Part 7 - Hazel's Last Years

Mom lived three more years. I was on my way for a visit in the spring of 1997 when I received a phone call upon getting into Los Angeles. It was Don. He told me that Jodi Spiegel, Ellie’s middle child from her first marriage, had died suddenly of a brain tumor. She had been having severe headaches for weeks. Don had helped raise Jodi and her two sisters since she was eight years old. They were still at the hospital, in shock, and not sure they would be able to pick me up as planned. I told them not to worry, I’d find my way, but they managed, and were waiting when I deplaned in San Diego.

 I stayed with Mom at her one-bedroom apartment. Her rental was in a small retirement community of four two-story buildings that enclosed a beautifully landscaped courtyard - rather charming. There were gates at each corner, one lead conveniently to a strip mall and grocery. Don and Ellie lived only a couple miles away.

The clan gathered at Don and Ellie’s place each evening during those sad days. The core group included more than a dozen people: Ellie’s surviving daughters, Stephanie and Susan, along with their families, her first husband, Jerry Spiegel, and Don‘s sons, Lee and Dennis Buckingham, who flew in from Indiana. They planned a memorial service for Jodi at Dog Beach in San Diego, a favorite of Jodi as she had often taken her dog there. It was an entertainment to see the dogs frolicking in the waves, seemingly with
out a care in the world. A pavilion was pitched on the beach, and the service consisted of friends and family taking turns telling remembrances of events that they had shared with Jodi.

 One evening, as I was helping Mom into the car to take her back to her apartment she let me know she would be interested in trying some pot. This was a bit of a surprise. She had been a smoker all her adult life, but never showed the lease interest in the stuff of Reefer Madness. She had, no doubt, smelled the characteristic aroma of the weed wafting through the group that night, and I suspect her dormant curiosity became aroused. Maybe she had always been curious, but the opportunity had never presented itself at a convenient time. But she was in California now, land of liberalism, so why not join in. Besides, what did it matter at that stage of her life. I told her I would see if someone could help her.

Jerry Spiegel was known to be a connoisseur, and the next evening he presented Mom with a joint. She immediately took a puff, inhaled deeply and started coughing. She coughed for several minutes, loud and hurtful hacks, with big tears rolling down her cheeks. She never finished her joint, never got to experience a marijuana high. Most everybody smiled sheepishly, and I think all felt sorry for her, though the sympathy might have followed different paths of reasoning.

Mom never got into the California niche, once admitting to me of feeling overwhelmed by the move, and not able to make herself get involved. She was depressed and withdrawn.

There were plenty of activities at the senior complex. Don said they passed the community room on one occasion where a number of residents were playing cards and kibitzing. It looked like a lot of fun, but they were on their way to dinner, and didn’t stop. He regretted not taking her in as it was a perfect opportunity to introduce her to the new neighbors as Mom was not the type to boldly go in on her own.

Mom stayed in the apartment for a little over a year before Don moved her into a care facility. She had a series of small strokes that robbed her of short-term memory. Don was devoted in his caretaking, going over every day to spend time with her. I visited a last time a few months before she died, and took our newly adopted boy, John. We visited at the hospice. Mom was confined to a wheel chair. We strolled with her out the walk around the facility. She stopped to ask about the name of a flower along the path‘s edge. Don said she asked that same question every day. Mom died a month later on May 5th, 1999, four and a half months short of 86.

Part 6 - Hazel's Life Without Her Friend Bob

Bob had a stroke the next year and was confined to a nursing home. I visited Mom right after the stroke. Mom was busy; she had a mission. She went to the nursing home every day, brought clean cloths, and stayed with him till evening. She was devoted. They had become very close over the years. Bob sat in a chair resting his head on a table with his face turned to one side. He was helpless, wasn’t enjoying life, and had run his trapline for the last time. He lifted his head off the table only one time. He made the effort to look at me and attest that it sucked, and then laid his head down again. Bob died a month or so later.

Mom was alone and very much lost again. She got sick and brother Don took a bus from San Diego, getting to Kokomo in time to put her in the hospital. When she improved he loaded her in her car and drove back to California. I flew in and we had a conference as to what should be done. It was evident that Mom, at nearly eighty-three, could no longer live by herself. We decided she would sell the house and move to California to be near Don and Ellie.

