The Wake

The earliest memory that I have is a vision of myself, probably 3 years old, hiding in the racks at a department store. Outside of my smothering cotton fort, I can hear my mom frantically calling out my name, inside of the rack I am giggling with delight. This is one of the only memories in my life that doesn’t have a soundtrack. From there on out, Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue haunts my subconscious valleys. As soon as I climbed out of the clothing rack and moved on to bigger and better hiding places, Tangled Up in Blue always managed to creep right along with me. This may be due to the fact that it sums up the single most important moment in my dad’s life. This may also be a result of my dad being a Dylan fanatic. I have also looked into the possibility that it is a worthwhile piece of music, but I assume that is the least likely option. As the story goes, my dad was just sitting around on a fateful day in the 70’s (I have never bothered to pay attention to which one), when someone called him about doing a studio session. After that I usually drift off into a world where I am again the center of the story. I believe it ends with something like “and that’s how I got on the album version of Tangled Up in Blue”. It appears that somewhere a long the line this legendary musician chose my father to play a little guitar on another cut of a song on his latest album.

It is almost comical to me that this moment has defined not only his life, but also mine and my sisters. I have been trying to live it down for the last 18 years, but with the publication of my father’s 212 page rant on the subject, I am still working to move on. For years I distanced myself from it, kept this little factoid on the shelf while I tried to make friends and survive junior high. Then on the first day of 8th grade, my U.S history teacher recognized my last name. “You aren’t related to Kevin Odegard are you?” Trying to blend into the cold metal desk, I wanted to make sure the whole class though it to be a coincidence. Despite my concern over being humiliated, I mumbled that he might by my dad. Mr. Lescarbeau did not let go of it the entire year, being a huge folk music fan and also a Dylan enthusiast. My history teacher had in fact gone to the University of Minnesota at the same time as my dad, and owned the single record his band put out. After class one day, he asked me if my dad would be able to make it to conferences. I had planned on avoiding the subject and hoping neither parent would show up to this event. “Maybe,” I replied. “Well that would be great if he does, I wanted to ask him about coming into class to speak”. My worst nightmare had begun to fabricate.

That night when I got home I pleaded in silence for my parents to forget about conferences. My mom’s palm pilot had other plans for us that evening. 8pm rolled around and we rolled right into the school parking lot. My last hope was for Mr. Lescarbeau to have left early. I took my parents around to all of the stations and hoped we would not have enough time for history before 9pm. Fate had something else in mind, and as my parents sat down to discuss my incoherent essays on the revolutionary war, my teacher launched right into what a huge fan he was. I’m not sure they ever talked about the fact that I knew nothing about the constitution or the painfully obvious lack of studying for my multiple choice. All that I can really be sure of is the A I received that semester for my dad’s one shining moment in history.

The next semester began and I left U.S history. My mandatory reading class had taken its place. By the first day I was already sure it would be nothing like the free ride I had received in history. Once again, I slouched in the back of the class, doing my best to escape the gaze of the crazy grey haired woman at the front of the room. As she read my name off of the roster, Mrs. Walthour recognized my last name as my sister’s. This was a common occurrence as I was a mere 3 years behind her in school. At the end of the day my teacher caught me just as I could taste freedom. “Did Jessie ever mention that I still own your dad’s album?” This time I was able to causally respond “Oh, you’re a fan of my dad’s? I’ll make sure he makes it to conferences.”