Gravehopping and Finding My Way Home

My favorite song about home is “Can’t Find My Way Home” by Blind Faith. The summer of 1989 my life-long group of high school friends and I saw Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young at Alpine Valley. 

We started the aimless trudge through the parking lot on the hunt for Eric’s Ford Escort, when Rolf called “Shotgun!” When we found the car, 45 minutes later, by parking lot etiquette, Rolf sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the back seat of what was really, quite a teeny, tiny little car. 

That Blind Faith song was on a “mix tape” stuck in Eric’s cassette player. I swear to god we heard that song two dozen times. I fell asleep at one point so that may be a low-ball estimate.

We were driving to Madison without a map, just some sketchy directions and a lot of pot. Did I mention we were all totally high the entire night? That probably explains why we shrieked like Howler Monkeys when we finally got to someone’s brother’s cousin’s house we’d been searching for in Madison.

“Home” has had multiple locations and connotations throughout my life. Geographically “home” has included Appleton, Boston, Neenah, Menasha, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Oconomowoc, and Shawano. The consistent location of home has always been Shawano. My maternal grandparents spent their entire lives there, or within the “suburbs” of Wescott and Richmond. My grandma grew up on what was or would become the Menominee Rez. My parents met and married there. I was baptized three weeks after being born there because my father was shipping out to Basic Training before deploying to Vietnam. While he was in country my mother and I lived with her parents, my Grandpa and Grandma Krause. 

We moved to Appleton within weeks of my second birthday, but still, Shawano was Home. When we were leaving after a weekend there, Grandma would kiss us gently on both cheeks and say, “Now you come home again soon.” Her cheeks were soft like powered pillows. I cannot remember a single time when leaving that house without hearing her speak those words.

Sometime in early 2003 my sister and I discovered that on Saturdays of Memorial Day Weekends, our grandparents and our grandma’s two sisters and their husbands, our great-aunts and great-uncles, spent the day driving to the graves of our ancestors. They cleaned off the headstones, pulled out the fake, faded flowers from last Memorial Day Weekend and stuck in a bouquet of new, brighter fake flowers, and shared stories on the drive to the three cemeteries they visited. With their tasks complete, they stopped at a tavern in Red River, another Shawano suburb. In this part of Wisconsin there are no “bars” – far too “big city.” These were taverns. They had supper at one of dozens of supper clubs they could choose from. Places we went to when I was kid and thought eating frog legs made me “exotic” and “sophisticated.” I was eight years old.

Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend 2003 my sister and I tailed along with our grandparents, great-aunt Margaret and great-uncle Dave, great-aunt Shirley and great-Uncle Butch. Butch and Shirley had an enormous Suburban with a back row tiny enough to rival the back seat of my friend Eric’s Ford Escort, which is where my sister and I sat. I swear to god every time we stopped at a cemetery, tavern or the supper club, Margaret would forget my sister and I in that cocoon and shut the door without letting us out of the car. That was the only way we could get out and every stinkin’ time she forgot, we knocked on the window looking forlorn and pissed off at the same time.

Every year at her grandmother’s grave, a woman I never met yet lives inside of me, my grandma said, “There was never a better grandma than her.” Every year I said, “She has a run for her money because you’re the best grandma there ever is.” She held me a little closer and said, “I can only hope so, Dolly.” She called all five of her granddaughters “Dolly”.

It didn’t take long before my maternal aunts and cousins filtered in to Gravehopping with us on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekends. The more we gained, the more we lost. We all lose those we love to the inevitable unknown of Death. It may come fast or slow, tragically or peacefully, but still, it comes. There can be no other way. Margaret was the first of “the Golden Girls”, as we referred to them, to pass in 2010. Then it was Grandma in 2016 and finally Shirley in 2018.

My husband and I moved to Green Bay in August 2019 for my new job. With the help of Siri, Irish accent version, I can now find more places than the casino, the airport and the stadium which was the extent of my geographical knowledge of this town until moving here.

As Memorial Day Weekend closed in around me this spring, plans for Gravehopping were made. As I was writing down ingredients for Cucumber Salad, my signature dish and meal contribution since Grandma died, I stood in my kitchen and suddenly dropped my pencil, my notepad, and I couldn’t shut the cupboard door because I was literally paralyzed. I didn’t blink, I don’t remember breathing although obviously I was, I stood there with one thought banging inside of my skull: From where I stood, I didn’t know how to find my way Home.

