When I overhear my parents talk about the death of Dorothy Stratten, the Playboy playmate first discovered in a Vancouver Dairy Queen, I somehow confuse her with the woman who sold my family our tent trailer. For show and tell that week, I announce that the woman who sold my family our tent trailer was murdered and the teacher just nods her head and moves on to the next child, a girl who brings a doll she received for her birthday. At the time, I’ve only known of death from young birds who fell from their nests, a few flushed goldfish, and my mother’s scissors as she cut newspaper obituaries she’d later place inside her Bible. That a famous person has died, a famous person who sold my family our prized tent trailer, makes weekend getaways even more exotic: each time we camp that summer I lie awake listening to the crickets through the tarp walls thankful, yet still uncertain, whether my happiness somehow led to Dorothy’s demise.
Dorothy Stratten’s Tent Trailer
Subscribe to Geist! |