I can only imagine where these tiny feet will go in their lifetime. My only hope is that they never forget the way home.
- Candice G.
It was a windy, chilly morning on Leech Lake. I stood on the balcony of my hotel room, surveying Walker Bay as I realized I’ll probably never see my hometown again. At that moment, I understood that I wasn’t in my hometown. Not really; I’d put that in my rearview mirror almost four decades earlier. What I was standing in, while certainly familiar, was where I was from…but it wasn’t home.
Growing up in Walker, MN, the Chase Hotel was always viewed as the lap of luxury, a place where the mere act of staying there meant you’d made it. As a kid, I dreamt of one day spending a night (or more) at the Chase. In 1975, my parents moved the family to St. Cloud, MN, a couple hours south of Walker. Moving away meant that dream went dormant. Walker was then (as it is now) a small town of less than 1,000 people, easy to forget and of little note.
On Monday, I went back for the first time since 1978…and we stayed at the Chase Hotel (now called Chase on the Lake). For a small town, it’s what I remembered it to be- comfortable and well-appointed, the fanciest place in town. Add a view of Leech Lake, and it was a great experience, especially since it was something I’d never imagined I’d ever able to do (or afford). Using my childhood yardstick, I guess I’ve arrived, eh? One more item crossed off my list….
I went back for a couple of reasons. One was that it had been 36 years since I’d been to Walker (I went back for what would have been my high school class’ graduation in 1978). As with most of my week in Minnesota, it was an opportunity to reconnect with my past. The second reason was it was an opportunity to show Erin where I grew up. We live an hour from Erin’s home town of Longview, WA, and since her family still lives there, we see it frequently. Walker’s two time zones (and 1607 miles according to Google Maps) away. It may as well be in another country…because in many respects it is.
The picture above is the house I grew up in. Seeing it again after so long was jarring. It’s a lot smaller than I remember it. It’s currently empty, and over the years it had been remodeled into a retail story. The neighborhood, at least as I remember it, is gone. Walker moved on, and after almost four decades so have I. It’s still where I’m from, and I am who I am because of my time there, but it’s no longer home.
Walker during my childhood was the very definition of small town. There were no stop lights. There was no mail delivery; we went to the post office to pick up our mail because we had no street address. There was no need for them; Walker was small enough that everyone knew where everyone else lived. Most of the time, we never even locked our doors; there was no reason to.
After all these years, I can still remember our P.O. Box number (563), our telephone number (218.547.1706)…even the license plate number (MDO 405) of our Ford Fairlane station wagon that was stolen in 1969. If our house had an address then I probably remember that as well. Meanwhile, I can’t remember a conversation Erin and I might have had 24 hours ago.
Four decades later, Walker’s still a small town. The sign at the outskirts of town say 941 people live there, which was about what it was when we left for St. Cloud in 1975. Main Street, the length of which you can walk in just a few short minutes, now has two stop lights and only one shop- Lundrigan’s Clothing- that existed when I live there. The Dairy Queen, a small shop with a walk-up window that closed for the winter, has been rebuilt a block from the original location as a sit-down restaurant open year-round. Progress…especially if you count the Indian casino just outside town.
Because of its location on the south short of Leech Lake (one of the state’s largest), Walker’s a fishing town. The population swells during the summer, but come early October it’s a wide spot on Highway 371. Autumn is the off season, and most of the shops close early and are open reduced hours. Even the hotel I’d dream of staying at when I was a kid was sparsely populated, which meant that the restaurant/bar was poorly stocked. After 3pm, you could have rolled up the sidewalks, because traffic was almost nonexistent.
As we left town, I looked over Walker Bay on our left, I understood that I’d probably never be back…and there’s really no reason for me to return. It’s not that I don’t like Walker, but more that it’s no longer who I am. My trip back was part of my desire to reconnect with my past, and, having done that, I can look forward to a future that looks promising.
Only a fool trips over what’s behind them….
