"Dad, "I say one day, "Let's take a trip. Why don't you fly and meet me?"
My father had just retired after 27 years as a manager for IBM. His job filled his day, his thoughts, and his life. While he woke up and took a warm shower, I screamed under a freezing waterfall in Peru. While he tied a tie and put on the same Swiss watch, I rowed a boat across Lake of the Ozarks.
My father sees me drifting aimlessly, nothing to show for my 33 years but a passport full of funny stamps. He wants me to settle down, but now I want him to find an adventure.
He agrees to travel with me through the national parks. We meet four weeks later in Rapid City.
"What is our first stop?"asks my father.
"What time is it?"
"Still don't have a watch?"
Less than an hour away is Mount Rushmore. As he stares up at the four Presidents carved in granite (花岗岩), his mouth and eyes open slowly, like those of a little boy.
"Unbelievable, " he says. "How was this done?"
A film in the information centre shows sculptor(雕塑家) Gutzon Borglum devoted 14 years to the sculpture and then left the final touches to his son.
We stare up and I ask myself, "Would I ever devote my life to anything?"
No directions, no goals. I always used to hear those words in my father's voice.
▲ .
The next day we're at Yellowstone National Park, where we have a picnic.
"Did you ever travel with your dad?"I ask,
"Only once, " he says. "I never spoke much with my father. We loved each other—but never said it. Whatever he could give me, he gave. "
That last sentence—it's probably the same thing I'd say about my father. And what I'd want my child to say about me.
In Glacier National Park, my father says, "I've never seen water so blue. "I have, in several places of the world. I can keep travelling, I realise-and maybe a regular job won't be as dull as I feared.
Weeks after our trip, I call my father.
"The photos from the trip are wonderful, " he says. "We have got to take another trip like that sometime. "
I tell him I've decided to settle down, and I'm wearing a watch.
