July 1, 2016 — Happy July 4th to all, and to all kinds of Americans. Me? Like most people who live in Los Angeles, I get that question “where are you from?” My answer is usually simply “Texas.” But that’s not the whole story. I have the abbreviated story I sometimes tell. “I’m originally from a small town in East Texas, then grew up in the school years half in Calgary, Canada, half in Dallas, Texas because of my dad’s oil business background, then went to school for most of my 20s in Austin, Texas, then Los Angeles.” But even that doesn’t tell the story. It doesn’t tell the story of my half-heart: I’m half American … because I get just as much pride from my Canadian memories. And I suppose I have a certain amount of disappointment in American now. Mind you, it’s not that I’m not patriotic; I am, in the same kind of way those who chose this place are. My choices were made for me though, the child of double immigrants. Coming to America is still huge though. It’s one of those things that never leaves you.
I was 12, my brother 11; we shared one suitcase. It was old, one of those 60s hard-case things with a slip liner on each side that buttoned with a metal button. I remember watching my father pack his field clothes in that thing time and time again. It had become ours. It would move us to this place we were taught was our home, but that we barely remembered. In it, we had all of our summer clothes and a pillow, each. At that point, I had memories of memories of my original home — Texas. I remembered the smells. I remembered my family. Other than how it looked, I had no memory of the place. And I was terrified. But we were packed for our plane ride to meet our father who had gone before us to get settled.
The first move was a plane ride too. I was 6, my brother 5. My sister was 18 months old, and she had never seen our father because he had spent that past year in the farthest reaches of Alberta working constantly in unfathomable temperatures, saving money to get his family to Calgary. We got dressed up. My mother told me that’s what was done. The first plane was a jet. It flew from Dallas to Denver. We got off that plane and onto a prop plane that flew us to Calgary. Still to this day, I remember the sound of that prop plane. I remember the darkness. It was raining. It was turbulent. I remember thinking how long all of this was taking. I knew we were going really far. I remember my sister, likely tired by then, running up and down the isle of that plane asking every man “are you my daddy”, my mother mortified. I went to retrieve her, smiling at the people with what I thought was a funny expression on their faces — judgment, probably the first I ever saw of that.
Six years later, there was no prop plane — likely reflecting my father’s newly elevated station, perhaps reflecting the progress of air travel, who knows? We flew on a jet from Calgary to Dallas, passed through customs, then another from Dallas to Shreveport, Louisiana, always left out of my story, what was intended to be the first home in America, where we were to live in a hotel as my father transferred what would be this business he would run from Shreveport to Dallas. I remember stepping out of that airport into the night air. And that memory was the strongest I had of America – it’s really hot, and it’s really humid! Humidity has a smell. That was the smell I remembered.
July 4th, my first I remember at age 12, was in Dallas. It was something like 105, with humidity, and I was sick, too sick to get up to even see he fireworks. My dad was pleading with me to come out to see them. He said that’s what people do here in America. He said they are beautiful. But I didn’t care. The successive years after, my July 4ths were usually spent with my mother’s family –a fish fry by the old place, the land owned by my grandfather’s sister that had belonged to my grand-father’s parents. Usually I was riding horses on our own land. I so very much loved my horses. I can’t tell you when I saw my first fireworks display, but it was probably high school or even after. I know it was with my brother sitting on the roof of my family house watching the near-by display at the country club. That’s the only way I like to see them – from my own house. I suppose that’s why I go see the fireworks from the top of the hill I live on now, tiny dots interspersed in the city below.
Sometimes I wonder why the normal July 4th things don’t resonate with me. I don’t care about fireworks shows. I don’t want a normal July 4th with grilling and such. But it’s one of those things I don’t really fully consider. Probably it’s because I was sick on my first one. Probably it’s because I’d rather have fried catfish and ride horses. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t grow up with it.
But coming to America is always a good memory. I got along so well with my clothes and pillow in that half suit case, and this place has given me so very much. So Happy July 4h to America, to all American’s native, half-native and otherwise, and to our foreign friends. Have a happy time grilling and watching fireworks. Me? I’m in the mood for fried catfish. And without even knowing why, this very morning I was thinking I’d like to go to a place and ride. Yes, all that sounds very patriotic to me.