Dad frets over the young saplings dotting the sidewalks of downtown Grand Island. From his office on the bottom floor of the Yancey Hotel on Second Street, he examines and waters them frequently. As one of the members of the new Downtown Improvement Committee who acquires the trees, he feels responsible when they droop in Nebraska's harsh mid-summer heat.
Dad loves his baby trees, loves downtown, and loves owning his own business - First Holiday Tour and Travel. Sometimes driving by the corner of Second and South Locust, I catch the stoplight and stare through the long windows of the Yancey willing Dad and my sisters to glance up and wave. Dad likes having his kids around so much he persuades some of us to work for him. Joe, Mick, Rick, Deb and Mary all will be employed at the travel agency at one time or another. I love watching Dad and my brothers and sisters manage the family business together. The rest of us pop in from time to time to help answer phones or fetch the mail from the post office.
By the end of the 80's, we've all left home except for Tommy and Jeff who are still in high school. Dad's feeling bereft without a house full of kids. The travel agency is his way of keeping us close. After we reach adolescence, Dad suddenly becomes awkward and finds it difficult to be physically affectionate. Mom could hug the stuffing out of us, but Dad blushes and doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands. Debbie realizes this and loves to embarrass him. After work at the travel agency, she and Dad make their way to the parking garage strolling down South Locust in the rosy twilight. Then Debbie ever so casually reaches out to grab Dad's hand and swing it a little. Sometimes she puts an arm around him or snuggles her head against his shoulder.
"Stop that!" Hugely embarrassed, Dad shakes her off, but Deb only laughs. The very next evening, she does it again. The younger kids tease Dad in a way that we older kids never would have. Dad was a different father with us - loving but stern, disciplined, exacting.
"You need to get after these kids!" I scold Dad one day when my younger siblings are all still at home. "Why don't you discipline them like you did us?"
He shrugs. "It didn't do you any good," he sighs wearily, as if Joe, Mick, Rick and I turned out to be serial ax murderers.
At the travel agency, Dad and my siblings talk and joke and grow very close. Sometimes the atmosphere is more relaxed than it should be. Mick, ever the practical joker, takes full advantage of the casual freedom that comes with a family business.
One morning, Mary arrives at the travel agency to discover the door ajar.
"Mick?" she calls. The office is dark, and Mary wonders if she neglected to lock up the night before. She steps into the office and gasps. The safe is wide open, cash is strewn all over the floor, and then she sees my brother's hand outstretched on the floor behind the counter. Paralyzed with fear, Mary can only gape at the terrible scene.
The hand moves, and Mick laughs. He rises from behind the counter and leans over it laughing helplessly at Mary's terrified expression.
"Mick!" she screams. "How could you? That's the worst thing you've ever done to me!"
Furious and trembling, she collapses into a chair. "I thought you were dead!" she moans and buries her face in her hands.
Abruptly, she sits up. "Hey, I know," she grins. "Let's do it to Deb."
Deb's reaction is just as gratifying, and Mick and Mary howl with laughter. Wisely, they refrain from pulling the joke on Dad and clean up the office before he arrives.
Dad, though he loves office banter with his kids, is the consummate professional. Every day he arrives at the office in one of his immaculate suits, specifically purchased for his bigger-than-life frame, and a starched shirt he's carefully ironed himself the Sunday before. At precisely 7:30 he switches KRGI radio to Paul Harvey's morning broadcast, arranges his desk, and fires up the computer. First Holiday Tour and Travel is open for business.
During slow times in the office, however, even Dad relaxes. One afternoon he takes the opportunity to slip out the hall door to use the restroom. In his absence, a customer arrives, and Mary waits on her at the long counter in the front. Dad has no idea Mary is helping a client when he steps back into the office and issues forth an endless, deafening belch so loud it fills every corner of the office. Dad, impressed with the result, chuckles in appreciation until an agonized Mary politely draws his attention to the appalled woman behind the counter.
"I'm so very sorry," Dad reddens deeply, ducks his head, and hurries to his desk.
Poor Mary is the victim of most practical jokes in the office. Since the time she was little, my brothers have relentlessly targeted her trusting, innocent nature.
"Mary," Joe calls across the office, "you're supposed to return a call to Myra at Livingston Sondermann."
Livingston Sondermann is a local Grand Island funeral home, and Joe repeats the number to Mary.
"What's her last name?" Mary checks with Joe as the phone rings.
"Mains," Joe says.
Mary falls for it hook, line and sinker. "This is Mary from First Holiday," she says in her most business-like voice. "May I speak to Myra Mains?"
