Remembering Crater Lake, Dad. . .Wish You Were Here
One of the last gifts that I gave my father was a rhododendron walking stick that I bought at Crater Lake National Park [See note] . After he died, I came across the beautifully varnished staff on a visit home. My mother gave it back to me. I suppose in a sense I inherited my own gift.
I share some Native American blood with my father, as his grandmother was of almost pure Cherokee stock. Perhaps, then, the quickening of spirit that I feel each time that I gaze upon Crater Lake's surreal, blue waters is due to that bit of Native American blood coursing through my veins.
The day at Crater Lake was to be one of the last times that I saw my father in good health, as I was summoned to the east coast the next year to be by his bedside as he lay dying. At the time of the visit to Oregon, he was using a folding black cane with which to get around, but while we walked around Crater Lake, I noticed that he leaned against the long walking stick that Joyce and I had just bought him.
He marveled at the changing blue colors of the lake as weather conditions and time of day changed. As the shadows of clouds passed back and forth, the water changed from impenetrable sapphire to crystalline azure when the sun came out. We must have seen hundreds of shadings of blue while we were there, for it seemed as if all of the blues listed in the lexicon were exhausted as we watched the windswept water. Cerulean, turquoise, teal, Prussian, cobalt. . .every blue known to humankind and the myriad unnamed in their spectral subtlety.
“There’s an island out there,” he said as he pointed out the small cone-shaped island in one corner of the lake.
“That’s called Wizard Island,” I announced to the group, “It’s actually a small cinder cone that has arisen since the lake was formed, “ I said, reading from the park tour guide.
“It does look like a witch’s hat,” my father replied as he sat on a stone bench facing the lake.
He knew some of the geological history of the area from his voracious reading. Even though he never finished high school, he had become a celebrated “Amateur Radio Operator” or “ham.” Though, he had originally taken the hobby up as a therapy for his life-long problem with stuttering, he became something of a legendary pioneer in radio communications in our rural area. Indeed, he had talked with amateurs in most of the world’s countries and had encouraged many fledgling radio operators.
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