My Father Drives

                  Nobody liked to drive with my father.  Every time that he got behind the wheel he acted as though he were a gladiator in the Colosseum.  When he was in his teen years, he made his bones by driving trucks all over the Midwest, and that gave him the right to tell other people how to drive.  He would honk and yell at the other drivers and give them instructions on how to drive better.  On our road trips to Minneapolis or Vermont, Dad would prepare the car by strapping the luggage onto the roof to make room for the kids and dogs on the inside.  Then he would test his level of endurance by leaving our house in the middle of the night and drive until he exhausted himself.  Mom was his copilot, and her job was to read the map and to make sure that he had a supply of gum and a Coke at the ready.  When he was happy, Dad would whistle, and when “King of the Road” came on the radio, he would sing along to his favorite song.  I think that our road trips reminded him of his days of being a long-haul truck driver.

As time went by, his driving became worse because, while he was still as aggressive on the road as he had always been, his skills had diminished.  His eyesight became so bad that he would have to ask, after he had stopped for the traffic light, “Jeff, what color is the light?”  I would reply, “it’s red Dad.  I’ll tell you when it’s green!”  If he had to stop at more than two lights in a row, Dad would yell out, without any warning, “Every Goddam Light!”  It was hard to relax if you were a passenger in his car.  Eventually he couldn’t even drive anymore because of his eyesight.  One day, when he tried to take a sharp turn in his little Mazda sportscar, he hit the curb and the concrete scraped the side of the car.  Dad got out of the car, looked at the damage, and handed the keys to my mother.  He never drove again.

This came hard to a man who had few passions, and his love of driving was at the top of his list of things that made him happy.  My earliest memory was that of my father driving a little GM sports car at breakneck speeds through the backroads of Louisville.  It wasn’t a good memory because Dad drove so fast that I was terrified.  Cave Hill Cemetery is juxtaposed between the downtown area and our house in St. Matthews.  The road around the cemetery is full of twists and turns and Dad loved to take them as fast as possible.  I think that I left indentations on the dashboard because I had gripped it so hard in preparing for the crash that I was sure was coming.  Now that he had given up his driver’s license, Dad was deprived of the one thing that he unquestioningly loved.

Hawkeye is Alex Stephens

          One of the guys who worked out at Camp Van Dorn in 1980 was Alex Stephens, only nobody knew him by that name.  On the first day of camp Alex took on the nickname “Hawkeye,” because he wore an old red robe every morning and it was just like the robe that the main character from the television series, “M.A.S.H.,” used to wear.  Hawkeye was the chief of the Cherokee tribe but his real value was that he was a quiet leader and calming presence.  But he could also be silly.  For example, he couldn’t stand still when he brushed his teeth so instead he did a little dance.  Eventually, the idea of doing a “Toothbrush Dance” caught on and all of the counselors were doing it.  Another example of Hawkeye’s silliness is that when he drove his car he liked to wear a vintage aviator hat and he put on gloves.  It was a weird thing to do but the campers and counselors liked him in spite of his quirks.  

   The first day of camp was Saturday and the counselors were busy setting up their cabins.  George hadn’t had a chance to get to know his cabin mates, aside from packing up the truck at St. Alexander, so this was the first time that he had a chance to talk to Hawkeye.  George saw Hawkeye in the Camp Van Dorn parking lot and noticed that smoke was wafting from Hawkeye’s car when he opened the door.  Obviously, Hawkeye had been smoking a joint on the long drive into camp.  He hadn’t shaved and looked like he hadn’t put on a new set of clothes for a week.  Instead of getting angry at Hawkeye, Fr. Jubal Early looked him up and down and said, “you look like you have already been out here for a few weeks.”  It was a good line and was funny only because it was true.

