When the last day of school arrived, Mom had Brian and me load up our most personal belongings for our escape from North Dakota. She originally wanted to bail right after we arrived in March but Dad talked her out of such a rash act. Now with our education concluded until August, she could pursue her personal wishes. Mom just didn’t bother to clue us in on the other elements until later because we figured moving in with Grandma would be it.
The drive from Beulah to Bloomington was exciting. We would be returning to “civilization” even if it was really “civilization lite.” Our escape route mainly went through South Dakota and Iowa. Music on the radio was pretty impressive in 1985 too: Simple Minds, Tears for Fears, Eurythmics and the list could go on. Top 40 stations weren’t that unbearable during this Summer; it’s about all there were along the bulk of our trip.
For the half-way point we made it as far as Sioux Falls, SD. I clearly remember getting settled in at our hotel room with plenty of time to spare to see Duran Duran perform on a Bob Hope special.
I know we made it to Grandma’s on day two; Iowa doesn’t take as long to cross and Sioux Falls is near the border (the contentious SD-IA one). It was also the last demonstration of marathon driving my mother ever did in front of me. This task was delegated to us “kids” after I completed driver’s ed at Bloomington HS and Brian scored his license a year later.
Speaking of taking driver’s ed, it was a rather rude shock for me. I was more interested in getting a Summer job I could walk to. Driving didn’t appeal to me: all the classmates I had who had access to cars were obsessed with driving in my opinion and it was another fake carrot my parents would dangle in front of me so I refused to take the bait. No such luck on avoiding those stressful several weeks in school. The lecturing was fine, it was the instructor in the student car who made me tense. This coach would liberally hit his brake pedal for any reason. I suppose it was more sanitary than pissing on me to show who was in charge. I never remembered this jerk’s name but I knew Brian “studied” under him when he complained about some cross-armed jackass after his completion of driver’s ed.
The annoyance of having to attend driver’s ed paid off, I received my permit and as long as a licensed driver accompanied me, I could take the wheel. I also discovered Adventureland (a store in the back of Hobbyland that sold D&D stuff) when I walked home from class one afternoon. This gave me the silver lining to attending “Summer” school; walk home, browse Adventureland for 30 minutes and then really go home.
Within a couple weeks of relocation, bad news came. Grandma Maggi (the one we were living with was Grandma Maier) had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This discovery happened accidentally. What I recall was she fell down reaching for something on a high shelf and somebody found her lying on the floor gasping for breath. Aunt Letty figured it was Grandma’s asthma which was also aggravated by a lifetime of smoking. The x-rays said otherwise and Letty proceeded to notify the Maggi Clan around the US about Grandma’s tentative demise. We made our visit shortly after she was allowed to go home. I remember her being pretty lively, as if dying was a couple years away. Uncle Skip and Aunt Colleen were around too. Skip’s humor never lets me forget this get-together. For some inane reason, the neighborhood used a Civil Defense siren to signal curfew at 10 PM. Upon hearing it, Brian and I sprung out of our seats in fear courtesy of North Dakota’s 300 missile silos and recent memories of The Day After. Skip took notice and ribbed, “Looking for the cloud?” How I wished I could’ve laughed, nuclear war was a recurring nightmare for me until my twenties.
Grandma’s impending death wasn’t all gloomy. It made me closer to my older cousin Leesa, Aunt Letty and Uncle Cliff’s daughter. Brian hung out with their son Jason because they were the same age, their musical tastes were similar and they had a “dorky,” older sibling who cramped their style. In the past, I didn’t really get along with Leesa. As a kid I thought she was a know-it-all which is usually an accusation other bossy, know-it-all kids (me) level at those who irritate them. It was probably fueled by our age differences too. Two years isn’t much when you’re an adult (25-up) yet it’s colossal with children, teens and young adults. During the larger Maggi gatherings, Leesa usually hung out with the older cousins (Dana and Denise), leaving me to be the “boss” over the younger ones: often Brian, Jason and Ronnie. Matters had changed in the Eighties thankfully. I had three years of high school under my belt along with three major relocations and Leesa just completed her freshman year at Western Illinois University (my dad’s alma mater). We had become more or less our own “persons,” not extensions of our parents.
In the beginning I figured Leesa tolerated me out of boredom; Minooka (where Grandma, Aunt Letty and Uncle Cliff shared a house together) didn’t have much going on and she had little in common with Jason. Plus coming home after being away at college for eight months was probably a letdown too (I learned this in 1987). I felt I was compounding a rotten situation for Leesa because she was much closer to Grandma than I. This perception evaporated quickly on the day she let me drive without our parents around. Good thing she was wise enough to do this out in the boonies. On another evening Leesa took me along to hang with a couple of her friends, see Back to the Future and play putt-putt golf. We definitely opened up to each other more; how much our younger brothers irritated us, how insane our parents could be (I think both our mothers believe pregnancy is an airborne disease) and the pain of being uprooted during the school year. For me, college was fast approaching. I had numerous questions about what it was like and I wanted to hear the truth, not the crap my parents were always telling me. Leesa obliged. I even got to read parts of the Sex Ed/Psych book she kept. Jason and Brian turned into Beavis & Butt-Head over the illustrations. Me? I got a chuckle too but I had genuine scientific and personal curiosity about the topics it covered. Call it a side effect from bullies taunting me and my poor success with the ladies. Leesa helped me out musically by turning me on to a couple bands I had never given much consideration, namely the B-52’s. I returned the favor by introducing her to what I was into: Berlin and Real Life readily come to mind.
This new, improved and peer relationship with Leesa was wonderful. In many ways, I didn’t have any friend like her in my life courtesy of all the moving we had been doing. How could I develop a personal bond after attending five high schools by age 16? I had friends wherever we lived. Just those friendships dissolved with distance since out of sight, out of mind was pretty true in the pre-e-mail/social networking days. Leesa was the older confidant/sibling I wish I had and probably needed at the time. Let’s face it, my parents hadn’t been exactly the best, most understanding people to go to for discussions after 1982.
June soon turned into July and by that time Mom sprung part two on us.
This I will cover in Summer 1985 – Part II. Currently, the first draft has exceeded 2500 words, a tad much for a Web post.