Bringing it all back home, from field to table
By JOHN PEPIN Deputy Public Information Officer Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Being a
divorced parent with children involved is tough for anyone.
Those
circumstances are made more difficult when parents and children live a long
distance away from each other.
In my
case, I was living out west when I got divorced. I moved back to the Upper
Peninsula, where I was born and raised, leaving my two young boys 2,283 miles
away in southern California.
According
to online mapping information, it’s a drive via I-80 or I-70 with traffic, of
40 hours and 16 minutes each way.
It would
be years before I fully realized the mistake I made. I had failed to consider
the impact that distance, coupled with time, would have on our relationship and
the challenges we would face apart.
For them,
it was hard to understand a dad who would leave and go so far away, missing out
on all their activities, events and changes. We had been a team, sharing lots
of laughs, playing football on our knees in the house, fixing stuff, going to
the park.
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For me,
it was hard to see these guys only in the summertime – missing all those same
changes, events and activities – watching me fade from importance in their eyes
as someone they were losing real familiarity with the older we all got.
At the
same time, I was home – closer to my dad, who had been ill. To me, there were no
easy answers to any of this.
No matter
the situation, one thing I was always hoping to do was cement a connection
between my boys and myself and the natural world outdoors.
Before I
left California, there had been at least a couple camping trips with my oldest
son, James, who wasn’t very old at the time. I took him with me on an overnight
outing surveying spotted owls for the U.S. Forest Service in the San Gabriel
Mountains.
It was
his first time camping out, and we set up our tent on a hill high above the
graveled canyon floor. We saw hummingbirds buzzing between the flowering plants, and a northern pygmy owl came to visit after we whistled him into sight.
That
night, we heard a mountain lion down in the canyon.
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On
another outing, my youngest son, Jeff and his mom were along with James and me when
we all camped at Sulphur Springs, a spot tucked into the mountains above
Los Angeles, where a trickle of water attracted a nice variety of birds and
other wildlife.
I also
liked to take the boys for nighttime rides out into the Mojave Desert near the
Devil’s Punchbowl. I used to let them sit on my lap and steer my pick-up truck
out under the stars on those dark, black-topped roads.
Once, young
Jeff announced upon our return, “I ‘drived’ in the desert.”
Back here
in Michigan, on one of their summer trips home, I took the boys to Houghton
County, where we spent a few days in a cabin, taking day trips fishing for brook
trout, checking out waterfalls, rocky rivers, deep woodlands and
mosquito-clouded back roads.
They
slept in bunk beds. We cooked on a grill outside the cabin door. The old deer
camp-styled cabin was comfortable, with soft mattresses and thick blankets that
held the damp nighttime air at bay.
I taught
them how to tie a hook on their line, bait a hook and read a river to find fish, and they watched me clean and cook the trout.
A few
years later, the boys had again returned for an annual summer visit. By now,
they had learned a thing or two about how to fend for themselves. But while
they had learned some things, I found out that others were still beyond their
reach.
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One day
while I had gone to work, they planned to watch television and relax much of
the afternoon, cooking hot dogs and macaroni and cheese for lunch – typical kid
stuff.
When I
got home from work, I asked how lunch was. They said they could only eat the
macaroni and cheese, having to go without hot dogs because an electrical
breaker had tripped, leaving them without the microwave.
“Why
didn’t you boil the hot dogs in a pan on the stove?” I asked.
“You can
do that?” they asked, incredulous.
I was
shocked.
I thought
they were kidding.
They were
not.
I didn’t
know whether to laugh or to cry. I think, in that one brief instant, that I
realized on some level I had failed them.
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This was perhaps
one of the first indications for me that there was a whole network of cracked
and unseen fault lines underlying the framework of our trying to make the best
of this long-distance parent-child relationship.
A few
more years had passed by the time we decided to return to the cabin in the
woods for another “fishing excursion.”
This
time, there was more indifference and less understanding between us. The
awkwardness was palpable. There was tension I didn’t understand. We had
continued to grow further apart.
But none
of that stopped us from enjoying ourselves at the cabin and hitting the streams
for a couple of days. As I drove, Jeff was in the front seat navigating,
looking at a map.
At his
direction, we stopped along a green, grassy meadow off the highway, where a
small stream snaked its way into the woods, near an old concrete bridge that
had fallen into disrepair.
Within a few
casts of our spinners, we had a few nice fish. We repeated this process as we
checked out the countryside, exploring new waters.
At a
shallow, log-bottomed pond, with darkness on its way, James caught the biggest
trout of the day.
