The biggest
Lutheran Church in Minneapolis was packed for the funeral. Men were dressed in
their nicest suits and women were decked out in their finest dresses and
jewelry, everyone looking rich and well off, everyone coming together to show respect
for the likeable man who was my Uncle Don. He'd been a successful grain futures
salesman for Cargill. He was also a people person. Maybe that's why he was so
good at his job. He seemed to have hundreds of friends, all of them now pouring
into the church. At least that's what it seemed like to me, a kid of twelve who
idolized the man who'd died unexpectedly from a rare blood disease.
It was the last week in July, 1959,
and the church was stifling hot and muggy. I was trying to talk to a friend of
my mom's with little success. "You must miss him so much, honey," Mrs.
Dayton was saying, her perfume wafting over me like a pungent tidal wave,
causing my eyes to water. No, it wasn't tears. Well, maybe just a little. I was
raised to be polite and was racking my brain for a suitable response when a flurry
of activity caught my attention. I turned and saw that Flapjack Johnny and Sourdough
Slim had just entered the back of the sanctuary. Nobody had made a move to
greet them although many were certainly giving the two out-of-place men a stern
eyeball. They were standing up against a wall, feeling, I was sure, more than a
little uncomfortable. Me? My mood brightened considerably now that Uncle Don's
two best friends had arrived.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Dayton,"
I said, moving toward them, "I've got to say Hi to some friends of
mine."
I made my way through the crowd. My
heart went out to the two north woodsmen because I knew what it had taken for them
to get to the funeral. They'd have to arisen before dawn to make the six hour
drive from Finland, a small town in the forests of northeastern Minnesota, to
get to the church in time.
I hurried up to them, "Hi
guys," I said, tears welling up in my eyes for real now, "I'm so glad
to see you."
Flapjack enveloped me in a big bear
hug. He was a huge man, standing six and a half feet tall and weighing at least
three hundred pounds. He was dressed in what looked to be brand new OshKosh B'gosh
bib overalls, relatively clean work boots, and carried his ever present green
John Deer cap awkwardly in one hand. His kind face, walnut tanned from being in
the sun, was lined and he was cleanly shaven for the occasion.
"Stevie, my boy," he said,
"How are you holding up?"
I tried unsuccessfully to hold back
my tears, "Okay," said, my voice cracking. Then I broke down in a
flood of emotion.
Sourdough moved closer and started
rubbing my shoulder affectionately, "We'll all miss him, son." Which
coming from him was a lot, being a person prone to, and comfortable with, long
periods of silence. He was the opposite of his friend, a short, wiry man, dressed
in clean blue jeans and a black shirt with white snap buttons. He held his
straw cowboy hat in his left hand. Like Flapjack, he'd done his best to spruce
himself up for the occasion. His white, full beard was clean and I could tell
he'd trimmed it. His blue eyes were sad, though, like Sourdough's. Uncle Don's
death was as hard on the two of them as it was on me. Maybe harder, because,
besides being extraordinarily close, my uncle had once saved their lives.
In addition to being a successful
salesman, Don was a member of the Minneapolis Jaycees and a deacon in the
church. He was also the older brother to my mom, a single mother ever since my
father had left home when I was only five years old. Uncle Don deeply loved me
and my two younger brothers, and after Dad left he filled the void saying,
"Don't worry, Cathy, I'll do right by those boys of yours."
And he did, too. His true love was
being outdoors, and he took it upon himself to teach us how to hunt and fish. I
showed more of an interest than my brothers and he picked up on that. Over the
years he taught me the ways of the woods: how to track an animal, how to build
a lean-to and where to find edible plants saying, "If you know what to
look for, you'll never starve." He taught me how to tie ten different
kinds of knots and how to identify a bird by its call. He easily could have
lived in the eighteen-fifties with Jim Bridger and other mountain man, or so I
thought all the time I was growing up.
Uncle Don met Flapjack Johnny and
Sourdough Slim long before I was born. He'd been working at Cargill for a few
years when his boss told him to take some time off. So he did. He packed his
fishing pole and drove north with no particular place in mind. "I just was
following my instincts," he told me whenever he was in a story telling
mood, which was often, especially if he'd been sipping his favorite drink, Jack
Daniels, neat. He found a tiny resort, "Bob's By the Bay," and rented
a small one room cabin on the shore of Lake Superior for a week.
