Define: timing.
My father is currently in ICU with failing health. He is not long for this world. Sometime last week, he had an unusually good evening, so I spent it picking his brain about the most important woman in my life, who passed away in 2014, less than one year after finally buying their summer camp. The story he told me changed how I will reflect upon Winnipesaukee for the rest of my life. Here goes: a Weirs Beach tale in two parts.
Part 1: My Youth
For most of my youth, my parents rented a home every summer on Baker Avenue in The Weirs. Though I was young—we stopped renting when I was around 10—I remember so many things about that time: the trading post with the giant Indian statue, where I would buy a bow with suction cup arrows; the arcade shooting game with the piano player and squawking bird; July 4th fireworks from the hotel porch in our pajamas; the crunchy donuts from the tiny convenience store under the pedestrian bridge; the roller rink upstairs; beeping to let other drivers we were driving over the bridge.
I could go on and on—amazing memories.
Part 2: My Father's Savior
I always knew my father's father was an abusive man. I remember once, while on our way to lunch, my pepe flicked his cigar out the window and the ash flew back in the back window, right into my brother's eye. After my brother began crying, Pepe turned around and told him to, "shut [his] god-damned mouth."
My father had 8 siblings, all of whom joined the circus or military or just moved far, far away. They were poor—my father didn't have hot water until he was 19—so there was nothing to keep them home.
As my father lay in his hospital bed, in tears borne of joyful memory, he told me how he met my mother while cruising around Lowell with a friend. After a few awful dates (another story, but in short: Dad was from the opposite side of the tracks), my mother and father began dating. Some months later, my mother's family was going away for a weekend at The Weirs and they invited my father. He was 19. It was his first weekend away from home.
My father credits that weekend in 1964—that's it, THAT weekend—with teaching him what a life should be: honest, kind, loving, sharing, sober. He told me about playing cards and laughing with my mother's family, cooking together, taking long walks, swimming—my father once almost drowned in a Lowell canal and hadn't gotten in the water since—in short, enjoying others' company rather than seeking every opportunity to escape.
As my father and I discussed the memories we each had—one of the beautiful things about a resort area that resists change is the ability for multiple generations to share the same experiences—I asked him where my mom's family had stayed that weekend he was "saved."
"Baker Avenue," he said. "I thought you knew?"
I discovered that night that the house that served as the backdrop of my young summers was the one in Dad's story of redemption all these years.
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