(This is the fourth of four parts)
Digging further into my father’s unpublished novel, I finally learned significant details about the tragic end of Joe’s wife Helen.
After their only son, Timmy drowned in a boating accident, Helen went into a deep depression, and started “hitting the bottle.” Finally, she drove her car off a cliff, committing suicide.
But my father made a side note in his manuscript that he should remember to devote a chapter describing how hard it must have been on her being alone at home, trying to cope after Timmy’s death, while Joe was back at the office full-time.
The tragic events in Dad’s novel never occurred in our nuclear family, but we did lose a few close relatives during my childhood to car accidents. And my mother did have an extended period of emotional distress when we relocated to another city due to my Dad’s transfer and this coincided with my boyhood illness as well.
The heart infection I experienced went undiagnosed for two years, doing its damage, after our family doctor told my Dad (with me sitting right there), “It’s just psychological — it’s all in his mind.”
My Dad initially believed that. And I didn’t blame him because I believed it too.
When it turned out that I had indeed been seriously ill the whole time, and had to be hospitalized with pneumonia in very bad condition, my father must have experienced an awful wave of guilt.
But I digress. Back to my father’s story.
After Helen’s suicide, Joe put in for a leave from work, and implemented his elaborate plan to travel deep into the wilderness. I’m not sure where this was, exactly, but it probably was somewhere in Canada or Alaska.
Joe made lists of everything he would need, hired a charter pilots, and hiked deep into the area until he found an island with a narrow gorge leading to a perfect swimming hole and granite steps up to the mouth of a mysterious cave.
As near as I can tell, Joe’s goal was to prove to himself that he could survive under difficult circumstances in the wild, fending for himself, while exploring virgin lands, or conducting mysterious experiments, or seeking some sort of closure before returning to his humdrum workaday life.
He was trying to get over some very hard stuff, but he was excited by the challenge.
Among Dad’s papers is a drawing of the area where Joe seems to have at least temporarily found what he was seeking.
I hope that he did.
(End of story.)
LINKS:
Hunter Biden will plead guilty in a deal that likely averts time behind bars in a tax and gun case (AP)
McCarthy doubles down on Biden family probes after Hunter guilty plea deal (The Hill)
Trump classified documents trial date set for Aug. 14 (CNBC)
Trump offers dizzying new justifications for classified documents as former Cabinet secretaries sound the alarm (CNN)
Trump Real Estate Deal in Oman Underscores Ethics Concerns (NYT)
Well-funded Christian group behind US effort to roll back LGBTQ+ rights (Guardian)
Mass shootings leave dead and injured across the US, including at least 60 shot in the Chicago area (AP)
Search for submersible missing near Titanic wreck hits critical stage (WP)
AI Is a Lot of Work (The Verge)
AI Is Winning the AI Race (Foreign Policy)
How existential risk became the biggest meme in AI (MIT)
Biden meets with AI experts in effort to manage its risks (NBC)
How artificial intelligence is helping us talk to animals (BBC)
OpenAI Lobbied the E.U. to Water Down AI Regulation (Time)
Gannett sues Google, alleges online ad monopoly (Reuters)
Scientists on Twitter head for the exit (Axios)
Our roofs could help to cool down the world. How? By making them “cool roofs.” This technology reflects heat into space, which could lower energy use, save lives and offset some global warming. (WP)
The climate crisis is on track to push one-third of humanity out of its most livable environment (Grist)
Why China still refuses to resume military dialogue with US, despite Antony Blinken’s latest appeal (SCMP)
Taliban treatment of women could be ‘gender apartheid’: UN expert (Al Jazeera)
Russian air strikes hit Kyiv, other Ukrainian cities far from front lines (Reuters)
The Tropicana, a Relic on the Las Vegas Strip, Could Be Demolished (NYT)
Mushroom Cloud Hopefully Nothing Major (The Onion)
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