Fun, frolics, firecrackers and old flames

Fourth of July is Saturday. I’ll probably make potato salad, calico beans and burgers, but I don’t feel like talking about beans. Do you? Fireworks?  Well maybe, but not the kind you light with a match.  How about the kind of fireworks you feel for another person?

During my senior year of college at Bemidji State University in 1989, a friend asked me to take a trip with her to Toronto, to visit her sister. 

After packing nineteen credits and a divorce into the winter semester, I was feeling thrilled to change my focus. My friend Annette was Canadian, we planned to drive her car north to her folks home in a small town west of Winnipeg, then we’d fly from Winnipeg to Toronto. My favorite musician, Canada’s Gordon Lightfoot, was from Toronto and I loved his writing style and vocals, but there was another pull for me to visit the city, and his name was John Alexander Fitzgerald.

Six years prior, I was in Alaska, with then husband Nick, working for an outfit called Rustic Alaskan Homes, located in the Goldstream Valley just north of Fairbanks. The business was operated by Rich Hall, who had moved up from Chicago to work the pipelines back in the 70s. When the boom ended, he started a custom log home building business. We lived in a log rental unit near the job site that Nick had built for Rich when we arrived. I busied myself, helping at the log yard with various projects, sometimes serving as company cook when the crew disassembled a building and traveled to another site far from Fairbanks to reassemble it for a client.

The Rustic Alaskan employees numbered about seven at the time, all burly and as varied in background as you could imagine. They were drifters who’d show up looking for work, either to build, peel logs or assemble. Rich employed guys even if they weren’t experts. There was Ted, a big, comical Jamaican who’d grown up in London. Jim Drum, from Idaho, had been injured years prior when he was accidentally caught by a train and dragged, leaving him with a limp and marked slowness resulting from head injuries. Tall, lanky Ian traveled up from California bringing a woman with him. She peeled logs in her bikini, providing much entertainment for the loggers. They lived in a small tent in the far corner of the log yard and ate fireweed and smoked pot.

One day a new guy showed up at the log yard. He was different than the others, possessing a fine aire about him. John Alexander Fitzgerald was from Toronto, and he’d traveled up north just to have an Alaska experience. Through the days of summer we got to know each other very well. I enjoyed Fitz, found him fabulously interesting. He was born into an affluent, large Irish Catholic family and even had a sister named Moira. How cool was that? In Hoyt Lakes where I’d grown up, nobody ever had a sister named Moira. We had Margies and Marys. Fitz had attended private schools and could speak French fluently. His father was an appointed judge to the Supreme Court of Ontario, and his mother worked at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

John Fitz used to tell me stories about his family and their traditions. Dining ettiquete and proper table manners were a constant in his circles.  Awkward situations would arise when his sly sisters would embarrass certain guests, who weren’t up to speed with which fork or glass to use. I was no expert in that category, however, I did teach John how to knit during the dark, bitterly cold months of that Alaskan winter. We spent hours in interesting conversation too, such as Homeopathic and Chinese medicine. These were new topics to my ears. John was considering pursuing a career in these areas of study.

The winter days finally came to an end, and quite suddenly Nick and I decided to head back to Minnesota because my father was having health problems. Inside, I was quite devastated to be leaving my friendship with Fitz behind. Although I was married, there was more there than I cared to admit. Fitz and I went our separate ways, that is until spring break of 1989. Just prior, I learned John had contacted Nick’s parents looking for us, so I had his telephone number. I spoke with him by phone, and we had talked and caught up on the events of our lives, including my split with Nick. When my friend and I decided to travel to Toronto, I let John know. He agreed to show us a sporty time when we arrived and invited me to spend a night with him at his family home. I agreed.

Annette and I had a relaxing drive from Bemidji to her parents home where we spent one night with them and boarded a plane in Winnipeg the next day. It was about 9 p.m when the plane circled over Toronto, the city lights below so vibrant and inviting, as we descended down onto the runway. What excitement lay ahead, I wondered?

Annette’s sister met us at the airport and, after exchanging greetings, we traveled into the city to her condo. The following day was nothing short of “electric.” John picked us up in his sports car to take us out touring the city. It was great to see him again. He had changed visually, hair was off the shoulders, beard gone, clothes were more “metro”, but he had the same kind smile. We spent the day going to some of his favorite places; a coffee shop, the museum and dinner at an oriental restaurant, followed by an evening of dancing in some splashy clubs. It was way up high on life’s scale of FUN. It was quite late when we brought Annette back to her sisters, then John and I drove to his parent’s home. As we drove, he informed me his parents were away for the weekend, which rocked my boat.....somewhat. At least I would be spared the comical attempt at using my Emily Post rules of table etiquette.

Driving through Toronto, I peered out the darkened windows noticing we were in a very affluent neighborhood. The car veered this way and that. Finally we turned into a long, narrow driveway that led to a carport adjoining a brick Tudor style home. The exterior was lovely, and although out of season, the grounds displayed shrubs and gardens in all the right places. We entered through the kitchen, and I had a tour of the butler’s pantry, which delighted me, particularly when John began to add narration to the various sets of china and their purposes. We entered the grand dining room through a swinging door. Filling my eyes from top to bottom were the green fleur-de-lis wall coverings, chandeliers and a grand mahogany dining table was in the center surrounded by so many lovely antique heirlooms. We rambled through my house tour, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.

After I had seen the house, I presented John with a gift. I had illustrated, in pen and ink, the log building yard of Rustic Alaska Homes and then had framed it. He was absolutely delighted to receive the drawing and planned to display it over the fireplace in the library. As the night wore on, there was no shortage of romance in the Canadian air. I studied him, he considered me, while we quietly accepted the fact that each of us had become new people through the years. Having just ended a marriage, I was in a delicate position, and unsure of so many things. Here in Toronto, I was not feeling the push to get into anything so different from what I was used to. Still though, in my heart, I remembered how much John and I had exchanged, and how dear he had been to me.

It was arranged that I would stay on the third floor in a frilly, peach-toned room where his sisters had grown up. The staircase with its beautiful wood railings and carved posts was just outside my door. John would stay up one flight of stairs on the fourth floor, where he enjoyed his space from other family members. We ended up on our perspective landings, me seated below and John up the stairs, lying on his stomach, head propped in his hands, chatting so casually with me into the early morning hours. All the while, pauses would occur, eyes would meet, each one overcoming any urge to pose an invitation or leave our perspective landings. No stairs were traveled, either up or down, that night in Toronto.

In the morning we joined Annette for breakfast at a coffee shop. It was a great visit I’d had with John and without a doubt a memorable spring break.  Heading into the final months of college back in Bemidji left little time for distraction. John and I stayed in touch for awhile, then we got busy with our lives as is the case. He pursued his career in Chinese Medicine, and I kept adding chapters to my colorful life.

It’s a life that I liken to a unique hotel. Each trip, marriage, adventure inhabits its own room off a red-paisley, carpeted hallway. The rooms have ornate wood doors and bronze title plates. No doors are locked, there are no spaces of shame. Each is decorated with quality furnishings of varying color, texture and scent. Vibrant characters I have known inhabit the rooms. Some of the rooms have fireworks! Throughout the years of my life, I walk up and down this hallway, opening doors, poking my head inside to pause, reflect and visit, all the while creating new rooms in my unique hotel. Have a fabulous, firework-filled fourth of July!

Lynn O’Hara can be reached at scarlet@frontiernet.net