Are We There Yet?

(Note: This is what I submitted to my creative writing class last night. I copped out and didn't submit fiction. Instead, this would classify as creative non-fiction.)

The summer of 1971, when I was six, is the only time I remember taking a family vacation to a place other than my grandparents’. We piled into our overloaded, red Chevy station wagon and my dad drove us from Offutt AFB, Nebraska to Brainerd, Minnesota. Why my parents decided to take two four year olds and a six year old on a 1,032-mile drive, is beyond me.

My brother rode up front between my mom and dad because he got carsick. My sister rode stretched out in the middle. I rode, in what would become my regular spot for the next eight years, in the back. Seat down, one side loaded with suitcases, my narrow strip down the left side of the car covered with a sleeping bag and loaded with books.

Five hundred and sixteen miles to see Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. I suspect we did more than drive all that way just to visit this historical landmark, but it is really the only thing I remember about our trip.

We parked in the parking lot; my mom maneuvered the kids while my dad paid for our tickets. We entered the amphitheater, walked up about halfway, and sat down on long, wooden benches. Paul Bunyan loomed over us.

He was huge…maybe 25 feet tall or more, and that was sitting down! He had on blue jeans, a red and black checkered shirt, and a wool cap. Just like any good lumberjack he had a mustache and beard. He also had a booming voice.

“Helllooo Jennifer.”

“Mom! Is he talking to ME?”

“Jennifer is such a pretty name…why do you want to change your name to Stacia?”

Oh my God! He knows my secret. My face turned bright red, my stomach clenched. I dove under the bench in front of me. I could hear people around me pointing and laughing.

I know I was six years old, because I’d just finished first grade at Cardinal Spellman Elementary School. Stacia was the name of my favorite Sister. She taught religion class and played the guitar at folk services. Sister Stacia. I loved her and I loved her name. I dreamed of being named Stacia.

I certainly didn’t know that I went to a Catholic elementary school subsidized by federal funds and named after a controversial Cardinal who had been a closeted homosexual and who had advocated war. I did understand I went to that school because at the start of the school year I was only five and the regular base school wouldn’t enroll me into the first grade. I’d already spent two years in Montessori, and my mom thought it silly that I should be required to attend kindergarten.

We left Nebraska the next year. I didn’t think much about Cardinal Spellman until during a very different vacation 34 years later. While driving along the coast of Vietnam my guide, Mr. Công, began to reminisce about “your American Cardinal Spellman.” He was 12 years old when the Cardinal made his 1966 Christmas visit to Danang. Mr. Công remembered big meals and lots of chocolate. “I ate so much chocolate!” said Mr. Công.

Chocolate. Folk songs. Pretty names. Childhood memories. Oh, if it all could be so benign.