I think my dad's brain was wired for the end of the world. As an agnostic, he was consumed with bomb shelters back in the 50s. He wanted to turn our basement into a protective barrier against nuclear war. Maybe that's why the evangelical's preoccupation with the rapture, the end times, and the Great Tribulations had such an appeal. At one point, he even combined the two into a neat little package — rapture plus World War III.
Needless to say, I grew up to believe that one way or another, the world would end before I turned thirty or forty or maybe even as early as my twentieth birthday. I was screwed!
Recently, I stumbled across the above map. It triggered a trip down memory lane for me. Unfortunately, it's all a little muddled in my head, memories are like that, but once upon a time my dad piled the entire family into our car and drove from Kansas to Dawson Creek, Canada for a job interview. He'd been reading Bradford Angier books. At the time, he felt certain that World War lll was looming just around the corner.
For those of you who don't know anything about Bradford Angier, he was an author of 30 plus books about living off grid.
In fact, he remains the most popular author of this particular genre of all times. Angier wasn't a prepper per se, but more of a Thoreau lover. His adventures were influenced by the love of nature. His books were a combination of commonsense and wonder. A former Bostonian and magazine editor married to a ballerina, he and his wife ended up moving to British Columbia in order to experiment with wilderness living. This was back in the late 1940s. I was born in 1951. As hard as it is for me to believe, three quarters of a century ago, Bradford Angier influenced my life.
Life is like that, you know.
A chain of seemingly unrelated events that twist and wind about managing on occasion to cross one's path. No preordained outcomes, but rather the utter randomness of life producing a series of surprises. I think it's safe to say that my dad had a history of being a "prepper" of one sort or another. His brain was wired in such a way as to interpret and react to life in a particular manner. British Columbia wasn't the last time he would attempt to leave society out of fear and trepidation. All these years later, looking back on my life growing up with a "Mosquito Coast kind of a dad", I regret that I didn't keep a detailed diary. Instead, my young mind was busy trying to stay alive, metaphorically and sometimes literally. Thus, my memories alone are less than perfect.
I do remember that upon arrival, we didn't stay in a hotel.
I'm pretty sure my dad didn't have the money to spare at the time. We had been going through a very stressful financial time period. So, we set up camp in a park, using an open shelter with a pot belly stove as a temporary place to sleep. I didn't see another human being in the park. Mom and dad hung quilts from the ceiling, creating a corner of the shelter that was a tad easier to heat with the stove. Stoking a fire kept us warm and that's where we slept. For how long? I don't remember. Was it only a night or two? I simply can't remember. I do know that some townspeople became aware of the fact that an American family with four kids were living in a shelter in the park. They were concerned because the nights were getting colder, the park was isolated, and bears were abundant.
Someone, a kind stranger, gave us a place to stay.
I have even less memory of the house or how long we stayed there. I'm baffled by my memory loss because I was probably thirteen or fourteen at the time. I mean it's not like I was five or six. What's with this inability to remember such a wild family escapade? I don't know. I can't explain it. Although I do know that this escapade was one of many.
Most likely I didn't fully understand how unusual our lives were compared to most other mainstream American families.
I may have been traumatized by this adventure. However, I also could've been traumatized by my parents inability to get along with one another. They had a long and tumultuous marriage. A marriage ravaged by my mom's attempts to counteract my dad's drive to risk it all over and over again. She stayed with him until he died at age eighty-five, but it was never a peaceful existence. Peace wasn't possible between two people of such extreme personality differences. Back in their day, most people stayed no matter what.
I have no memories of the town either.
I'm pretty sure it was Dawson Creek, but it might have been another small town. I do know that my dad commented on how close we were to the Yukon. I also know that the town was in the same region where Bradford Angier was living. This would've been early 1960s. Was Angier there at the time? Once again, I don't know.
He and his wife Vena lived near the Peace River until the W.A.C. Bennett Dam was built. Then they moved to California for a while where they built a small house, less than a thousand square feet. That was in 1961, so there's a good chance that they weren't living in Canada when we were there. Another reason that I doubt whether the Angier's were living in British Columbia at the time is that knowing my dad, he would've insisted on trying to meet them whether they wanted to or not. Incidentally, the Angiers did move back to Hudson Hope, Canada, in 1970. By that time, I had left home and was a young newly wed.
The last tidbit of memory surrounding our Canadian misadventures that I've managed to scrounge up is in regard to the job that my dad was seeking at the time.
Once again, the memory is weak and questionable, but I do know that it was a teaching position. My dad held a masters degree in physics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. He had taught for a few years at Indiana State College in Terre Haute. His career was riddled with fits and starts even though he was educated and qualified for a series of pretty good jobs. Yet, he was never able to find his niche nor build a traditional career that involved taking one step at a time toward an eventual goal. He was lucky in that he was a young husband and father during a time period when work was plentiful. This was a short time period in the history of the US that produced unprecedented growth in the middle class, upped the standard of living for many, and has never been repeated. So, he was offered the job in Canada.
We did not live in Canada, however.
I do remember that my mom refused to stay. Why she had followed him almost as far north as the Yukon only to refuse to stay if he accepted the job offer is beyond me. That was often the way they negotiated their lives together. So, I remember that the tension in the home we were temporarily gifted was enormous. Likely large enough that it overshadowed any memories I might have had of the town, townspeople, the countryside, the trip up or back. All I know is that we returned to the states. The adventure in Canada was over.
Stumbling across the above map brought back memories, scanty though they might be, but it also brought back deeply buried feelings and emotions.
It seems as though my feelings have often outlived my memories. Maybe that's true of all of us. However, once again, I'm reminded that history is easily forgotten, even our own personal histories. How I wish that I could remember more details about our adventures in British Columbia, but both of my parents passed away several years ago, taking their memories and many of mine with them.
That's often the case. We don't ask questions while our relatives are alive. We tend to wait until it's too late.
There is one positive benefit I may have gleaned from Bradford Angier's influence upon my dad. I grew up with an attraction to Thoreau-loving people. I don't consider myself a prepper but rather a lover of solitude, the woods, and gardening. I've inherited my grandparent's love of gardening and keeping a fully stocked larder as an important aspect of being prepared for almost anything. Angier championed a contrasting life to the American Dream. I liked that.
I preferred to look at it as a way of life rather than a means to save myself from the end of the world.
All these years later, preppers continue to thrive as do the evangelicals and their persistent call for Jesus to wipe the unbelievers from the face of the earth. I hear my dad in their calls and there's a part of me that can't help but laugh out loud and scream with a diabolical grin ...
I'm still here, fuckers! Six decades have come and gone, and I'm still here.