Don took Mom back to Indiana, and in three months we met again to clear her house, arrange shipping for what she wanted to keep, and put the rest up for auction. The attic and basement were full of fifty years of living. We found curtains stored in the attic that had hung in our bedroom in the 1950’s. Grandma Frank died in 1968, but her clothes were still hanging in a stand-alone closet in the basement. We rented one of those big trash containers, the type you see at construction sites, had it set at the back of driveway, and the proceeded to fill it.

Most of the stuff was in the attic. I’d go up, rummage around till I found something interesting, and bring it down to the driveway. Sometimes we’d decide it should go into the trash bin. If it passed muster Don would clean it (often washing it with the garden hose), and store it in the garage.

The auction was held on Sunday, September 29, 1996. The auctioneer lined tables along the length of the driveway, and filled them with smaller items. Larger things were carried from the garage when their turn came. Lots of people showed up to buy lots of interesting artifacts. One of the last things auctioned was Bob’s car, a late model Chrysler. Mom had driven it to the nursing home everyday after his stroke, and he indicated that he wanted her to have it. We got the title out realized that Bob had never signed it over to her. I handed it to the auctioneer, he looked at it a moment, took out his pen and forged Bob’s name on it. The auction was a complete success.
GO TO: Part 7 - Hazel's Last Years

Part 5 - Hazel and Friend Bob Visit Alaska

Mom and Bob Eschelman at Portage Glacier, Alaska, 1993 

Mom believed mightily in fate. What was to be, would be, so when a direction was set she generally followed course. I think this was the result of her having been the youngest sibling in a family of three older brothers. She never got the chance to be the lead dog while growing up, and since Dad was older by a year and a half the situation continued into their marriage. 

Bob, Mom and Mary at Garage Sale in Anchorage, Ak, 1993

In 1992 Mom and Bob planned a trip to visit Don and Ellie in California by car, and then to fly up to Alaska to see us. I think she had misgivings about the road trip; probably because of Bob’s drinking. She called when they were about to head west. She seemed subdued, and when we hung up she said “goodbye” in a tone of such finality that I wondered if she thought she might be speaking to me for the last time. They made the trip without incident.

Mom and Bob at neighbors for a Salmon Bake

In August they flew into Anchorage. Mary and I waited for them to deplane at the gate. The passengers filed out, and we stood there as the last trickled by. Then Mom came out trailed by a flight attendant shoving Bob in a Wheel chair. He suddenly rose from the chair, tripped on the foot rest, and fell flat on his face. He was drunker than a skunk, and Mom was beside herself with anger and embarrassment. We got him back in the chair. The attendant informed me that if I didn’t take responsibility she would have to turn him over to airport security. I was tempered to decline the option, but agreed to see after him. It seems Bob had bought two bottles of Absolute Vodka just before departing the Minneapolis Airport. Mom hide them in her purse on boarding, and Bob preceded to have a four thousand mile party.

Mom and Bob in boat returning to Cabin, 1993

I no longer recall how we got to the baggage claim on the lower level, but we soon found the designated carrousel with weary travelers crowded in front of a conveyor laded with rotating baggage. Mom recognized her bags, but couldn’t identify Bob’s so I maneuvered him in behind the first row of people. He spotted his sliding down the shoot, and bolted out of the chair, dived past the people in front and landed on the conveyor belt. He lay there clutching his suitcase in triumph as the conveyor transported him toward the exit. I hesitated for a moment but then extracted him and his luggage before they disappeared behind the curtain.

Bob and Mom at Window all Day

We took Bob to the house, filled him with coffee, and put him to bed. He slept on a fold-out couch in the recreation room, a large open area downstairs. A big wood stove stood near the couch/bed. I pulled the curtains to darken the room. It was August but daylight still lingered long into evenings That proved to be a mistake, because Bob got up in the middle of the night needing to take a potty break. In the alcoholic infused confusion he tripped, fell over the stove, bruised a rib and skinned his nose. He was quite a sight for the next week, but continued to smile in that uncomplaining way even though we limited him to beer for the rest of the stay.

