Why
time began on Memorial Day (or, how I plan to make you care about Hannibal,
Missouri)
How a ‘69 Chevy can make a kid feel like John Steinbeck
What you do when it’s 55 below zero and you live in the most maligned town in America
Why I learned to read at age 23
What I have in common with a 46-year-old, third-shift machinist
How I know God exhales over the Idaho sky
Where my heart skipped a beat: in the desert
How dipping my feet in Lake Erie scared me back to the sixth grade
What my oldest chum and my first love taught me about fashion and friendship
What mushroom soup says about my independence
Why a computer geek
likes to pump his water from a well
A horse is a horse, but can a barn make a Hoosier?
OF
ALL THE TRAVELING I’ve done in the last year, one of the
best trips was to northern Ohio, where I got back in touch with my oldest
chum and my first love. They each taught me invaluable lessons, without
even trying.
That first love, a dear woman named Andrea from Menlo Park, Calif., is
now a senior at Oberlin College. It’s been six years, but I still
prize my memories of the heartbreakingly perfect love affair we shared
in high school. I don’t know that I’ve loved anyone since then
in quite the same way.
Andi and I hadn’t talked in awhile, so we agreed that I should make
a quick visit to Oberlin on my way back from Cleveland. It was wintertime,
which is never very pretty in Ohio, but Oberlin turned out to be an oasis,
geographically and emotionally.
The college is really the only thing going in what is the poorest county
in the state. The faculty and student body are reputed to be rather bohemian,
and thus they fit in precariously among a conservative, farming, Second
Amendment-defending local population.
Every time we meet, Andi and I bring out the best in each other. That’s
why this visit, though it was only a day long, was so important. As I
wrote in the last section from Arizona, I haven’t had much luck with
or put much effort into romance recently. I also haven’t been enchanted
by anyone in that way that happens when you’re least expecting it.
I needed to spend time with Andi, whom I will always care very much about,
to see if I was still capable of being overcome by someone’s total
human beauty. If there was anyone better suited for the job than Andi,
I haven’t yet met her.
In an afternoon, without knowing what she was doing, Andi persuaded me
that the trials and errors of the last six years do not mean the right
person isn’t out there. In fact, picking up on her silent details
that once mesmerized me made me believe even more strongly that my pickiness
and reluctance to actively seek out romance for romance’s sake will
serve me well — because there must be others as completely wonderful
as she was and is.
My trip to Cleveland was likewise eye-opening. There I reconnected with
Josh, my on-and-off best friend for the last 18 years. He and I grew up
together tangling in the backyard and on the soccer field, but our competitiveness
always drew us closer in the end. Now, that has subsided and we’re
learning how to translate our formidable childhood friendship into an
adult brotherhood.
For all of our commonalities, Josh and I grew up very different as well.
At the core, he is more like my mother than he is like I am: He’s
on time, he’s tidy and put together, his dishes are done and his
clothes match. In short, he dots every I and crosses every T that I would
neglect.
This thoroughness carries out into his fashion sense as well. He’s
handsome, dapper and adroit in his styling. When he goes out, people notice
him. And when he stays in, his apartment may as well be on Central Park
West: It’s simple, but ultra-chic.
Seeing that my fashion faux pas have worsened over the years, Josh, as
a concerned friend, has intervened. He has donated clothes to help me
update my wardrobe and sent glassware to complement my new kitchen. He
also introduces me to new music and wines every time we see each other.
I need this kind of hand-holding, and he knows it. Because if it were
up to me, I’d go to work in torn jeans and a flannel shirt. But fashion
mores aren’t up to me; that’s not the way the world spins round,
and in the cause to make me join that world, Josh is my patron saint.
Because of Josh, I now possess shiny shoes and a black belt. I have black
pants. I now know what flatware means.
Because of him also, I have learned that it’s okay to spend a little
money for the sake of style. Now, I’m not putting gel in my hair
or anything drastic, but I do find myself flipping through magazines like
GQ and Real Simple every now and then. Finally ditching
the farm life and moving into a nice apartment — that’s Josh’s
influence. So is the Audi A4 I just invested in.
WHILE JOSH HAS NAILED
DOWN the trappings of cosmopolitan living in the trendy Coventry
neighborhood of Cleveland, he also knows how to put his feet up and let
the sun shine on his face. Every weekend, like I do, he escapes to a better
place. But whereas I am galavanting across the Midwest, he has one destination
only: Lakeside, Ohio. Over the years, I’ve been to “the Lake”
many times with Josh, and just three weekends ago we met there again.
It was a great chance to reconnect with a wide range of old friends I’ve
made through Josh — people I wish I could have grown up beside. I
do have a few lucid memories with Josh’s Lakeside friends, including
one coming-of-age tale that still scares me back to the sixth grade every
time I recall it. Let me share from my journal last year in Lakeside:
“So there I was in the Buckeye state, relaxing like a retiree. 'Twas
an easy moment in life, with my feet in the grass and Lake Erie 40 yards
off, just beyond the lilies. This town, Lakeside, is labeled (literally,
it says this on the sign into town) “a Christian family experience.”
Mainly a Methodist summer retreat in years past, up to a quarter of Lakesiders
now live there year-round. Many of the cottages, each bearing an individual
name (like “Two Sisters,” “Dream a Little Dream” or
“The Showboat”) have been there for more than a hundred years,
and a handful of the families have been going to Lakeside for close to
as long.
