Atttending a 50th High School Reunion

For some unfathomable reason, I attended wife Marjorie’s 50^th high school reunion – the 1964 class of Pontiac Central High School. Even though friends warned me off the event saying I faced an evening among strangers intent on impressing their classmates, I decided to accompany her to the party. If all else failed, I reasoned, I could find solace at the bar. Attending the party involved a long drive, an overnight stay, and a buffet dinner in a dark, oversize banquet room. There were more than 100 oldsters of every size, color, and temperament squeezed into the room elbow to elbow. I didn’t expect much, but it turned out to be a hoot.

 

The party planners had arranged for a first-class DJ for the evening. He had asked graduates to choose favorite music with the result that the party grooved to the sounds of the Sixties via The Platters, Elvis, James Brown, and a host of other ‘60s rock stars. The dance floor was overrun much of the evening. It was a treat to see folks dropping their canes and walkers to bebop to the golden oldies. I was tempted to shake my behind to the grooves when I thought no one was watching, but then I realized that I didn’t know anyone, so what the hey. I joined the mass of bobbing bodies and occasionally found a groove I could keep time with. Nobody seemed to care about dance skills or a lack thereof, including me.

 

Behind the DJ was a screen with a continuous loop of old photographs and movie clips playing, each extolling the golden days when we were innocent and full of wide-eyed wonder. The pictures of muscle cars and historic buildings were interesting. I pretended to be thrilled when it came time for the school fight song and cheering the school teams. It turns out that their school, Pontiac Central, had many things to brag about including two Olympic gold medal winners: US Champion and gold medal winner in diving - Micki King (1972, Munich) and track star and gold medal winner Hayes Jones (1964, Tokyo). Both athletes overcame adversity on their way to record-breaking careers with Micki King becoming a Colonel in the Air Force.

 

The planners had also arranged for a professional photographer to circulate among the guests taking both candid and staged photos for any group of graduates who wanted. The photographer loaded  all the old photographs and the newly created pictures taken on the spot on memory sticks. And, here is the best part, each attendee got a free copy of the memory stick before the evening ended.

 

The party included a program where anyone who wanted had a chance to speak to the assembled group. Amazingly, several speakers turned out to be not graduates, but TEACHERS OF THE GRADUATES. Marjorie whispered to me that while she was in school she thought the teachers were all old, but now, they didn’t seem so old, after all. One of the speakers was my personal favorite, a guy named Joe Cool. Of course, he looked anything but. Surely, his name must have been worth a million bucks. Imagine going on a job interview, “Hi, I’m Joe Cool.” Marjorie’s class also had another person with the same name as a famous journalist – Ernie Pyle, the WW II correspondent.

 

Although I thought I knew no one, wife Marjorie knew most. After being prompted by the school photo’s that each wore around their necks, but she was able to recall most folks even though her class was more than 400 strong. It was a treat to learn the stories of various folks and how they had migrated from Pontiac to places around the world. I was surprised that several are still working and some are looking for work. Late in the evening, I recognized one fellow that I had worked with at General Motors and he and I had a chance to reminisce. We were given a booklet containing the graduating class statistics. They were a bit sobering; 78 of her classmates had passed and more than 100 were unable to be located for the party.

 

The evening ended after I pooped out early. Marjorie had a good time, I had a good time, and it was satisfying to see some folks who looked older than I look and couldn’t dance any better. So, if you are considering attending a school reunion, my advice is to go, maybe you’ll find an old friend or someone with a name like Joe Cool. Imagine that.

 

Paddling the Au Sable - Again

Paddling the Au Sable River – Again

 

(Editor’s Note - Michigan’s Au Sable River and its nearby neighbor, the Manistee River, bisect northern Michigan as the headwaters of each river nearly touch in the center of the state and then flow east to Lake Huron (Au Sable) and west to Lake Michigan (Manistee). Local Indians used the rivers for centuries as their highway across the peninsula on their way to either coast. After the end of the lumbering era in Michigan, the denuded river shores and surrounding lands were virtually worthless allowing a pair of enterprising brothers to purchase huge tracts of land and build a dam at the lower end of the Au Sable. The Foote brothers used the dam’s power to make electricity using a dynamo, that new-fangled machine that Michigander Thomas Edison had developed. The project was such a success that other wealthy lumbermen who owned large tracts of land along the river imitated the Foote brothers and created an additional four dams on the Au Sable. The result was the formation of Consumers Power, one of Michigan’s leading power companies, and the subsequent development of the Huron-Manistee National Forest.)

