Breaking down in Bemidji
October 6, 2017
Bemidji, Minnesota. The first city on the Mississippi River and the Curling Capital of the USA! What a city it is.
Yesterday I made the four hour trek from Minneapolis to La Porte, MN. I arrived late in the evening to pitch black 10 acres of forest where Bailey's yurt is located. We had just spent several days exploring the upper peninsula of Michigan and Wisconsin but parted ways so I could visit what the locals call "The Cities." That is, Minneapolis and St. Paul. I was excited to see Bailey's yurt but even more excited to get to Bemidji the next day.
Bemidji has a special place in my heart. In 2011 I lived here. I am sitting at Dunn's Coffee looking out onto Lake Bemidji as I write this. Which is something I did often six years ago. The difference is that six years ago I was writing university papers instead of a sorrowful blog. You see, back then a social work internship brought me here to work at a shelter for homeless families. My Dad helped me move in to my efficiency apartment on the upper floor of the shelter where the staff quarters are. The memories in Bemidji hit me like a ton of bricks.
When I pulled off the highway into Bemidji I looked to my left and saw the Best Western hotel my Dad and I stayed at in 2011. I remembered how I finagled a deal out of the hotel clerk and my Dad was mortified that I even asked. I was proud of my negotiation skills but Pat Howlett was a blue collar man. He thought that people were inherently good and would charge what was fair for their services - like he did if you needed your truck fixed. Sometimes his kindness led to my Dad to be suckered by others. Don't get me started on that sub-par home renovation that cost $30k. In any case, when I passed the hotel I immediately broke down in tears. I found myself pulling into the parking lot of Target so I could safely ugly-cry for a few minutes because the barrage of feels was just so overwhelming.
During those few days my Dad and I were in Bemidji he helped me explore the city, brought me to Target to buy me some bedding and a TV antenna, he did my dishes (pictured), and took me to dinner. When I brought him to the tiny airport so he could start his trek home I cried and cried as watched him walk out onto the tarmac alone. I would later feel terrible about the return trip I booked him with two stopovers in Minneapolis and Chicago. He said he had to walk too much to find his gates. He was not a frequent flyer - but I was cheap and liked a good deal (see above).
Only later I would find out from Facebook that the March break we spent in Florida at my sister's and the subsequent road trip that Dad and I did from Florida to Bemidji was "a trip of a lifetime" to him. Now that I look back on it, it was a trip of a lifetime for me, too. Driving was something that Dad an I always shared. He bought my brother and I a Ferrari go kart when we were kids, he taught me how to drive my first car when I was 17, and always told me "no speeding tickets" but never no speeding. Dad would always say "Howlett's can drive anything".
After my Dad passed away, my brother called me out to the shop where he and Dad worked together fixing trucks. Ryan opened a drawer of my Dad's huge tool box and pulled out something I hadn't seen in 17 years. It was the stick shift from my first car, red leather wrapped and engraved with my monogram. He kept it. I had no idea. I also noticed that there were two of my magnetic name tags stuck to the front of his tool box. They were from my first adult job at a women's shelter after undergrad circa 2008. I had been in his shop hundreds of times and I never noticed.
The road trip I am on now is a homage to Pat Howlett. He was a truck driver in his younger days, and loved being on the open road. He had stories for days about how he would drive solo from Ontario to Newfoundland and back, sometimes just because he could.
All your love, as I travel, I'll take it with me.