eckermanmichigan.com Blog

Another insert by Katrina, at the suggestion of her dad, who is ever the wiser when it comes to the needs of her mother than she has ever been.  Then again, he really ought to be.

Mother’s Day week has come to mean a variety of things to me, but generally they are days of reflection. Living in Arkansas while my own mom is in Michigan distances me from the holiday as much as geography distances me from her, but being the mother of a four year old and eight million years pregnant with another baby closes the gap in ways that travel and phone calls never can. It’s funny how as you have kids of your own that you find yourself wanting to call your mom in the middle of the night to apologize.

“Mom! I’m sorry for ever throwing my spaghetti at you. I’m sorry I was slow to potty train! I’m sorry I loved Sesame Street and made you watch the same episode over and over and over!”

“Mom, I’m sorry for all the times I puked into your palm, or wiped my nose on your blouse, or peed in your lap at church!”

With the apologies come questions, generally the same two in a variety of forms: “Why do they do that?” and “How do you make it stop?!” (The second question is far more important than the first, by the way.) Mom has an answer every time, much to my daughter’s relief. Megan would probably still be wearing a dirty diaper and a runny nose if it weren’t for my mom’s willingness to offer suggestions–and how good she is not to make me feel stupid for having to ask.

There are so many things I just didn’t understand as a kid about my mom. Why did she never get sick? How come watching my brothers throw up made me want to puke but she never turned green? Why wasn’t I allowed to scream? Why couldn’t we climb trees? What was in that casserole, anyway? But I’ve grown, and every week I stumble on answers to those questions.

Moms do get sick. But you whine louder. Moms do get queasy, but are you going to let her puke into your hand? What was in that casserole was the remainder of her inspiration for the week, as well as what was left in the fridge, so shut up and eat it, and stay out of the tree before you break your neck because I’m not driving your klutzy butt to the hospital.

A big one for me is the protectiveness. As a kid, I thought my mother was overprotective. Watching my daughter Megan, though, I realize that part of motherhood is more about going through life holding your breath and a box of band-aids than almost anything else. You watch and pray that your kids won’t do something stupid, but they will. You try to soften every edge, round every sharp corner, and lock away all threats to their safety, but they’re going to find the dangers anyway. Being a mom isn’t about getting puked on, but it is about being there with the Strawberry Shortcake band-aids and a fudgecicle when your kid gets hurt, and then not saying “I told you so.” (I have heard, “So what did you learn?” an awful lot though.) It’s about your bosom being the best spot to nap in the whole house and always having a clean towel fresh out of the dryer when your youngest is chilly and climbing out of the tub. It’s about somehow dragging out the random ingredients of your refrigerator and putting together something edible when inspiration is low and appreciation for it is lower. It’s about doing the impossible, the disgusting, the horrid, and accepting sticky hugs and chocolate kisses as reward for your troubles.

It’s hard to properly show appreciation for your mom. I remember one year thinking it was a great idea to get Mom a dish drainer for Mother’s Day–she did say that’s what she wanted! Needless to say that was a bust. I’m not the best at giving presents, and like most mothers, my mom isn’t very good at asking for them. Maybe her desires dried up over the years, or maybe she just takes so much more joy in getting stuff for us that she can’t think of what she’d like to get. Maybe it’s a woman thing–”Oh, you don’t have to get me a present, honey” which we all know that translates into, “There better be breakfast in bed and long stemmed roses involved or your butt is on the couch, buckeroo.” Whatever the reason, my mom was no exception and probably headed up the “No, really, it’s okay if you go fishing–just don’t expect to be thanked when you drag a bucket of smelly carcasses home and expect me to cook it on Mother’s Day” club. It made holidays a challenge at my house, and to this day I’m not very good at giving gifts to grown ups, but I did pay attention to some of Mom’s subtle cues.

Take this one: Mom views each of her children’s birthdays as another Mother’s Day. She spent this day, however many years ago, pushing a watermelon (you) out of her nose (…you know…) and thus, she deserves recognition. Why a random day in May? It doesn’t even fall on the same day every year! That’s not very special! Why does it need to be Sunday? Shouldn’t it fall on a day in the middle of the week so working moms can have a special Wednesday off? So church going moms don’t have to get up early on their own holiday? Mom’s theory was much more appropriate, and I was the first one of her kids to get the hint. Mom always teased us after the passage of our birthdays that we should have gotten her a dozen roses–something, at any rate, to acknowledge her part in the fact that you even have a birthday at all.

