I've been down to see my dad's grave only a few times since he died now more than 40 years ago. His final resting spot is something like 4-5 hours from my house in an almost forgotten village where the streets have no names. Each time I've visited the place in the last 25 years--twice--odd events struck.
The first time, in the early 1990s, I hadn't been by to see it in since I was 10-12 years old and swung by on a lark, somehow found the town on a map and parked my bike on one of the few paved streets in that little blue river town. I walked around remembering houses and buildings from one of my visits from my childhood. My dad had grown up in this town, and had graduated from high school there, when they still had a high school. His family settled in there as well, his brother, and assorted cousins and stuff. I'd been there for a wedding and a funeral when I was a kid, won my first fist fight (I'd lost a ton of them previously, of course) in an alley in that little town with some boy my pre-teen age who, I guess, didn't like people from out of town. While I rained blows on him I remember thinking that the whole concept of not liking people you didn't even know seemed just so dumb. I came back into my uncle's house with blood on my shirt, and they were of course aghast as no Adams they had ever known had been in a fight.
These were not my people.
After parking my bike in the early 1990s visit I walked into the corner store, old place with wide wood flooring, and walked around, grabbed a Coke. This store was the hub of life for that town, it was grocery store, butcher shop, hardware store and a post office all in one. I slid my Coke down the counter to pay for it and an older woman working there took my money and looked at me quite oddly. I assumed it was because I was carrying my helmet and wore a leather riding jacket on a very hot day. I asked her for a phone book. She handed me a thin tome that contained names and numbers for about five of the local burgs, all too small to have their own phone book. There were some people in town, in the book, that I shared last names with, but I didn't recognize any of the names. I handed her back the book and as I walked out, I heard her ask, "Are you Dean?".
Bizarre stuff. I had not been there in at least a decade, and hadn't mentioned my name in slipping her 50 cents. Yes, yes I am.
I thought so, she said, I thought that was you. I knew your father, you look just like him.
So we spoke for a few minutes. She was older, wearing a gray smock and had deep sunken eyes. She mentioned I had a cousin still there in town and she'd love to see me and why don't you just ride your motorcycle to her trailer. The only time she smiled is when I asked for the address for this cousin. She smiled and said we don't have addresses here. Just go to the end of the gravel and there will be a trailer.
I rode to the trailer, and had a nice conversation with an older gal who remembered me for my fist fight and bloody t-shirt. Infamy! She brought me up to speed on a host of people I was related to but didn't know and then we bid farewell.
Then, a few years ago, again on a whim, I drove there after a race at a nearby track. It was only an hour out of the way and this time I made an effort to find my dad's grave. I found the cemetery and after stomping around for a while in the sandy soil and burrs I found his grave. It was an odd thing to look down and see your name on a grave stone.
Just as I found his grave the sky turned dark and the wind picked up. I snapped some photos and walked to my car as this "from nowhere" storm unfurled into something quite impressive. Trees were swaying and it was dark as dusk in the middle of the afternoon--the whole scene was like something out of a Stephen King novel. The super natural doesn't impress nor scare me and I guess even if this looked like something from Night of the Living Dead I wasn't creeped out by it or afraid. If my dad began clawing his way out of his grave to haunt me, my reaction would have been to say, you know, it's interesting you're here, and I have some questions for you but first, enjoy this cheap-shot punch right in the nuts. I waited for the unearthing to begin while sitting in the car, or the storm to pass over, and eventually it did--the sky cleared. Oppressive, humid Midwest heat returned.
The corner store was closed up, boarded over, as was most everything else in that little village. A lot of houses looked run down and the old school had been turned into a junky apartment house. I hit the road. And as I left town, I was surprised to find, just on the outskirts, some kind of very cool and odd "art of the motorcycle" display in a field. Must have been 50 old bikes, helmets and etc were all withering in the sun as field art.
People I am related to I didn't know. A man who in part made me I didn't know. But there, amidst all that confusion, a person had made a display to motorcycles. Felt a little like home.
