The Mighty Viking

Conquering those things we must, one story at a time

Category : Family

The Doer of Deeds

Here, on this dimly lit night ferry, a group of truckers bask in the melancholy end of their day of work, relaxing from the work of navigating their rigs through this day. Each has a place to go yet tonight, a short leg of a much longer day’s journey, but they are nearly done. They have gathered around a table, playing dice and quietly joking with each other as if they’ve known each other forever, the bond of their profession bringing them together. Occasionally they erupt in laughter when the dice rolls. A biker sits in the corner with his arms folded over his road-stained leathers, content with his travel, seeming out of place for the well-kept cafeteria deck. The cafeteria has closed, the distant lights of the island hover above and below the blackness of the night across the water, and the smell of the Sea occasionally wafts in. The waters are still, but not the placid smoothness of a lazy summer day. This is the calm of a sea whose guts are still churning from the storm earlier, a sea spent and worn, that still smells of things dredged up by the wind and waves that beat it through the day. A storm has passed, the same storm these truckers and biker have passed through today.

This is not a pretty boat here in the deep of the night. Couples in love do not canoodle their way around the outer decks. Pairs of old ladies, friends from as far back as they can remember, do not sit in seats with their shopping bags from a day in the Big City gabbing about their neighbours. It is a boat of business tonight, of the serious deeds of life being done while others sleep.

In between the biker and the truckers sit a man and his grandson riding home to tell grandma of the wondrous things seen and done today. The little boy asking questions one after another – his energy fading faster than his curiosity. The grandpa answers about every third question, letting the boy walk himself through the others, and smiles at the animated joy that forces the weary child up and for a quick lap of the row seats when an answer dawns on him. Sometimes he winds up at the window, staring at the distant island lights. Sometimes he winds up underneath the seats, exploring for more questions. The questions the young boy asks of his Grandpa are of this new world of Industry. He wants to know about the trucks in the hold. He wants to know where they might be going, what they might contain. He wants to know why the smell of the tires and diesel excites him. He has caught a hint of the connection of his Grandpa, the man that up till now was just an old man who loved him, but now, in the context of this night, he realizes that this old man is part of this world too – and suddenly a knower of Manly Things.

The boy searches for more questions to ask of his Grandpa. He peers at the biker over the back of his chair 40 feet away and studies the leather-clad figure, covered in road-grime and mud and bugs and other short-”u” voweled Earth Words. When the biker’s eyes unexpectedly open, the boy ducks, turns around, and asks his Grandpa another question in low, urgent tones. A low chuckle is the only response. The lad sits in silence for a little while, then surreptitiously steals another glance. The biker’s eyes open again, and the sudden eye contact shocks the boy’s senses. He spins around again, and in the stillness of sitting, not wanting to be seen, the day suddenly overtakes him. His questions fade, the top of his head droops against his grandfather’s shoulder, and the dim lights of the island tiptoe closer without his knowledge.

The biker sits, watching the truckers, listening to the boy’s newfound silence, keeping track of the Ferry personnel and occasional other passengers that wander through the tables looking for something to do. Here, at the bow of the ship, an atmosphere has been created that makes others hurry along, feeling out of place here, looking to find refuge in another part of the ship. This place is for those who have done Deeds today. And this boy is in their midst. The grandfather has, by being here with him on this night amongst the truckers and the biker, shown this boy who he will become, where he belongs in this life, a Doer of deeds.

The First Christmas Tree

I never intended to call my first car pretty, until I learned how pretty $700 of your fathers money can make a car. Seven Hundred parentally-sponsored dollars makes a car beautiful. I drove it like it was the love of my life. But of course, it was not. It did, however, carry the love of my life well. And so I loved this car, because soon after I acquired it, the true love of my life and I were married, and this car drove us off into the sunset.

