Running Away: A Memoir by Robert Andrew Powell

Author:Robert Andrew Powell [Powell, Robert Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Harvest
Published: 2014-04-14T21:00:00+00:00

My parents fly out to Boulder soon after I return from Philadelphia. They arrive on a beautiful fall afternoon, a Wednesday, so I take them straight to the farmers’ market. My mom ducks her head inside the Dushanbe Teahouse. A guitar player fingerpicks a Bach sonata while a vendor talks about the pumpkin patch he’s about to open up. My dad and I walk up the creek path to the football stadium and the Frank Shorter statue. The first yellow leaves of the season fall from the trees. A hundred runners pass us and we both feel anxious, like we should be running, too.

They rent a cottage at Chautauqua. They’re only staying for three days so I must be an efficient tour guide. One afternoon at the Celestial Seasonings tea factory, the next morning a drive to Rocky Mountain National Park, where the elks are bugling. A beer at Mountain Sun on Friday evening, then out to Pearl Street to watch the university’s football team and marching band parade past. I’d encouraged my parents to stay through Saturday, when the Buffaloes are hosting Oklahoma. My parents like football, and I’m willing to pay for the tickets, but they elected to fly home early on Saturday morning solely to make it to Saturday evening mass at their church, as always.

When my parents visit I eat well. Dinner their first night in Boulder at Radda Trattoria, an upscale Italian place located in a strip mall near my Laundromat. For breakfast, huevos rancheros at the Chautauqua dining hall one morning, Cajun eggs Benedict and deep-fried beignets at Lucile’s the next. One afternoon, my dad and I walk down the Hill to Glacier for chocolate milk shakes, our afternoon snack. That night, my dad selects spare rib risotto at Jill’s, in the St. James Hotel. I have the filet mignon. When you’re dieting, I’m learning, every good meal stands out.

We all like the Chop House, a masculine chain restaurant crowded on our visit with Oklahoma football boosters. My dad and I order the exact same thing: buffalo prime rib, a side of cheese potatoes, and a salad with creamy Italian dressing. My mom and I sip martinis, then red wine. My dad asks for a “local beer,” and after the waiter runs though a list of excellent Colorado microbrews my dad chooses a Coors Light. The liquor loosens us up, as it usually does, and we talk easily about lots of things. Somehow we get to how they came to adopt my younger sister, who joined the family when we lived in Toronto. That got my dad reminiscing about his career at that time, and about a coworker who had already adopted a child. Then he just started talking about his career.

He never talked about work at the dinner table when I was a kid. What he did with his time, on those business trips or in that office of his, was his world alone. In newspaper stories written about my dad when he qualified for Boston he was described as a “manager of industrial relations.

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