Memories are a mixed bag

On this date (June 10) in 1974, my father had a serious heart attack. He was 45. He survived and lived another 24 years... still dying far too young.

I don't have many clear memories of that day or even the days that followed. I dimly remember visiting him in the hospital but have no memory of any particular conversations, with him or with my mother or siblings, on that day or immediately after. Funny how even a traumatic event like that may not stick in the memory very well.

I have a clearer memory of driving off Grand Forks Air Force base in my VW about one month earlier, discharged from the service after nearly three years and following my wife and one-year-old who had been driven back earlier to Iowa by Kathleen's mom and dad.

The scene that sticks with me: snowflakes floated all around me as I exited the main gate, heading for the interstate and making a right turn south. That light snow was a nice bookend to my less than seven month sojourn in North Dakota, as there was now in the air the day I drove onto the base early in November of 1973. I never had to wonder again about why so few people lived in North Dakota, with the long, dark and dangerous winter giving way quickly to blistering, humid, mosquito-filled summers. 

Putting the Air Force (and Grand Forks) behind me was a happy occasion. I had survived the Vietnam War and had 36 months of GI Bill in my pocket, so to speak. 

The best stories often involve pain and loss and challenges, but the memories I now can latch onto are mostly happy. Humans have the ability to block out those bad memories, and I suppose that provides us with just enough confidence and hope to carry on.

Some humans also have the ability to block out the pain and fear and simply get on with it. That was my mother, who at the time of the heart attack had seven of her eight children at home, ages 7-22. It couldn't have been easy for her as dad had a long convalescence. 

My siblings often say that this heart attack marked the end of a chapter in dad's life, and I couldn't agree more. Most of my memories are of a young and vigorous man who played all sorts of sports with me and Mike, my brother two years junior. Dad wasn't even 30 when he first coached me in Little League. 

Then he was 45.

Then he was gone. 

His life was not as brief as the main character in Housman's poem, and he was not snuffed out by war, but I often taught "To An Athlete Dying Young" and discretely thought about how quickly it all passes. My practice was to pair this with Springsteen's "Glory Days."

To an Athlete Dying Young

by A.E. Housman

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.