Shawano has been my true north since conception. Not knowing exactly how to get there is akin to fate shaking me like a snow globe only when I land, the earth is sand, the air is stiffening fog and I have no voice.

Just like so many decades before when trying to reach Madison without a map made driving monotonous and pointless, I felt that way about driving up to Shawano. For the first time in my life I couldn’t find my way Home. 

Of course, Irish Siri got me to my aunt’s house easily. Gravehopping was accomplished and is in the books for another year. However, if I had to get in my car right now and drive to Shawano, I couldn’t do it...without GPS. In the genuine sense of the lyric, “I can’t find my way home.”

A Year of Loss

My grandma Krause died in February 2018. My great-aunt Annebelle died in April 2018. Today, my great-aunt Shirley, the last of my maternal grandmother's siblings died. She was the last of my grandma's siblings and now she is gone too. I no longer have any great-aunt or great-uncles who were born in either of my maternal or my paternal lines.
We called my grandma, our great-aunt Kootchie, and our great-aunt Shirley "The Golden Girls." They accompanied us during our Gravehopping tradition well before they became part of those we would honor as a result of that tradition. I can't remember the year, but one Memorial Day great-aunt Shirley taught us about FDR's desire to enter WWII. She picked out Grandma's oranges from the kitchen table fruit bowl to provide examples of the way airplanes were posted on the ships in Pearl Harbor which caused the US Navy a delay in response. Grandma turned from her kitchen sink and told Shirley, "Don't bruise my oranges just to make your point."
Shirley also told us the story of when they were all children, sitting on the front porch one Saturday morning when John Dillinger walked his dog past their house at 1202 S. Smalley Street in Shawano. Shirley recognized him and called out, "Good morning Mr. Dillinger!" to which he tipped his hat and kept walking his small dog.
These are the stories that fascinated us, her great-nieces, and sparked our imaginations of what their childhood was like. We knew our Grandma and her family grew up during the Great Depression. They treasured oranges in their Christmas stockings. During an 8th grade project that required me to ask our grandparents about what it was like to live through the Great Depression, Grandma Krause told me, "We didn't know we were any poorer because of the Depression, we were poor anyway."
I remember my great-grandma Ziemer and my great-great-aunt Sarah Denn babysitting us, especially during fair time, the Shawano County Fair is held every Labor Day Weekend. Grandma Ziemer and Aunt Sarah would undo the buns they kept their hair up during the day and they would braid each other's surprisingly long hair down their back and sing us Menominee lullabies. I was astounded by the amount of hair they managed to pin on the tops of their heads and how long and flowing it was when they took it down.
Before dementia began eroding away Aunt Shirley's memory, we would frequently talk on the phone. She always told me I was smart enough to be a doctor, but since I hadn't chosen medicine as my career path, she swore I would get my PhD without any difficulty. As much as my parents and grandparents encouraged me to continue my education after achieving my Master's degree, Shirley was the one who said, "Someday we'll call you Doctor." In a superficial way I'd half-smile and nod in agreement when my parents or other family members would talk about me going on to get my PhD. But when my Aunt Shirley talked about it, she was committed. She believed from the bottom of her heart that I could go on to get that PhD. That led me to believe in myself that perhaps one day, when my chaotic life settled down, I would start that arduous process. Now that she's gone, I feel as if I've disappointed her for not starting down that road, but no matter what my future holds, I know I will have someone who unconditionally believed that I could do it, can do it, and perhaps someday will do it.
Right now her funeral is planned for this Wednesday, October 10, 2018. Another tradition she sparked in us is her love for the Kentucky Derby. She and my great-uncle Norton used to annually bet on that particular horse race. I hope that we get to sing "My Old Kentucky Home" at her funeral.

"The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
 'Tis summer, the people are gay,
 The corn top's ripe and the meadows in the bloom,
 While the birds make music all the day.
 The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
 All merry, all happy and bright:
 By'n by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door,
 Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!

Weep no more, my lady,
 Oh! weep no more to-day!
 We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
 For the old Kentucky Home far away."

We will honor her with that "one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For that old Kentucky Home far away."

