''Let sleeping dogs lie,'' is how my father put it, the day after a tearful reunion on my return from Canada in 1976. And so the eight years of estrangement remains one of those family mysteries that is not discussed.
I had had no contact with my family since an emotional meeting in June of 1968, during which I insisted on going ahead with my decision to leave the country rather than serve in the Vietnam War, a decision my parents were unable to accept.
While I was away, I taught school, become a Canadian citizen, got divorced, and waited - without much optimism - for a change in US policy toward draft resisters. I knew that by leaving when I did I automatically became wanted by the FBI, which had to be the most bizarre part of the experience. I mean, I grew up with TV shows about FBI agents as heroes fighting evil and catching the bad guys, so it was pretty disconcerting to become one of the bad guys by driving 400 miles and not coming back.
Eventually, as part of President Gerald Ford's clemency program, a legal review of the outstanding draft-resistance cases resulted in most of them being thrown out. But it was not until I got official confirmation from a Wisconsin district attorney that my case was among those that had been dropped that I determined to return and contact my parents.
I had often dreamed of my family during those eight years. In my dreams they were always happy, and much younger than they had been when I left. It kept me hopeful that one day we'd be together again and, however improbable it seemed at the time, things could go back to the way they had been in my childhood.
My father had been a dentist and my mother a housewife. My younger brother and sister and I had grown up in rural northern Wisconsin. Our house was on a hillside overlooking a lake, and was filled with books, music, and art from around the world.
My father had an ardent love of literature and a deep, resonant, magical voice. I still remember hearing him read stories like ''The Swiss Family Robinson'' at bedtime.
Self-sufficiency and critical thinking, independence of mind, courage, respect for human rights, and a determination to do the right thing no matter the consequences - those were my parents' gifts to me. And I remember my father once warning me very seriously about how easily an unscrupulous person could abuse logic to persuade others to follow him in an evil course of action. When I read some of the government's attempts to justify the US involvement in Vietnam, my first thought was, ''You got that right, Dad.''
It was painful to be accused of treason by my own parents, but I can honestly say I was never angry at them, or even upset. It just seemed strange, because I felt that in deciding to leave, I was really making use of everything they had taught me.
But my father was stubborn, and I always avoided any conflict with him. In the end, I believe the breakup was both our faults. It was just a bad combination of my father's stubbornness on the one hand and my reluctance to argue with him about why I was leaving the country, on the other.
After high school, I went on to Macalester College in St. Paul, where I was attempting to finish a graduate degree in education while the Vietnam War seemed to be spinning out of control.
As the situation in Vietnam deteriorated, it was puzzling to see the frequency with which the abuses of logic my father had warned me about started appearing in official statements promoting the war. It was even more puzzling to find similar abuses in the statements opposing it. It seemed impossible to judge whom to trust about what on Vietnam. But I knew that eventually I could be made to go there, regardless.
Unfortunately, I couldn't talk to my parents about what I was going through; it was too confusing. I barely know how to describe it now, never mind back then as an immature college student. When I was informed in the spring of 1968 that I'd be drafted in the summer, however, it really didn't occur to me that I might leave the country until I had considered and rejected every other option.
My first option was to do the expected thing and serve; but it would have required a lot more trust in the official line on the war, and more confidence in the beneficial effects of military service on its participants.
I also considered going to prison, as a form of protest, but was advised against it by the assistant chaplain at Macalester, who was a bit of a radical. He said he used to recommend going to jail, but that the American prison system had become too dangerous. I even attended a couple of Quaker meetings to see if I might turn out to be a pacifist. I decided I wasn't, and quit.
Eventually, some lunchtime conversations in the teachers' lounge at the suburban high school where I was student-teaching got me to consider going to Canada. A group of social studies teachers I'd come to know, all middle-aged men with families, spent several lunch hours talking about how if Nixon won the 1968 election, they would take their families and move to Canada. It occurred to me that if they could leave the country over an election, perhaps I could leave over a war.
In retrospect, except for the suffering that the collapse of communication between us caused my family, I am enormously grateful that I became a Canadian for all sorts of reasons. Some have to do with the more reserved approach to life here, the less violent culture. More importantly, if I hadn't come to Winnipeg, I wouldn't have been able to have my own family of little Canadians: I married again in 1985, and my wife and I now have three wonderful boys ages 9, 10, and 12.
As many others have discovered, the experience of raising children is the best way to understand, and appreciate, one's parents - and their dreams. If I in any way fulfill some of my father's dreams, I will be very happy. We may not have taken the same path, but I think we had the same determination that it be the right path; and we're both pretty stubborn.
David Cramer develops multimedia products for a Canadian computer training company. He lives in Winnipeg.
David Cramer in the 1960s, top, and today.
