For T & J

When I was young, it seems that all of my development and growing up, my entire experience as a youth, occurred during the summer. This is only what I felt, I am sure that I went to school and concertized during the winter months, but that all seems like a brief moment. What I really recall were the road trips. For those of you who have not partaken of a Jette road trip (for you by no means need to be a Jette for this) I will let you know that a great deal of ground was covered each day. This was driven almost exclusively by my father (I think mom drove once...) Mothers job was far worse, she had to maintain some semblance of peace in the car. While my grandmother reports that we were and still are all angels, I seem to remember some animated moments or maybe those were hours and I have to imagine they were felt more acutely by my parents, as the dynamics of the backseat were only of importance when they disrupted the my parents from concentrating on the trucks and gridlock traffic that occurs from time to time. At the end of each day, there was only one important thing that needed to be accounted for, does this motel have a swimming pool? I have to believe that this was the method and the means of ensuring that we behaved throughout the day.

After 500 miles with the Shermy packed to the hilt and the roof pack full, I arrived in Yreka CA. I am driving from Seattle to Santa Barbara. Yreka is like most every town that we ever stopped in during my childhood, small, hints of Americana (the town name spelled out in lights in front of bronze statue of a miner on an ass) a couple of known and unknown restaurants and motels. I check in at the front desk and in true Jette fashion get a mild discount, park the car and proceed to locate my room. 222, there on the second floor, at the end. As I ascend the outdoor concrete steps with the swaying fiberglass rain cover I glance to my right and realize that I have view onto the pool. It is January (al be it northern CA) so the pool is deserted and neglected. There is some moss on the bottom and the plastic chairs around the edge are dirty. Then it strikes me, all the pools and all of the motels that I have stayed at, they were all like this, probably built from the same blueprint to save money! But here I am, alone, without my brother and sister and myself asking mom if we can skip dinner and just go swimming. Even though there is a light layer of ice across the top, I know that we would still want in (Tim's lips always turned blue, even in the middle of summer in Arizona). But, now all I hear are the echoes of our rambunctious noise and gallant plans to swim, swim swim. This country is filled with places like this and some day they will no longer dominate the landscape of small out the way towns because gentrification will displace them, just as the family farm that once reigned across America has been displaced by corporate farms. Stairing out the window, at light reflecting off the ice. I am sure that if I punctured the ice it would release the joyous sounds of three kids exploring America, well the pools atleast.