   At twenty years of age, Hawkeye was the oldest counselor on the staff and he was not the type of person whom George would ordinarily know.  If this were the 1960s, an apt description of him would have been a hippy.  He had an unusual past, growing up in Knoxville but spending his summers in Aruba because his grandparents lived there.  Meanwhile, to release his unlimited supply of energy, Hawkeye had run cross country at Farragut High School.  When he was eighteen he was involved in a bad car accident and was put into a medically induced coma.  He wished that he had a good story to tell but the truth was that he had passed out in the back seat while his friend was driving when a drunk driver ran a red light and t-boned his car.  Hawkeye didn’t remember a thing about the accident.  Everything turned out fine medically but, feeling isolated and vulnerable from his time alone while recovering, Hawkeye almost joined a cult.  He made the mistake of showing interest to a group from “The Children of God” who tried to recruit him.  When the cultists arrived at his house, Hawkeye hid from them, and eventually a neighbor shooed them away.  It was a close call but, after the car wreck and an extended stay in the hospital, Hawkeye knew that he needed a change,  He called Fr. Early to get a job as a chief and escaped his enclosure at his parent’s house by working at Camp Van Dorn.

   George had never met anyone like Hawkeye before in his life.  Before his car accident, Hawkeye had gone hiking and camping many times and was so enthusiastic about being in the woods that he enjoyed Camp Van Dorn more than the campers did.  He was like a breath of fresh air; wild and free because he had been given a new lease on life.  All of his energy was bundled into a really small package as Hawkeye was thin, tone, and coiled, as if he was ready to spring at the least sign of any stimulus.  Hawkeye’s eyes were on high beam; always fully aware and sparkling with fun.  He constantly played with his shoulder length hair when the campers were between activities and, if he had to wait for anything, like standing in line to get into the mess hall, he couldn’t stand still and bounced in place.  Fr. Jubal Early like to kid Hawkeye by saying “I’ll bet that you were a pain in the ass to have in the classroom” because he was in constant motion.  He smiled, unsure if the comment as a compliment or an insult.  With Fr. Jubal Early, you never really knew what ground you were standing on.

   At first glance, Hawkeye looked like a typical twenty year old but, but upon closer inspection, with his long blonde hair tied up in a pony tail, and with his round John Lennon glasses and a golden ear ring, he looked like a throw back to the Woodstock era.  George liked to say that he didn’t want to hang out with just people like himself.  “How boring would that be?”  He was happy to spend time with Hawkeye.

   After his car wreck, Hawkeye was really into mental health and discovering his “spiritual journey.”  Mindfulness, and trying to figure out how to center himself, took up most of his attention.  On his finger, he wore a ring in the shape of a wave, and that reminded him to “go with the flow.”  Given the opportunity, Hawkeye told anyone who would listen that he would like to visit Northern California to hike Mount Shasta, which is a root chakra.  Most people have never heard of Mount Shasta, but apparently it is one of the roots of the Earth’s energy; it regulates the earth’s life and acts as a geyser of upward energy.  Mount Shasta is one of earth’s seven energetic chakras, which parallels the seven chakras of the body.  If he couldn’t make it to Shasta, however, then his alternate plan was to fly to Bangkok because he thought that he would like the energy there.  His plan, after his job as a camp counselor was over, was to support himself by becoming a teacher in Thailand.  If that job fell through then Hawkeye had a backup plan which was to become a bartender, a preschool monitor, or a real estate agent.  Really, it depended on what day that you talked to him about his future plans because they were constantly changing.

   When Hawkeye asked George what he brought to decorate the cabin the reply was “nothing!  I have become a minimalist.”  Hawkeye liked that remark a lot and used his trade phrase of “I love it” in response.  George and Hawkeye shared a nice bonding moment when he said that “I don’t collect things because objects could weight down your life.”  George was an amateur Buddhist and tried his hand at philosophy by quoting Buddha.  “The root of all suffering is desire,” was the best quote that he could think of but his efforts at talking about a subject that he had no experience in fell flat.

