As we prepare to head north to help Dad celebrate his birthday, I ponder firstly, that after 68 birthdays Dad probably doesn’t need any help celebrating, and most likely doesn’t care to celebrate in the first place. Who wants to be reminded that they’re pert near 70? Yes, it’s just a number, but it’s a really big number. Alas, north we head whether he likes it or not.

The second portion of the pondering has me thinking about all the trips we’ve made north. Those trips north started with “me” and progressed to an expanding “we” over the years since the day Mom and Dad moved me and my mullet to the deep south of Aberdeen, South Dakota, back in 1991 to give college life a go at Northern State University.

Like many of the freshman I see sitting in my classroom today, I’m not sure what reason I had to believe that I was “college material” those many yesterday’s ago, but a quilt isn’t made from whole cloth, and little by little a something began to take shape. Something that couldn’t have been planned for, something that just was, something that just is.

The first week or so of college I believe that I cried myself to sleep each night out of sheer homesickness. Actually, more of a silent whimper, quietly pushing tears toward my pillow so as not to make my heavy metal loving roommate think I was some sort of North Dakota momma’s boy. As far as momma’s go, I’ve got myself a pretty good one, so I believe I had every right to shed a tear or two and blubber a bit about being 364 miles away from all I’d ever known.

I headed north every three-day weekend, every mid-term break, every chance I had I pointed the big chrome grill of my 1958 Chevy Biscayne north and headed toward the comfort and certainty of home. Dad bought that Chevy from Harold Pasche in Columbus, and I loved driving that old car, but after seeing the car in front of me spin through the ditch one winter trip home from college, I got spooked about not having seat belts and it was sold. I suppose it would be un-American to be a man that had a car as a boy that he wished he still had. So it goes.

I headed north, because north was where my life was, but gradually my life took shape south of north, and the gaps between trips north began to widen. Not too wide, but wide enough to give me space to grow, to be a bit less of a North Dakota momma’s boy. Just a bit less. Like I said, I’ve got myself a pretty good one.

In that space I met friends I’ll most likely have for life, met a girl who would become my wife, and realized that I could do this, I could do this because of all of them. Those north, those south, those people that formed the quilt that I find so much comfort in.

Happy Birthday Dad. You’re a good one.