Door County Style

“Catharsis”

Posted on 29. Oct, 2008 by Tom Bridenhagen in Literature

On the surface Joe Garmin looked relaxed enough as he pulled his ‘05 Dodge Grand Caravan into a parking space at his hometown McDonald’s and got out. Garmin’s medium length hair, mostly dark brown but with a touch of gray around the edges, was neatly combed. His Green Bay Packers hooded sweatshirt, his Levis and his light gray hiking boots were clean and devoid of grass stains, or any other stains, for that matter. In short, he looked fine.

Joe opened the door to McD’s, strode to the counter top and with a little smile, ordered, “One senior coffee, please, Abby?”

“You want caff or de-caf?” the cute, dark ponytailed 20-something clerk asked.

“Caffeinated, please. I need my morning drug fix. And one cream on the side.”

He accepted the coffee with a slight smile, set 53 cents – exactly two quarters and three pennies – on the counter top, turned and went back outside. He got into the light blue minivan and turned the key to “accessories.” Immediately the red airbag warning light came flashing on to the dash display. Again. Cripes, there goes another hundred bucks if I have to fix that light,” he grumbled. He turned on the radio. Talk radio.

“It was another wild day on Wall Street,” the irritating voice was whining. “Two weeks ago we had the worst drop in the history of the stock market. Yesterday it was up more than 920 points. Today it took the second worst beating in history, more than 700 points. Virtually wiping out all of yesterday’s gains. The question no longer is, ‘Do we have a recession? But instead, the question now is, ‘How long will the recession last?’ ”

“Oh jeezez” Joe said outloud. “There goes my 401K again. By the time this mess is done, I’m going to be working ’til I’m 80.”

The Voice continued, “John McCain is being widely criticized for his negative campaign ads and his failed, apparently politically motivated attempt to temporarily suspend his campaign and go back to Washington to supposedly fix the economy. And McCain’s being quoted as saying he’s ready to nuke Iran, if necessary. Not to mention, can we really afford eight more years of George Bush’s policies?

The Voice went on, “And ACORN, the voter registration group, is now being investigated in more than 11 states, most of them swing states. Barrack Obama at one time served as an organizer and trainer for ACORN. And as their attorney he even sued several major U.S. financial institutions, among them CITI Bank, for failure to give enough sub-prime loans, according to the terms of the Community Reinvestment Act. And Obama has had ties to former terrorist William Ayers and Chicago convicted felon Tony Rezko.”

And in almost the same breath, “Aren’t we, the American people ever going to get a good candidate from either party to choose from?”

Garmin’s hands and arms were tingling. He picked up the small, thimble shaped dairy creamer container peeled off its paper lid with a fingernail. The container in one hand and his coffee cup in the other, he tried to pour the creamer into the cup. He was successful… mostly… except for the quarter sized wet spot that now graced the front of his sweatshirt. He swore lightly under his breath, futily attempting to wipe away the new stain.

Yesterday afternoon Joe and his wife Polly had gotten a phone call from their oldest son in Madison. “Kelly has stomach cancer,” Simon had told them. Kelly, Simon’s daughter, was only 15 years old. Oh my god, what next? I mean she’s just a kid, a little kid! I’ve lived a long time already. I wish it was me instead of her. She’s got her whole life ahead of her yet.

Joe could feel his face reddening and a light film of sweat broke out on his forehead. He wiped it with the back of his hand. Oh man. All these things gone wrong. The whole world’s messed up; this whole deal is really getting to me. I gotta git away to get someplace where I can take a deep breath.

So two hours later, just before 3:30 pm, 61 year old Joe Garmin turned the minivan onto an unnamed gravel road in Oconto County. The words of Martin Luther King came to him and he spoke outloud.
Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!” And he heaved a deep sigh of relief.

