Slip Sliding Away

Dec 30, 2006
Slip Sliding Away

Current mood:sick

1. A White Christmas
I arrived back in North Idaho the night of December 26. Apparently we had a white Christmas. I missed it. I drove down to California where it rained. While it was snowing here it was raining there. I drove a thousand miles to have lunch with my mother "then turned around and headed home again."

2. My Children
I have two daughters and a son. My oldest daughter from my 1st marriage is about 35 years old. I didn't think she would "give" me any grandchildren so I decided to have my own; a son, 18, and another daughter, 11.
Well I was wrong about her not having any children and so I do have a grandson. She invited me to spend Christmas with them, so I did and I am glad I did. It was our first Christmas together since she was sixteen or so.
We usually had Christmas with my parents at their house in Folsom, California.
After my other children were born I spent Christmas with their mother's family here in the Northwest.
Although we've been divorced six years I am often invited to spend holidays with them, most likely for our children's sake but possibly because the family may still like me. My former wife and I seem to "get along" as far as I can tell. We pretty much ignore each other at these functions; it's just like when were married except that now we come in separate cars.

3. The Motel
This Christmas I was fortunate enough to have five days off. That worked out well enough so that I could have Christmas with my daughter and grandson and see my mother too.
When I was younger I would have attempted this journey in one day. A journey of more than one day is by definition not a journey, is it? If the need arose I would sleep in a rest area or parking lot.
I don't do that anymore.
I left work about 4:30 PM and drove to Biggs, Oregon where I checked into a motel. I like motels. Instead of waking up cold and cramped I awoke in a bed and had a nice shower before continuing my drive.

When I was in a traveling band we lived in hotels and motels. We lived out of suitcases.
You get used to that. When my sister got married in the early nineties my (now ex) wife and son and I
stayed at my niece's house in southern California. My niece was married to a famous rock star at the time and they lived in a huge house with maybe nine or more bathrooms.
It was a huge house. I complained to my wife (because rather than being grateful I pretty much complained about everything in those days) that she always packed too many clothes for me. The result of my complaint was that I had to borrow a shirt from the rock star. He led me to their bedroom where despite having two full walk-in closets bigger than my own bedroom he pulled a shirt from a suitcase at the foot of his bed, "Is this OK?" You get used to living in hotels and motels.

4. The New Baby
After leaving the motel I drove to Oregon City where I stopped to use a pay phone. Remember pay phones? We had to search for those before the advent of cell phones. My cell phone works only in the local area so I searched for and found a pay phone. Well I do remember pay phones very well so I checked for catsup in the coin return and jelly on the receiver. Having found neither I called another niece there and told her that I wanted to see their new baby. She gave me some very good and easy direction but I got lost within a few minutes. Fortunately for me Oregon City is very small and by simply driving around I was able to meet their beautiful baby girl.

5. The Heart Attack
I drove next to Elkton, Oregon. I had called ahead to see if I could stay at the home of a lifelong friend. He told me that he had just had a heart attack. That's some serious news. As serious as ... well you know. I thought he looked pretty good for someone that just had a heart attack. They fixed him up without having to crack his chest. They went through his groin with something I imagine is similar to a toilet auger and he watched the whole thing on the big screen in the operatory. Rather than being bed ridden he and his wife went to a Christmas party which I crashed. It was a great party! The food was especially good and my friend's wife even allowed him to have some. I guess he has to change his diet.

6. Another Christmas Party.
I arrived the next afternoon at my brother's house in Sacramento, California. Neither he nor his wife were home so I drove over to Folsom to visit my former mother-in-law. I got there just in time to crash another Christmas party. It was another great party. I saw many people there that I have not seen in decades including someone that I nearly killed 35 years ago.
I know that it was 35 years ago because my daughter was only a few months old when the woman's father in law asked me to drive up to Truckee, California to tow his Jeep down off the mountain.
Had I known at the time that I was going to come close to wiping out his family and go to jail
I would have declined. But I didn't know that and got a tow bar and hitched up.
There were a lot of things working against us that day. The rental company gave me an undersize tow ball. The jeep was not a little Army Jeep but a Willys 4 wheel drive pick up stacked with enough camping gear to make the family in "The Grapes of Wrath" feel at home. It was much heavier than my little Studebaker half ton, even with four people in the cab and four in the camper. It didn't help that my Studebaker had a planetary overdrive which meant that there was no engine compression to slow us down when the Jeep started pushing it down hill. Maybe putting on the brakes was the wrong thing to do but at that point I think we were already in a disastrous situation. The tow bar came off the tow ball and the Jeep started to pass us. The safety chain flipped my truck over. Four of us rode the overturned truck and four of us rode the separated camper down the freeway.
When we stopped the only one seriously injured was under my truck. She and her husband kept the tow bar and hired a lawyer.
I asked the lawyer if he would write a letter to the rental company and explain what happened to the tow bar. He said "I suppose I could." I was naive enough then to believe that that meant "Yes."
I was arrested for grand theft. The case was dropped at the District Attorney's request, "In the interest of justice."
I'm pleased to think that the smile and the hug I got at the Christmas party means that she has forgiven me.

7. My Brother's Couch.
After the party I went back to my brother's house where he kindly offered me his couch for the night. Apparently that couch is also the cat's bed. The cat did not seem to mind sharing his bed but was not of a mind to relinquish it. I awoke the next morning in my clothes and covered with cat hair. Perhaps I need to stop imposing on my brother and rent one of those rooms of which I am so fond anyway.

8. Lunch
I drove to Elk Grove, south of Sacramento, where my mother lives in an assisted living home. She lives there because she has dementia due to Alzheimer's and two strokes. When my father died two and a half years ago my brother sold her house and used the proceeds to place her there.
My father told me that he bought the house in 1950 for $9000 at 4% interest. He had no idea how he was going to come up with the $26 a month mortgage but he did and the house sold for enough that it should pay for my mother's care for the rest of her life. I sure hope so.
It took a moment for my mother to remember who I am but then we had a good time. She is still enjoyable company. I took her to McDonald's mainly so we could eat out of hand; the use of knives and forks seem to sometimes escape her.
I took her back for the Christmas Eve party to which I was invited but did not attend. My brother and his wife did. He is a wonderful son and his wife a wonderful daughter in law. I admire them.
My attendance would have meant driving to Crescent City, California all night and I decided to leave after lunch.
I drove a thousand miles to have lunch with my mother and now I was going to have Christmas with my daughter and grandson.

9. Christmas Eve
The fastest way I know of to get from Sacramento to Crescent City is to go to Grant's Pass, Oregon and turn left. It's not the shortest way but I believe it is the fastest. Still it took the better part of eight hours driving. By the time I got to Grant's Pass there was a strong wind blowing. By the time I arrived in Crescent City it was raining hard. I got there about 9:00 PM Christmas Eve.

10. Christmas
My daughter has a place in Crescent City but most often she can be found at her mother's.
That is where we had our Christmas. And what a Christmas it was. There was far more food than the six of us there could eat in a week but we tried!
It took my grandson all day to open his presents. Not because he had so many but because he is peculiar that way. He knows how to make Christmas last! I suppose it was a fairly typical Christmas but it is one I will recall fondly for a long time.

11. Home
All that was left on the 26th was the daunting drive back to North Idaho. It took some eleven or twelve hours, the rain
had turned to snow, and I was glad when it was over.