A few months later, on a beautiful winter’s morning, in our beautiful car, with my beautiful new wife, we headed out together towards the beautiful hills. The hills were beautiful not because of how they looked, but because of what they held. Somewhere up there, secreted away in a location we did not yet know, sleeping quietly in the snow, was our First Christmas Tree. The saw, the rope, the permit, all had been packed the night before. The hot chocolate was poured into the thermos, lunch was packed into the basket, and I invited my wife outside to board the carriage with a flourish. My beautiful wife raised a beautiful eyebrow at the skis now tied to the top of the car. Seven months of gestation will cause that kind of doubt in a woman. I hastily assured her she wouldn’t be wearing the skis, nor would she be expected to follow, should they become necessary. Her eyebrow was lowered, slowly, and the honeymoon glow returned to her face. It was all beautiful again.

We drove into the hills until a small paper sign on a roadside post matched the code on our forest service map and permit, and we turned onto a snow-packed side road. Soon it ended in a widened area, and we prepared ourselves for the Big Event. She reached over and squeezed my hand.

We glanced at each other before getting out of the car, and again as we stood, looking over the little Bug at each other, bubbling like children in anticipation. I surveyed the tree line for the easy candidates, and they met my expectations – picked-over shrubs that would be suitable for nothing more than potted side-table ornaments. We would have to hike in. We were not small, feeble denizens of safety. We were of robust pioneer stock, and a robust tree was the only kind that would do.

The service road led us through shin-deep snow a short ways to another clearing, and we decided to work the perimeter of the clearing, to look up close at the specimens. I carried my rope over my shoulder and under one arm, swashbuckling style, and brandished my tree-saw at the underbrush as we left the road. I took one step off the road and sank waist-deep into the snow. My wife looked down from the road, now three feet taller than I, momentarily debating laughter. She then elected silence, without a word turning back towards the car.

“No, I have a plan!” I slung the words like a snaring net, hoping to capture her interest back to me. We were only a few months into this marriage, and she still believed I had common sense. She stopped, and waited for an explanation on how a seven-month-pregnant woman should be expected to wade through three feet of snow. I flopped on my back, away from her.

When I sat back up, a six-foot trail had been prepared for her. I thought about the story of the chivalrous duke casting his cloak over a puddle before the lady wanting to get into the carriage, a story I couldn’t remember in detail, but felt that surely I was worthy of copying. I hurled myself back again, making a snow path, until I had cleared about 15 feet. It seemed like a good idea, but five minutes later with snow in every crevice of my body it seemed impractical even to me. So I began to stomp.

And stomp I did, for a full hour. At the end of that hour, my wife was more worn out from laughing at my insanity than from walking through the trench behind me. It was a fine trench, but a finer insanity. She cast her royal gaze across the clearing, and summarily proclaimed that it held no decent Christmas tree candidates. I had to agree, though speaking was difficult by this time. We stumbled back to the car. The short walk down the service road was enough for me to regain my youthful idiocy – I mean, energy, and by the time we arrived at the car I had a new plan. I opened the door for my wife, sat her down, covered her with a blanket we’d brought along, poured her hot chocolate out of the thermos she had brought, and pulled my skis off the car’s top. “Now”, I thought, “we can do this Man-style”.

I headed up the road for about an eighth of a mile. Each time I stopped to look around, the only sound was the sound of wind, open and easy, blowing across the mountain. I let my gaze span the wide landscape, opening up to the mountainside, the vastness of the woods, and to the valley below that stretched to the horizon. And then, just to the left of me, ahead by 50 yards, The Tree got tired of waiting. It shook off some snow, the sudden muffled whump of snow hitting the ground bringing me back to the moment, and to the Tree itself.

It was just the right height, from where I stood. It was just the right shape, full, well-formed, perfect in every way. I slid up to it with an easy swish, the skis stopping of their own accord, as if carrying me to a destination they already knew. This was without a doubt the Chosen Tree. All I had to do was bring it down, carry it back, and drive it home. Easy.

As I knelt in the snow, and unloaded my equipment, I realized I needed to dig for myself a spot to get at the tree with the saw. I dug down into the snow, scooping it out in armfuls. I realized there was another layer of branches actually buried in the snow, and freed them. They were as equally well-formed as the rest, so I decided to include them. More digging. Eventually, with more effort than I intended, I was ready to cut.