As Garmin drove down the one lane road, the gorgeous autumn woods closed in around him. Maples in bright shades of orange and red and yellow. Oak trees with their rust colored leaves, a more subdued counterpoint to the brilliant maples. Sumac bushes, leaves flaming red above the sunny east shoulder. Clusters of sandy brown ferns accenting the woods on both sides of the road. The colors, all set against a mid-green background of five-needled white pines. Above, a pollution-free, deep, cloudless, azure sky.

And best of all, no noise except for the quiet scrunching of the van’s tires on gravel. No trucks, no motorcycles, no lawn mowers, no leaf blowers. And no talk radio hosts to intrude on his thoughts, to send him to yet another bout of depression and melancholy.

Near the end of the short road, Joe turned left onto an unpaved, ungraveled remnant of an old logging road from the ten year old cutover. The road was now the pathway to their upnorth cabin and mental escape at last, temporary though it would probably be. A person could relax and enjoy the colors and aromas and soft autumn breezes and recapture his spirit. At least for a while.

The home made cabin wasn’t very big but it was nice. It had started out as a 12′ x 24′ storage shed for their boat and popup camper. Then Joe and his three sons added another 12 x 24 slab to the first one, tore down the east wall, extended the north and south walls another 12′, added a fourth wall to replace the one he and his sons had removed, and they had their dream cabin, upnorth Wisconsin. Six more years of from-scratch labor and their comfortable retreat, their refuge from the troubling world was mostly finished.

Joe entered through a doorway on the northwest side of the cabin and stepped into the living-room, dining-room area.

A couch/hide-a-bed, an old tweed LaZBoy rocker that had once belong to his father and a dark brown, lightly stuffed arm chair furnished the main living room area. A large, handsome, antique-framed print of a strutting male ruffed grouse drumming on a log in its spring mating ritual, hung on the wall above one end of the couch.

Behind the living room, ending on the east wall of the cabin was a dining area, a kitchen table and chairs. Above them, a wooden, chandelier-type light fixture. The light fixture had once illuminated the kitchen table in his home but now stood ready to shine its homey glow above the table and whoever had the good fortune to sit there. To the right of the dining area was a small bedroom with bunk beds for kids. And to the right of the living room, sharing a wall with the small bedroom, was a kitchen dinette area with electric stove, refrigerator, microwave and sink.

On the ceiling between the living and dining areas, a heating duct, enclosed by a framework of tongue-and-groove, “car siding” boards ran the 24′ length of the building. Several sets of deer antlers, mounted on red or blue or green cloth bases and attached to wooden plaques, ornamented the framework. The entire first floor was faced with the same kind of knotty pine boards. The total effect was warm, friendly, comfortable.

Windows graced the walls all around the first floor area, picture frames for Nature’s wooded outdoor bounty. Nature’s own pictures artworks changed with each day, each season, each year. No picture was ever the same twice.

A set of wooden stairs, with one landing, rose in the southwest corner of the cabin. Upstairs in the sleeping loft, three older mattresses, each with a pillow and bedding, were neatly arranged along and under the west slope of the roof.

The whole place gave a person an immediate home away from home, friendly feeling from the moment he stepped through the outside doorway, and Joe could feel his tension begin ebb away already, if ever so slightly.

He unloaded the van, put the sub sandwich, he’d purchased at a Subway shop/Shell station in Coleman on the way north, into the refrigerator of the cabin. Fifteen minutes later, bedding all ready for a good night’s sleep, van unloaded and cabin windows opened to let in the fresh air, he picked up the book he’d brought along and went outside to sit at their picnic table near the simple, brick campfire ring, ready for Nature and a good book to bring the gift of their healing power.

“The Testament” by John Grisham was an uncomplicated but insightful story about basic human values, about a real love between a man and a women, and about one man’s battle with alcohol addiction. Joe began to read. And relax.

