When I was 10 years old, my dad and mom started planning a trip to Canada.
I asked for details, and my dad showed me a brochure of where we were going to stay, and being a verbose man, he painted a picture of a sweet, little cabin nestled next to a beautiful lake. It had an outdoor grill, brightly colored beach towels, lounge chairs for sunbathing, a fully functional kitchen, cute rooms with bunkbeds for all the kids, as well as a nicely appointed master suite for my parents. The lake had soft, sandy beaches surrounded by beautiful trees ablaze with fall foliage. He waxed on poetically about the deep wilderness surrounding the cabin where he would stalk, shoot, and kill a big, black bear.
What? Kill a bear? A big, cuddly BEAR?! I was aghast… suffering an agony of pre-teenage angst at the thought of a bear being heinously slaughtered by my shitty hunter of a father.
Previous hunting trips had vividly demonstrated his sizable ego and sheer ineptitude, ending in a culmination of dark humor. When my dad went deer hunting the year before, he missed the heart shot and instead hit it in the head, which rendered it unusable as a trophy. Rather than admit failure and come home empty-handed, he stubbornly insisted on having something stuffed and mounted. Hanging in our hallway was a stuffed deer butt mounted on a plaque. The ass of a deer… white tail and all… cut off at the knees. Though it was dark-humor funny, I didn’t want to live with another animal ass with its rather large butthole staring at me in abject humiliation.
As a budding activist, I leaped into action to stop this looming atrocity. I knew exactly who to appeal to for aid. Congressman Drinan had just visited my school, and I was impressed with this politician who was not only a Jesuit priest but also a lawyer and a human rights activist. I figured he could stop my dad from killing a bear, so I wrote a letter to him begging for his help. He did write back and reassured me that black bears were not on the endangered species list and to enjoy the family trip. What a sell-out. I still have his letter in a box somewhere, though I’m not sure why.
I had to come to terms with the possibility of coming home with a stuffed bear ass strapped to the roof of our car.
I resigned myself to enjoying this trip as much as I could and being a kid, that was plenty because what kid didn’t love a car trip back in the ’60s and ‘70s?? Seat belts? HA! I was anticipating lying upside down on a jump seat in the back of our old Woodie wagon while hanging my feet out the window playing I Spy with my siblings. I also brought a pad of paper to write funny messages for the other drivers to read.
My mom stuffed our old station wagon with six kids, our two dogs, Charcoal and Goulash — a big, black Newfoundland, and a hunting Vizsla, not to mention suitcases, snacks, and sundry.
We were off!
The aforementioned antics ensued on the 5+ hour drive to Montreal from our little town of Lunenburg, Mass. It was a fun, noisy drive replete with endless variations of, “Are we there yet?”
Finally, we arrived!
Cooped-up kids and dogs tumbled out of the now stationary wagon. We glanced at the cabin and pelted toward the lake glimmering behind it. I could hear our mom yelling something in the distance, but we were focused on getting to the lake.
SPLASH! In jumped our dog Charcoal. Newfoundlands love water above all else. She began to dog paddle out towards the lake’s center as my mom came rushing up. What she had been yelling was, “Grab the dog! Don’t let her get wet!”
Too late.
It was cold and overcast, and there was no soft, sandy beach or any lounge chairs. It was all rocks and dirt. The non-existent beach didn’t deter me because there was a house to explore. We ran back to the front of the house just in time to hear our dad cursing as he inspected the grill outside. It was a tiny, 12” tall, rusted Hibachi with one broken leg leaning forlornly against the side of the cabin. It was clear that no perfectly grilled steaks would happen that night.
Our Vizla was the first one through the door. She shoved past my dad and bounded into the kitchen. I heard violent cursing from both parents now as we all piled in behind them. We were greeted by a steaming pile of shit left by Gouly as a welcome gift.
Since it was rapidly becoming dark, we searched for a light switch. The only light was a ceiling fixture with a pull-string. Tied to the string was a big chicken bone. It was gross and yet somehow in perfect alignment with everything that had occurred so far.
Along with the fresh shit on the floor, there was a peeling kitchen counter, a broken oven, a leaky faucet, and strangely, a bunk bed in the corner of the kitchen squeezed in next to a dilapidated table with not nearly enough chairs for the eight of us.
Charcoal came in dripping water and mud all over the floor, bumped the stove, and almost knocked it over. My mom found a threadbare beach towel and went to dry her off so she could strap a bright pink square of cloth she had sewn around her body. This was so she wouldn’t get shot by some stupid hunter thinking she was a black bear.
As my brother and his friend had claimed the bunk bed in the kitchen, my sisters and I searched for our room. The only way to get to our room was to squeeze through a small, dingy master bedroom and through a tiny, dank bathroom. The shower had a huge spider sitting in a nasty web that looked hungry. Our room had two bunk beds jammed next to each other and no place for luggage.
My sisters Greer and Holly, both being older, grabbed the bottom bunks. Summer and I got the top bunks. Holly jumped onto her bed, and I clambered up to mine. I threw myself onto my bed with a shout of laughter, and disaster struck. I heard a loud crack. The bed collapsed, and the mattress broke free. Shrieking all the way, I rode that mattress down like a novice bull-rider and landed on my sister below. All I could hear were muffled screams coming from underneath me.
That was the last straw. My mom was still dejectedly cleaning up shit and mud in the kitchen while trying to figure out how to feed eight people without a grill or an oven, and my dad lost it. Whoever had rented this shitty cabin to him was going to be the unfortunate recipient of my father’s fury, and that was no small thing.
We left the next morning at the crack of dawn. Being a kid, it was an adventure. As an adult, I can only imagine what my parents felt. One good thing came out of that trip, though… no black bears died.
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This post was previously published on Grace Getzen – Connection Creatrix.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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