Cucumber Salad

Today was the 143rd Kentucky Derby. We're a Derby family: we've been to the Derby twice as a family, I remember watching the Derby in 1992 from my apartment in Boston because my then-husband was at a Marine Corps Reserve training weekend, and my great-aunt Shirley and my great-uncle Norton always bet on the Derby. They'd usually watch it from my grandparents' living room while all of us kids were running around like crazed banshees. I know the first two versus and the chorus from My Old Kentucky Home, the state song of Kentucky. I don't think I know that much of the Wisconsin state song.
The Derby marks the arrival of May. A complicated month for me. This month has Mother's Day, my birthday, my grandson's birthday which is the same day as my cousin Ann's birthday, my second cousin's birthday which is the same day as mine, my friend Becky's birthday, and Memorial Day weekend. For 20 years we've referred to Memorial Day weekend as "Gravehopping" because it was about 20 years ago that I started going to Shawano to place flowers on our relatives' graves with my grandparents, great-aunt Kootchie, and my great-aunt and uncle Shirley & Butch. Grandpa, Kootchie, and Butch are gone now. Shirley and Grandma are both in nursing homes.
I was the only grandchild who tagged along with them back in 1997. It remained that way for three years until my sister decided to join us, which I was ok with. A few years later when my other female cousins and aunts decided to join in, my initial reaction was jealousy. My first thoughts were, "Fuck no people. This is my thing, not yours." I felt invaded upon. By the time we got to the Red River Tavern & Grocery, my jealousy had withered away and I thought, "The women in my family kick ass! We need to all do this every year." The weekend title "Gravehopping" was born.
Before we left for the cemeteries at 1pm, we had what amounted to a banquet cooked by Grandma, served in her kitchen on South Smalley Street. The menu included a mix-and-match of some of the following: teriyaki chicken wings, ham, pasta salad, a relish tray including radishes cut like roses, cucumber salad, potato salad and at least two desserts such as cherry torte and rhubarb torte. But the absolute BEST part of Gravehopping was the breakfast Grandma cooked on Sunday morning. In her cast iron skillet she fried eggs over hard in the bacon grease from freshly fried bacon. I began looking forward to that breakfast as soon as I was driving home from the weekend. However, here comes the rub.
The week before Gravehopping in 2015 my grandma picked rhubarb from her yard and while walking back to the house twisted her ankle in an uneven spot in the backyard and she fell. She fell hard and fractured her hip. Someone driving by stopped and asked if she was ok. She wasn't and somehow either my aunt Margie and uncle Dan were called or an ambulance came (I'm not sure of the details) but she ended up at Shawano Memorial Hospital and was then transferred to AMC for hip surgery.
She was picking that rhubarb to make a torte for me because she knows I love her rhubarb torte. The guilt and responsibility I continue to feel about how that one event, an event she was engaging in for me, makes me cry to this day, even as I type this on my laptop in my living room two years later.
Gravehopping was different that year because Grandma was at a hospital in Appleton and we were all in Shawano, ready to stick silk flowers into the dirt next to headstones of our ancestors. We followed our basic routine, minus the pre-Gravehopping food feast, and those of us who usually spent the night at Grandpa & Grandma's did even though Grandma wasn't there. I was the last one to leave the house that Sunday.
There were no eggs fried in bacon grease on Sunday morning, and there never would be again.
Although Grandma recovered quickly from hip surgery, when the OT folks did the home safety assessment, they determined that Grandma couldn't return home because the house was so small she couldn't adequately use her walker or other adaptive equipment they recommended for installation. So she's been at Maple Lane since around mid-June of 2015. The house was sold in the fall of 2015. I no longer have a place to come home to in Shawano. It is heart-breaking because pre-hip fracture, whenever we visited, she always told us to "Come home again soon." I don't visit Shawano often any more because I don't feel that I have a place there where I belong. I don't have a home anymore.
Quite some time before the contents of the house were dismantled and the "For Sale" sign went into the corner of the front yard, my sister got a hold of  Grandma's cucumber salad recipe. I've asked Grandma for recipes many times and when relaying them, she always started with, "Well you take some flour and sugar and eggs and beat them together..." It's virtually impossible for me to replicate anything she's ever baked, cooked, or fried based on that information. However, there is one thing I've managed to translate into something edible and that is Grandma's cucumber salad.
The recipe I got from my sister doesn't list the order of ingredients, and there are a few quantities of items missing, but I've managed to cobble it together into something quite spectacular. I first made it for a Salad Bar lunch at work in the summer of 2016. My coworkers raved about it. Honestly, I'm not just making this shit up to help myself feel better. Ask anyone who was there: they loved it.
I brought it to Easter dinner at my parents' house this year and both Rog & Shirl said it tasted exactly like Grandma's.
Exactly like Grandma's. I can't imagine a greater compliment in the world. Maybe one Sunday morning I'll fry eggs in bacon grease in my cast iron skillet.