It took a moment to realize that my difficulty in cutting was the size of the trunk. I hadn’t realized how big around it was when I first surveyed the tree. But youthful determination being what it was, I persisted, and eventually the tree dropped.

It didn’t drop with the light swooshing sound I expected from my years with my dad cutting down trees for our family. It cracked and groaned, and went down like a mighty warrior, hitting the ground like a punishment. The violence of it’s demise caught me by surprise, brought me around to an awareness of my situation that had been missing. I surveyed my tree again. It was no mere sapling. I looked back at the hollow I had dug for myself, and realized I had dug down nearly 6 feet. Then I saw that the six feet I had dug was merely from the already hollowed out base of the tree. From the average snow line was more like ten feet. I had not cut a christmas tree – I had felled timber. I thought about the exact wording of my permit.

But still, the trophy was mine, and by golly, it was going to be gotten back to be viewed, approved, and adored by my mate. I hauled and huffed, twisted and grunted, and got the tree turned around and lined up to be dragged back to the car. It took about fifteen minutes to turn the tree, stumbling through the snow crust with the extra weight of the tree trunk in my arms, but eventually it began to move in the direction of the car. Thirty minutes later, exhausted, bruised, scratched, and covered with sticky, aromatic pitch, I broke free into the clearing where our car was. I had conquered the beast. I dropped the tree as soon as its entirety was within the vague circle of the clearing area, like a fresh bleeding boar just killed, and stood proudly over it on my skis, exalting in my manhood. My wife rose out of the car, gawking. Yes…I was The Man. I waited for her to say it.

“What on earth?” Were the first words.

“What are you…?” Was the second phrase

“We can’t take that back home.”, came third, as a pronouncement of final doom and disdain.

I realized at this critical moment that presentation was everything, so I lifted the tree as upright as I could, “But look how perfect it is”, I struggled to maintain my dignity as the tree sank suddenly and heavily into the snow, whipping a large branch menacingly up between my skis, stopping short of causing any life-altering damage.

As I twisted desperately aside she collapsed back into the seat of the car, and laughed.

Realizing that my manly pride was at risk from an acute attack of common sense, I changed tactics, defending my choice by reminding her how great the car was. She rolled her eyes. I swore to her I could get it onto the car. She shook her head and laughed some more. And so with the strength of a man whose dignity is called into question, I wrestled it to the top of the car while she stood by. It took a full fifteen minutes to get it there, and another to work the ropes until I felt it was safe for the road. In the end, we had a tree tied to a car, ready to go. Intestinal fortitude had triumphed over common sense.

I opened the door with a flourish, to beckon her into the waiting carriage. Well, I would have opened it, but the realization that the doors were tied shut with rope through the open windows transmitted itself to me through the sudden, painful, violent resistance in my shoulder. She didn’t exactly laugh this time. What she did do can only be described as hysterics. I’ve heard women with child will do this from time to time. In my prideful hurt, I reminded her of the Lamaze breathing training, and reminded her as any new father should that I was her coach. And I walked her through a breathing set. I did all this outside of arms reach of course. It was some time before her laughter became audible, but leaning against the side of the car, eventually she started to breath again and howls of laughter burst forth, echoing through the clearing.

When she was recovered, I announced with as much dignity as I had left that I had a plan. Her eyebrow raised again. And with that, I scooped her up bodily, and placed her feet inside the window, and indicated I expected the rest of her to follow. She protested, then slid awkwardly toward the passenger seat. She demanded I swear I would never tell what she looked like at the point where both mother and child were entering the car. I told her my dignity had affected my hearing, and could she please repeat that. And then we both laughed as she and our yet-unborn daughter settled into their seat.

I lashed the skis to the sides of the tree, and slid myself into the driver’s side, like a race driver. I felt the car move as if it were a whole new vehicle as we began down the road. The tree extended in front to the very edge of the bumper, and in back was actually two feet longer than the Beetle itself. But with fifty feet of rope wrapped around it, the Bug was going to follow that tree to its final destination long before they would become separated. And so we eased ourselves onto the icy mountain highway.