Bob and Mom at window at night

I took them to the cabin in Seldovia for a week. Mostly I remember them sitting at the table before the big picture window, Bob on the left, Mom on the right. They would sit there for hours with heads turned toward the window, chins propped on a hands supported by elbows on the table. The tide would flow from high to low in six hours, sometimes with as much as a twenty-seven foot change in level. The high tide flooded the cove climbing up the banks to where tips of tree limbs dipped into the ocean’s surface. Then it would drain exposing the sea floor with mud flats extending out for hundreds of feet from the shore. They could never get enough of watching it.

Bob, Mom, Joe and Mary at Farewell Celebration, 1993

Mary had planned a garage sale on our return. Those events were always more like parties at our house. It was a big success, lots of friends showed up to meet the soon to be departing couple. Mount Spur blew its top the day before they were to fly home. Volcanic ash covered everything and their departure was delayed for a couple days. Bob seemed more anxious about the interruption, and was more eager to depart than we were to see him go. Things ended fairly well as it was hard to stay mad at Bob.
GO TO: Part 6 - Hazel's Life Without Her Friend Bob

Part 4 - Hazels' Life After She Renewed an Old Friendship

It turned out that Mom’s “boyfriend” was Bob Eschelman, a person I‘d known for many years. I’d met him in the sixties when I bartended at the Moose Lodge, and Bob was one of the two full-time bartenders, working there for many years, possibly till his retirement. He and his wife had been at Dad’s funeral. She died a couple years after that.

Bob was a jovial fellow with a mischievous smile perpetually pasted on his face. He liked to drink, was fun loving, and partied till his dying day. I went with him on one occasion when he run his “trap lines”. That is what he called his daily round of visits to a string of local clubs: VFW, American Legion, Eagles and the Moose Lodge. He had a drink at each one, visited with the bartender and fellow patrons, and then went on to the next. Bob never appeared to be drunk, but did manifest a watery-eyed glow through most of each day. He had a spontaneous nature, and didn’t seem to put much thought into contemplating the consequences of his actions, he just did them.

Mom told me that Bob grew up only child of a prominent family in Anderson, Indiana, hinting that he had been a bit spoiled. He was a wiry little guy, a veteran of World War II, and had served in Europe through most of it. I remember something about the “Battle of the Bulge“. He might have been a prisoner-of-war, though I’m not certain of that. I often wondered if the war might have had something to do with his laissez-faire approach to life, and the uncomplaining toughness that I liked about him .

One time in 1989, after one of my visits to, Mom and I had planned to fly to California to visit my brother and his wife, Don and Ellie. Bob volunteered to drive us to the Indianapolis airport. He arrived a bit late to pick us up, but there was still time to comfortably make it. Kokomo is a long narrow town, measuring two miles on its east-west axis and eight miles north-south. Mom’s house sat on the eastern edge. When Bob pulled out of the driveway he turned west toward the center of town instead of east which would have taken us the half-block to the by-pass and quickly around town. He drove to the center, turned south weaving his way through perceived shortcuts, and finally reached the south edge of town and open road.

It was then that Mom realized she had forgotten her airline ticket. We had to go back to the house. Bob could have taken the by-pass back but retraced his way back through town. Mom retrieved her ticket and Bob started back through town, but I intervened. Now we were running late so Bob sped down the road only to be stopped and ticketed. That took another ten minutes. It did not seem probable but we did make the airport on time.
GO TO: Part 5: Hazel and Her Friend, Bob, Visit Alaska

Part 3 - Hazel's Life after Dad Died in 1985

Dad died in 1985. Mom was 71 years old, my age as I write this. She was alone for the first time in her life, and in shock for sometime afterward. Don and Ellie had recently lost their farm in Wisconsin, had moved to New Orleans, and arrived there only a few days before his passing. They dropped everything and headed to Kokomo. I took a day to arrange for a substitute before boarding a plane for home.

Mom lived another fourteen years without Dad. I think several of those years were pretty lonely especially the first and final few. She visited Don and Ellie in New Orleans, and came up to Alaska, but was kind of a lost sole in both places. She had lived in Kokomo since 1937, but life around town seemed alien to her after he passed.

