I found great comfort in the final miles to our door; in the everyday sights of tree-lined neighborhoods, sleepy main streets and stretches of flat farm fields with crisp, white barns silhouetted against waning sunlit skies. After a successful fight for window rights, I'd roll mine down all the way and ignoring the moans of siblings wishing to remain buried in the catacomb of the stuffy car, I'd stick my head as far out the window as I could, searching the darkening skies for the first star of the night. I inhaled summer - long and hard - and politely accepted the occasional collision with a bug on its own nocturnal journey.
Sheridan Road stretched straight north from Chicago, the final stretch from Lake Bluff to home being the straightest and least inhabited, except for the occasional sighting of the reflective, red eyes of wildlife at its edge, hoping to survive fields and forests, cars and trains, on their way to wherever. Alongside Sheridan Road, for much of the way, ran the Northwestern Railroad. It's green and yellow cars, faded and familiar, would often appear beside us, long after the enduring, piercing blast of its horn signaled its arrival. I ever raced the train, stepping on an imaginary gas pedal on the candy-riddled floor below my feet, pressing harder and harder as if my will would will Dad to drive faster and finally beat the northbound beast. But the train soon rolled past my window and all I could do with the loss was gaze into the windows of the train cars passing, into the yellow-tinged lights where the white-capped sailors of the Great Lakes Naval Base, returning from leave, leaned heavily against the worn green leather seats and dingy glass. Each neatly clad sailor seemed so far from home, with me so close to my own. Their lonely figures were often the last things I'd see before Dad signaled right and I closed my eyes for the final mile to our front door.
There was comfort in this blind ritual, solace in the knowledge that I knew this route, this mile of road, so extraordinarily well that the sight of it was secondary to the feel of its curves, the sounds of its inhabitants, the smells of fresh cut fairways and a mighty lake. The first curve lay less than quarter of a mile along and drifted sharply to the left where it began to follow a tiny, twisting creek. Moonlit nights made the water dance. Daylight hours invited Mallards to its banks. In early autumn, just before the road curved, an old Black Walnut tree dropped clusters of its brown-green nuts. They crunched beneath the wheels of our station wagon and seasonally foretold, in my mind's eye, of our turn to the north. Wildlife must have delighted in the sound as much as me when our tires crushed those meaty, thick-shelled nuts - all of which would have disappeared by the time we passed the following day.
Unlike the miles which lay behind, we travelled more leisurely along Shoreacres Road, intuitively compelled to breathe easier and rejoice in nature and the fact that home was near; in the great, silent custodians, the Maples, Oaks and Elms, which lined the entire length of the Shoreacres Road, shading us from the summer sun like a vast, green awning and warming us with their blazing, dazzling, daring reds, yellows and oranges, each autumn. Come winter, comfort turned to forest mischief when laden branches dropped dense clumps of snow on our heads and on our hoods - surprising us, often dousing us, as we passed.
Further ahead, the road abandoned the tiny creek (which snaked north over fairways, down shallow ravines, to the forest) and veered ninety degrees to the right, toward much greater waters. The Straight-Away, as we called it, was the longest lineal stretch in the road where speed bumps did little to dissuade teenage boys from pressing down on gas pedals and trying to fly. Early schooldays mornings, we’d wait at the end of this tempting strip of asphalt, in front of the club house, and we’d watch for the big, yellow school bus to make the turn at the top of the Straight-Away - ever hopeful it wouldn’t appear and Mom would have to drive us, which meant fresh made donuts at the truck stop on Route 176.
With my eyes still shut, I’d stick my head even further out the car window as we headed down this long strip of cracked and well-worn pavement which marked the half-way point. I’d picture the expanse of well-manicured green to my left and woods to my right. and smile knowing just ahead, at the end of the Straight-Away, Lake Michigan demonstrated its greatness by influencing the weather around its shores. On Summer evenings, this meant a sudden shift from balmy to cool. A hundred times, sleepy siblings raised themselves long enough to stick a head or hand out the window as we passed through this invisible, atmospheric boundary the mighty Michigan brought to being. Even as a teen, I automatically rolled down the window and reached for it, there, at the end of the Straight-Away. Yet the lake was even more wondrous to us than what science could offer. It was our backyard. Feeling its presence was like feeling home.
In the Fall, Michigan would often wrap the final quarter mile in fog. I ‘d sometimes peek to watch as we broke through the wall of mist - headlights fusing with the haze - and shut my eyes only after Dad turned the car left and we passed the old, white clubhouse at the edge of the lake, dimly lit by the street lamps lining its entrance.The gentle turn just past the clubhouse brought us to the foot of a faded, old, foamy green water tower that stood at the entrance of our neighborhood. We’d pass below its large, steel legs each time we sought adventure on the club's golf course and grounds until, rusted and outdated, we watched it tumble and be torn apart. Sad our sentry was no more.
The first house in the neighborhood was an expansive, white, Georgian home before which stood three, old pines, all in a row. Each a story and a half higher than the house, they were shadowy green and fragrant after a spring shower, giant villains in the fog, and soaring, Yuletide beacons each winter, when nothing in the world would stop me from peaking. Just across the road from where the pines stood tall, was a big, brutish fence, behind which stood a tragic folly created by a strange woman named Felicia ("Fishy" is what we kids called her.). I liked to close my eyes to its unhappy walls. There were nights, however, when its colossal, indoor tennis court would set the sky and woods on fire with jarring, unnatural lights that stirred the forest uneasily. On these occasions, I’d open my eyes to see if - in between the pickets, like a stop motion scene on the edges of a paperback - I could catch a glimpse of this sad, slightly mad, lonely woman living her sad, slightly mad, lonely life. Its demise was inevitable. Its unhappy walls burned to the ground by its next unhappy inhabitants.
The final stretch of tree-lined street meant moments from home, minutes from bed. Right at the fork. East toward the bluff. Our driveway, just ahead with a small sign that read, "Dear Park Farm”. Before it was paved, the gravel driveway crackled like popcorn as we gently wound our way through the trees - ever nearer to succor and sleep. It smelled of wild onion, sweet and pungent, when it's edges were trimmed each summer and disappeared beneath the fallen leaves each autumn. Once every several years giant, edible, puffball mushrooms dotted the woods on either side; while every year, without fail, Queen Anne's lace grew gauzy against the leafy, green backdrop, gently sweetening the air for the walk home from the bus... or the drive home from Nonnie and Papa’s.
Only when I heard the garage door begin its sluggish retreat and the dogs begin to bark could I open my eyes and end the game, once more contented for having found my way through the dark. Sometimes, I would close my eyes again, feigning sleep, so my father would carry me the final, familiar steps home.
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