The Everyday Flood of Memories

It seems just about everywhere we turn there are reminders of Leif. He was such a strong presence. Yesterday Peter remarked that he wished Leif were here to help us choose a new car, as he did the Rendezvous which has served us so well.

Then on television, they had a special program on the truly unusual sports cars, like Lamborghini, Leif's favorite, showing how they are made. He would have loved it.

Even driving home from Brandon, the crazy drivers who were driving too fast and weaving in and out of traffic reminded us of him.

No matter where we go, we always think of him, and very often talk of him, too, of his talents and intelligence, of his taste and interests, and yes, of his bad luck and poor choices.

From his childhood through his adulthood, he left a larger-than-life impression on everyone who knew him.

When we were at Universal Islands of Adventure, I had to go back to take this photo of the Truffula trees in Seuss Landing. As soon as I saw them I remembered little two-year-old Leif, who had memorized "The Lorax," sitting on the floor in the living room of the townhouse we were renting in Charlotteville, Virginia, and carefully turning the pages while reciting the entire book perfectly. And I can hear his little boy voice saying,

It's a Truffula Seed.
It's the last one of all!
You're in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax
and all of his friends
may come back.”  - From "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss

                   
I wish I had a video of him "reading" that book. I wish I could REALLY hear him do it.

Reading to Leif - July 1976 - Manhattan, Kansas - Age 1.5 years

I loved to read to my sons. Ever since I learned to read in the first grade it has been one of the joys of my life. I read passionately and voraciously as a child. I grew up without television, so my stories came from books. I've always treasured reading time, and most especially, all the years I read to my sons.

Of course I read to them at bed time, but not just then. We also shared books just about any old time. And not just when they were little fellows. I read to them until they were in junior high, and only quit when homework, sports and other things intervened and made it impossible, though even then I continued to read things aloud at the dinner table or in the car. I remember reading Judy Blume's "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" to the boys in the airport in Hawaii, or at least that's where we started it.

Reading together was always a special time, a teaching time, and learning time, a fun time. We read all kinds of books, fiction and nonfiction, picture books and novels.

My sister Sherie took this photo of me reading to Leif in July 1976 when she and her husband DeWayne drove down from Michigan to Kansas to see us just before we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia.

Leif & His Dad - Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany - Summer 1978 - Age 3

Here's another picture of Peter W. reading to Leif. This one was taken on the patio at the house we rented at Am Roemer 1, Sachsen bei Ansbach. It's such a good symbol of all the good times we had together, and how close Peter W. was to his sons.

When kids grow up and leave home, they naturally seem to leave behind their memories of that childhood closeness. It's replaced by an adult distance, but I think in our parental minds, there is always the memory of that closeness, the cuddles, the stories shared.

Leif was three-and-a-half years old in this photo.

Peter W. reading to Leif - Ishiuchi, Japan - March 1983 - Age 8

Some time ago I posted photos of Leif in the snow at Ishiuchi, Japan, but this was the cozy afterglow. Peter W. and Peter A. had come in from the slopes, and Leif and I had come in from sledding and Leif cuddled up with his dad for a story. I have several photos of Peter W. reading to Leif, snugggled together. It was such a good time.

We always read to our boys, from the very beginning. I did most of the reading, but Peter W. often read stories to them. He liked to embellish them with his own versions and sometimes they protested that, saying, "That's not how the story goes, Daddy." But I suspected that not only did he enjoy the embellishment, he enjoyed getting them riled up and hearing them insist how the story was supposed to go.

At this age, Leif also loved Richie Rich comic books. He could read them himself, but he loved to be read to and sharing the experience. That might be what they are reading in this photo.

Leif's Second Christmas 1976 - Charlottesville, Virginia - Nearly 2 Years Old

When Leif was a year-and-a-half old, in the summer of 1976, we moved from Manhattan, Kansas to Charlottesville, Virginia, where we lived in a two-story townhouse on Woodlake Drive. We only lived there for one year before moving to Germany, but it was a very good year for all of us.

That year, we were fortunate to have a lot of family with us for Christmas. Leif was darling, and by that time, talking, and very, very bright. For instance, he had a "shape ball" where he could fit complex shapes into holes of the same shape. It was not only a discrimination task but also one of dexterity, as it wasn't easy to fit the shapes through the holes. He would sit there and say, "This is a hexagon. This is a trapezoid," and so on. He always got them all exactly right. I think there were at least 10, and maybe a total of 12 shapes.

He nearly had me convinced that he knew now to read, because he would carefully turn the pages of Dr. Seuss's long book, The Lorax, and recite every word that went on each page correctly. The only way I figured out that he had memorized the entire book and knew what words were on each page was by writing down words separately from the book to see if he knew them, and he didn't.

