Vancouver, WA 1978

Growing up on the outer banks of the Columbia River yielded all the boredom that one would expect from a shallow sixteen-year-old student going to a shithole of a school that is Gracie.

Gracie High was located on the banks of the Columbia River (as I mentioned earlier in this paper, because I'm filling up space here, even while I'm writing this paper, cute eh?)and not too far from the Paramount Nuclear Plant. My Dad would take me fishing on the weekends, and I'd stare out across the river at Portland and wish I was there, living another life in a town that was actually somewhere.

Not that Vancouver, Washington wasn't somewhere. It was, but only when you compared it to Portland. Without Portland, Vancouver didn't have an identity, just a suburb thank you very much.

My parents would say they moved to Vancouver for the tax breaks, but I saw the disappointment in my Dad's eyes when my Mom took that big job on Mill Plain. I saw the lights go out in his eyes that night. Evident in the way he sat out in his workshop room out passed the garage.

He threw darts until well after I was sent off to bed that night. I think I heard yelling the next day.

We were happy, I guess, though I never could believe that he was truly happy.

Hed have this far-away look in his eye on the river, looking out across the river, at the airport, watching the planes take off and land.

We could have lived in Battleground, Ridgefield or any of the other cheaper places, but dad took Vancouver and the tantalizing tease of Portland in its proximity.

My mom mentioned something about a old girlfriend in Portland. The guys at the bait shop up in Ridgefield where we'd go and get our bait on Sundays used to tease me about my "other Mommy" but I paid them no mind, my dad always says they were full of shit.

The day he left, my mom came home from work and found me reading the note, trembling as she tore off down Mill Plain in search of wherever and whoever he left her for.

I traveled into Portland a few times, in search of him. I've heard he's downtown working at an ad agency, with a wife and kids. He doesn't talk about us much anymore.

My new Dad's a lot more boring. He's at the plant while my Mom orders him around and makes all the decisions. I still call him Tom, which pisses him off to no end.

There are lots of things I miss about my real Dad, but one of the things that drives me crazy, you know keeping you up at night, when he's all I can think about is how much of a philosopher he was sitting out on that water, tugging on a beer. He'd just stare out into the Gorge and dream.

He gave me the courage to apply for Evergreen, shit to get out of Vancouver all together. I couldn't help but feel responsible the day he died. The news didn't come like it had come to my friends who'd had loved ones die, because I had to hear it second hand.

Working on my first sculpture at Evergreen, in the Hollandale Tunnel, smoking after a break, when Tamara ran out of the kiln room to tell me what happened.

It was almost dark when I hitched a ride home with my sketchbook and a vague feeling that I had done this before.