An Abundance of Warrens
I come from a long line of Warren Johnsons. My father, being the third, vowed to be the last inheritor of the name - yet praised those who held the title before him. In fact, he held his grandfather, the original Warren Johnson, to such a high regard that his stories are still regularly told over our book-laden, wooden coffee table.
One of my great-grandfather's beloved stories began in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a town rimmed by 5-foot walls of snow and fields once filled with horses and cows, now replaced with the easier-to-raise product of alfalfa. His brother, once a farmer honing fields of his own, decided to go off to college in an attempt to escape his repetitive life in the "Deep North".
Most alfalfa farmers in the 1920's, and especially my great-grandfather and great-uncle, did not have the funds needed to pursue a higher education. College was not a familiar subject for the Johnson's, as they "learned by doing," not through sitting in lecture halls or studying formulas. Many decades later, Warren Jr. would go off to the University of North Dakota to pursue law, yet at the time this would have seemed out of the question for the two brothers.
As Warren Sr. came to realize what his brother's education meant to him, he decided to do anything in his power to make his brother's dream come true. While recounting this story, my dad often stated that he "never asked intelligent questions as a kid," and because of this, the reason for Warren Sr.'s next professional choice has been lost to time.
In order to make money for tuition, my great-grandfather found work as a cliff diver in Acapulco, Mexico.
Acapulco was a hot, humid town sprouting with palm trees, white-bricked villas, and boats with large, square-shaped sails. During the 1920's the city was a "playground for the rich" and a "resort for the Americans," leading Warren Sr. to quickly become their jester. He grew long jet-black hair, and began to learn Spanish in pursuit of perfecting his job as a "clavadista".
Here began Warren Sr.'s adventures in Mexico, a place that he and his wife Betty would eventually visit every year until the early 1960's. He loved the rush of adrenaline he felt after jumping off the cliff's face into the Pacific's bath-water like temperature. The air would stream around him and make him feel like a bullet, much like the ones he had seen from his war plane less than a decade prior.
As my father continued to relay his grandfather's stories to me, I could tell that they were not only stories told to make people laugh, but to inspire future generations. My own father, Warren Johnson III, was born into the same town of Grand Forks, although he had made his escape by 18 and never looked back.
In 2000, Warren III decided to sail the world with my mother for four years, cruising on a small sailboat to Tahiti, Australia, and many of the smaller nations inhabiting the South Pacific.
Both Warrens' stories seemed to be intertwined in ways they may never have realized, led by a yearn for new experiences and a drive for adventure. They held the same names, were born in the same town, and seemed to share feelings that transcended the barrier of time.
My father grew up visiting my great-grandfather on his farm – the same one he had owned in 1920. By 1980, some of Warren Sr.'s stories had been muddied by time, yet the same desire for adventure rang clear in my father's retellings.