I went out and got her rose. It was fake.

So I didn’t win all that many points, but I did do it. Give me some credit.

One year for Mother’s Day, though, I really took the cake. I stole it from the dining room table, ripped right out from under the noses of my brothers, and nailed it to the wall with a ribbon and my name attached. Trina did it; Trina won. I am the all time Mother’s Day Champion.

About ten years ago I found myself sitting in my Grandpa’s recliner reading the Jordan Journal–a regular Thursday event, but this time I was inspired. There was a contest, the paper announced, for essays nominating Mothers of the Year for Mother’s Day. This was my big chance.

I’m no smoothie like my eldest brother. I can’t come into a room and bowl a woman over with a kiss on the cheek and a reminder that I’m their firstborn. I’m not like Matt, the second born, with long black lashes and a smile that would make any mother’s heart turn to warm pudding. I’m the third born, not the youngest, not anything special except to Dad, for whom I’m Precious (there are perks to being the only girl). I’m the one who serves as a constant reminder to my mother of the stupid things she did as a kid, just as my daughter reminds me. It’s a role that either makes you laugh or cry, but seldom buys good Mother’s Day presents.

However, I have a saving grace, one I share with my mom and my dad. We’re lovers of the written word–for Dad and I, it’s writing that we share (and bad science fiction). For Mom and I, it’s reading. Well. I’ll give her something to read, I thought!

I wrote up a piece that I thought as a seventh grader was impossibly long and incredibly articulate and mailed it off to the Journal, confident that I’d either win the whole thing and get to give a speech at some dinner in some church somewhere, or I’d lose so badly no one would ever have to know. If I won, it would be the best Mother’s Day present ever, and all it cost was a stamp that my grandpa bought! If I lost, since it was a secret, there was nothing really lost at all.

A few weeks later I was headed up Josephine on my walk home from school when Mom met me at the intersection, her face red and puffy, looking like she was either having an allergic reaction to shellfish or she’d just gotten through watching Space Balls in front of inappropriate company. She was blubbering something about a phone call and then hugged me and asked me if there was anything I needed to tell her.

I ran through my mental checklist. I’m in seventh grade, so pregnancy is out. I’m not running away to join the circus (or marry anyone in Arkansas–this week). I’m not sick. I haven’t failed any of my classes. No one’s gotten hurt in my vicinity. I lifted a brow, wary. “Uh, I don’t know…”

She hates that answer, and I hate giving it, but darn it, it was the truth. I didn’t know what her deal was! All I knew was that she looked like she just ran out of coffee!

Turns out the Journal had called Mom to ask for permission to run my letter. My little “My mom rocks” essay, detailing how she had selflessly moved away from her brothers and sisters to take care of her father-in-law, had taken one of the honorable mention spots. I don’t remember who won, except that they weren’t as deserving as those who came in second and third place, and none of them were as deserving as my mom. After all, she’d spent twenty-some-odd years putting up with my eldest brother. Surely the woman needed a cookie and a cup of tea!

I wasn’t very happy that the paper had spoiled the surprise by calling her and stupidly telling her all about it before realizing–hey–this person isn’t the author of the letter! But that’s probably why the Jordan Journal now reports more news from Boyne City than it does East Jordan. In the end, though, it didn’t matter if she found out on Thursday or if she found out on Mother’s Day. What mattered is that someone appreciated her hard work enough to write an essay–like homework!–and mail it in, all in secret, to the local paper. It didn’t matter to her that she didn’t win, or that they spelled “Kamradt” with an “o” after the “K” (morons–no I’m not bitter). That essay is still framed–complete with my carefully written “a” over the “o”–and hanging on the wall somewhere in her house. It meant a lot to my mom because any thanks is good thanks, and because I’m just that darned fantastic.

