Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Incident at Niagara Falls

As we neared Massachusetts my Father found out that we had more time to reach Fort Devens than he had thought. Now, the story they told me was that when my parents married in '48 they planned a honeymoon, but the plans were dashed by his assignment to a S. Carolina training base. So now they had time "finally" to have a proper honeymoon, the idea was to detour to Niagara Falls.

They'd just spent 3 years in Hawaii! They had tons of free time! They toured the islands! They couldn't have called any of that honeymoon?

OK, no use arguing with the dead. So we detoured to Niagara Falls. The motel was singularly unimpressive. Having now traveled nearly 4,000 miles by car across the U.S., not quite 4, I was becoming a regular connoisseur of 50s motels, and the honeymoon motel was crap.

They took me with them for a walk down the paths along the cliffs to the falls. Here's a picture I found of the paths we're talking about. They're narrow, maybe 4 feet wide in places. At the time we were there the guard fence was not designed with small children in mind. It would have been extremely easy for me to slip under it and fall onto the rocks below.


My Mother noticed it. There happened to be no other tourists around us at one point, and she told him this was their chance. They could push me over and I'd die and they'd be done with me. No one could prove it wasn't an accident. "He's just a stupid kid. Stupid kids get themselves killed all the time."

My Father finally went ballistic at all the talk about finishing me off. He yelled, "I don't want to hear any more of that crap! I listened to you once! That's it! I'm never listening to you again!"

My Mother screamed back, "You're not the one who's going to have to take care of the freak for the rest of your life!"

He grabbed her by the shoulder and slapped her.

I backed away, then ran up the path the way we came, but I couldn't run fast with my little legs, and Dad caught me in two seconds.

My Mother walked about holding her face, glaring at me, as if it was all my fault.

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