 

Marjorie and I paddled the 126 mile-long Au Sable River about 10 years ago during our annual canoe trip. This year we planned to repeat the trip in the company of our two sons, their wives, and two grandchildren ages seven and nine. After lengthy discussions, we decided that the only way to keep two little girls occupied during long stretches of paddling was to allow them to help paddle. This may have been a faulty decision. Ultimately, the decision about them helping paddle provoked another decision; we would rent four canoes to carry our party of six adults and our gear and the two little ones with the provisions they needed. I drew the short straw: I was assigned to paddle with one of the little girls (one canoe) while my son had the other child (2^nd canoe) and wife Marjorie paddled with their mom in the third canoe. Son #2 and his wife paddled the fourth canoe, all of which were loaded with food and camping gear for five days of camping in the Huron-Manistee National Forest.

 

We knew from our prior trip that paddling in the ponds created by the dams makes the trip considerably more difficult since these areas have virtually no current flow making progress slower and paddling longer. Accordingly, we decided to skip the first section of the river and the first pond thereby reducing the trip by 49 miles and eliminating one pond and one portage. Our trip with the two grandchildren would be a mere 77 miles, about 45 river miles and 32 pond miles along with four portages to carry our gear. We would end our week long excursion at Michigan’s east coast at the port city of Oscoda.

 

We began our trip at the canoe livery in Mio, Michigan just past the first dam. Everyone was in high spirits, especially the little girls. Just before we left I asked the owner of the livery about how many people make the trip to Oscoda as we had planned. He waited to answer until he and I were alone.

 

 “I rent canoes to quite a few people for that trip, but most don’t make it,” he said. I decided not to pursue the matter further, especially since he didn’t know about our grandchildren paddling in two of the canoes.

 

So we began. It was a big adventure the first dozen miles or so and then, you guessed it, the little girls lost interest in paddling and their dad and I became solo paddlers in canoes loaded with gear and little girls sitting in the front of our canoes. He and I made up the rear guard of our four-canoe flotilla (the grunt section) while the two boats ahead seemed to be merrily shooshing along. My granddaughter and I decided that it wasn’t our fault we were last; we were certain we had been given the slowest canoe in the livery – we named her ‘ol slowpoke.’

 

The first day was mostly river paddling. It was pleasant to paddle through the clear, cool water and watch kingfishers and the occasional Great Blue Heron lifting from the water. Nevertheless, it was a relief when we reached our first campsite and pitched our tents. (The Mrs. and I, as seasoned veterans of vacation trips involving paddling and camping, have learned to take our pleasures seriously – we pack the essentials for cocktail hour even when camping). Evening cocktails were especially pleasant that day after the long paddle - even when sitting on the ground. As I struggled to get upright after sitting on the ground, I was struck by just how much gravity had increased since our trip 10 years earlier. I didn’t know things like that happened.

 

The second day was a little more difficult than the first as we encountered the first of four ponds, the Alcona Pond and the absence of moving water to help carry us forward. Alcona is just over two miles long and forms a large U from its beginning to its dam on the east end. Along each bank of Alcona were campgrounds filled to capacity with campers at their ease. I could see and hear them chatting amiably as they sat in lawn chairs next to their luxury travel trailers and RV’s, enjoying campfires, gazing at the water and wondering about the fools paddling in the center of the pond. I tried to ignore them as I gritted my teeth and paddled onward, urging my granddaughter to dip her paddle occasionally. It was impossible not to think about my own perfectly comfortable RV sitting idly in my driveway at home, and I wondered more than once why I was paddling a heavy boat when I could have been watching some other fool paddle.

 

As all portages are, the Alcona portage was a grunt. Moving our gear and canoes from the pond to the river meant climbing up the 30 foot high impoundment then down the reverse side to a trail leading to the backside of the dam and its discharge of water to the river. I made four trips in carrying the canoe and the heavy rubber Duluth bags that contained our gear, including my carefully packed ingredients for the next cocktail hour. The bag was heavy, but there were some things I wasn’t willing to sacrifice. At the portage I was thrilled to show my granddaughter a beautiful brown mink that scampered along the shore as we climbed into our canoe.