But I get it from her. Anything that is good in me has to come from my parents, and most especially my mother, who stayed at home even when she might have been better off getting out of the house to a job where she could have had friends. Even when her siblings clucked their tongues and said she was “just a housewife”. Even when the world seemed to look down upon stay-at-home mothers and roll its eyes, my mom stayed at home amidst criticism and the threat of not being “fashionable” to take care of us. She was there every time I’ve been sick–and a heck of a lot of times when I’ve faked it. She was there every time I needed to throw up in the backseat and she never once told anyone anything that would embarrass me more than I deserved. She never breathed a word about having an accident, never really complained about all the nights I spent lying in bed going, “Mom. Mom. Mooom. Mom. Mooooom. MooOOoom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. MOM!” She never hesitated to scoot over and share her bed, even if there was already another kid in there (and Dad), and she never seemed to mind that she could have spent all that time out there in the working world, having adult conversations and not watching Sesame Street.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m nowhere near to being as good a mom as she was, but I do think twice when I wake up to my daughter wanting to cuddle when all I want to do is take about ten Tylenol and die. I do think about her whenever Megan relives her breakfast the fun way, and every second I have spent with my own head hanging over the toilet, caught up in a whirlwind of morning sickness with no one to put a cold rag to the back of my neck. There’s still nothing I find more comforting when I’m not well than the sound of my mom’s voice and the thought of Vernor’s (she always let it go flat for me, knowing I didn’t like the bubbles) and cinnamon toast, and she’s still the first person I want to talk to when I get home from work. Maybe I’ve never actually grown up. Maybe I’m playing make-believe-mom here, and that I’m really still only five years old, scared of the school bus, and needing to cuddle. Or maybe my mom was really just that good.

I’d like to think it’s the second one.

Thanks for being my mother, Mum. You’ve made the world four people better than it was thirty-three years ago.

When I was little, we used to come up to East Jordan in the summer.  This was my grandparents’ house, as I’m sure you’ve been told. When we’d come up in August, it would be really hot, so we usually did water-related activities, like canoing. One year, we decided to have a race, being a competitive lot (Dad will never admit it). Dad, Mark, Matthew, and Matt’s friend Trevor were in the family’s 17′ canoe. Jonathan, his friend Jason, and I were in a rented fiberglass canoe… I was there for ballast, I guess. I didn’t have a paddle.  Well, I served as lookout, you could say.

Dad gave us a headstart since Jon wasn’t known for his mastery of the Jordan River. We did 360’s down the  first stretch and I was scared witless. I’m a more nervous, insurance-and-emergency-room-bill-conscious Kamradt, after all.  We finally get around the first turn and there’s this canoe on its side caught in a log jam. No trace of the passengers, paddles, or any of the gear. The three of us kind of looked at each other, wondering what we’d just gotten ourselves into. “Racing? On the Jordan? Against DAD?” My father, you see, grew up canoing down the Jordan River and can do it in his sleep. He probably does, actually.

We got past that and Jon finally got things under control–we were actually doing pretty well! But always, Dad was just on our tail; we could hear him laughing and joking with fishermen as he just calmly cruised along…while Jon and Jay were busting their humps trying to get ahead. We finally thought we got ahead a little. Heading up on Chestonia, which is this bridge with a set of tubes in it, the river gets a little there (by my anxiety-riddled standards) and the tunnels are difficult to navigate if you haven’t been at it for a while. Well, we get through the tunnels okay, but come out spinning and wind up crashing into the bank. And we hear Mark’s high pitched little boy laugh, “There they are!” So Jon and Jay just start huffing it, paddling their hearts out. Jon has me turn around in the canoe to watch over our shoulders for the other team.

Eventually, we get to this long stretch commonly referred to as the “flats”. It’s about 3 to 4 feet deep and very flat and slow there…excellent for fishing, for some reason. You can always count on coming across fishermen while you’re there. And we did…and because it’s so flat, you can see quite a ways back, but we didn’t see dad.. All right, so we’re thinking, “Cool, we’re ahead of him by at least 10 minutes…” But then we hear the thunderclap of a punchline and all the fishermen cracking up. Jon and Jay get right back at it, poor guys. Later, we found out that Dad had asked them, “Did you guys see a canoe with a coupla guys bustin’ their asses and a terrified lookin’ little girl?” Copy THAT.