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Back at the
cabin, the boys helped clean the fish. This time, I would show them how to cook
up the trout in a frying pan on the stove, and they would learn by doing.
They
helped wash and flour the trout.
“Just so
you know, we’re going to be using real butter to fry these fish in – none of
that low-fat crap,” I said, smiling.
I gave
them the finer points – watching the color of the fish turn from opaque gray to
white to know when the trout were cooked all the way through. I reminded them how
to lift the spine to pull the rib cage and the rest of the bones out, flaking
the fish off the bones onto the plate.
I also reminded
them to eat the crunchy, butter-fried fish tails and to leave the skin on for
some of the best taste.
Since James
had caught the biggest fish, he was the first to try the fish. Jeff and I
watched silently in anticipation.
“That is
so good,” he said.
That’s
all we needed to hear. We picked up our forks.
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This trip
back to the cabin would also be memorable for us, but not in the same way the
first trip had been.
This
time, it was more of a benchmark delineating how far we had drifted apart – but
along with the fault lines we found, I know now there remained an enduring love
and memories of the closeness we had shared way back before the divorce, before
I had moved away.
I was pleased to hear the boys had been taking their own fishing and camping trips out west.
It took a
half-dozen more years – more valuable time lost – before we were able to
finally meet in the desert out west to settle our differences, men to man.
I had
been asking them to grant me more access to their lives and their time. Clearly,
they didn’t have to agree. They had grown beyond me long ago.
On my
end, the older I got, the more I needed them, the less I saw them. I explained
how, as the years go by, time gives you perspective and wisdom to see your
faults.
I could
only offer my truth and my love.
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On a
January afternoon, my plane circled and landed in Albuquerque. We headed south
along I-25 toward the Rio Grande. We passed numerous roadside memorials and beautiful,
small desert cemeteries.
We
enjoyed the hot springs of Truth or Consequences, had some great local food and
experienced the amazing Blue Oyster Cult in concert.
At New
Mexico Tech, I shot some hoops with the boys, toured the campus and was surprised
to find samples of almandine and chamosite from Michigamme, and Kona dolomite
from Marquette in a display case at the school mineral museum.
We later sat
in my little motel room there in Socorro. I had said I wanted to talk with
them. After we heard each other out, we agreed to work together to reconstruct
our lives together as much as we could – going forward.
They
graciously accepted me.
I have visited both
of their homes. I am so proud of them and the men they have become.
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I’ve been
introduced to my beautiful granddaughter Evelyn, who was just born this past
autumn. I met her lovely mother in person too, and her parents.
I had
missed the wedding – another time I had tried to do what I thought was best,
but realized later, it was a time when my pride and insecurity tripped me on my
face.
Last
week, I talked with the boys for over an hour on a video chat. I got to see
Evelyn eat her peas. We talk over the computer regularly now.
We have
plans to reconnect in Michigan sometime soon.
With the
trout season opening Saturday, it wouldn’t surprise me if we soon found our way
back to the red-and-white cabin still sitting under the pine trees, just up the
trail from where the river gets wider.
We could
fish again together, walk those old dirt roads, talk about the good times way
back when or just sit on the front porch of the cabin, watching the sun go down
over the trees, waiting for the stars to come up.
Whatever
we do, I know I’ll be happy to be there.
Want to
take someone special fishing? Get more information on fishing in Michigan,
including seasons, tactics, fish identification and more, at www.mi.gov/fishing.
Check out
previous Showcasing the DNR stories at www.mi.gov/dnrstories and subscribe to upcoming articles at www.michigan.gov/dnr.
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/Note to editors: Media contact: John Pepin, 906-226-1352. Accompanying photos are available below for download. Caption information follows. Credit Michigan Department of Natural Resources, unless otherwise noted.
Cabin-1:
James and Jeff Pepin at the fishing cabin in Houghton County.
Cabin-2:
Jeff and James Pepin at the fishing cabin in Houghton County.
Catch: A
couple of the brook trout caught near the old bridge.
Evelyn:
Evelyn Pepin and Grandpa John in California in 2017.
Fish:
James and Jeff Pepin with some of the brook trout they caught from a stream in
Houghton County.
Knots:
Jeff and James Pepin tying on their lures for a fishing outing in Houghton
County.
Meal:
Jeff, John and James Pepin out for a southwestern-style meal together in New
Mexico.
Pan:
Brook trout frying in the pan at the fishing cabin.
Springs:
James and Jeff Pepin tossing rocks while on a camping trip at Sulphur Springs
in the Angeles National Forest in California.
Team: Team
Pepin working on fix-it job underneath the refrigerator in California./
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