The Inner Journey North

Bruce was many things, obviously a poet, and also a linguist and published scholar, an adored teacher, a loving father, a husband, a son, a brother, a friend, and more. He was also an expatriate at heart, which makes him rare. Many Americans travel, but few long to make their home in another place and culture. From his letters home, it was clear that Bruce was always ambivalent about his home country, with both a draw towards America and away from it. He grew up during the Vietnam War and civil rights eras. The injustice he witnessed bothered him deeply. I believe he found injustice in Japan as well, but in neither country, did he feel much need to try to change the culture. His focus was on his inner journey and with the people whose path he crossed.

The Minnesota Early Years

Born December 9, 1949, in Homecroft, a suburb of Duluth, Minnesota, Bruce spent his early years as a small-town boy. Family movies from that era show Bruce and my brother Gary, sledding, fishing, and running carefree, a.k.a., an Andy Griffith Show episode. My father, Milton Horton, worked for the Uniroyal Tire Company, while my mother, Claire, stayed home to raise her sons. One of my favorite stories from that time was Bruce was given a BB gun for Christmas, during rough play, he accidentally shot Gary. Gary was not seriously hurt. My father in his rage broke the BB gun in half over his knee. Bruce didn’t caremuch for guns after that. My father and Gary enjoyed deer hunting over the years, Bruce either didn’t go or went reluctantly.

Gary was born in November 1950 and the two boys grew up, close and not close, at the same time. While they were playmates, their personalities and interests were different. Bruce was the good student, quieter, more introspective. Gary was charming, joyous, and filled with interest in the outdoors, sports, and girls. Bruce was intense, a bit brooding, and very kind to a younger sister, born nine years later. I suspect Bruce’s mix of intensity, intellect, and aloofness would have attracted girls in his youth. I know it made him popular later in his life as a graduate student and faculty member. That said, he had friends but preferred the introverts path of fewer and deeper friendships and relationships.

My father’s job moved the family to Minneapolis in 1961 eventually settling in Fridley, a northern suburb. Bruce played outside, read, and learned the guitar. Summer weekends were spent at the cabin up North, a quintessential Minnesota experience. Bruce had odd jobs, was on the tennis team, and was a good student at Spring Lake Park High School. He had a small Honda motorcycle, and some of my best childhood memories were riding on the back through the suburbs of Minneapolis.

The Wandering Years

Bruce enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1967 and dropped out in 1969. My brother claimed he traveled 40,000 km across America after leaving school. I believe he worked for awhile as roustabout at David Brinkley’s ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. After that, he backpacked around the world, avoiding the draft. He often traveled with Mary L. Crabtree. He took on the name Indigo Jones during his travels, and Mary choose Sunshine. A silly affectation in hindsight, though as a ten-year old, I found it romantic. From his letters home, he mostly worked as dishwasher, played his guitar for loose change, and considered a career as a poet or playwright. He sank wholeheartedly into the late 1960’s hippy lifestyle with long hair and too much drinking and drug use. In letters to my father, he argued against both capitalism and communism. He hated the war and thought Nixon a thug. He couldn’t reconcile a country he loved with a country involved in Vietnam.