The trouble with living a long life is that you out-live most everyone else. One of her friends sat in the front row at Dad’s funeral. I no longer remember her name, Bernice maybe, but she and Mom had been the best of buddies since the sixties, did a lot of things together. The woman had emphysema, and breathed with difficulty. I heard that she passed a short time later.

Mom was the last of her generation to go. She outlived her three brothers, and Dad’s four siblings - family members of whom I’d known from my beginning.

Three or four years passed. I visited for a week every year of so, cleaned gutters and did needed repairs around the house. We tried the Senior Center for lunch a couple times, but she didn’t seem to know any one there. We went to a Unitarian Church service. She liked it and continued to attend till summer recess, but never went back when they commenced in the fall. She lived in her bedroom with the television on 24/7. On visits I often crept into the room to turn off the blaring TV after she had gone to sleep. The TV was her constant companion in those days. The bedroom and kitchen became all she needed and were the only rooms she went into.

Then things changed for her in the next year. One night she called me, said she had been out with a couple old friends, a rare occasion. The three had a couple of drinks and Mom’s voice possessed a bit of an uncharacteristic slur. We talked on for a while, then the phone line went silent for a short spell, and then Mom blurted out, “What would you think if I got myself a boy friend?” In-a-way she was asking my permission, would it be alright with me? If I had said something like, “You don’t want to do that.”, she would have dropped the subject and I’d have never heard anything more about it. I said, “That sounds like a good idea to me”. I consider that to have been one of the wisest and most thoughtful statements I’ve made in my life.
GO TO: Part 4 - Hazel's Life After She Renewed an Old Friendship

Claiming Land in Alaska, 1990 - Part 4

Ten years passed before I revisited the land. Four of us made the journey in the summer of 1990 - Dan Wilson and I were accompanied by a couple of fellow teachers. Pat Podvin was Dan’s son-in-law; the other, Robert Moser, was a physics teacher at Bartlett High School.

We chose a different route, one further east along Oil Well Road. We left our vehicle and headed west on one of the seismic trails. The group descended a steep incline, crossed a small creek, gained the opposite slope, and found the going fairly easy thereafter. Dan and I recognized familiar features - enough to keep us on track, and we reached the land without much confusion. Nearly twenty years had passed, but it had not changed that much. The birch tree with the giant burl was still standing and the flat area overlooking Deep Creek was still a grassy meadow. I don’t think we found any of the survey markers, but didn’t spend much time looking. The four of us soon headed down the gentle slope toward the river below.

There must have been some heavy rains earlier that summer. Deep Creek was jammed with fallen trees lying crisscrossed over each other. I’d not seen a stream so full of downfall. There were sweepers and standing waves; it looked menacing as we walked upstream, the bank to our right. Dan was leading. I was second while Pat and Bob followed behind. We came onto a treeless area filled with shoulder high grass. It was a beautiful day - blue skies, pleasantly warm, and imminent danger the furthest from my mind.

Dan stepped over the hole and I stepped into it - my right foot sank into empty space and I pitched to the right, rotating as I fell toward the water. I grabbed for anything available - and came up with two hands full of grass. And there I suddenly was, suspended over water, and looking up into a blue sky, my feet on solid ground, my hands grasping at straws, and the river tugging at my backpack.

If I’d been alone I might still be hanging there, but within an instant Pat had hold of my right foot, and then Robert, my left. I was looking directly at Pat and still remember the intense concern that showed on his face. My predicament must have appeared dire from his point of view.

My troubled point of view consisted of not being able to view what lay just inches from my backside. I didn’t know whether I was suspended over a deep hole, or a shallow sand bar. Was I about to be swept away and then snagged under one of those fallen trees? Or would I soon be wallowing on my back in six inches of cold water? It seemed that I was either going to die or make an ass of myself. Some folks may be vain and chose death over dishonor, but being more of a pragmatist, I didn’t much care how it ended as long as I was alive.

If I had been alone I would have eventually had to ease a foot over the edge to test the water - to see if there was a foot hold. That is what I did. Robert let go and I slid my foot down the steep edge, about three feet, and placed my boot on solid ground. I stood in about three inches of water. We all laughed in relief. They helped me up the bank and we continued our walk. Nearly twenty years would pass before I returned to the land.
GO TO: Part 5