   They had some free time on that first Saturday afternoon and they spent their time together by chatting amicably.  They talked about nothing in particular, but what George really wanted to ask Hawkeye was, “What happened to you?”  They had already discussed the car accident and the convalescence afterwards, but something must have happened before that, a messed up childhood or something, for Hawkeye to look for answers to life’s questions at Mt. Shasta.  Deciding to probe gently and tread lightly, George asked him about his parents.  Either Hawkeye didn’t hear the question or he pretended not to hear; either way, he didn’t answer so George assumed that they are on the outs.  Hawkeye’s face darkened when he realized that George was trying to get him to open up about his past.  To lighten the mood, “Do you know what the Buddha would say?”  Hawkeye, responded, bracing himself for a lecture, with, “No, what would the Buddha say?”  This was a set up to a joke, so George told him “The Buddha would say, ‘You gotta let that shit go!”  Hawkeye liked the comic relief.  “I love it!”  That was enough honesty for awhile as George recognized that Hawkeye wouldn’t open up to him until he was good and ready.

Hawkeye (Alex Stephens) in 2010
   Nobody recognized Hawkeye when he entered the courtroom because he had changed so much.  While he had shoulder length hair at Camp Van Dorn, now it went all of the way down his back and he had braided some of the strands.  His hair used to be dark brown but it had lightened up because of all of the time that he spent in the sun and it was also streaked with gray.  When he pulled his hair back up into a ponytail the former counselors could see that Hawkeye wore a gauge in each ear and added a couple of earrings for effect.  When the counselors knew Hawkeye he had a perpetual three day beard, but now that beard thick and long and scraggly.  To complete the look, he wore a twisted stud in his nose so that everyone knew he was a rebel.

   While he didn’t know it at the time, the car wreck that sent him into a medically induced coma ended his formal education.  Hawkeye just couldn’t have any long term goals when he knew that his life could be snuffed out at any time and for no reason.  The plan had been to finish his summer at Camp Van Dorn and then travel to Mount Shasta or Bangkok.  He didn’t do either of these things because he got distracted by other places.  For example, he and a buddy drove to New Mexico so they could hike the trails.  They worked their way up to the La Luz Trail where there no accommodations so hikers had to carry a gallon of water to drink throughout the day to avoid dehydration.

   Hawkeye had a secret plan that he didn’t share with anybody, not even his hiking buddies.  Once he was old enough to retire and his parents had passed on, his plan was to move to Bhutan to take advantage of their free health care.  Not being able to pay for his insurance was Hawkeye’s single biggest fear.  He had read that Bhutan is the happiest place on earth because it put the well-being of its people above capitalism.  The country is rich in lumber, coal, and minerals but it refused to cash in.  The focus is on ecological harmony while long-term sustainability is emphasized over short-term gains.  Hawkeye liked the sound of that.   Also, most urban areas have 5g coverage. Free health care, good internet, and a government that was concerned about the environment: it sounded like heaven but the dream was so outlandish that Hawkeye kept it to himself.   

   After suing the drunk driver who caused the wreck that cost Hawkeye his health and desire to obtain long term goals, he was awarded enough money to fly to Australia and live in Melbourne for a year.  When the money ran out he moved to San Francisco where he could swim laps in the bay all year long if he wore a wetsuit.  He rented a room in Haight Ashbury so could be next to the house where Grateful Dead lived.  After his parents died he inherited enough to live in the Bay Area for a couple of years but when the money ran out, he moved back to Knoxville where the rent was a lot cheaper.  Since he hadn’t bothered to renew his driver’s license, Hawkeye chose to live in a neighborhood that was walkable and he took a bartending job in a saloon that was right around the corner.

   Hawkeye was into cross country in high school and trail running after Camp Van Dorn.  Since his knees had been giving him trouble, Hawkeye gave up running but took long walks instead, which is why he was still as thin as a rail.  He used this time to meditate and smoked a lot of weed to lubricate his mind.  He had a kit where he kept his marijuana and, first thing in the morning and before he took his walk, he would light up on the back porch.  And that is how he spent his days: working at the bar, sleeping eight to ten hours, getting high, and then walking to meditate.  It wasn’t the life for everyone but for Hawkeye, it was enough.