I have to start this off with the “My dad, the bum” story. We were in Berkeley, most likely after some Giants game, and stopping in at stores along Fourth Street. Mom, Willie, and I went into Hearthsong for a bit, but Dad stayed outside, complaining of a stomachache. (Too many garlic fries?) A woman approached him and asked, “Excuse me, sir, would you like a cookie?” Now, you’ve got to picture my dad in that year’s incarnation of the puffball jacket, facial hair per usual, hunched over on a bench in Berkeley. No doubt the friendly and coherent, “No thank you, I’m fine—it’s just a stomachache” was not the haggard response Benevolent Cookie had in mind.

People who didn’t know him often got the wrong idea of my dad based on his looks. Much like the other man in my life, my old Springer Spaniel, Ruffy—the daunting size, the unkempt hair, the frequent scratching of himself in public—the wild man had the heart of a prince. I guess some people grow up being a little afraid of their father; I was afraid of pretty much everything but.

On one father-daughter excursion, Dad and I visited some sort of Storybook Land set up involving a castle and a giant boot from The Old Lady Who Lived in the Shoe. Beyond the boot stood a speaker that warned us of a dragon on the loose. This scared me so much that I started to cry. I remember Dad sitting down with me, picking up little pieces of grass: “Rosie, that speaker tells the same story all day long. It isn’t real. No one is getting hurt. It’s not a real dragon. It’s only pretend.” It’s funny, I don’t remember now whether this information comforted me or not. I do remember the sense of security that came from talking with my father.

I am grateful for his patience and encouragement at so many points in my life. No matter what, he was proud of me and genuinely enthusiastic about my interests. Of course, there were things we would never agree on. There were long arguments concerning how ending a sentence with a preposition was not only intuitive but also an improvement on the English language, and how shoes, Christmas trees, and weddings belonged in places like the garage where their extravagance would not obstruct society. But we agreed on the more import things: good writing, good food, hamming it up, and, of course, camping.

Many stories on this page recount how the truly All-American Man indoctrinated us into the wild. It’s hard not to feel inadequate in the face of Dad’s boldness and unstoppable spirit of adventure. For me especially. I mean, I really started out a high-maintenance wimp. My shit was by no means hard.

I remember one of my earliest hikes in which I carried my own pack—that is, I transported a water bottle, a hat, and a book; Dad lugged around the gear, our clothes, our food, and my American Girl dolls. But, you understand, the dolls couldn’t go in his pack. He needed to strap them on top of the pack because otherwise they couldn’t see the trail. After a minute of attempting to reason with me, he obliged. Only ten more minutes of his adhering to specific rearranging instructions, and the girls and I were ready to hike.

I’d like to think that I’m a little better at roughing it now. And yet I don’t think I will ever reach his level of…wilderness Zen? It’s hard to put into words how much the wild, high country meant to my dad. I think he did his best to explain it to me, once, on a hike. I don’t remember the territory, only this moment of trudging up a pass and seeing my dad, his one leg planted onto a higher ledge than the other, and the just-opened-up horizon. He is not craning his neck all around like I am, but is embodying the phrase “taking it all in.” I try to articulate something about “the view” but am overwhelmed. I stand, instead, near him in silence. Then, he says, “When you are surrounded by all this, you don’t have to look.” He has become that for me—so larger-than-life and such a presence, always. My greatest example of love.

As anyone who ever hiked, climbed, or kayaked with him knows, one of my dad’s favorite things to shout to those behind him (besides “Give me a string bean; I’m a hungry man”) was always, “The leader must not fall.” At first I saw this as an incomplete statement. He never gave us further instructions as to how we should carry on if the leader did fall. Now I am learning to read it differently: “The leader must not fall.” Falling is just not an option for the leader.

So, I guess he hasn’t fallen.
He’s just further down the trail than we are, surrounded by the view.