flags littering the lake area…. What was this?

My mind raced as I tried to figure out why we were here.

Dad just smiled. He was very happy right now. I felt his excitement as we got closer and closer and knew something special awaited us.

As we got to the parking lot where I’d already learned to swim just a few months ago, we slowed and parked.

“Wait here”

I perked up and saw a man with a white flag and another further down with a checkered flag and recognized it from other events id been to. We were racing today!

As I scanned the road and then the lake, I realized we were going to race the lake course - the entrance came into view - but the rest of the course was hidden by the deep snow… but there was a course. The snow was taller than the cars, from the look of it… 

I still think about the race, the excitement of only seeing as far ahead as the white turns with no clear understanding of how much further, how fast, whether we were going to crash into a snowbank and what that would do the the Sweet Little Ride….

It’s my most vivid memory of my father…

And now, after a massive stroke, heart valve replacement surgery, and decades of alcohol and poor choices, we, he and I, are facing the toughest obstacle yet.

I had to tell him he can’t drive any more. And because I don’t trust him or my wicked stepmother to follow that reality. So I filled out a Department of Licensing Form and turned him in to the authorities. 

The shock of that still rings in my ears

And that day 58 years ago has come flooding back -tucked away as it was in my memory banks. Waiting for this moment to swallow me up in the snowbank.