 

One hour of paddling past the portage brought us to a campground along the river where we decided to camp. The Huron-Manistee campsites are primitive and most are perched on high ground next to the river. There are no handrails or steps. The best we encountered were tree roots protruding from the gravely soil that allowed a purchase when crawling to the top of the steep embankment. After paddling, no one complained of the climb although I admit to a few mumbled profanities as I struggled upward with forty pounds on my back and the need to climb back down for a second and third trip.

 

The dinner of dehydrated food moistened with river water followed by hot coffee and pudding restored us. The scenery was sensational as we looked out over the river to a stunning orange sunset. Tuckered out, we climbed in our tents to the sound of a barred owl who persisted in asking, “Who cooks for you?” Even he gave up as night fell. I remember drifting off to sleep even though the ground was hard and lumpy. Unfortunately, we had pitched our tent so that our heads were on the downward slope. We had to get up in the middle of the night to change ends to prevent our blood from rushing to our heads and causing an explosion – an unseemly event in the middle of a forest campground.

 

The next two days were a repeat of the first except that my granddaughter gave up paddling earlier in the day. As we entered the sluggish water of Five Channels Pond on the third day, I tried a little deceit to encourage her. Surrounded by acres of cattails on either shore, and trailing the other canoes, I promised to tell a story.

"But," I said, "this special story can only be heard by people who are paddling."

That worked for a while, but ultimately the story became so tedious that she didn’t care and she laid down her paddle. Next, I tried using the technique that the old French voyagers used; singing in unison to a paddling cadence. Unfortunately, I only know two songs that you can paddle to and “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” becomes paralyzing after all 99 bottles have fallen.

 

When we reached the six-mile-long Cooke Pond the fourth day and its promise of wind and waves against my feeble paddling, I became a little more desperate: I offered her money for paddling. It worked, although as time passed I was forced to up the ante. I think I got to a $100 bribe for 15 minutes of paddling before we reached the end of the pond. I didn't tell anyone about the money and I hope she has forgotten.

 

On our last day of paddling, we passed through Foote dam and then re-entered the river for the final 10 mile push to Oscoda. Here we encountered a number of other paddlers who were out for a pleasant and leisurely Friday afternoon float in the clear water with sandy beaches on several shorefronts . We passed most of these floaters as we pursued our schedule of meeting our outfitter who had promised to pick us up in Oscoda by 3:00 PM. One of the ‘floaters’ asked where we had come from as we passed by. When he heard we had been on the river for four days, he asked “On purpose?”

 

None of us knew how to respond. I was afraid my four day beard and stained and wrinkled clothes might frighten folks so I paddled on silently. Suddenly, there were homes along the river. We passed under an abandoned railroad bridge and the sound of automobiles assaulted us. We had reached Oscoda. The outfitter was waiting for us and we let the young man load our canoes and gear for the hour-long ride back to Mio in his van. I joined the granddaughters in a nap on the ride home. Some things are important regardless of your age. It was a good trip, again.

 

 

The bunnies are winning

The Bunnies Are Winning

 

For some reason beyond my understanding, this has been a banner year for bunnies around our house. Almost every day I see several of the little fur balls hopping around, seemingly oblivious to my presence. They go from one of my gardens to another to munch on my flowers, only scampering away if I make a threatening move at a distance of less than a few paces. Somehow, they seem to know I am no threat as they happily make mincemeat out of my plants while they keep a wary eye out for more serious predators.

We replanted some of our flower beds with specific flowers to prevent a bunny invasion. Conventional wisdom from gardeners has been that marigolds will prevent rabbits from entering a garden because the flowers stink. So, we planted a row of marigolds along one of our beds to foil the little nibblers. One day after planting them, one of our resident critters lopped off the bloom of every marigold in the row. Every one! It might have been a deer, but I am guessing rabbit since I see them every day and they know the lay of my land and they lay in wait for each time I plant something new.

