Book 3 Chapter 2 Section 5: Childhood Vacations

Book 3 Chapter 2 Section 5: Vacations 

The best times, for the Frazier children, were the family vacations.  My father liked to get everyone up at middle of the night, after strapping our luggage onto the top of the car, and then drive like a maniac for twelve to eighteen hours.  He didn’t like to stop, even if one of the kids was sick, and there was puke on the side of the car where one of us had barfed after rolling down the window.  The remains of the throw up would stay on the door until the trip was over and Mom could take it up to be washed.  The car smelled like the inside of someone’s stomach until it was thoroughly cleaned.  If Dad needed to rest, he took a power nap while Mom drove, or the whole family sat in silence in a hot car and waited for him to finish sleeping.  

Yet once we arrived at our destination, our trips were the highlight of my childhood.  The happiest that I ever saw my father was as he was driving down the road and whistling to whatever song happened to be playing on the radio.  To this day, I cannot hear “King of the Road” without thoughts of my father singing along to that tune in the car.  My mother acted as navigator and supplied my father with candy and gum.  She told me that she didn’t see what a big deal the family vacations were but for me, they were the one time where we all shared happy memories of being together.  The family alternated between visiting Dads’ family in Minnesota, Moms’ family in Vermont, and Florida when Moms’ mother moved to the sunshine state.

My fathers’ parents lived in a small house just outside of Minneapolis.  His mother loved seeing her grandchildren and served us peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  The kids slept on a floor in the basement because there were not enough bedrooms to house everyone.  The kids didn’t mind, though, because the house didn’t have air conditioning and the tiles on the basement floor remained cool all year long.  The Frazier kids made fast friends out of the neighborhood kids.  There was a lake within a short walking distance and all four kids loved to swim, so they went every day, even when the only other person at the lake was the lifeguard.  One time, it was so cold that the lifeguard on duty tried to hide from the Frazier’s in a lifeboat so that he wouldn’t have to sit in the chair, but the kids quickly saw through that scheme and yelled at him until he came out from the boat to do his job.

There was a creek on the way to the lake, and the kids were sometimes sidetracked, especially if they saw the neighborhood kids playing in the stream.  The banks of the creek were made of clay and the Frazier kids scraped some of it away and made pots or animals with the clay.  Eventually, the sidewalk that led up to their grandparents’ house became littered with the kids creations, but Grandma and Grandpa got a kick out of the artistry.  At other times the kids played games in the alley behind their grandparents’ house or walked up to the store to get candy: it was all very exciting and life in Minneapolis seemed like an extension of their lives in Louisville, only better.

Grandmother Arlene Strachan was from my mother’s side of the family, and she lived in Florida because her sister, Evelyn, moved down there with her husband, Bill.  They both retired early and bought a nice house with a pool in the back.  While the adults drank their toddies, the children played bartender by serving drinks, and otherwise swam away the afternoons.  Uncle Bill held watermelon-eating contests and gave each kid a penny for each of the seeds that we spit out onto his sidewalk.  We were so proud that we could earn up to a dollar just for spitting seeds.  

About a mile from Evelyn’s house was the Ocean Ranch, or the hotel that the Fraziers stayed at while in Pompano Beach.  When we weren’t at Aunt Evelyn’s, we spent our days building sandcastles, searching for seashells, playing shuffleboard, or taking the brand new canvas rafts into the ocean  When the kids felt adventurous, we walked down to the pier to watch the men fishing and cleaning their catch.  However, the best part of the hotel was that they provided a director to keep the children occupied and she came up with all sorts of games to play with us.  “I see something that you don’t see, and the color is …” was a great game or she challenged us to putt-putt golf.  The kids really wanted to win the competition because we were awarded with a free milkshake if we came in first place.  In addition, when the kids got hungry, there was a hotel restaurant on the premises.  The kids could order whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it.  We never got their fill of strawberry shakes and cheeseburgers.  It was pure heaven for our entire time on the beach. 

Our other vacation spot was Vermont.  Grandmother Strachan moved there to be closer to my Aunt Blair and her husband, Bob.  The kids spent their days playing with the farm animals and swimming in the pond.  Our cousin Heather showed us how to bareback ride sheep, cows, and horses.  In addition, Bob and Blair sponsored several family reunions there and my only memory of some of my extended family members, like Aunt Leonie and the whole Sander’s family, came from these reunions.  The place was full of characters: Jed who had a cool Jeep and who was a devoted bachelor, Blair’s friend Connie who invited the kids over and served us freshly made chocolate shakes, and old man Archie who worked the farm by driving the tractor used for bailing hay.