So we continue on like this for another hour or so. Believe me, going down the river while facing backward is no picnic, especially when you’re afraid of it as it is, so I turned around again. We FINALLY slow down, figuring we’re plenty ahead of them by now. Dad would had to have stopped to let Mark pee or something like that. Little boy can’t hold it to save the world. So here we are, for the first time in 3 hours, finally relaxing and enjoying the ride a little. This canoe in front of us kinda rocks strangely, but they manage to recover and continue through this pair of pilons – there was a slim opening in the middle, or else it would’ve been a jam. Jon and Jay, busy as they were watching the ladies in the canoe ahead of us, failed to see the snag coming. I remember looking at Jay’s back, then the bow of the canoe as it rose up out of the water…To tip bow over stern. I don’t remember the trip, but I recall being about 3 feet under water and flipped right out. The current in the Jordan is something fierce and there were trees and stuff ahead of me… Had it not been for Jon grabbing me, I’d have gotten caught up in an underwater snag and drowned. Jon, while I’m bobbing under water trying to find out which way is up, is thinking, “Hey, that was kinda fun–oh shit, sis!” So he yanked me up again and sat me on a log. I was freezing–the Jordan is fed by natural springs in the hills surrounding the Jordan Valley (the settlers up here weren’t very creative with names, apparently) so the River is VERY VERY cold. And I was crying and insisting, “I’m not getting into that canoe with you guys! You aren’t EVEN going to get me to so much as THINK about getting back in there with you… I’m waiting for Dad.” Jon and Jay had to swim down the river because they canoe and all our gear was floating away. Then this OTHER canoe comes downstream and crashes right into where we had! Bam, but because all our stuff was in the way, they didn’t tip. Lucky them. They wound up swimming in the water anyway. Water’s so cold, you can put an ice cube in it and it would get BIGGER if it weren’t for the current. Is it a wonder we crashed? If I recall, the ladies in the bikini tops looked as though they’d recently been for a dip.

FINALLY, Jon and Jay talk me into getting back into the canoe…but we’ve got to go downstream a ways to find me a place where I can climb in without the damn thing tipping over again. I get in, all is well, blah blah blah, we get to Roger’s Bridge and the race is over, right? Sorta. Jon and Jay decide that they aren’t going to tell Dad that we tipped…because tipping means disqualification. Well I wasn’t having any of that. No, sir… I was cold and wet and pissed as all hell.  My parents named me “Katrina” and the first syllable of that name is “Kat”.  I do not like being involuntarily moisturized, and it was written clearly on my face. I was going to tell Dad exactly what happened–those mean boys dumped me in the river in a fit of hormonal negligence, too intrigued by the headlamps of strange females to take notice of what was OBVIOUSLY our doom off the port bow.

Life, though, has a happy way of taking care of these decisions for me, though, and I was never forced to betray Jon and Jay’s confidence.  Fifteen minutes later (somehow, we’d gained 30 minutes on Dad–apparently, Mark really did have to pee..or eat lunch–but we lost 15 when we tipped), Dad and the boys come around the corner–we can see them from our perch on the top of the bridge. Dad takes one look at me and starts roaring with laughter. 

And Dad continued to laugh. For a LONG time. He’s still laughing, in fact. That was ten years ago? Nine? (By now, far more than that!  I wrote this piece five years ago!) So we lost the race and because we tipped in the Jordan, we are forever shamed. And what did I learn? Go ahead, Trina. LIE.

   A week ago Sunday, as I was sitting here working on the computer I watched my son Mark out the window. The week before, he had talked to Matt on the phone, and Matt told him of how he and his girlfriend had started roller blading. Mark had always wanted to try it, so that week he bought himself a pair and on Sunday he was giving himself a lesson. I saw him out there with the instruction manual in his hand trying to figure it all out. About 10 minutes later, Jan call’s up to me that Mark’s on the ground and someone is helping him. I got out there as quick as I could and could see that this man had taken off the skate, and was checking it out. I had a look myself and immediatly got sick to my stomach. His left ankle was allready the size of a softball and turning black. Soon after that, this gentleman and I were loading him into the truck and Jan and I took him to the emergency room in Charlevoix.

