Roots

EZ Ups are notorious for leaking during the lightest of summer rains. I always secure a blue tarp over the canopy as added protection against weather. I realize, in trying to stretch the two tarps I have with me, that neither one is right for the job; that both fall short. I improvise. I overlap the tarps. The result is an ugly patchwork of blue and silver. I don’t care. Rain is predicted and the last thing I need is for my inventory to get soaked. Books and water don’t mix, a lesson I’ve learned doing hundreds of festivals over the past ten years.

I finish my work and head for the AmericaInn in Fergus Falls. As I drive through the rolling hills, marshes, and beauteous lakes of Otter Tail County, I think about my dad and his family, both the Munger and the Zuehlsdorf sides. The patriarchs of my roots came to this river valley, this place, for cheap farm land. One grandfather, Lyman Munger, a dreamer, socialist, and wood stump philosopher, was a poor excuse for a farmer. The other, Albert Zuehlsdorf, was a dedicated dairy man; a farmer whose legacy, at his death, included four farms in the valley of the Otter Tail River. My dad and his folks left here for Duluth in 1942 in the midst of war. But we’ve been back many, many times over the years. I pay my respects to the past as I slow for the city limits of Fergus Falls.

Saturday, the traffic at the festival is steady during the morning but tails off after lunch. I converse with folks, some of whom who’ve read my work, some of whom buy books from me for the first time. The day is hot, over eighty-five, but the predicted rain, constrained as humidity, holds off. At the end of the day, I’m dog tired. I make my way to a little Mexican restaurant in downtown Fergus and eat in solitude. My stomach full, I drive to the hotel, remove my sweat-stained clothes, take a shower, and wander down to the pool. I have the hot tub to myself as kids leap with joy into the big pool to cool off. Rumors of thunderstorms and tornadoes persist. I wake up to the crash of thunder and the flash of lightening at three in the morning.

Hope the stakes hold.

There isn’t much I can do other than pray that the storm doesn’t trash my tent. My books are secure in plastic bins. The EZ Up is tied down. The storm passes. When I arrive at the park in the morning, the day is cool. Light clouds drift beneath a robin’s egg blue sky. The day is ever so fine.

Sunday’s are usually less busy. Most folks come to festivals on Saturday. In the shadow of great oaks, alongside the broiling waters of the Otter Tail River, the old grist mill for which the park is named stands as a lonely stone sentinel over an ancient, noisy dam. A steady crowd flows in and out of my tent, buying books, talking writing, asking questions.

“He once warned me for fishing without a license,” an elderly gentleman says, his spine bent with age, his eyes clouded by cataracts, pointing to a poster advertising my biography of my uncle, Rep. Willard Munger, a native of Otter Tail County.

“I think you mean his father, my grandfather,” I correct the man. “Harry Munger is the guy you are thinking of.”

My grandfather, Harry Munger, Sr. was the district game warden in these parts during the 1930s. The old man smiles as he remembers.

“Yes, that’s right. Harry Munger. Well, he caught me fishing, two poles, no license. He said, ‘Mattson, you put those away and go on home now, you hear?’ Didn’t give me a ticket. Just sent me home.”

I smile. I realize this is one of the only folks left who recalls my grandfather for his conservation work during the Great Depression. The man pads off slowly, his misdemeanor concealed by memory.

The festival ends. Vendors line up in cars and trucks on the hillside overlooking the park. I make an executive decision. Rather than wait in line for an hour to drive into the parking lot to load, I decide to hike the hill with my belongings. I tear down the EZ Up, pack my stuff away, and make six arduous treks up and down the steep hill with my heavily laden two wheel cart. It takes the better part of an hour for me to pack everything away and drive east, towards home.

Peace.

Mark