A light breeze drifted through the trees around him. An occasional gust of the wind sent showers of dancing, spiraling maple leaves drifting down from above. A pair of raucus bluejays came “jaying” through the woods and landed in a pine just a few paces to his left. Joe sat perfectly still, his book momentarily forgotten, as one of the jays landed on a branch no more than a dozen feet above his head. The jay flicked its tail several times, cocked its head to one side to give Joe a good once over. Satisfied that Joe was no threat, the jay picked away at something or other on the branch, perhaps some brown-head, black-bodied wood ants. A few seconds later, the pair of jays went screeching away through the trees once more.

Garmin sighed deeply. He could seldom read any book in the woods for more than just a couple of minutes. The sweet-musty aromas of wet autumn leaves, the beauty of trees and bushes and sky, the softness of a light breeze in his hair and on his face, the noisy jays, the croak of a raven, the cawing of crows, even the chip, chip, chipping of pesky red squirrels, soon had all his attention. He closed his eyes to drink in the sounds and smells.

Then it began. “Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!” The piercing bark of a neighbor’s border collie, seventy five yards away, shattered the quiet. “Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! ” On and on the shrill barking continued. Oh god, I hope that thing doesn’t bark for long. But bark it did. And bark. And bark.

Joe looked at his watch. 4:00 pm. He got up from the picnic table and went to the fire pit. He picked up the old ash axe handle they used to stir fires and ashes and rearranged several small, charred remnants of wood in the pit. The dog continued. Joe sat back down and picked up the book. The words blurred in front of his eyes. He read a paragraph. Couldn’t remember a word he read. He read it again. A third time. “Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! ”

Maybe if I go in the cabin for a while?
He could feel his tension beginning to build again. He went inside. The noise knifed through the windows. He closed them. The barking penetrated the walls of the cabin. Joe turned on the TV. “Judge Judy” was railing at a couple of defendants: “I’m smarter on my worst day then you’ll ever be on your best day!” and “You’re an idiot! A moron! You think you can talk over me!?” He switched channels. Ellen was gushing over a guest. A Channel 2 newscaster was describing a motorcycle accident in which a drunk cyclist ran into a deer and was killed. He turned the TV off. 4:30.

“Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!” Joe went to the refrigerator, got out his sub sandwich, poured himself a tall glass of milk and sat down at the table. He bit into the turkey club but he couldn’t swallow. The bite lay like a lump on his tongue. He tried to wash it down with a drink of milk. He managed to swallow the milk but he just couldn’t get the food lump down his throat.

His forearms and fingers began to tingle again. He picked up his book and tried to read. Try as he might, he could not shut out the sound of the barking. He got up, rearranged his bedding. Went to the fridge and got out a red plastic can of Folgers, then stepped to the cabinet for a coffee filter. He filled Mr. Coffee with eight cups of water, placed the coffee in filter in the percolator receptacle and pushed the “on” switch. In a few minutes the coffee was perking. Joe tried to read from the Green Bay Press Gazette that he’d bought at a convenience store on the way upnorth, but even the words of the newspaper blurred. The tightness in his arms, legs, body, face, mind grew more and more intense. He felt like a pan of water that was trying to boil, with its lid held tightly in place. The pressure just could be contained no longer.

At six o’clock, Joe stepped outside. The dog was still yipping.

“SHUT UP, YOU DUMB MUTT” he screamed at the top of his lungs. The dog continued to bark. “SHUT THAT SON OF A BITCH UP!”

And thank God, the dog stopped barking. For the first time in more than two hours.

I can’t believe it! Ted must have been there all that time, right by that mutt and he never said one word to shut it up! Joe fumed. Angrily he stalked down the driveway to the gravel road, then south on the gravel road to neighbor Ted’s place.

Ted was standing outside by the woodpile near one end of his doublewide home. He was 60ish. Short and squat. He had on a dirty tan baseball cap and a red/blue plaid shirt, frayed at the cuffs and elbows. His work jeans, snugged under a protruding belly, were held up by a pair of dirt-gray suspenders.

His red face was tight, angry looking.

Joe was boiling inside, but he forced himself to keep his voice volume somewhat under control, even though its tone was deeper than usual and much more intense.