   Not long after I’d started reading my book, (I had been there the week before with Jan breaking a toe, and had started it then) Jan comes in and tells me they were going to admit him, that there were two broken bones. The doctor who was going to do the operating was in Cheboygan, and should be along shortly. We got him to his room, and I got back to my book. The nurse came in a while later and told us that he would be operated on later in the day, that the doctor had been stopped in Petoskey for another emergency there. She came in an hour after that, and told us that it would have to be postponed until the following day, that ANOTHER emergency came up at Northern.

   As much as I love living here in the wilds of Norther Michigan, I never thought of this area being that wild. A doctor has to travel between three different hospitals trying to put people back together. I realize that medicine is expensive and all that, but for the amount we’re spending in health insurance, you’d think that they could do better than that.

   Mark was operated on at noon by a Doctor Wroblewski who works for Bay Street Orthopaedics. I don’t know if he was standing the watch over the weekend, but I’m eternally gratefull he had the duty that day. After the operation he came in and explained everything he did and answered all our questions. It’s always comforting when you know your kid is being taken care of by the best. He told us that he’d busted it up pretty bad, and with time he’d be fine. He told us also that Mark was going to have to spend another night, and could go home the next day. I must admit that Charlevoix took very good care of him and of that I’m also gratefull. When I went there in ‘95 with my heart attack, they gave me up for dead, and if wasn’t for the cardiology department at Northern Michigan, I would’nt be here writing about this. In any case, they took good care of Mark.

   Yesterday I took Mark up to their offices near Petoskey to have his splint removed and a cast formed for his leg. After x-raying it and having a look at the wounds, Dr. Wroblewski decided to leave the staples in, and we’ll go back next week. While the technician was putting the figerglass cast on Mark’s leg, she asked him if he’d like to have those two seconds back, that it took to break his leg. “No” he said, “I’d like the two hours it took me to buy the damned things”

   So now, Mark’s downstair’s with his leg up thinking of different ways he could have fun with his brother and his girlfriend. Skateing is definetly out.

   My son Matthew and his fiance’ were up over the weekend and it got me to thinking of my life with all my kids. Most people, when they’re growing up think of being an astronaut or a train conductor, I always wanted to be a dad. My father’s philosophy was “you never enjoyed your kids, but made up for it with your grandchildren”.  From early on I knew that I wasn’t going to be that way, and then when my medical problems started, I knew I was right. I’ve always known that I wasn’t going to live long enough to enjoy my grandkids, so I was going to make up for it by enjoying what I had. My wife and I have never had enough money to “go out on the town” so we received all our entertainment from our kids. I couldn’t wait to get home to see what they were up to that day. I would watch them play with each other and in some cases, just listen. The two oldest, Jon and Matt, were delegated with doing the dish’s each night and some nights it would take them an hour to get them done. I’d listen to them laugh and talk about what they’d done at school that day, as I’d watch my two youngest, Katrina and Mark play in front of the t.v.

   On the weekends I didn’t have to work, I’d take them to a State Park near us, and we’d go for hikes in the woods. In the Summertime, we’d take those long squirt guns and try to ambush each other. In the Winter, we’d use snowballs. One winter I ran ahead and found a nice hiding spot so I could waylay them with snowballs when they came in range. I never packed the snowballs hard ’cause I never wanted to hurt them, but once (and only once) after I’d used up my pile of snowballs, I started making them up as I threw ‘em. In haste I made up a snowball half again as big as a soft ball and let it fly. As luck would have it, my “precious” as I called her, turned the wrong way and walked right into it’s path. I smacked her right in the ear with a snowball almost as big as her head. The look she had on her face almost broke my heart. Naturally, she cried at the time, but she hasn’t held it against me since. Each night she would come in my room to tuck me in for the night. She packed me in there so hard I couldn’t move, and would have to loosen them up some before I’d go to sleep.

   Jonathan was my firstborn and most of the mistakes I made as a parent were made on him. I was a lot stricter on him as I was on the other kids, but that helped too. I didn’t have to be as strict on the other kids, ’cause he would warn them of what not to do, and they listened. Jon and I used to talk a lot about the news and events of the times, and he grew up with an understanding of what was going on around him and why. I asked him once what he wanted to do when he grew up, and he told me he wanted to be the Pope. He loved the architecture of the buildings of Rome, and all the power the position held. When I told him that he’d have to be a priest first, and priests were celibate, he dropped the whole idea. Then he wanted to be the dictator on Cuba and turn the island into a whorehouse. How a kid can go from one extreme to another is beyond me, but I told him if I ever had to be frisked before I could talk to him, that would be the end of our relationship.

