Over the preceding few years your grandma had stealthily gleaned information from this family member and that family member of mine and kept the info she had found out about my real dad hidden from me. While I was interested in tracking down and meeting my dad it was not worth the commotion it would have caused in my family if they knew I was looking for him, so I didn’t ask questions. Myself, your other grandma and our baby girl, (your mom) started our journey early one Saturday morning. Not having much extra money in those days we knew we would have to find my dad, meet him, and travel back to Portland in one day to spend the night with your grandma’s parents because we didn’t have money to afford a motel overnight. We had no idea if my real dad had remarried and if he had, maybe he didn’t tell his new family about me, so we wanted to be cautious and not ruin his life if I was suppose to be a secret. We headed north on I-5 then traveled west to Highway 101 ending up in the small berg of Aberdeen situated along the coast line of Grays Harbor. When you are trying to find someone in a town you are unfamiliar with where do you start looking? The phone book would be the place of course.
Pulling into the nearest phone booth and checking the white pages, yep Bernard Van Wormer. Dialing the number listed, some man answers and I ask are you Bernard Van Wormer? The voice on the other end of the line says no, but he used to live here. I asked, "do you know where he moved to", but the voice didn’t know. Before hanging up the phone the voice informs me Bernard’s mom (my grandma on my real dad’s side) lived in the next town a couple miles over, he didn’t know her name but had her address which he gave to me. Searching out the address in Hoquian I knocked on the older homes front door. An elderly lady greets me at the door. I ask are you Bernard Van Wormer’s mother, thinking this actually might be my grandmother. In a saddened voice she informs me, no she had passed away just the month before. I ask do you know where I can find Bernard. She says no, because he had just moved recently and she did not know his new address. She did inform me that an article about him had been in last weeks newspaper about Bernard helping out with some local charity project in another small town a couple more miles away in Cosmopolis. Since we were becoming true detectives by now we tracked down last weeks newspaper and sure enough in bold print on page three was a story about a fund raiser Bernard was helping with. No picture of him, no address to reach him at, but the article did have a contact name and address where money could be sent for donation, yep a couple miles back in Aberdeen. We pull up to a big ten story office building on Main Street, but it is closed due to it being Saturday. About the time I was going to walk away and head back down the highway to Oregon in defeat, a man dressed in a nice suit came to the front door of the building and asked if he could help me. I told him the abridged saga of my life and my search for my real dad. The finely dressed man told me to wait inside the lobby door for one minute as he went to a desk a short distance away and got on the phone. Within a very few minutes a half dozen nicely dressed women were standing by his side. The man fired off instructions to the ladies and they darted off in different directions. Come to find out this man was a lawyer in the local community, with some contacts. I stumbled backwards once finding this out, knowing I didn’t have the money to pay for his services. Stuttering my concern to him, he just chuckled and said, young man I battle people everyday of my life. Your lost dad story was so compelling I must admit it is fun to just help people sometimes. Five minutes later the ladies begin to scurry back handing the lawyer small pieces of paper with handwritten notes on them. He walks over to me and hands me his card with Bernard’s new address scribbled on the back. He further informs me that if this address is not correct to call his private number on his business card and he would remedy the problem. Stunned and bewildered I say thank you.
Yep we now have to drive back to Cosmopolis, it’s getting later in the afternoon by now so we stop for a quick bite to eat. Erica is beginning to get fussy with all the driving, stopping, waiting and going. Afterwards we proceed to North 101 Whatever Street. We park our car on the street and just before I get out to knock on the front door, a old beat-up car drives up into the driveway. I swear a man weighing 400 plus pounds crawls out of the driver seat, with the crack of his butt boldly showing, pulls up his pants and goes in the house that I’m about ready to knock on the door of to ask if he is my dad. I start our car and I’m ready to drive back to Oregon for sure now but your grandma says "you’ve come this far you need to go find out if he in fact is your dad". She was right, as I trudge to the front door of this run down home. Knock, Knock The heavy set man ambles to the front door and says “may I help you?” I glumly ask are you Bernard Van Wormer in a mono tone voice, to which he replies, NO. I almost jump for joy shouting back towards our car “It’s not him, it’s not him”. I show him the address the lawyer had given me and he informs me that I’m on the wrong side of town. I had misread the address, thank God. Your grandma and I decide this is going to have to be our last try because the day is ending and we still needed to drive the couple hundred miles back to her folk’s house in Portland.
We drive to South 101 Whatever Street and pull up in the driveway. I go and knock on the front door, knock, knock. A shorter balding man opens the screen door and asks “may I help you’. I ask are you Bernard Van Wormer, to which he replies YES. I ask do you know a Charlene Gray (your great grandmother Ka’mya) to which he replies, Yes I was married to her. I then tell him that I am her son. The man stands there stunned for a few seconds then whirls around letting the screen door slam shut but I can hear him yelling to other people in the house, my son is here, MY SON is HERE. A lady comes to the door all excited and invites all of us inside. We exchanged some pleasantries, took a couple photographs and as quick as the visit started it came to an end. Bernard had to go to work, he worked at one of the local sawmills and his shift was soon to begin. We said our goodbyes and we both drove our separate ways, him to work and myself back to my family in Oregon.
In the forty five minute visit I had with my real dad I learned he had not been watching any of my football games secretly from the grandstands. When my mom found out a few weeks after the adventure, that I had snuck off and tracked down my real father, she was not real happy with me. To this day I’m not really sure why she became so distraught, because it seemed obvious to me that any young man would want to find out if he was going to turn out looking like this, or like this when he grew older.
... like his Grandpa Buster,
or like this when he grew older. That's Erica, Bernard and a very young billy before he was blaze. Unfortunately I turned out looking more like my real dad then my grandpa when I myself got older.
No comments:
Post a Comment