The first day was not so bad for me and Father, because we were still in France. We saw a little of Dijon, and the train passed through Besancon on the way to Basle. But as soon as we got in Switzerland, things were different.
For some reason, we found Switzerland extremely tedious. It was not Father's kind of landscape, and anyway he had no time to sketch or paint anything, even if he had wanted to. In every city we hunted, first thing of all, for the museum. But the museums were never satisfactory. They were filled mostly with huge canvasses by some modern Swiss national artist, paintings representing monstrous great executioners trying to chop the heads off Swiss patriots. Besides, it was always hard for us to find the museum in the first place, because we did not know German, and we couldn't make any sense out of the answers people gave us. Then when we finally did get there, instead of the comfort of a few decent pictures, we would immediately be confronted by another immense red and yellow cartoon by this Swiss jingo whose name I have forgotten.
Finally we took to making fun of everything in the museums, and playing around, and putting our hats on the statues, which was all right because the place was already totally deserted anyway. But once or twice we nearly got in trouble with the stuffy Swiss custodians, who came around the corner by surprise and found us mocking the hatted masterworks, kidding the busts of Beethoven and the rest.
As a matter of fact, the only pleasure Father got out of the whole expedition was a jazz concert he heard in Paris, given by a big American Negro orchestra--I cannot imagine who it was. I think it was too far back for Louis Armstrong: but Father was very happy with that. I did not go. Pop did not approve of jazz. But when we got to Lucerne, there was an orchestra in the hotel, and our table in the dining room was so close to it that I could reach out and touch the drums. And the drummer was a Negro with whom I immediately made friends, although he was rather shy. Meals were very interesting with all this business like drumming going on right in my ear, and I was more fascinated by the activities of the drummer than I was by the melons and meats that were set before us. This was the only pleasure I got out of Switzerland and then almost immediately, Pop got out table changed.
The rest of the time was one long fight. We fought on pleasure steamers, we fought on funicular railways, we fought on the tops of mountains and at the foot of mountains and by the shores of lakes and under the heavy branches of the evergreens.
Merton's father doesn't seem to like his father-in-law all that much, and Merton follows suit. Granted, "Pop" is a little more tightly wound than the Mertons are accustomed to. Merton's relationships with them would be akin to having Bernie Sanders as a father and Ronald Reagan as a grandfather.
I understand this dynamic quite well. Those of my disciples who know me well would use many adjectives to describe me, but "conventional" or "conservative" would not be one of those adjectives. My father, on the other hand, voted Republican in every presidential election except 1960. (Kennedy was my father's favorite President.) Yes, he voted for Donald Trump before he died. Imagine me growing up under my father's roof. Poet. Actor. Musician. Teacher. Further to the left than Jesus Christ. It was tough some days.
Yet, underlying all the disagreements I had with my father regarding politics, there was mutual respect. I know my father was proud of my accomplishments. He went to musicals I directed. Was in the front row when I played the Stage Manager in Our Town. Attended poetry readings when he could. Me? I respected how much he was devoted to my mother and siblings. Family values really meant something to him.
One of my best memories of my dad late in his life--the first time I was named Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula. It was a televised event, where I sat with the other finalist, being interviewed and reading poems. At the end of the show, Donald Hall, former Poet Laureate of the United States, announced the winner. When Hall said my name, I though my father was never going to stop smiling. That night wasn't about our differences. It was just about joy--my dad was really happy for me.
I never doubted that my dad loved me. It wasn't a question. He loved me, despite all of my "radical" ideas about feeding the poor, universal healthcare, and taxing the wealthy. He might have thought I was a communist, but in the alchemy of our relationship, that simply didn't matter.
Saint Marty forged a bipartisan love with his father.
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