We all have these images, these moments from our childhoods that stick with us forever. Perhaps it’s the day you learned to ride on a two-wheel bike or a seemingly simple time when you were playing a board game with your sibling. For writer Andrew Patrie, he’s been exploring some of these memories that he says have been “cauterized” in his mind.
He shared a story, “Built to Last,” at a live storytelling event hosted by Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Wisconsin Life” and the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. It was held on Nov. 14, 2024 in Eau Claire at The Lakely.
Author Andrew Patrie, right, of Eau Claire, shares the story, “Built to Last” at The Lakely in Eau Claire on Nov. 14, 2024. Musician Derick Black, left, played guitar between storytellers. The storytelling event was hosted by WPR’s “Wisconsin Life” and the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. Rich Kremer/WPR
“How about time travel?” my friend asks from behind the wheel of his Honda CR-V. “Where would you go if you could visit any place in the past?”
“Any place, huh?” I ask, stalling for time.
It’s a Sunday afternoon in late spring. Two buddies and I are crammed into a car on our way home following a long overdue “guy’s weekend” at the lake. Our 48 hours without work deadlines or familial obligations have elapsed. Yet we’re not quite ready to let go, and so, we’ve silenced satellite radio in favor of the kind of talk generally reserved for sleepovers.
Ask me about time travel a year ago, I might’ve answered with stepping foot on the set of John Carpenter shooting his seminal slasher film “Halloween.” But it’s been 10 months since my father died in memory care. And with my mother already gone, I’m officially an orphan.
“Well,” I say when it’s my turn to speak, “it ain’t the building of the pyramids, but I think I’d want to go home again. Where I grew up, I mean. Drop in for a few hours.”
I imagine it’s 1988. A late Saturday afternoon in November. Early dusk. Just an ordinary day, which when visited through the dust of time, now seems a little extraordinary, too.
Outside of my childhood home, the branches are bare. The leaves bagged and lined up on the boulevard. There’s a breath-fogging chill in the air. Inside, the house is warm.
I’m 13 and perusing the shelf in my bedroom — a row of VHS tapes onto which I’ve recorded horror films from HBO: “Night of the Creeps,” “Re-Animator,” “Deadtime Stories.” I grab a tape and head to the living room, the lamplight’s honeyed glow all around me. I insert the tape into the VCR — a machine which lasted until well after I moved out — made when everything, even parents, seemed built to last.
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- Andrew Patrie with his father, Richard Patrie, in 1989. Photo courtesy of Andrew Patrie
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- Judy Patrie, mother of writer Andrew Patrie, making lefse. Photo courtesy of Andrew Patrie
The curtains are drawn, and I am alone, though I can hear my mother in the kitchen filling the dishwasher, apron still sashed to her waist. I can feel my father’s vibrations from his workshop below me, the sawdust like dander in his hair. I catch the scent of Pepper, our family dog, in the blanket I shove over on the couch. It is enough knowing they’re around. I don’t need to see them. I might press PAUSE and never want to leave.
I know to resist the tug of the past. Grief is the ghost light that calls us to shore and then wrecks us over the rocks.
Yet I might’ve stayed in that memory all afternoon, if the bumpy road hadn’t jolted me back to the car with my friends. All is quiet save for the engine’s hum.
I try to change the mood, but grief is also the light that reveals life’s invisible ink, that common frailty scribed into our DNA. I can’t keep from thinking there’ll come a time when even these sojourns to a buddy’s cabin up north will taper off. When our numbers, too, will gradually dwindle.
I close my eyes, refusing to travel too far into that future. Better to stay in the moment. Feel the car wheels in motion beneath me. Pretend we’re all still built to last.
Author B.J. Hollars, left, talks with writer Andrew Patrie after he read his essay “Built to Last” while musician Derrick Black is seated with a guitar. Patrie shared his story on stage at The Lakely on Nov. 14, 2024. Hollars co-hosted the event put on by WPR’s “Wisconsin Life” and the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. Rich Kremer/WPR
After Patrie shared his story live on stage at The Lakely, event cohost B.J. Hollars talked with him about the essay.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
B.J. Hollars: Wow, “grief is a ghost light.” I love that line.
As, you know — not to toot my own horn — but I was one of the guys in that car.
Andrew Patrie: I was going to reveal that: spoiler!
BH: Well, here’s the question. When we had this sleepover-like conversation — we don’t do enough sleepovers anymore, but we have a lot of car rides — but we’re having this conversation. I was killing time, passing the miles. But you saw so much more in that moment. Can you talk a bit about how you were able to excavate this casual conversation and find the beauty within it?
AP: Madison writer and Lawrence University professor David McGlynn talks about how there are these particular images or moments that [are] — I think his language is — cauterized in our mind. There’s a story behind those images. That’s something that I’ve fallen back on when I have to write something very compact, like for WPR, like 500 words. It’s something I’ve used with my [high school] students if they’re stumped about what to write about or if they’re overwhelmed by the idea of trying to fill three to five pages with the story, we’ll think of this image.
I don’t know what it was, if it was the angle of the sun or the way the light falls this time of year. [In] September, I was really missing my parents. I could not shake the sadness. So I kept returning to this image of the three of us in the car and then that conversation about time travel.
There is actually a line … I cut the award-winning author [B.J. Hollars] out of the piece —
BH: — I asked him to.
AP: Yes, you know, just for length.
But [it was], “What a gift to feel at home.” And I said, he’s absolutely right.
In 27 years of teaching, I know there are students who have sabotaged GPAs in order to go to summer school, therefore not spend quite so much time at home. I felt very fortunate that the home I grew up in — I’m adopted — the parents I had … that if given the choice that I would choose to visit that home … visit them over going to see the pyramids or even John Carpenter filming “Halloween.”
So cheers, mom and dad.
To hear all the Chippewa Valley writers’ stories from the live storytelling event, check out the full collection at “Wisconsin Life” Live from the Chippewa Valley.
