Yesterday would have been my brother Walter’s 88th birthday, if he had only lived for three more years. Three years ago, Vernon and I flew to Texas to surprise him on his 85th birthday. He was bedridden by then, suffering from COPD and diabetes, and living with his son and family. I bought matching tee shirts for the two of us, blue with big white letters that said simply OAKDALE. Because both of us always felt that Oakdale was a big part of us; it wasn’t just where we came from, but a place we never wanted to totally leave behind.
Every summer, Walter had two weeks’ vacation, and he always followed the same plan. He had to go to Oakdale—that was a given—but he had other stops as well, and most of those were related to Oakdale. First, a stop in South Dakota to see Cecil Johnson, another Oakdale boy (at one point, the Johnson family lived across the highway from us); the next stop was in Wyoming to see some relatives of his wife (probably the only place not connected to Oakdale). When Galen Sansing (Adell’s cousin) moved to Northern California, that was next, followed by Paradise, where we had so many happy childhood memories of wonderful times with our grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. And then Oakdale, where our parents were impatiently waiting to spend a few days with him. Our brother Paul, who lived in Glendale was next on the list, followed by some time in Riverside. We always tried to find something to do that he would enjoy while he was with us. He said once that the best place we had ever taken him to was the California Science Center in Los Angeles—he was so filled with wonder when he viewed the orbiter Endeavour that he could hardly speak. His last port-of-call was spending time with Art Francis, again an old friend from Oakdale. Then it was back to Texas, sometimes arriving only a few hours before he had to be at work.
During the birthday visit, he and I talked more than usual—Vernon said we talked all the time. As usual, it was mostly about growing up in Oakdale. We clarified things for each other when one of us couldn’t remember everything that had happened, and the other one could fill in the gaps. We cleared up misunderstandings; we dissed some of our relatives and laughed about others. We tried to remember the names of people in the stories that my grandmother had told us when we were children. Paul, the family historian, would have been helpful there, but he had been gone for nine years already; if we couldn’t remember specific details, we knew they were gone. We talked about when Walter was hit by a car and how that changed our lives. We talked about the elementary school our father helped build and the good times we had there. We had a terrific time as we relived our shared history.
Three weeks later he was dead. But the Scott kids from Oakdale had had this chance for a wonderful conversation. We just didn’t know it was the last one.
