So much has changed over the 40-some years since my father traveled down to the area he always called home. Highways are now almost all four-lane, and the traffic endlessly going from here to there. Pa would not like that part of the trip. What he would look forward to is sitting down and visiting with his three sisters, who would take pleasure in reminiscing about days gone by.
Pa passed away in 1974. I can remember that because he was trying to hang on until he saw his youngest granddaughter walk. My only daughter began to walk early, taking her first steps in early August, although she wouldn’t be a year old until late November.
Pa enjoyed watching her take her uncertain, wobbly steps. I can still see his eyes twinkling with pleasure. A couple of weeks later, his heart finally gave out. While his memory is not forgotten, it is only when I go and visit his sisters that it is truly brought home to my heart.
Even the city of Waukesha causes me to reminisce, as I had an aunt and uncle and cousins living there at one time. Pa always complained about the one-way streets, but we gradually found our way to their home, on Eales Avenue.
However, once I get south of Waukesha, and get to Big Bend, more memories flood in. The next little town is Tichigan, and that is the center of what he called home. I did not make a right turn there, however, to go past the old farm house where my grandparents had once lived with an aunt and uncle and cousins.
I didn’t choose to go down that road, because nothing is how I once remembered. The old house is renovated and fits in nicely with the houses in the subdivisions that make up the landscape. It is OK with me. I know that many years have passed, and nothing remains the same.
Instead, I go on to Waterford, to visit with Aunt Gertie and Aunt Eva. Aunt Gertie will be 100 in July, but since I was coming to Waukesha to go to a wedding, I wanted to take a couple of hours to spend with two of my remaining three aunts.
They filled me in with the latest news in the family. Deaths in the family, marriages, travels that my cousins are taking. We talk about health, about the challenges in daily life, but how they are determined to keep living independently.
How fitting it was for me to go to that place at that time, with Father’s Day being the very next weekend. We never fussed much over Father’s Day, but to me my father was larger than life. To me he knew how to do everything, and could handle anything. He grew up in Milwaukee but learned to farm. He never lived in that farm by Tichigan, but to him it was home, because that is where his parents lived.
Father’s Day is a good time to remember the twinkle in Pa’s eye and the place he called home. I plan to go back there next month to help Aunt Gertie celebrate her 100th year.
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