Memories Of Mark

August 3, 2024 Journal No Comments

{Opening memory: A faint vision of a station wagon rolling along as distancing voices sing, “John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt, that’s my name too. . . .” }

[Another memory. Early early Monday morning, July 14, 1969]

In the dark of the morning, I can hear Dad talking on the telephone. I cannot hear the words, just his voice. I stay in bed a few more minutes. Then I get up. I get dressed. I go up toward the kitchen and I see that Mickey is ready. Dad comes down the stairs, still buttoning his shirt. He says to me, “Mickey and you will go to work without me today. Mickey can drive. I have to fly out to Seattle.”

[Hold this memory for later. I am not ready for it yet.]

[Backup to Saturday or Sunday, June 7 or 8, 1969 – They were happy times, they were confusing times. It was 1969.]

It was a weekend, and we did not have to go to work. Mickey and I had just started working at Hallmark in a special summer program. I don’t remember what department Mickey worked in. I was in outdoor maintenance – cutting grass. We had just completed our first week.

Even in that first week, we had a routine going. We all would get up early in the morning. Dad, Mickey, and I would get into the Volkswagen and drive along 95th Street to Stateline, head up to the Ward Parkway parking lot, cross the parking lot over to Ward Parkway, head north until somewhere we got onto Brookside Blvd., cut to the right just after passing Twin Oaks Apartments, go up Oak Street to about 45th, cross over to Gilham, and go north right up to about 26th where we’d find a way over to McGee for parking.