She hears it as soon as she says it and immediately bangs down the receiver to glare at Joe who is enjoying his joke immensely.
"Did you actually ask for My Remains?" he pretends to be shocked.
"I hate you," she snarls. But in the end, she always laughs. Nobody takes a joke better than Mary.
The travel agency becomes a family gathering spot of sorts. If we have an itch to see each other on the spur of the moment, we simply jump in the car and head over to the office. There's always a cup of coffee, Dad's face lights up with his big grin, Deb and Mary fill us in on the gossip, and Mick entertains us.
In the party room a floor above the office, we celebrate family birthdays. Rick never ceases to surprise me at these gatherings. Even more sentimental than my sisters and I, he reaches across Dad's awkward hug barrier and grabs our big father before he departs.
"I love you, Dad!" he says almost jokingly. But he means it. A very young man, Rick experiences deep regret that he never told Mom what she meant to him. He refuses to make the same mistake with Dad.
Rick's hugs embarrass Dad, of course, but he seems to like it. It gives us all a little courage to reach out and pat our huge father on the shoulder or land a quick peck on his cheek. I long to throw my arms around him to lock him in a proper embrace, but that would be altogether too much for Dad's sense of propriety.
The travel agency office on the bottom floor of the historic, stately Yancey Hotel becomes an unlikely second home to all of us. In the years after Mom's death, it's almost a symbol of new starts. Life goes on, and we are managing together. Who would ever have thought all those years ago when Dad and Mom crammed us into the old brown station wagon dragging us from Denver to Grand Island that the corner of Second and Locust Streets would become so dear?
It was a long time ago. Today I am past 60 but have gone out of my way to drive by the long empty old travel agency and stop at that same corner with nostalgic yearning. I miss seeing Dad through the long windows of the Yancey. But he'd be happy about his tiny saplings. They're fine, respectable shade trees now nourished by the good Nebraska soil.
Mom and Dad are part of that good Nebraska earth, too, and the ten children they brought to Grand Island 45 years ago have grown and flourished like the trees.
If I look hard through the long windows of the now vacant office, I can see my sisters tending the phones and Mick laughing with a customer. Dad stretches his long legs and folds his arms behind his big, impressive head. With deep satisfaction, he surveys his little kingdom.
The stoplight is green. I sigh deeply and drive on. It was all a life time ago.
But it seems as close as yesterday.
 |
| Carry and Dad |
Dad loves his baby trees, loves downtown, and loves owning his own business - First Holiday Tour and Travel. Sometimes driving by the corner of Second and South Locust, I catch the stoplight and stare through the long windows of the Yancey willing Dad and my sisters to glance up and wave. Dad likes having his kids around so much he persuades some of us to work for him. Joe, Mick, Rick, Deb and Mary all will be employed at the travel agency at one time or another. I love watching Dad and my brothers and sisters manage the family business together. The rest of us pop in from time to time to help answer phones or fetch the mail from the post office.
By the end of the 80's, we've all left home except for Tommy and Jeff who are still in high school. Dad's feeling bereft without a house full of kids. The travel agency is his way of keeping us close. After we reach adolescence, Dad suddenly becomes awkward and finds it difficult to be physically affectionate. Mom could hug the stuffing out of us, but Dad blushes and doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands. Debbie realizes this and loves to embarrass him. After work at the travel agency, she and Dad make their way to the parking garage strolling down South Locust in the rosy twilight. Then Debbie ever so casually reaches out to grab Dad's hand and swing it a little. Sometimes she puts an arm around him or snuggles her head against his shoulder.
"Stop that!" Hugely embarrassed, Dad shakes her off, but Deb only laughs. The very next evening, she does it again. The younger kids tease Dad in a way that we older kids never would have. Dad was a different father with us - loving but stern, disciplined, exacting.
"You need to get after these kids!" I scold Dad one day when my younger siblings are all still at home. "Why don't you discipline them like you did us?"
He shrugs. "It didn't do you any good," he sighs wearily, as if Joe, Mick, Rick and I turned out to be serial ax murderers.
At the travel agency, Dad and my siblings talk and joke and grow very close. Sometimes the atmosphere is more relaxed than it should be. Mick, ever the practical joker, takes full advantage of the casual freedom that comes with a family business.
One morning, Mary arrives at the travel agency to discover the door ajar.
"Mick?" she calls. The office is dark, and Mary wonders if she neglected to lock up the night before. She steps into the office and gasps. The safe is wide open, cash is strewn all over the floor, and then she sees my brother's hand outstretched on the floor behind the counter. Paralyzed with fear, Mary can only gape at the terrible scene.