Bob also rented him a sixteen foot aluminum
fishing boat with a twenty-five horse Evenrude motor on it.
"What about bait?" my
uncle asked.
"For that, I'd suggested the
two Finnish boys," he pointed arbitrarily further north, and smiled,
"Onni and Veeti, but everyone calls them Flapjack Johnny and Sourdough
Slim."
"Why's that?" my uncle
asked.
Bob grinned wryly, "Why don't
you head on up there? You'll see for yourself."
Onni and Veeti ran a bait shop north
of the Temperance River. It didn't have a name, everyone just called it, "The
Finnish Boys Place." In addition to fishing supplies, the two of them also
enjoyed cooking and they sold the best pasties on the entire north shore. People
would drive for hours to purchase them. Uncle Don found their shop, bought a
bunch of flathead minnows and, on a whim, decided to try one of their meat and potato
and vegetable filled delights. He didn't eat it until he was trolling along the
shore of Agate Bay. He didn't catch any fish that day, but he did catch something
better: a love of pasties, a food traditional to the Cornwall Coast of England
and nurtured by those with a love of simple, yet filling fare, like Flapjack
and Sourdough's Finnish ancestors. And
with that, a friendship was born.
My uncle hit it off immediately with
Onni and Veeti and continued to visit the north shore every year, sometimes
staying a week, sometimes longer. Once, when I was around six or seven, I asked
Mom why Uncle Don wasn't married. She'd been doing the laundry and I was
helping her fold a sheet. She said, "Well, your uncle just never found the
right person to be with, you know, someone that he liked a lot." I was about
to let it go at that when I had a thought. "What about Onni and Veeti? Doesn't he
like them a lot?"
Mom squatted down and looked me in
the eye and said, seriously, "Your uncle has a special kind of
relationship with Onni and Veeti, one that not many people are ever fortunate
to ever find. We should be happy for him. In fact, he's never happier than when
he's up north with his two friends."
That seemed fine with me. I had
friends, too, and I was glad that Uncle Don was as happy with his as I was with
mine. I let it go at that.
The story of my uncle saving Onni
and Veeti's lives came out a few years before he died, the first time he took
me fishing with him on Lake Superior. I was nine. It was also the first time I
met Flapjack and Sourdough formally even though my uncle had told me about them
for years. We drove up in early spring and dropped off our gear at Bob's. By
now my uncle's friends had decided to formalize their store with a name, and we
made our way to it, "Onni and Veeti's Bait Shop and Pasty Palace."
We drove up and parked in the gravel
parking lot. It was packed with customers. As my uncle put his arm around my
shoulder and ushered me inside, I felt like I was entering another world. The place
was filled with wall to wall displays of every kind of fishing paraphernalia
you could imagine: poles and reels, colorful lures, tackle, nets, clothing and
foul weather gear, even a few outboard motors. It smelled of fish from the live
bait kept in tanks along one side of the store. It also smelled of the fresh
pasties that were cooked in a kitchen in the back. (Something they never would
have gotten away with these days.) I was awestruck. I also loved everything
about the old place.
"Hey there, boys," Uncle
Don called out to his friends, "I'd like you to meet my nephew."
They welcomed me with open arms, huge
Flapjack and skinny Sourdough, but they were busy in the store couldn't join us
that day for fishing. Uncle Don took me out alone, and it was then he told me
the story of how he had rescued his two friends.
"We had planned to make a day
of it," he began, both of us casting our lines out into the deep,
gunmetal-blue water. "It was a few years before you were even born. I used
to come up here once a year after that first time. Usually I stayed for a
couple of weeks, fishing the whole time. Flapjack and Sourdough came out on the
water with me as often as they could."
He set the motor to the lowest
trolling speed possible and we slowly made our way along the rugged, pine tree
studded granite coastline just north of Gooseberry Falls. He told me that the
three of them were fishing for lake trout. It was late April, and the ice had
just cleared from the lake. They were about five miles from shore when a sudden
storm came up out of the northeast, pounding them with near gale force winds
and swirling, blinding sleet and snow. They were completely caught off guard My
uncle gunned the motor and raced for the nearest land, a rocky outcropping
called Seagull Island a half mile away. They didn't make it. The boat capsized
and for the next eight hours Uncle Don kept a hold of both men (who couldn't
swim), fighting the waves and the freezing conditions, making sure they didn't
slip off the overturned boat and drown in the icy water. It wasn't until just
before sunset that they were rescued by the Coast Guard.