Vietnam: The Story I Never Knew

I've published this poem on my blog once before, when I didn't have anything else to share. It was written during a poetry seminar my junior year of college in Boston. I had no accurate information, so I made up what I thought could've  possibly happened when my father left for Vietnam. The only true information I had was that he and my mother were married, and based on my birth date in May 1971, I had to have been conceived sometime in August of 1970. I can guarantee you that my father never wore a leather fringed vest and bell-bottom jeans. My dad hadn't yet graduated from what I recently learned was called Wisconsin State University in Whitewater.
Recently I went through several photo albums in my parents' basement, one which was devoted to my dad's life shortly before and during his time in Vietnam.
I was born two weeks before he left for Saigon. Mom was pregnant with me when she and my Grandma Porath, my paternal grandmother, traveled to Missouri to watch him graduate from Basic Training. I'm not sure if they were married yet; their official wedding invitations list their wedding date as 01-30-71 but because my mom got pissed off and called off the wedding, they actually got married on 01-23-71. I was born on 05-14-71 and was baptized at Peace Church in Shawano roughly two weeks later because within days of  my baptism, my father got onto on a military plane and headed to Vietnam for a year.
Here is my baby picture taken at Shawano Memorial Hospital on the day I was born:

Aren't I adorable?? :-) This photo was the first photographic record of my presence in the world. Dad stayed until I was baptized then he left to fight in the war. I can't say this was "his war" with the same sense of national pride felt by both of my grandfathers who fought in WWII; Grandpa Porath in North Africa and then in France on "D+3", three days after D-Day, 06-09-44. My maternal grandfather went to the Pacific courtesy of the US government draft. He spent most of his service in the Philippines, including earning the Bronze Star, but he also served in Okinawa Japan toward the end of the war.

--

So apparently Rog left in early June 1971 to complete his duty as called upon by the US President. Dad also needed more money to complete his undergrad degree in Accounting (with an Economics minor) and he had calculated what the GI Bill would cover and, in weighing his options, he decided to serve and then take every advantage those benefits provided him. Smart thinking on Rog's part as the GI Bill helped him finish his undergrad Accounting Degree, help finance the purchase of my parents first (and only) home in Appleton, and pay for his graduate school at UW-Oshkosh where he earned his MBA while going to night school.

Over the years I've flipped through Dad's single album documenting his time in Vietnam because I'm "the family story teller/genealogist" but this time I took the photos out of the album to copy them via my scanner/printer and I discovered the most amazing thing: on the back of the vast majority of dad's pictures are notes he wrote to my mom. Had I never taken these pictures out of their 40+ year old album, I never would have discovered the brief but informative and touching notes he wrote to her.

Here are my two favorites:

This is my dad "sunbathing" and spending some time doing some light reading according to what was written on the back of this photo:

: 

Needless to say, this is generally something a daughter wouldn't have interest in reading about her parents and despite my father's handwriting always bordering on "doctor level" of illegibility to a lay person, I'm thankful that I have no understanding of the second paragraph after the first sentence and I am completely fine with that!

This puzzle has hung in my parents' basement since I can remember. Now I know it's origin story and why it's been hanging in the basement will all other Packers gear. This puzzle made it home from Vietnam... just like my dad.

Although there are approximately 40 photos I could post in this blog, there's only one more I want to share:

This is my dad in his existential, questioning the purpose of the world pose, and of course there's a message on the back:

And to end this discovery of my father's life as a soldier in a foreign county, I leave you with some lyrics from Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" as I image my Grandma Porath asking herself these very questions during that year from 1971-1972:

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Love to my father, Roger Porath, Vietnam Veteran, Old Glory Honor Flight EAA: