There were some strange trees in front of the old funeral home. On a small slope or hump.
I have never seen trees quite like those anywhere else. They were small and twisted. Good climbing trees. What kind of trees were they? Over the years I looked up at their black agonized branches to the watery winter sun. I sat beneath them in the benevolent summer with my beloved to watch our children cavort on the stunted lawn. In the fall their leaves fell in a dull heap. They never blossomed. There was no fruit on them. I came to think of them as Funeral Home Trees. A new species. I wonder if those trees are still there? (They are not. Dad cut them down one at a time as they became diseased to the point of danger to the community. They were box elder trees. There were three trees altogether. One on the top of the ridge by the house. One on the left below the ridge in front of the house and the other on the right both closer to the sidewalk than the house.)
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I guess I might as well admit my memory no longer retains the exact date of my first visit to the old funeral home.
Before that time, whenever it was, I had never been inside a funeral home or funeral parlor. And the only time I had ever been to a cemetery was with my old Minnesota friend Jim McCabe. He was a photographer, and he loved to spend time in older, well established cemeteries around the Twin Cities, taking photographs. I would go with him sometimes. We would talk about the girls we wanted to date. And console each other over the way none of them ever wanted to date us. This was never a lustful conversation. It was always rather mournful and pious. Because we knew what outstanding husbands we would make for any girl (on the planet). We were convinced that because our hearts were pure and our aim was noble - temple marriage - that women would swoon at the thought of being hitched to us for time and all eternity. Which just goes to show how often folly is linked with religion.
It’s not that I was uncomfortable with the concept of the presence of death. I had seen several deaths with the circus. A drunken roustabout crushed between two elephants. A Russian trainer whose throat was torn out by his bear. I had even seen a camel brutally put down because it would not stop biting everyone within reach. It was hit on the head with a sledge hammer, which brought it to its knees. Then it was shot point blank in the head with a rifle. The show brought in several local butchers to chop up the carcass to feed to the big cats.
So when I learned that my beloved lived in the old funeral home in Tioga I had no qualms about visiting her there.
The Haroldson family had moved in to the old funeral home in July 30, 1977. (Our neighbors were to the right, the Johnson’s. To the left was the street/ highway state road 40. It was a main road before 1960 when Federal Highway 2 was resurfaced and rerouted. The clinic and hospital including the nursing home were located up the hill from there. The hospital complex was run at that time by three doctors all named Patel, from India. Across the street to the east were the Biklers, the Thingvolds, and the Rosencrans’) My beloved was the 2nd child of 12 in the Haroldson family. With so many children Albert and Alicia Haroldson were happy to get the old funeral home in Tioga to lodge their huge brood in.
Memory can be a useful and comforting servant, but it makes a terrible master. So I am not obsessed about whether or not my memories are accurate. Rather, I am recording my impressions of a world that was new and intriguing to me. It was much more noisy and confused than the glacial environment I grew up in back home.
And then there was the dog Putt-Putt. I am not really sure that she was a dog. I suspect she had the blood of Hades in her. She was small, elongated, and seemed to spout puppies on a monthly basis. She wore a perpetual sneer, etched on her canine face like the terrifying sneer on the face of Gargantua, the famous Ringling gorilla. She would bite anyone or anything that came into her view. (not really, but I’ll let him have his memories) Sort of like a rhinoceros that charges anything that comes into view of its poor eyesight. How the Haroldson’s put up with that creature for so long is a mystery even Adrian Monk would be hard pressed to solve.
(Putt-Putt came to our family when we lived in Ross about 25 miles east of Tioga. She was such a cute little lovely brown turd! Dad and my sister, a year younger than me at age 14, laughed so much at the antics of the puppy. My sister claimed her and taught her so many things. She was a smart dog. The name Putt-Putt came from a line in a TV commercial at the time about little toys for kids. The line was “The what-what’s?? the Putt-Putt’s!!” Putt-Putt was beloved to all of the family. She was a good mamma dog to all her puppies. We were able to find homes for all of the puppies she ever had. Once she was hurt by a miscreant teenager with a b-b-gun. Her hind right leg was shot. My boyfriend, Jeff, rushed her and my sister to the vet at 9 o’clock at night. Jeff was a hero, even if he was from Tioga. If Jeff would have been true to me (I was 17) we would have been married. Dad thought Jeff was “an alright guy.” The leg healed and she forever after had a turned out foot and a limp.
By the time we moved to the old funeral home Putt-Putt was very past her prime for bearing puppies. She only had a few litters there in Tioga. The year Tim met Putt-Putt was 1979. Four years after I graduated from Stanley HS. Stanley was the closest large town for kids from Ross to attend HS. Big rival with Tioga. My siblings faced a bunch of ridicule for moving to the bane of existence for Stanley HS musicians and athletes. Our family had all musicians and many athletes and competition was brutal those first couple years in Tioga.
Anyway, Putt-Putt was a gentle soul who could sense a person’s heart. My sister knew it. Our heritage was very thick and did not allow for animals to have choice in who they were nice to. It did not allow for children to have a choice either. And if the child grew up without learning about how to choose then the child was left to society for teaching. So we were nice to everyone and if the dog didn’t like someone then the dog was kept away from that person to the best of our ability.
I don’t mean to imply that Tim had a black heart. He did have things he was hiding at the time. The dog sensed this part of him and had no way to communicate except to lash out at the misguided ankle. The rest of us just did what we could to try to keep the peace in the situation. I don’t think that anyone will fault a person for having things hidden. We all have things we keep to ourselves. I have since learned about animals and the role they play in keeping us grounded. They help us face our hidden things so the mystery doesn’t overwhelm us or cause damage to ourselves or others.
Tim didn’t know that his hidden things would significantly hurt feelings later in our lives. I didn’t know either. If I had known I may have made a different choice.)