A 1966 VW bug is not, shall we say, the most aerodynamic of vehicles even on the best of days. When augmented by timber on its way to the mill it operates more like a hang glider than a motor car. And so we eased down the road at a top speed of about 45mph, feeling our way through gentle breezes, the patches of ice on the road, and our own mirth at our youthful idiocy. A large station wagon overtook us in the other lane, suddenly swerving and braking hard when they came up beside us, apparently not realizing until the last moment that they were overtaking an actual car, and not debris on the highway. People gawked as I nursed strained muscles and broken skin in the parking lot of the department store where we stopped to pick up a christmas tree stand. When we arrived home, I cut the ropes, and freed my wife. I had offered to slide her out the door the way she got in, I forget the exact response, but I remember something about God’s green earth.

I contemplated the unfettered tree still perched on top of the car for several minutes, before deciding to cut it in half. The top barely fit inside the house. My wife made wreaths to give away to family and friends with the rest. And in the end, that mighty little car was forever etched in my mind as the Greatest Car Ever.

The boy who watched

Just the other day I happened to be traveling through the Boston airport. The shuttle bus I was riding was packed with people when I got on, and so, I stood. I was tired, spent from a full day of traveling, and didn’t notice just exactly how packed the luggage section was.

On the shuttle’s third stop, a man stood up in anticipation of his exit. But it was not his alone, and this became clear quickly. I had moved to let him pass, but he did not want past. He wanted his wife to be able to leave, so I quickly shuffled another direction, and realized she didn’t want to pass, either. She wanted her children to pass. And so – I shuffled again, and smiled to see the diminutive travelers disembark on their adventure, each with their own backpack and toy.  I thought perhaps somewhere in my mind they were going to Orlando on holiday, or to Oklahoma to visit Grandparents. But mother shuffled the children to a bench, not to the door. And then the work began.

The Father handed a bag down to the mother. Then another. Then a stroller, and a car seat. Another bag followed, then a suitcase, two, then three. Through all this, at first I watched the father. But it became clear by the bemused comments and crescendo of gasps of other passengers that they were keeping an eye on him – my eye fell to the kids.

The girl looked around at her new surroundings with some interest, but no concern.  She absent-mindedly turned her stuffed toy over and over in her hands, and looked at precisely nothing, waiting for the next, unknowable step in this journey.   Parents were handling things, it was expected – no problem. But the boy, perhaps a year older, watched his father intently. He heard the bemused murmurings of the other passengers, and realized in that way that a child will that his dad was engaged in an Epic Task.   And so – he studied. He studied as every boy will, to see exactly how his Hero does what is done. He watched the look of determination. He noted the respect and dignity his father afforded his mother, while at the same time taking charge, doing the heavy lifting, literally, and expecting her to be in charge of organizing the landing zone. His father wasn’t necessarily a big man, in fact, he was perhaps on the small side. But he knew his job as husband and father of this Adventure, and he took it seriously. I imagined the family being permanently transferred overseas, perhaps to Italy, saying goodbye to the only language they’d ever known, and the father, as they headed into that dark tunnel of New Experience, being more than usually serious.

And the boy watched.

His watching made me think of my own father.  There were times when what he did needed watching, if ever I was to become as great a Hero as I thought he was. The funniest things needed watching. The way he operated the controls of a car. His use of words, and laughter. The way he threw flat rocks into the lake to make them skip. His methodical visual check left and right before releasing the clutch and riding away on his motorcycle to school. And so I watched, and practiced. And I learned.

Until last week, I thought maybe I was the only one who ever watched that hard. But now I realize, my own children, grown now, must have watched too. Sometimes it makes me shudder to think what they’ve seen. But kids don’t necessarily look for the bad. They want to know how to be Heroes, and that’s what they watch for. It isn’t what I do for them, or to them, but just…what I do.   And now, as a foster parent, it is no different. I doubt I can teach them anything by telling them I’m going to teach them something. I can only do what needs to be done, and do it well.

Farewell young boy. Thanks for the lesson. I hope Italy treats you well.