Onni and Veeti were forever in my
uncle's debt, which he always brushed off saying, "Anyone would have done
the same thing."
To which Flapjack always replied, "Maybe,
but it was you who did it."
Which was true.
To me, the interesting thing about
the whole rescue was how my Uncle downplayed it all. Nowadays, people are given
an award, it seems, for just showing up. Uncle Don saved the lives of two men
from the icy waters of Lake Superior and none of his friends or business
associates ever knew one thing about it. My uncle must have had his reasons,
but he never told anyone. It was his own secret along with a small group of
people who lived on the north shore. (And my mom and me, of course.) I wondered
if today, at his funeral, it would be a good time for me to tell the story of
his heroic rescue. For some reason I felt everyone should know about it.
As if reading my mind, Flapjack took
me aside and said, "I know what you're thinking, Stevie. I know you want
to tell all these good people gathered here about what your uncle did. You're
proud of the man, and want others to be, too. I get that, and I respect you for
wanting to do it, just like I've always respected Don's wish for not wanting to
make a big deal out of it."
I stood near to these two men who
not only were my uncle's best friends, but who were also so much different from
everyone else at the funeral. They were salt of the earth, hard working and
honest. They cared about my uncle and they cared about me. "What do you
think I should I do?"
Sourdough stepped close and softly
spoke, "Do what your uncle would have done."
That's all he said, and that was all
he needed to say. It sealed the deal. If my uncle hadn't wanted to make a big thing
out of his rescue, who was I to disrespect his wishes? I kept my mouth shut.
When the service was over, I was having
a hard time saying my goodbyes to my two friends. Mom had let me sit with Flapjack
and Sourdough, which I appreciated, but I had to get back to her and my two younger
brothers and get ready for the drive home, twenty miles to the west. Flapjack
gave me a big hug and so did Sourdough.
"You take good care of your mom
and brothers," Sourdough said, wiping a tear from his eye.
"I will," I managed to
say, my own tears welling up.
Flapjack added, "Before you go
home, I want to tell you something. Something I think will serve you well as
you get older."
"What's that?" I asked, wiping
my eyes, not wanting to leave the company of these two good men just yet.
"Whenever you're faced with a
tough decision in your life, do me a favor. Always think about what your uncle
would do. He was the best person Veeti or I ever knew. You live that way,
you'll be doing the man proud."
Mom came up just then and I made the
introductions. We all tried valiantly to make conversation, but it was hard
because everyone was so sad. Finally Mom said that it was time we left. She
graciously thanked Flapjack and Sourdough for attending the service, and I
hugged them each one more time. Then we left and I began the long journey, not
just home, but of learning how to make my way through the world without my
uncle in it.
After all these years, I will say
this, when my uncle died in 1959, no one talked about him being gay or what
kind of relationship he had with Onni and Veeti. But I'm glad I respected his
wishes and didn't bring up the rescue at the funeral, even though it's too bad
he had to keep not only the rescue, but the depth of his friendship with
Flapjack and Sourdough under wraps. It must have been hard, but times were
different back then; close, loving, relationships between men were made more
complicated by society's stigmas. It wasn't right, but that's just the way it
was.
For me, after all these years, having
my uncle gone from my life has been hard, especially in the beginning. But it
was made easier by remembering what Flapjack had said about always keeping what
Uncle Don would do in any given situation in my mind. I haven't always been
successful, but I've always tried. I think my uncle would have been happy about
that.
One other thing. Flapjack Johnny and
Sourdough Slim sort of became surrogate uncles
to me, taking over Uncle Don's role. They took me fishing every summer
and even had me stay with them at their store from time to time. They told me
it was something Don would have wanted them to do. They even laughed and said,
"We don't mind having you around bugging us in the least," making a
joke of it. They died within a year of each other in the middle '80's from
complications due to HIV.
I appreciated them so much. They
taught me that even if you lose a loved one, you can gain something in return:
you can grow up a little and you can learn that life goes on. I might have learned
that lesson eventually on my own, but my friendship with Flapjack and Sourdough
just made it a little easier. They were wonderful human beings, among the best
men I've even known. Just like my Uncle Don was.