That Christmas, the favorite thing Leif got was Fluffy, the soft, stuffed dog in the photo. Fluffy was nearly as big as he was when he first got him, but very light and very cuddly. Leif loved soft cuddly things (especially cats), but Fluffy was his all time favorite stuffed animal. He loved Fluffy for years, played with him, took him everywhere. I've posted a couple of photos before of him posing Fluffy on his tricycle and sled, even with a football helmet on him.

Fluffy was a gift from Lannay, my sister, who lived about a two hour's drive away that year, at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, and came to visit often.

Leif slept with Fluffy for years. I remember when we were moving from Germany to Japan when Leif was five years old, the summer of 1980, and I came through the USA to visit family with the boys ahead of Peter W. We flew from London to Dallas on Braniff, where we had to go through Customs and Immigration before getting on a flight to Kansas City. Like several other airlines that existed at that time, Braniff, too, is no more. Of course, Leif had to have Fluffy with him at all times, including on the plane.

While in the huge Dallas airport, alone with the boys, and struggling with luggage, I was dismayed and frustrated when Leif first took to tossing Fluffy up in the air and letting him land on the floor, as he certainly wasn't going to stay clean that way, and then he took Fluffy in his arms and took off running away from me through the crowd. This wasn't the first or last time Leif took off. He had just done it in Dartmouth, England days before. I had the lousy choice of leaving the luggage behind and asking Peter Anthony (only 11) to stay with it while I literally ran after Leif, or hollering at him and hoping he would stop. I tried both before I managed to get him to stick with me. (And then the airline lost the luggage. We never saw it again after I checked it, and we arrived in Kansas in 115 degree heat with no clothes!)

By the time we got to Japan, Fluffy was already three-and-a-half years old and looking a bit matted down, but still much loved. I don't remember how long Leif had Fluffy, but I'm pretty sure he still had him when we moved to Hawaii in 1983. At some point, Fluffy got wet and dirty. I don't remember how. He didn't dry out well and smelled bad, and Leif finally agreed to give him up.

Of the gifts Leif got for Christmas in his young life, Fluffy was one of the best and most beloved. I'll always remember him hugging and snuggling that dog on Christmas Eve 1976, looking angelic and oh, so happy.

Leif Reading on a Boat in Subic Bay, August 1982, age 7

Leif claimed he didn't like to read but that was misleading. Given a choice of things to do with his leisure time, reading would not usually have been high on Leif's list of choices, and yet, if someone managed to get him started reading a good book, comic book or magazine, he couldn't put it down. Like many children, most particularly boys taught by women teachers, he was turned off to reading by being required to read books and material he didn't have any interest in or found boring, in school.

Most of the kinds of books that appeal to girls (and thus to women teachers, who were girls) don't appeal to boys, and in my experience (as a children's librarian), very little effort is made in schools to provide boys with reading material they will find gripping and fun to read. Thus, they get turned off.

Leif certainly experienced this. I remember him hating books he was forced to read, such as the Newbery Award winning "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," a fine book, but not fine for him at that age, in junior high.

However, Leif did find many books he loved, and spent money on books. His favorite series of books was the Ender series by Orson Scott Card. He was introduced to the first book, "Ender's Game," by his older brother, Peter A. Garretson, who had read it in a class on science fiction literature at the Air Force Academy. Leif was in junior high at the time, and he was so engrossed in reading it that when we took a trip to Hawaii he would hardly leave the beach cottage to go to the beach.

The Ender series is a challenging one, dealing with deep philosophical questions, exciting action and superb examination of the qualities of leadership and strategy. Leif found this immensely intriguing. He read all of the books over many years and could talk about them endlessly.

When he was younger, like in this photo, he loved comic books such as the Richie Rich series, and continued to enjoy the more adult comics as a teen and adult, such as the X-Men series.

He had to do book reports for school, like most kids, and he hated that, especially when he had to choose books off a list of books he didn't care for. However, I could usually "trick" him into reading a book I knew he would enjoy if I picked it out and read the first chapter aloud at the dinner table. Since I read to my sons until they were in junior high, and to the family all along, this wasn't anything unusual. Then I would leave the book in the bathroom. Best place to find a "captive audience." He'd pick it up and start reading and then he couldn't quit.

That was one of my specialties as a children's librarian -- finding books to captivate reluctant reader boys.

This photo of Leif was taken on a Navy PT boat in Subic Bay in the Philippines during our ill-fated vacation at Grande Island in August 1982. Leif was 7 years old.