-Lord John Whorfin / Dr. Emilio Lizardo from
The Adventures of Buckaroo
Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
I drove my eldest child to the
Oakland airport a couple of weeks ago, past the city where she was born, past the
exit I used to take back to my Oakland apartment when I returned late at night from
trips to Los Angeles, Stockton or Baja, California in the late 80’s with the
man who is now my husband. Past the exit I felt the clutch slip on my first car
but didn’t know that’s what was happening and thought I was going to die a
fiery death.
On this trip to the airport, my
eldest and youngest child and I drove past the Oakland Coliseum, which might be
called the Oracle Arena because every big arena seems to be named after a
business now. This is the same venue where I saw the Grateful Dead and Bob
Dylan in 1987 and later in 1989 where I viewed the Boston Red Sox play the
Oakland A’s and I could not let go of my ingrained childhood loyalty to the Red
Sox. The Red Sox lost but the series continued when the A’s faced the San Francisco
Giants in the “Battle of the Bay.” There was a little natural disaster called
the Loma Prieta earthquake in the middle of all of this rivalry and once all
the dust settled and baseball could resume the remaining games were all held at
the Oakland Coliseum.
This Oakland airport is the same place
I sat crying into a payphone when “People’s Express” cancelled my flight to
Massachusetts in June of 1985. It’s there where I learned about credit cards,
business bankruptcy and reading the fine print.
After my eldest daughter
effortlessly waved goodbye and disappeared into the airport last month, my
youngest child and I drove past the exit that once had a view of giant homes and
1970’s era dark brown cedar shake apartment buildings which appeared to hang
precariously onto the hillside over the Walnut Creek tunnel until they were
consumed by the Oakland Hills fire in late 1991 when I was 7 months pregnant.
I almost never think about the Loma
Prieta Earthquake or the Oakland hills fire from my Minnesota home. I also
never have these visceral memories of California while driving around the
streets of St Paul where I am more likely to remember the winter my second
child was born and I barely left the house because it was so cold and icy
outside.
All of these stream of
consciousness memories flood my brain on this one 25 minute trip to the Oakland
airport with my oldest and youngest child in the car with me. The oldest, who I
carried in a front baby pack, bundled under my oversized vintage overcoat when
she was colicky for her first 8 weeks of life. She and I walked up and down College
Avenue in Oakland where her inconsolable wails were drowned out by the buses,
cars and BART trains. We walked every night to spare the neighbors in our small
apartment building the incessant crying.
I have lived in Minnesota for 20
years and in the same house for 14. That is the longest I have ever lived in
one house or even in one state for my entire 51 years. Two of my three children
were born in Minnesota and my youngest has only ever lived in one house, except
for the two semesters we spent in California for my husband’s sabbatical in
2001 and now in 2015. I consider myself fortunate to have called so many places
home because each time I visit one of those homes I see some street sign or shop
or hillside that draws out a memory from my aging brain that I forgot was in
there.
