DAD'S COMPASS

“He always knew where he was headed, whether traveling by car, by boat or by snowmobile.”

My dad had an innate sense of direction. He always knew which way the wind was coming from and which way he was headed, whether traveling by car, by boat or by snowmobile. He knew every channel and bay on Lake Minnetonka. He cut the fastest, smoothest, most fun routes through snowy woodlands on his Arctic Cat.

He built a house from the ground up when he was barely 22, and made a home with my mother, his high-school sweetheart, for 60 years. He worked in factories, starting in the family pickle business, then at another food company where he became transportation manager, after the pickle business was sold. He reliably knew the Dow and the news of the day. He figured quickly in his head, kept a well-mown lawn and crisp bills in his wallet. He was a keen observer who could always find the piece of machinery that had brought down a production line. He could identify any car on the road: make, model, year.

When I bought my first car, an Opel Manta with a bad muffler, Dad insisted I drive it home even though I hadn’t mastered the stick shift. He followed me as I lurched and stalled. Although he said, “It’s your car now,” he cosigned for the loan, replaced the muffler, made sure I knew how to use the jack to change a flat. He gave me a flashlight, an ice scraper and a Minnesota map for the glove box. Not that a map was necessary. Dad knew the roads that would take me to the State Fair, to Brookdale and Knollwood shopping centers, to high-school basketball away games. Anywhere I wanted to go, all I had to do was ask.

Many years later, when Dad was sick with melanoma and couldn’t drive after a seizure, I was the one who took him to medical appointments. He rode shotgun, checking the mirrors as I backed out of the driveway, nudging me to get into the proper lane for the next turn. It was a big blow to both of us that he wasn’t the one behind the wheel. I was happy to let him navigate.

After he died, my mom held a sale to pare down the things of his she would no longer use. The inventory included personal items that had defined him—hunting jacket, chest waders and fishing rods, bowling shoes and ball, vintage London Fog jacket, golf shoes and Tommy Bahama shirts. I knew he didn’t need this stuff anymore. But each item became more precious as it disappeared into the hatch of a van, the backseat of a sedan.

When a man tried on his snowmobile suit with the leopard lining, I held my breath. When it didn’t fit and he hung it up again, I pulled it off the hanger and brought it inside to add to the pile of things I’d be taking home. I held it close, seeking but not finding the rich old scent of oil and gas, fingering the badges—Arctic Cat logo, “Don’t Eat Yellow Snow”—that my mom had sewn on the sleeves. I checked the pockets and found a book of matches, replacement cleats for the snowmobile and something I didn’t recognize.

It was a compass. I held it and watched the arrow float and spin until it found stillness. “Find north,” Dad had taught me, “and you can always figure it out from there.” He didn’t need a compass himself, but he must have known I would. He left it in his snowmobile suit after his final time out on the trail. Tucked into the chest pocket, a shiny piece of him, meant for me.

—Debra Palmquist

Dad taking a trail break on his Arctic Cat, 1972.

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Debra Palmquist is a fourth-generation Minnesotan who writes about loss and grief. A student of phenology, she records events in the natural and human world through daily drawings.

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