The hand moves, and Mick laughs. He rises from behind the counter and leans over it laughing helplessly at Mary's terrified expression.
 |
| Mary and Jeff |
Furious and trembling, she collapses into a chair. "I thought you were dead!" she moans and buries her face in her hands.
Abruptly, she sits up. "Hey, I know," she grins. "Let's do it to Deb."
Deb's reaction is just as gratifying, and Mick and Mary howl with laughter. Wisely, they refrain from pulling the joke on Dad and clean up the office before he arrives.
Dad, though he loves office banter with his kids, is the consummate professional. Every day he arrives at the office in one of his immaculate suits, specifically purchased for his bigger-than-life frame, and a starched shirt he's carefully ironed himself the Sunday before. At precisely 7:30 he switches KRGI radio to Paul Harvey's morning broadcast, arranges his desk, and fires up the computer. First Holiday Tour and Travel is open for business.
During slow times in the office, however, even Dad relaxes. One afternoon he takes the opportunity to slip out the hall door to use the restroom. In his absence, a customer arrives, and Mary waits on her at the long counter in the front. Dad has no idea Mary is helping a client when he steps back into the office and issues forth an endless, deafening belch so loud it fills every corner of the office. Dad, impressed with the result, chuckles in appreciation until an agonized Mary politely draws his attention to the appalled woman behind the counter.
"I'm so very sorry," Dad reddens deeply, ducks his head, and hurries to his desk.
Poor Mary is the victim of most practical jokes in the office. Since the time she was little, my brothers have relentlessly targeted her trusting, innocent nature.
"Mary," Joe calls across the office, "you're supposed to return a call to Myra at Livingston Sondermann."
Livingston Sondermann is a local Grand Island funeral home, and Joe repeats the number to Mary.
"What's her last name?" Mary checks with Joe as the phone rings.
 |
| Clowning, Rick tries on his new Christmas sweater. |
"Mains," Joe says.
Mary falls for it hook, line and sinker. "This is Mary from First Holiday," she says in her most business-like voice. "May I speak to Myra Mains?"
She hears it as soon as she says it and immediately bangs down the receiver to glare at Joe who is enjoying his joke immensely.
"Did you actually ask for My Remains?" he pretends to be shocked.
"I hate you," she snarls. But in the end, she always laughs. Nobody takes a joke better than Mary.
The travel agency becomes a family gathering spot of sorts. If we have an itch to see each other on the spur of the moment, we simply jump in the car and head over to the office. There's always a cup of coffee, Dad's face lights up with his big grin, Deb and Mary fill us in on the gossip, and Mick entertains us.
In the party room a floor above the office, we celebrate family birthdays. Rick never ceases to surprise me at these gatherings. Even more sentimental than my sisters and I, he reaches across Dad's awkward hug barrier and grabs our big father before he departs.
"I love you, Dad!" he says almost jokingly. But he means it. A very young man, Rick experiences deep regret that he never told Mom what she meant to him. He refuses to make the same mistake with Dad.
Rick's hugs embarrass Dad, of course, but he seems to like it. It gives us all a little courage to reach out and pat our huge father on the shoulder or land a quick peck on his cheek. I long to throw my arms around him to lock him in a proper embrace, but that would be altogether too much for Dad's sense of propriety.
The travel agency office on the bottom floor of the historic, stately Yancey Hotel becomes an unlikely second home to all of us. In the years after Mom's death, it's almost a symbol of new starts. Life goes on, and we are managing together. Who would ever have thought all those years ago when Dad and Mom crammed us into the old brown station wagon dragging us from Denver to Grand Island that the corner of Second and Locust Streets would become so dear?
It was a long time ago. Today I am past 60 but have gone out of my way to drive by the long empty old travel agency and stop at that same corner with nostalgic yearning. I miss seeing Dad through the long windows of the Yancey. But he'd be happy about his tiny saplings. They're fine, respectable shade trees now nourished by the good Nebraska soil.
Mom and Dad are part of that good Nebraska earth, too, and the ten children they brought to Grand Island 45 years ago have grown and flourished like the trees.
If I look hard through the long windows of the now vacant office, I can see my sisters tending the phones and Mick laughing with a customer. Dad stretches his long legs and folds his arms behind his big, impressive head. With deep satisfaction, he surveys his little kingdom.
The stoplight is green. I sigh deeply and drive on. It was all a life time ago.
But it seems as close as yesterday.
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