“Ted, do you have to have let that dog bark on and on like that? He’s been barking continually for more than two hours”

“He ain’t been barking that long,” Ted growled.

“Yes he has. He started barking just after 3:30 and he’s been barking ever since. We bought this place because we wanted to get away from noisy trucks and lawn mowers and barking dogs. And we come up here and this is what we get. It would be so nice if we could just relax for a while on a beautiful evening like this and enjoy the quiet.”

“Yeah, well I moved up here because I wanted to get away from guys like you who don’t like barking dogs. It’s my property and I can do what I want on it.”

“True, you can do what you want, but the noise your dog makes doesn’t stay on your property. Look, we get up here so seldom and you’re here all the time. You live here. Can’t you accommodate just a little bit? Just let us a escape a little from that kind of thing, just once in a while?”

“I ain’t gonna argue with ya.”

Joe Garmin stared for a few seconds at the very belligerent Ted, then turned on his heels and headed back to the cabin. At least the dog was quiet. Shut up in Ted’s doublewide. For the time being.

But the good mood was gone, spoiled. Still fuming, Joe got into his minivan, drove eight miles to the nearest gas station/convenience store, bought a six pack of MGD and headed back to the cabin. Four hours, six cans of beer and several chapters of “The Testament” later, Joe turned off the Mister Coffee and went to bed. The carafe remained untouched.

* * *

Garmin slept fitfully all night. He finally gave up trying to sleep or rest and rolled out of bed at first light, 6:30 am. Nearly exhausted, he poured a cup of coffee into a ceramic mug, placed the mug in the microwave and set the timer for 1 minute, 35 seconds. While the coffee was re-heating, he rolled up his bedding and assembled the meager supplies, including the three full days worth of food and water that he’d brought with him yesterday to their cabin in Oconto County.

Coffee re-heated, he poured it into a plastic insulated cup, put on his tan, lined Carhartt hooded jacket and stepped outside into the 34 degree air. There was no breeze at all, no animal or bird sounds. Nothing was moving. The dew point had been reached during the night and a very light frost covered the platform landing outside the door, the roof of his van and the picnic table top across the yard.

The east had brightened into a rainbow of colors. Nearest the horizon, the sky was a reddish orange. Orange melted into yellow, yellow into green, green into blue. Joe hiked the 1/6th mile path he kept mowed around the perimeter of their seven acre property. The cool air was crisp and refreshing and, together with the coffee he sipped along the path, served to awaken him somewhat. He wasn’t the least bit proud of his actions yesterday and that only made his melancholy worse. He felt that he should have somehow maintained better self control. But what’s done is done, I guess, he thought. But he had no intention of going over and apologizing. After all, it wasn’t his dog that had been barking.

Early morning came and went, and 10:30 found Joe on the state highway 141, cruise control set at 68, heading south on the way back home once more. No point in staying here by myself and brooding, he mused.

Traffic was light, this Sunday morning, and more out of habit than anything else, Joe reached out and turned on the mini-van radio. But this time he was in no mood for news, weather and sports and talk show hosts. He did something rare for him…he switched to FM radio and punched the “seek” button. A country and western station. Except it sounded more like Beyonce screeching to a heavy rock beat instead of Emmylou Harris or LeeAnn Rimes or Alison Krauss or Trisha Yearwood. Punch the seek button.

Some noisy sports host on a nationwide talk show, pontificating about some college football team in the deep south ranked #1 instead of one of the Florida teams or California teams that (everybody knows!) should be the top team in NCAA Division 1.

Punch the seek button again. 99.7. Sturgeon Bay. “I heard it Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye. 1968. A memory of purple dancing raisins came back to him…wrinkle-faced, egg plant shaped figures. Mickey Mouse-type white gloves. Colored tennis shoes. Dancing “the swim” to a rock ‘n roll tune. Advertising the California Raisin brand of raisins. Joe’s tension-filled face cracked slightly, a small grin, at the memory. He turned the radio up just a bit.

