thrice all american: Tacoma Book Club Edition 4: Going Where I Have To Go

Tacoma Book Club Edition 4: Going Where I Have To Go

· Posted Wednesday March 14, 2007 by jamie

It’s been a while, but we must not let it die: for this edition of our “Tacoma Book Club” we’ll be looking at Going Where I Have To Go: Essays from Within by Harold P. Simonson.

As seems to be the pattern for most of the books we’ve looked at thus far, this book is out of print. I’ll toss out the usual caveats: buy locally if possible from King’s or Tacoma Book Center; they may even be able to order you a copy if they don’t have it. You can always try the library. Failing that, there are several used copies available on Amazon:

First a bit of trivia about the title of this book, which itself has somewhat local connections. It is pulled from a poem by Theodore Roethke called The Waking, which begins “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go”. (Read it in its entirety here, or purchase The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke.) Roethke spend the last portion of his life teaching at the University of Washington before dying in 1953 of a heart attack while swimming in a friend’s pool on Bainbridge Island. The pool was later filled in and is incorporated into the Bloedel Reserve as a Zen rock garden. (One more literary note: the same poem features prominently into Slaughterhouse Five, by one of my favoritest authors, Kurt Vonnegut, as the impetus of the narrator to return to Dresden.) But enough with the trivia, let’s talk about the book…

Harold Simonson himself was born, raised, and now lives in Tacoma. He is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Washington, and previously taught for a time at the University of Puget Sound. Going Where I Have To Go is a set of essays reflecting on his life: boyhood, the “middle years”, and the looking back that can occur in old age.

Beyond this being a splendidly written memoir, this book has special significance for us because one of the “main characters” of the book is the house right next door to ours. Harold Simonson not only grew up in the house, but his father, a carpenter, built it with his own two hands in 1925. Thus, a good portion of the book reflects on Simonson’s experiences in the house: growing up there, walking to Grant School, going to the church around the corner, living through the Depression, and eventually later in the book living through the deaths of his parents. We even get a reference to playing catch while standing on the “Swansons’ property line”, referencing the former long-time residents of our home.

Other neat Tacoma details abound, also, most coming from long before my time. Tales of swimming at Sieverts and the Hi-Dive at Surprise Lake (and mourning over the condos and chain stores now dotting the area). Remembering epic horseshoe tournaments amongst the “old-timers” in the pits at Wright Park. Visiting the St. Paul and Tacoma Harbor Lumber Company sawmills, and when older working at the Wheeler-Osgood door factory. Watching the Tacoma Tigers at the Athletic Park on Sprague (now Peck Field) and playing golf at Allenmore. Racing trains while jogging on Ruston Way. Great imagery from times past and times present.

One more final bit of trivia: his own impressive accomplishments aside, Simonson is the father of renowned mountain climber Eric Simonson, and the book includes some great examinations of the anxiety that goes along with having one’s child scaling peaks such as Everest and Annapurna. So there’s a little something for the climbing buffs in this book as well.

I highly recommend this book: nice and short, very readable, great Tacoma memories, and wonderful reflections on life. Even if you don’t live next door to “the house”, I think you’ll enjoy it. Comments, as always, are encouraged!

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