By Jeff Orvis
If you are blessed to have had a good
relationship with your parents, you know they will leave a part of
themselves with you when they are gone. Sometimes it takes us years
to realize just what that part may be. For some, it may be a hefty
bequest or a thriving business. For others, it may be a positive
mannerism you may not have even realized where it came from until you
start exhibiting the same mannerism and you suddenly realize that Mom
or Dad did or thought the same way.
In my recently enforced idle hours, I
have started to attempt to preserve what I can only describe as my
father's legacy. For much of his adult life, Dad worked in a lab at
Alcoa, testing metal. As a sideline, he was a photographer,
specializing in wedding photography. When his bosses at the plant
learned he could use a camera, he was assigned the additional duties
of plant photographer for the public relations department. I still
remember those late Saturday mornings, watching him load that bulky
Graphic camera, complete with the slide film holders and heavy tripod
into the Buick for a trip to a wedding. Although he didn't attend
many parties that weren't family-related, he seemed to thrive in the
organized chaos of a wedding and reception.
Dad also like to fish, a passion that
I only shared grudgingly. Living near the Mississippi River, he would
often take a pole and drive over to the lock and dam and try to land
enough panfish for a later dinner, stopping only when night fell or
the mosquitoes won the war. When it came time for family vacations,
one of our favorite destinations was north central Minnesota, where
friends of my folks had a wonderful cabin overlooking Sylvan Lake
near Brainerd. Mom and Dad continued these trips after my sister and
I had left home. On one trip, I'm not exactly sure when this
happened, as they headed north out of Minneapolis, instead of heading
northwest toward Brainerd, they headed northeast toward Duluth and
the Arrowhead region bordering Lake Superior.
That's where this legacy began to
develop. The Arrowhead region of Minnesota, including the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area, probably has some of the best fishing in the
Midwest, if not the whole country. But it also has some of the best
scenery available east of the Rockies. While Dad probably had the
fishing pole in the car, he began packing a camera and plenty of
film. They would jump in the car first thing in the morning from
their cabin or motel room and try to get lost along the roads that
jutted off of the famed Gunflint Trail.
When they returned home from these
week-long excursions, they usually didn't bring many fish home,
except for the wonderful smoked salmon they picked up from a rural
outpost. But they did bring several rolls of spent film. A couple of
weeks later, the mailman would deliver packages of 4 x 5 proofs
showing some of the most wonderful Minnesota scenery – peaceful
trails, raging streams, wonderful waterfalls and of course, that
inland sea known as Superior.
The best time for photography in this
area is late September, when the fall colors are at their peak. Since
Mom was still working, Dad often took this trip by himself. In this
era before cell phones, we would always spend an anxious week,
praying that he wouldn't get lost or attacked by the black bears that
were definitely in the area. In fact, one of the pictures he shot was
accompanied by the story that he had this sense that he was being
watched. In the shadows of one of the pictures, it could be argued
that there was a bear lurking, watching him.
Another picture he shot is one we call
the “ray” picture. As he was shooting the shore of Lake Superior,
the sun was just in the right angle to create a ray of light shining
from the top corner to the center of the frame. It was as if God was
saying, “Well done!”
Dad has been gone for more than 30
years now. But he left behind binders full of these prints. In hopes
of preserving his work, I have begun the time-consuming exercise of
scanning these prints onto my computer, hoping to transfer them to
DVD for more lasting storage. Dad was a man of few words, but I feel
like he's talking to me with each picture I scan. He was not one to
shy away from new technology, although it did take us several years
to get our first color TV. As I scan these pictures, I can imagine
what it would be like if he were still here. He would have been 85
years old this year. He would probably spend fall days capturing more
spectacular scenes, undoubtedly with a digital camera. Then he would
spend the snowy winter afternoons in front of a computer screen with
a photo editing software program, making minor changes in his work in
an attempt at perfection.
You may have heard that old joke about
St. Peter giving a tour to new arrivals in Heaven. They come to a
closed door and someone asks what's behind that door. St. Peter
replies, “We've got to be quiet. Those folks in that room are all
(insert a religion here). They think they're the only ones here.”
I can envision Dad walking down this
corridor, passing the various religion rooms, along with rooms
containing various political groups, etc. He's got a fishing pole in
one hand and a camera in the other until he comes to the area where
there's a small boat along a dock on a small lake in an area that
looks a lot like a sunny Minnesota fall day.
He turns to St. Peter and says,
“Thanks, I'm home now.”
