Mitchell Way
Highway 99: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the travel trailer Aloha. Its three-week mission: to explore strange new sites of interest between Bellingham and Chihuahua, Mexico while being pulled by a high mileage Oldsmobile sedan. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no Mitchell family has gone before!
He sat silently drifting on the surface of the lake. An ominous presence, scary and possibly deadly. We didn’t know. We stared at him from the shore. He gave the impression that he may be a crocodile waiting to strike. He wore sunglasses, had sunblock smeared heavily on his nose, an Army drill sergeant’s hat on his head, and a transistor radio which was playing softly from the bow seat. He didn’t smile, he didn’t speak, he just glared. Such was our introduction to Mr. Darson, the Black Mountain Waterfront Director.
It came as no surprise to me when I Googled the question, “Which side of the family does the color blindness gene pass,” that the answer was, “The back side.”
June 4th, 1988, in the maternity ward at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
I can still hear the mocking lyrics from Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones coming through the overhead speakers:
“You can’t always get what you want, yeah
You can’t always get what you want, yeah, child
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime, you just might find
You just might find, you get what you need, ah, yeah.”
It all happened one night, as most of these things do. My wife Cheryl and I were sitting in the TV room eating popcorn while watching a show. The other three step kids were already in bed.
She turned to me and said, “I’m pregnant.”
Very rarely listening to her while I am concentrating on watching my show, I said nothing.
She jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow.
“I’m pregnant,” she said again, looking at me for a reaction.
“Huh?” I said through a mouthful of popcorn.
She pointed to her belly. “I’m pregnant.”
I later vacuumed the popcorn up off the carpet.
And so began the nine months wait, and I want to point out here that I am spelling wait, W-A-I-T.
It was an exciting time. All the family was thrilled and eager for the new child.
We went in to have the ultrasound done and were asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby. I said, “No, maybe after its first birthday.”
The reason was, I knew that this baby was a boy. As a matter of fact, I had already named him: Caleb John-Paul Mitchell.
Caleb, for the man who Moses sent into the promised land, who said all things are possible. John-Paul which were the first names of Cheryl’s dad, and my dad, and Mitchell, just in case he wanted to live with us.
I already had plans for my son. Helping him through Boy Scouts. Showing him how to hunt and fish. Cheering him on at sporting events. It was going to be a great father and son experience.
The nine months went by quickly. It was easy for me, although Cheryl complained a lot.
We attended Lamaze classes, and I learned all the things that I shouldn’t say and do around a pregnant woman.
And then in June, we were walking through a back alley in the Fountain District to talk with my insurance agent, when suddenly Cheryl’s water broke. Naturally, there was not a section in the Lamaze class to tell me what I should do about this.
“We’ve got to get to the hospital,” she moaned.
“But we have cloth seats in the car,” I said. “Let me throw down a tarp.”
She never understands the practical side of things.
We got to the hospital and were immediately checked into a room. Two rooms down, a woman was screaming and swearing at her husband.
“Are they doing exorcisms here too?” I asked the nurse.
The labor pains began and increased through the day. Cheryl had some too. I, remembering what I had been taught about breathing techniques in the Lamaze class, began coaching Cheryl in her breathing. I was a little insulted when both she and the attending nurse started giggling. Apparently, I did a great imitation of King Louie from Jungle Book.
Late that afternoon, the dilation reached 10 centimeters and the nurse suggested that I should have my eyes checked.
With a couple of huffs and puffs, the baby started to come. He was face down. The head was a little pointy, but I figured that I could round it off again. Then came the shoulders. Fine broad shoulders. He had a strong upper body which would be good for rope swinging later on.
Continuing on out, I noticed the cute little butt. He’s taking after me I thought. So far so good. And as he continued to roll over in a front somersault, I thought I saw the indicator that I was hoping for. Joy to the World!
The nurse quickly carried the baby out to clean him up. Returning a short time later with him swaddled in a blanket, she gave him to Cheryl, and they bonded.
Then Cheryl asked, “Would you like to hold the baby?”
The nurse put him into my arms. And clumsy me, the swaddling blanket fell off, and I was totally shocked. The indicator wasn’t there. I checked the floor. In a panic I looked to Cheryl and then at the nurse. This is not what I had planned for.
From that moment on, Caleb John-Paul became Kalene Elizabeth.
And over the sound system, Mick Jagger sang, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
In the early 1980s, I was determined to be an inventor. This combined with my interest in deer hunting led me to create and patent a hunting tree stand which I called the “Mitchell Limb Stand”. It was a name not unlike the name of my other inventions, since everything was the “Mitchell something.”
The animated version of the Disney movie, Peter Pan, was released in 1953. Disneyland theme park opened in 1955. I was born in 1955. Are you seeing the connection? I grew up in the era of Wonderland, of the lost boys, of never wanting to grow up, of wanting to fly . . . and sometimes occasionally wearing green tights.
My sister Tricia recently brought me a manila envelope which she had been keeping in storage. The envelope was stuffed with memories of my dad, Paul Phillip Mitchell. I poured the contents out onto the floor. Included in the pile were newspaper clippings of his life and his military documents from WW2.
Inner tube rolling
The act of wedging oneself in the inside diameter of a tractor inner tube and vertically rolling.
Although I had proven the idea ineffective for long distance travel, I was curious if it could become a competitive competition.
“Dave! Did you hear that? Can you feel the earth shaking?”
“It sounds like a spooked, slobbering horse,” Dave remarked nervously as he looked around the edge of the building we were standing next to. “Cripes! It’s getting louder. It’s coming this way!”
In 1973, while I was at Northwest Nazarene college in Nampa, Idaho, I had an opportunity to attend a concert which changed my impression of Christian music forever.
“Hey kid.”
“Me?”
“Yeah you. Come here!”
It was my first day as a Freshman at Bellingham High School. I was in much fear and dread of being in a new school and having no idea where I was, I stumbled into the Senior Hall. The guy who was calling out to me looked like a shady character, but I walked over to him anyway.
It was dark and I had just returned from a long soak in the campground hot tub. The park that weekend was packed with campers and our tent was one of many in the overflow field. Cheryl was sitting by the fire reading as I walked by and grabbed the lantern.
“He was buck-rut loco; I tell you Don! Buck-rut loco! And he ruined everything too!”
I was speaking to one of my friends from the class of 73 who lived across the street. We were both 18 at the time. The conversation centered around his younger brother, Stanley.
Football is won based on perfectly timed, high-speed plays. If everyone does their job effectively and is in the correct spot or reaches for the ball at the exact planned second, the play will be made. Anything less than perfect results in failure or a play made on luck. The same holds true for all ball sports.
Mr. Alan Watts was an English teacher at Bellingham High School during the 70s. He was a timid and fun-loving man who was not at all like the coach-teachers who would sharpen axes on their grinding wheels and thump their chests during class. The requirements for Mr. Watts’ Class included your pencil, a notebook, the English book, and a tetanus shot.