It's Just a Hat

 

Dad's Fishing Hat

To anyone else, it's just a hat, hanging on the wall. To my dad, it was just his fishing hat; couldn't even particularly claim it to be his "lucky" hat, since he was never a great fisherman, but he loved his quiet time on the lake with this brother. Dad hung his hat on a hook in the Big Cabin on Lake Siskiwit after his last time fishing on the lake the summer of 1974, just a few months before his cancer diagnosis and  his death less than two months later. The "hat" became more than a hat to Miem & Unc, who chose to leave it hanging right where Dad left it for years. Did they think he was ever going to come back and use it? Certainly not. But I'm sure, for them, it served as a sort of memorial to him; something to look at and remember the smile, the joke, the story of the man who wore it.

Was the hat all he left behind? Definitely not. Anyone who was there can also see him in the beach I begged him to build so we could have campfires next to the lake, in the picnic table that he built to satisfy me because we NEEDED a table to eat outside on the "beach." We can see him in the basement of the big cabin where he led friends and family in the pouring of the cement floor and laying the concrete block to replace the wooden beams and dirt floor and walls. We can see him every time we walk from the driveway, down the stairs by the big cabin on the cement sidewalk poured to replace the dirt and railroad tie walkway that existed before 1967. (I just realized that I keep referencing all of us that have those memories, but now that my mom, Miem, Unc & Norm are all gone, I'm the only one who still carries all those memories. I'm the only one who doesn't take all of those things for granted, as if they were always there.)

Leaving Corny, I can see him when I drive by our old "4th Street House" in Aurora, recognizing that after all these years, it's still painted gray with white trim; the colors he and Mom chose when they decided to repaint the gloomy tan with brown trim. He's there when you drive down the alley and see the 3-car garage and cement drive that he built to replace the rickety old 1 car garage and the fenced in backyard of my early childhood. And, he's there when you look at the addition on the back of the house that converted the old screened-in sun porch into a bedroom for Billy & Allen. 

I see my dad every time I see my cuckoo clock or hear the music play and remember that it was ME he was thinking of when his friend, Ralph  Weber was going to Germany. Ralph had asked Dad if he'd like him to bring anything back. Dad didn't think of himself, but he knew how much I was enjoying my high school German class and asked Ralph to bring me an authentic cuckoo clock from "das Schwarzwald." I see him when I look at my old bookcase, now painted a much prettier white, in my granddaughter's bedroom. It was an ugly piece of furniture from the beginning, much heavier than it needed to be, but it was the last thing my dad did for me, as I requested a bookcase to move into my new sorority house at college. I can still envision him and Ethel carrying it into the house for me.

I see my grandmother sitting in her chair or putting a holiday dinner on her dining room table when I see her Bavarian cut-glass set or the "chickie dish." My aunt, DeeDee is there every time I see the old victrola or hear Rosemary Clooney singing about Susie Snowflake or Gene Autry singing about Rudolph.

My mom is there in less tangible memories. She exists in Barton's crooked smile and Sami's thin, straight hair. She's there when I hear "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Silent Night" or when I look at the American flag or balance a checkbook.

So. Where am I going with all of this? Why am I writing this? And why now? Today, my thoughts are with Lanie; anticipating what awaits her and her kids for the next few days. Today, they are on their way to Corny to close up the cabins for the winter. Today will be the first time she arrives at the cabins without Norm. Yeah, she and I used to go up a lot before she began dating him; with my folks, with just my dad and by ourselves after I got my license; more often than not, Norm was there too. But since my dad died and I lost my "claim" to the cabins, she's always been there with him. 

It's been two years since she was there last with him. Last year, they didn't go because it would have been too difficult to take all of Norm's equipment and frightening to think about what they'd do if something happened to him so far from medical services. Now, she goes to face 53 years of memories alone. Yes, three of her kids will be with her and undoubtedly, they'll all share some wonderful family memories, but they'll each feel those memories differently. Some may elicit laughter; some tears; and others may even bring out some anger. Hopefully, facing those memories will facilitate healthy grieving, healing and the ability to look to the future and create a new generation of Zielke memories on the lake.

The summer of 1975, Miem & Unc faced a different Corny than they had known the previous seven years, while my dad was living. The summer of 1977, Miem and her kids learned how to adapt to a Corny without Unc. The summer of 1997, Norm and his siblings determined the future of the cabins without their mom. Now, Lanie and her kids face the same evolution without Norm's guiding influence. As Lanie intends to follow Miem's example and keep the cabins going as long as her kids have an interest in them, the Zielke legacy, established in 1967, will carry on. 

The thing is, as new people "take charge" of anything, even our history, we lose evidence of times gone by. What one person may perceive as an ugly old book case or a shriveled, crusty fishing hat may be a treasure more valuable than gold to another. As I learn of old buildings being torn down, see old technology become obsolete or see farmlands that have been replaced by strip malls or new housing communities, I recognize the progress and the need for it to go on, but a part of me is still saddened over the simpler times that are lost or the nostalgia of the "olden days. I wish I'd had a better understanding of that in my younger years, when I could have asked my parents more questions about things that just seemed old-fashioned at the time.

I've learned so much as I've dug deeper into Family History over the past two years; as I've interviewed my Aunt Grace to learn more about their family as she was growing up and as I've researched my mother's birth family. People, events and tragic times fade into mere memories. Memories can be revisited by recording them or by going to places that they happened, but whenever I'm able to physically see or touch something, I'm grateful that the memory of a person can be brought to life again with something as simple as just a hat.