Vermont seemed to me to be the ideal place to spend our childhood because it had farms, forests, and family.  The best times were when we all sat out on the Hall’s front lawn and watched the cars drive.  The adults drank their cocktails and the kids had their cousins to play with.  There was much joy in Vermont, Minneapolis, and Florida and our vacations provided a respite from our daily life in Louisville.   

Robert Armbruster's Eulogy (November 25, 2019)

     On the day that we buried my father-in-law, my wife handled herself with such grace and composure that she was almost regal.  We arrived early at the funeral home to prepare ourselves for what we knew was going to be one of the hardest days of our lives.  Tracey decided that she alone would give the eulogy, without the help of a preacher, or even another family member, and she knocked it out of the park.
    “Bob Armbruster was a man of contradictions,” she began with what was surely going to be a tear jerker.  “He was the last founding member of the McMahan Fire Department,” and one of her earliest memories was watching her grandfather, or “Pops” as he was known to the other firefighters, smoking a cigar and rolling the coins that had been collected by McMahan for The Crusade for Children.  Meanwhile, there was a picture of her father, or “Bobby” as he was known throughout the firehouse, with a three year old Tracey slung over one shoulder, and a bucket full of coins for The Crusade in his hand.  This picture hung on the walls of the firehouse for years because it captured the spirit of the generosity of the time and money that the firemen had dedicated to the Crusade over the years.
      The contradiction comes from when Grandpa had cancer when he was still in his fifties and the firehouse gave him an award for his years of service.  Grandpa beat the cancer but thought that the firehouse was writing him off by giving him that reward, so he quit McMahan to begin thirty more years of service, this time he volunteered for the German American Club.  He still loved the firehouse, continuing to listen to the scanner at night and keeping firefighter memorabilia around the house, but he was too stubborn to go back to his old friends at McMahan.
    Another contradiction was that Grandpa was an extremely private person.  When his wife died he decided to continue to live by himself at their patio home.  Bob was set in his ways and didn’t like change, but when an ice storm hit Louisville and knocked out the power to his daughter’s house, he “opened his small home to my family of five.  We ended up staying for a whole week, and it was cramped in that little two bedroom home, but Dad never complained while his daughter and grandchildren lived with him and never brought up the incident again.”  It is with this spirit of generosity that Bob Armbruster will be remembered.
    One final contradiction was Bob’s complicated relationship with money.  According to Tracey, her father would drive twenty miles out of his way to find a gas station with lower prices so that he could save a couple of dollars to fill up his tank.  He did not like to spend money needlessly.  And yet, if a friend was in need and asked Bob for a dime, “My father would give his friend his last nickel.  And then he would ask four other people to give his friend a nickel so that he would have a quarter and would no longer be in need.”  Also, he gave his grandchildren a monetary gift at Christmas every year to ensure that they would not want for anything.  The money was spent on their education, their cars, vacations, and other things that they otherwise would not be able to afford.  Every time they bought something with Grandpa’s help, they were sure to say thank you to him, and it is those three grandchildren who are the legacy of Bob Armbruster.
    At the end of the eulogy, Tracey grabbed her father’s old fireman’s helmet from the pedestal that was situated next to the coffin, held it close to her heart, and allowed herself to take a moment to cry.
    After the funeral, an old firetruck led the procession to the cemetery.  Only it wasn’t just any firetruck.  Bob had written the grant which supplied the money for the firetruck, McMahan’s first, and it was commonly referred to as the old milk truck because it was painted white and it the volunteers used to serve ice cream out of it at picnics.  Grandpa was laid to rest next to his wife in a crypt which the two used to call their “condo for eternity.”  Situated next to them are their longtime friends, the Waldrons, and while they were alive the two couples used to joke that they saw the afterlife as one big long party together.  Grandpa was not a particularly religious man, so that thought that he could spend forever playing cards and enjoying the company of his wife and friends, is not a bad way to spend the rest of time.
   