   Matthew seems to be a more refined, subtler verson of Jon, which makes a lot of sence. Matt’s always been a very observant kid, and saw some of the mistakes Jon and myself have made. He’s defined for himself what he wants to be, and how he wants to get there. We were talking over the weekend about a time we went out to the Green River Trout pond for some fishing. All of the other kids were bringing in fish as fast as the owner could bait their hooks, and he couldn’t get one to bite. He decided then that fishing wasn’t his favorite activity, but he knew he had other activities that he excelled at. I had to give him a lot of credit for taking it the way he did, and he’s continued to excell at everything he does.

   Mark, our youngest, is 20 now and for a long time he’s wanted to follow in whatever his siblings did, but he’s found his own way too. Several years ago, we found out that he’s afflicted with epilepsy but he hasn’t, for one instant, changed his attitude towards life. We’re planning on re-modeling the garage so he can carve his own nich in life. In High School, he found that he loved to work with wood and has decided to put that love to work for himself. Of the four children we’ve had, he’ll probably be the only one to stay living here. All the other kids promised us that they’d never leave, but they all did. We never held them to that promise because as parents, we knew that kids grow up and move away.

   I hear from a lot of parents that they “can’t wait till the kid leaves so we can have some fun”. Those people will never hear that from me. I miss those conversations with Jon about the financial attributes of having a whorehouse in Cuba, or those talks Matt and I have about the political ramifications of having Hillary Clinton as president, getting tucked in by my precious those many years ago, or helping Mark build his dreams. I have accomplished what I wanted to do with my life, and will enjoy it, even into my next.

No big stories today, my son Matt and his fiance’ are up for the weekend to visit, and to take me out for a round of golf. Katrina let me know a day or two ago, that she’s diligently working on the last three Eckerman stories, and she should have them posted by the end of the month. I hope everyone will have as nice a weekend as I’m about to.

   I was canoeing the Jordan some years ago, with three of my kids when I pulled a trick on one of our “summer visitors”. We had been passing a number of people who didn’t have a clue on how to navigate a canoe, but this one couple got me to thinking. The guy was a nice handsome lad who was obviously trying to impress the gorgeous young lady he had with him. Well, he may have been impressing her, but after watching him hit the bank on one side, and then careen over to the other, it was just too much. I told the kids that we were going to move on ahead of them after the next turn, and then turn around and meet them going the other way.

   We went around the next bend, and about half way down a straight-away, we came about and headed back towards the turn. It worked out really well, because he got to watch us hauling butt up the river, and as we passed him by I said; “Your gonna have to turn around, there’s been an accident and the river is closed up ahead”. The young lady must have been thinking of what they had been through to get as far as they had, and she was not happy. The guy seemed to take it ok, he just said; “I hate it when this happens”, like it happens to him all the time! We had just passed them and as soon as they were half way through the manuver to turn about, we spun our canoe around and headed back downstream laughing our ass’s off. That’s when the guy got pissed. I’d warned the kids that as soon as I pulled off the trick, they were going to have to help me out with the power strokes to get away. Good move too, ’cause this guy poured it on. She wasn’t a whole lot of help, I could see she was trying to get the paddle in the river, but kept banging it on the gunnel or just splashing it into the river. That got us laughing even harder and I think that was his undoing. He finally got it going in the right direction and started to gain groung on us when I saw up ahead a snag. A tree had fallen into the river and blocked about three quarters of the river, and there was only room for one canoe at a time. Just then I hear from behind me the girl say, “Lets ram them and run over their bodies!!!”, and then hear him just scream. The bow of their canoe was just about ready to contact mine, when I passed by the snag. Just after clearing the snag, I turned around to see how they faired, and all I saw was the bottom of the canoe with hands and feet sticking out. I’d thought about going back to lend a hand but decided that “Retreat is the better part of valor”, and just kept paddleing on.