Is the map weird at your house, too?

Dear Friend,

Once upon a time, somewhere between the years of 1973 and 1978, our family, in pieces and parts, made the regular sojourn south to visit my grandmother's father and her sisters and their husbands. Somehow, in my family's narrative, my great grandfather's trailer, located now on out in front of the home of one of his twin sixty five year old daughters,who I only knew as "Beuna and Euna, the twins" in the parlance of my grandmother. was somewhere near equatorial Guinea. Going to Traer" involved nothing short of packing to the apocalypse. For a young child like me, it was the sights and sounds and smells of an otherworldly experience where I knew I was not.

A short personal aside here: (OK. That's relative. And so are the people I'm about to tell you about. Also on "The farm" was my aunt Betty, who seemed to be a third twin in a two twin relationship, would try to serve me deviled eggs covered with Paprika. Two and one half miles away was my Aunt Euna would try to get me to like deviled eggs that seemed to be a 50/50 blend of egg and sweet pickle relish. I loved deviled eggs. They both had heard that much. And God bless them, they were trying.

Years later, I would learn things I'd wish I'd know then about my Aunts, like that had both met their husbands as "dance hall girls" during the outbreak of World War II. And I'm guessing my Aunt Euna sold a healthy amount of unpasteurized milk, which would get her on a watch list today. And once, while I was in college, my Aunt Betty, hearing my mother saying I'd been sick because of a severe must and mildew allergy, looked at me with most electricity I'd ever I'd over seen in an old woman's eyes, smirked, smiled, and said, "Maybe your girlfriend Paula is musty, Eric. Did you think of that? Maybe your girlfriend is musty." Then she laughed to herself and walked away. Notice how she repeated the most psychologically-- OK, and lets be honest, for a hot minute, physiologically damaging phrase for full scaring effect. People are absolutely amazing.

The best part of the drama? My sainted Grandmother was a part of a family of four siblings. And I cannot remember a time of more than six months when all of them could peacefully coexist in the same space.

Traer seemed like a step into another world. What cemented this idea in my young mind is that, much like sending a missionary on a journey, we would often,every few months or so, drive my grandmother north to the bus station, and drop her off"for a visit" and disembark her onto a Greyhound bus. Then, we would return after what was a predetermined time and pick her back up, and hear the stories of her missionary journeys. It took me years to figure out that this northern wing, though mired in poverty itself and secretly hoarding government cheese, had disdain for southern arms of the family on all sides as the wrong kind of poor.

When she could not make the bus scheduled in Cedar Falls, we would take Grandma to Waterloo, and drop her off at the bus station there. Granted, my family did not, at the time, have access to Google Maps. Or, it seems, any sense of proportional geography. The bus station in Cedar Falls was more than three miles to the north. The bus station in Waterloo was seven miles to the east. Each transit time was approximately fifteen minutes due to stop lights, traffic and speeds. Traer? The town and farm and trailer my childhood brain and family map had always associated with Equatorial Guinea? Twenty Three miles to the south. Yes, you read that correctly. Twenty three miles. Which, because of the way my mother drove, took approximately twenty minutes. But still? North for the stay. Always. The Bride's most charitable read was that this was an attempt on the part of all parties to maintain independence. Fair enough. Would love to buy in and move on. But it doesn't square with any of the other thousands of trips and travails in the family folder. (Thousands and psychologists and psychotherapists have the referent "see, 'Study on the migration of The Clan of Danish Reindeer post Hamlet" under enmeshment in footnotes of the DSM, just as others have seen a similar DSM referent that reads "Here, see Steinbeck's "Grapes of Dysfunction in the Okies who didn't Leave," and his short story, "The Son sent North Under the Cover of the Dust Bowl because he loved Jim Beam more than he loved John Wesley," with special attention to the chapters shame and guilt and DDT and Round Up and and their generational carry-overs.)

Traer seemed like a step into another world. What cemented this idea in my young mind is that, much like sending a missionary on a journey, we would often,every few months or so, drive my grandmother north to the bus station, and drop her off"for a visit" and disembark her onto a Greyhound bus. Then, we would return after what was a predetermined time and pick her back up, and hear the stories of her missionary journeys. It took me years to figure out that this northern wing, though mired in poverty itself and secretly hoarding government cheese, had disdain for southern arms of the family on all sides as the wrong kind of poor. We still hung on to a dinner bell and two caviar bowls, for heaven's sake. Just in case.

The world traer, in most of the world, of course, means simply, "to bring" But the way my family had translated it? "To leave." "To leave behind civilization. To leave behind the better. To leave behind comfort. To leave behind modern. To leave behind proper. To leave behind everything I like in me. So I can focus in everything I hate in you.

Awful. Awful. Awful. And, trust me. I've worked with truck drivers for twenty years. I've worked with the man in the mirror a lot longer than that. And some days, if I'm honest, a lot less time. But if I learn poor map skills when I'm young, those poor map skills are almost impossible to get over.

Why this story about childhood me? Same time, different station. Child of God you. Wondering about your map. What are you bringing as you're traveling to those people you are heading towards? What are you leaving behind.?

traer and Traer. Or, you can keep driving in the wrong direction. I'm going to love you either way. But it wastes a lot of time. And you end up missing out on some pretty cool stories and some pretty amazing people. At least I did.

thus spake,

me