1968. Wow! What a year that was, he remembered. Wasn’t that when Martin Luther King and Bobby K. were shot and the riots outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago? I think that’s when that Tet offensive happened, too. Nobody ever thought the North Vietnamese would even be able to fight much longer, let alone overrun things the way they did. I was a senior at the old Sturgeon Bay High that year. I remember I was scared to death I might be drafted. We all were. The little smile disappeared again.

“Miss American Pie,” the rock classic by Dan Maclean was next. Joe’s right index finger began to lightly tap time on the steering wheel. What a strange song that was. Still is. A lot of it we could figure out… like the part about Buddy Holly and the music dying in 1959. And John Lennon. And JFK. And Mick “Satan” Jagger. And The Jester Bob Dylan and The King Pete Seegar and The Queen Joan Baez. And “the Chevy to the levy…” the three college kids, civil rights workers who were murdered and buried in one of the new levies.

But there was a lot of things that weren’t really clear either. I heard once that Maclean was talking about how the old way of things in the 50s changed to the new way of things in the early 70s. I know it wasn’t a happy song by any means. I still love the sound of it, though. Joe’s left foot began to lightly tap on the van floor as well. He adjusted the bass just a little to give the songs a bit more throbbing beat.

“Cat’s in the Cradle,” was next. And there was Harry Chapin and brother Tom and the rest. Somewhere around 1974. “When you coming home Dad?/I don’t know when/But we’ll get together then, Son/We’re gonna have a good time then.”

And the haunting refrain of the last two stanzas… “When you coming home son?/I don’t know when/But we’ll get together then, Dad/You know we’ll have a good time then.”

Joe felt his eyes tear up. Dad, his own very best friend, the man he admired more than anybody else in the whole world and always wanted to emulate… was gone. Passed away in 1987. I can’t believe that’s more than 20 years already. Incredible. And you think you’d get over it eventually, but you never do. At least not completely. I’d give anything to have him sitting next to me now, but…

1974. I think that’s about the year when Nixon resigned.

Joe sighed. Breathed deeply. The van seemed to be driving itself. He glanced to his right and saw the exit ramp to the village of Coleman zip on by. He had no idea he’d already driven this far.

Then, on a lighter note, “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. 1967. I always liked that song. A local rock band, Rod Something-or-other, always plays that one and some Jimmy Buffet and Kenny Loggins at the 4th of July picnic in town Joe cranked the radio up to near full blast. His head began to bob up and down to the beat. He felt just a bit self conscious, wondering what people in other cars thought of a 61 year old geezer bouncing up and down to music. But he didn’t care. It felt GOOD!

1967. I was in Madison then, at the U., he thought. The DOW Chemical napalm riots. Tear gas. I hated that whole scene. All those kids filling up Bascom Hill, from the statue of Abe all the way down to bottom on the hill. Scratch ‘n sniff tear gas button in my yearbook. I wonder if that button even has any smell left to it any more. Bunch of no good, long hair, pot smoking hippies getting beat up, we thought back then, most of us anyway. Til a few years later when a lot of us, too, became protesters of sorts in many different ways.

And the radio beat went on.

And the miles flew on by.

And in delightful succession: “Magic Man,” by Heart, “Lost in You,” with Rod Stewart. “Without You,” U2.

And one of Joe’s all time favorites, Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

“Buddy you’re a big boy make a big noise
“Playin’ in the street gonna be a big man some day
“You got mud on yo’ face
“You big disgrace
“Kickin’ your can all over the place
“Singin’

“We will we will rock you
“We will we will rock you

“Buddy you’re a young man hard man
“Shoutin’ in the street gonna take on the world some day
“You got blood on yo’ face
“You big disgrace
“Wavin’ your banner all over the place
“Singin’

“We will we will rock you
“We will we will rock you

“Buddy you’re an old man poor man
“Pleadin’ with your eyes gonna make you some peace some day
“You got mud on your face
“You big disgrace
Somebody better put you back in your place

“We will we will rock you
“We will we will rock you”

Fabulous, touching memories came flooding back to him. The year he coached a boys high school cross country team that almost won the WISAA Class B state championship. Only to lose, finish second, when the team’s two best runners got sick just two days before the meet.