Book 3 Chapter 7 Section 5:God, the Devil, and the Warden

         God, the Devil, and the Warden
          The greatest ordeal of Andy’s life, he claimed, occurred while his mother was being committed to the nursing home.  Andy knew that his mother had gone crazy, and that the nursing home staff was close to ejecting her from the facility and sending her to a psych hospital, but he was busy with his own problems.  He was on his way to talk to God and he wasn’t planning to come back from the visit.  He was sentenced to time in jail while his mother had been committed, and his crime was possession of marijuana.  It was while he was in jail that Andy decided that he was going on a hunger strike.  “Either I am going to find my purpose in this life, or I am going to die,” he said to himself.
            Andy didn't tell anyone about his hunger strike while he was incarcerated.  On the first day of the strike he was awakened by the guards who were ordered to take him to his Parole Board meeting.  They tried to feed him breakfast, but Andy refused, preferring to pace in his cell until transport came to get him.  The guards made him shower, dressed him, handcuffed him, and then escorted him to the meeting.  The Parole Board was friendly, but uncommitted towards him.  It was a quick meeting and when it was over the guards made him take off his civilian clothes and then re-dressed Andy in an anti-suicide smock, commonly referred to by the prisoners as a “turtle suit.”  He fought putting the suit on, so the guards tasered him.  As he was rolled into the suit, Andy thought that if he kept fasting then it would take about twenty days to become comatose.  If he could resist any nourishment, then in about forty days he would become a martyr.  Then, for reasons that had never been explained to him, the guards redressed Andy back into his civilian clothes and then put him on a bus.  He was being removed from the jail and he was on his way to prison.
           Prison might be a welcome relief.  After all, there was nothing that he wanted to eat and no one who he wanted to see.  There was no car that he wanted to own or any house that he could imagine living in.  He was done.  So why not have the government pay for his room and board while he stewed in prison.  If his hunger strike worked and he died in prison, Andy hoped that one of the lawyers in the family would sue for wrongful death.  He laughed at his own joke; suing a for-profit prison to take away their profit.  All that he had to do was to not eat for forty days.
          The act of starving yourself is deemed suicidal by the prison system and the warden responded to Andy’s suicidal tendencies by putting him in solitary confinement.  The warden refused his counselor’s request to send Andy to a psych facility by saying, “We do not pass along our problems to other units.”  Andy was left to starve himself in a small cell.  As the days went by and the fast continued, all Andy wanted to do was sleep. Meanwhile, his body began to wither from the lack of nourishment as it began to feed off itself.  After the first two weeks of the fast, when there is no fat left to burn, the body begins eating away at the muscles and vital organs for energy.  When this happened to Andy, he became delusional and he began to hallucinate.
          He had a dream where he was ushered into the darkness but saw light at the center of his field of vision.  As his eyes cleared, he could no longer see the dark, and he knew that he was in God’s presence, and the Almighty was angry with him.  “Why are you here?” God said in a tone that marked his disappointment in his acolyte.  “I left you in good stead.”  In return, Andy became testy with God.  He stood up, in his hallucination, and said, “I did what you told me to do.”  He was angry at God.  “I never asked you for anything!”  This was true.  In all his days in solitary confinement, and even in his years of trying to find his purpose in life, Andy prayed the rosary, but he didn’t ask for any favors.  God, wanting to end this altercation, stated “You stand accused of living a wasted life.”  Then, suddenly, from somewhere behind him, Andy heard Satan laughing, saying, “I told you that you should have put a comma there.”  It was a joke by Satan because there are no commas in Hebrew.  God laughed too, and said, “I got you,” and then a band of angels appeared to usher Andy out through the Pearly Gates.  He woke up in his cell, crying.
           Meanwhile, the warden decided that Andy’s case was beyond what his prison was equipped for and reversed his decision about keeping Andy in his prison.  Andy was ordered to be moved to the psychiatric hospital.  If he wouldn’t eat, then a tube would be inserted into his nose for forced feeding.  The guards put Andy in a strait jacket so that his arms were strapped down to his side.  Then they put an anklet on him and, at the end of the anklet, there was a wire that was attached to a taser, just in case Andy decided to get violent.  The other inmates looked at Andy, as he was being dragged from his cell to transport, with a mixture of fear and amazement.  Here was the half-starved crazy man that they had heard so much about, and he was literally being carried away by the guards.  The inmates gave him plenty of room to pass once they saw his scraggy beard, his arms strapped to his side, and a taser attached to his leg.  Andy looked like the prophet that he always wanted to be; his eyes burning as if they were on fire and his face racked with intensity.  In reality, however, no religious would be in a strait jacket and no prophet would be carried away by guards.
        And then Andy decided that his ordeal was over.  His intent was self-harm with the goal of killing himself.  But Andy had seen the face of God and that alone was enough for him to end his hunger strike after twenty-one days.  The driver of the bus that was to take Andy to the asylum found his prisoner sitting in the holding area eating the lunch that had been offered to him.  “Andy Clark?” said the driver who had to take role before putting the prisoners on the bus.  “That’s me,” said Andy, lifting his head from the plate.  He couldn’t use his arms to eat the sandwich because they were still strapped down in the straight jacket.  The driver was confused.  “It says here that you are on a hunger strike.”  Andy replied, “Was!  I was on a hunger strike but am not anymore.  Can I have that other sandwich if no one else is going to eat it?”  Starving himself was an act of pure defiance but Andy had thought that he had taken it about as far as he could.  He was a control freak and the ordeal would be over only when Andy said that it was over.
         After the hunger strike it took a couple of days before Andy could have a bowel movement, and when he did his shit had turned black; and that was about all that he had to show for his trip to crazy town and his showdown with God, the Devil, and the warden.