“This was not my first visit to Lakeside. That was 12 years ago,
when, as a sixth-grader I went up to watch my father give a sermon to
the annual Methodist conference. Even though I have been there several
times since, I recall that first trip with eerie clarity, for never in
my life, before or since, have I been as scared as I was that first night.
“I was doing a lot of growing up back then. My underarms were getting
fuzzy and and my social skills were coming around — but I nevertheless
felt awkward at nearly every turn. I think some of this stemmed from my
friendship with Josh. His family had been going to the Lake forever, and
his being there had a lot to do with my enthusiasm for visiting. The thing
was, Josh always fit in because he was older, suaver, and more willing
to take risks. He was stealing shots from his parents' liquor cabinet
when he was 12, whereas I was much more cautious — even fearful of
breaking rules. As a consequence, I spent most of my around-Josh time
in his shadow. He towered over me physically and he was much more able
in social situations, often leaving me a half-step behind.
“After going to a few parties, where Josh had sneaked a couple of
cheap beers from the high schoolers, a bunch of the Lakeside vacation
regulars decided to go on an exploratory mission of an old building in
town that was rumored to be haunted. Wo-ho-mis, as it is called, has long
been a dormitory for Christian women visiting town for one reason or another.
But without long-term tenants, the place was always a bit mysterious.
On that night, where uncertainty was the word (should I drink that booze?
How can I make a move for Megan Meyer, the cute little blonde girl from
Michigan?), we decided to confront Wo-ho-mis and all its myth.
“The house was a grand old mansion, plucked from some late 18th-century
cotton plantation. It lacked the ornate and gaudy features of a true Southern
palace, but it had the massive white pillar supports and the buttressed
joices holding firm the roof of this altogether gigantic and grandiose
structure.
“We ventured inside to find a quite welcoming atmosphere, actually.
The first floor was mostly common space comprising a broad hall and recreational
room. There were the usual implements: a television, lots of couches,
even a foosball table, as I recall. I did not notice shuffleboard, although
I would not have been surprised to find it in there: For some reason,
that's a big game in town. For the dozen or so of us who were a little
bored by the lazy summer evening, this wasn't such a bad destination!
“But something was amiss. Every now and then there would be a knock
or a whimper or a scratch that got someone's attention. After a few of
these foreign sounds, reported only by the most paranoid of our number
(READ: the most courageous to say anything), there was an initial suggestion
that we investigate. The most intrepid (READ: the most shit-scared) balked,
saying we were “hearing things.”
“Well, we were hearing things, I'm quite sure. Loud and clear. As
the frequency of these transmissions increased, the tension in the room
mounted. I can recall screwing up my face in private, trying to get ahold
of myself before I soiled my pants with fright. The electric crucifix
on the wall shimmered a couple of times, and I'm pretty sure most people
saw it. And then, we heard the ghost:" Wo-o-o-o-o-o, woooooe-e-e-e-e-e,
wooo-o-o-o-o-o-o." I can tell you I was paralyzed by with terror.
But somehow, one of the older, tougher kids persuaded us to go upstairs
and check this place out — and to banish the evil spirits if necessary.
“We were a sight to see. Ten or 15 of us bunched up, the tallest
behind, pushing the younger ones to the front (very clever.) We peeked
in each of the rooms, glancing swiftly through the doors and jumping back
to the security of the group. I still remember that old schoolhouse glass
in the doors, the kind with the beehive metal wiring in between panes
to prevent snot-nosed kids from completely shattering them. The whole
place was painted a deep, depressing green, so that even in full light,
it seemed dark, damp and dank.
“After scouring nearly a dozen rooms, our confidence was building.
But then we heard a creek, and a window at the end of the hallway, which
seemed to go on as long as a Kansas highway, opened itself. Two figures,
amorphous and colorless, crawled through and began a death march in our
direction. Owing to my limited facility with words, I cannot accurately
tell you how exactly my organs turned and my brain hemorrhaged. I went
on sensory overload, and thus could not do anything but stare my Judgment
in the face. The figures crept forward, arms I could presently make out
spread wide and close to the floor.
“The assailants’ faces were still nebulous. As my internal fire
alarm cried out to get the hell out of there, I was stampeded. Several
of my comrades trampled me, but I got up and forged through. The hallway
was only a few feet wide, like a prison, and that's just what it felt
like: no escape. Down the back of the hall we fled, each of us at one
point or another pinned to the wall as the cloud of kids bottlenecked.
We turned a hard left, whereupon both my sister and I sprawled down a
full flight of stairs. We couldn't feel a thing. The survival adrenaline,
coupled with the slight state of shock, urged us onward. Across the rec
room we sprang, frantic to find a seam to the outside.
“Katrin, my sister, found it. Not knowing how to open the porch door,
she plunged her arm through an open window and shoved the door open. Out
streamed the most ridiculous band of shrieking bandits Lakeside ever saw.
“Across the street and up the hill to safety we all ran, and kept
running, till some high-schooler, barely able to stand amid his laughter,
flagged us down. He gathered us up and delivered the sobering truth: What
we had seen was not an apparition at all, but one of his buddies playing
one of the harshest and best-conceived pranks I'll ever come to know.
The kids had heard us talking earlier in the night that Wo-ho-mis might
be haunted, and they took it upon themselves to set up a whole plan to
terrorize us. They inserted a middle-aged (nearing the end of junior high)
mole to report on what we were thinking, what we planned and when we planned
to do it. They schemed all day, gathering all the black garments they
could find, even purchasing panty-hoes to go over their heads and faces.
It was mean-spirited and nasty, but mostly it was brilliant. It worked
to perfection; we were suckers, and we deserved what we got.”