Members of the boy’s and girls’ teams always sang that song on the bus on the way to CC meets. The bus just rocked with the wonderful quality and exuberance of their voices. And after nearly every meet, all season, they also sang Queen’s “We are the Champions” in celebration of yet another hard won first place trophy at that meet.

Til the State meet. And the devastating loss. When, by all the rights, the top trophy should have been theirs. They deserved it. It was just so unfair.

And afterward, on the bus, total silence. Overwhelming, somber sadness. For several miles.

Til one little voice began to sing, a tiny spark in a deep, dark wilderness:

“I’ve taken my bows
“And my curtain calls -
“You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it -
“I thank you all -

Another voice joined in. And then more.

“But it’s been no bed of roses
“No pleasure cruise -
“I consider it a challenge before the whole human race -
“And I ain’t gonna lose -

And then they all sang together, their young voices crescendoing, proud and renewed and happy and strong.

“We are the champions – my friends
“And we’ll keep on fighting – till the end -
“We are the champions -
“We are the champions
“No time for losers
“‘Cause we are the champions – of the world -”

And everything was ok again. They were healed. Life, love, rewards, losses, refusing to quit, open to the many challenges that still lay ahead in their young lives. Great things yet to accomplish. And accomplish, many of them had. Joe still saw and heard them in his mind’s eye. And some of his greatest joys still came when he met one of them, somewhere, and they just stopped for a minute or two to say “hi,” to reminisce, to remember that magical season and that magical bus ride home from the State cross country meet. Two of his own kids, a son and their daughter, were on that bus, all grown up now and moved away, 40-somethings, married, with their own lovely families and life accomplishments.

Joe was nearing Green Bay now. He switched to AM radio. The Packers were playing at Lambeau Field today. He listened to Wayne Larrivee and Larry McCarren and their pre-game show. Then Larrivee announced, “And now we’ll have the National Anthem. And we’ll have an U.S. Air Force flyover at the conclusion of the anthem.” Joe swung around the on-ramp, leaving Highway 141 and exiting onto I43.

A quick glance in his mirrors told him that he was alone on the highway, nearing the approach to the Leo Friggo Bridge over the mouth of the Fox River in Green Bay. To his right, through a light haze, he could see Lambeau Field. He slowed almost to a stop and rolled down his windows. On a hunch he glanced to his left. To the north.

There they were! Small dots at first, then larger and larger. Four beautiful F-15 fighter jets in perfect formation. Headed right toward the stadium. Joe pulled the van onto the shoulder. The jets loomed larger and larger. The sound of the National Anthem coursed through the van. Then the jets thundered directly over him, no more than 200 feet up. Gorgeous deep blue fuselages against a light blue sky. The jets, the anthem.

And exactly on cue, the planes passed over Lambeau Field to a rousing ovation from 72,500 Packer fans. Joe marveled at the precise timing and formation of the planes and their masterful pilots. The jets continued over the stadium, then swung to the south, then southeast, til they became just tiny dots and then disappeared altogether in the light blue hazy sky, heading in the direction of Milwaukee.

Joe felt an overwhelming sense of the goodness of his life. Of knowing that no matter how bad things may seem, there’s always good, if you look for it. There’s always something to look forward to. Life always goes on. Every age has its rewards. You just have to seek them and focus on them.

Forty-five minutes later, Joe Garmin pulled into the local McDonald’s. He opened the door to McDs, strode to the counter top and with a broad and happy smile, put a dollar bill on the counter top and ordered, “One senior coffee, please.” I feel good now, like I knew that I would now. James Brown.

Joe felt mentally well again, for the first time in many days. With a big smile on his face, he headed home to watch the rest of the Packer game on TV. Life was good.

Tags: Tom Bridenhagen