A Short Stroll Down Memory Lane

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”

• Helen Keller

There was a period of time during adolescence that I was rebellious. Not atypical, perhaps, but not commendable, either, and I write about it with neither pride nor pleasure. Most of my siblings had paid attention to life by this point, applying themselves at school and work. Some of them experienced variations on this common theme of adolescent acting out. I would learn more of this at a later time.

I still got good grades, fortunately, but did manifest untoward behavior. I butted heads with my father, a normally kind and gentle man who taught at the college near where we lived. I’m quite sure I tested his limits. Remembrances from that time of my mother, also sweet and gentle, are fuzzy. I recall her being there, but don’t think she interacted much, neither supporting nor condemning my outbursts.

So it was that I found myself packed off to another school almost 900 miles away from my erstwhile home. A school both my father and my eldest brother had attended, years earlier.

In retrospect, that year was good for me. After some reflection, I apologized to my father and found myself once again in his good graces. Not exactly a modern version of The Prodigal Son, but close.

One of the people I befriended during my year away, who lived several doors down the hall in the men’s dorm, was a tall Norwegian from Wisconsin. He resembled a younger…