 

One of the little buggers must be a momma because my population of the hoppers includes several babies bouncing around. Mother Nature protects these by making them too cute. I’m guessing that this is a year of few resident foxes or bobcats in our neighborhood, allowing the hungry rabbits to thrive. Maybe they are thriving because they also eat the cracked corn that I put out for birds. (Now that I mention it, I seem to recall an intense competition under the bird feeder between bunnies and chipmunks.)

Not only do the bunnies eat flowers, they love my tender vegetable plants even more. I have several raised beds for veggies, and I made the terrible mistake of not fencing all of them. My previous experience was that the long-eared critters only like certain plants. This year it has become apparent that my previous experience was faulty, the devils seem to like almost everything, especially the beans and peas that I was counting on but neglected to fence. Only the tomatoes and hot peppers have survived outside the fences.

The two fenced beds are doing OK and I will have more zucchini than we can possibly eat and more kohlrabi than anyone would want. The kale that was also in the fenced bed was attacked by flying critters of some sort, so I have pretty much written it off also. It was just an experiment anyway, since I’m sure real Americans don’t eat anything that begins with the letter K.

 

So, it will be another year where my expenditures for seeds will exceed my savings in growing my own vegetables. But so what, at least, the bunnies are happy. And besides, they are just so durn cute!

   

 

 

Walking Bailey

 

Walking Bailey

This is Bailey. He is my morning walking companion. Along with by beautiful wife, Marjorie, I hasten to add.

Bailey became our morning walking partner several weeks after the loss of our old dog Marshall. We were on the rebound, so to speak, as we walked by our neighbor’s small, fence-enclosure adjacent to the side door of his bungalow. Suddenly, we saw two dark eyes looking mournfully at us and a funny, curled tail tentatively moving back and forth as we drew closer.

We were hooked. We walked into the yard and up to the fence. The eyes lit up while the tail began furiously whipping the air. It was as if this little girl had been waiting for us since Marshall was put into the ground. The furball begged to be petted and we couldn’t resist. As we reached over the fence, the little bundle of energy jumped from one of us to the other. Our neighbor emerged from his side door that led to the fence.

“She is Bailey,” he said. She likes people.”

It was an understatement. Bailey loves people: Old people, young people, kids on bicycles, people in cars, people walking by his yard, skinny people and fat people. Especially fat people, including Steve, the middle-aged owner, who is too fat and too health-limited to walk Bailey. We talked with Steve, and he allowed as how, yes, Bailey would love to go for a walk with us.

That was last winter. We got into the habit of walking Bailey around the neighborhood on most mornings that our schedule allowed and Steve’s phone was working well-enough to give his consent. Bailey got used to the routine of the phone ringing (our morning call to arrange the walk) and her evacuation to the fenced yard, followed by us ambling by. Steve says that now as soon as the phone rings in the morning, Bailey runs to the door, waiting to be let out. By the time we arrive, Bailey is on her hind legs at the fence, making little pirouettes and, not barking, but whimpering in the way little dogs do when they just can’t wait for something, or someone, in our case. We connect Bailey to a lead and open the fence gate and she begins her walk after she has flagged us with her tail for a few minutes while we provide her mandatory petting.

My walk is shorter as I divert to a neighbor’s house for coffee while Marjorie and Bailey continue down our road before we meet up again for the walk home. Marjorie walks several thousand steps during her 45 minute stroll. Bailey walks a few million steps during the same time as her short little legs move almost too fast to be seen. She crosses the road several hundred times, stopping to smell everything that passed by the night before, including the dead snake that was struck by a car and that she pees on nearly every day. If we stop for any reason, she nuzzles up to our legs for a few caresses before continuing on the journey.

She is a treat. I think she adds something to our morning walk and we look for her most days. I think our old dog Marshall would approve.

    

Michigan's Ke-che-te-go Warriors

It is spring in Roscommon and I have a new book. This one is another about an Indian who lived nearby (Grayling, MI) in the mid 19^th century. Writing this book was a natural outcome of my earlier work about a local Indian, since the two men were friends and the Grayling newspaper frequently reported on their comings and goings.

So, in case you are interested, here is a copy of the Prologue to Michigan’s Ke-che-te-go Warriors, available in its entirety at Amazon. com.

 

 

April 1865, near the close of the Civil War

 

Big Tom Ke-che-te-go marched forward with the men from his regiment. No one spoke as they marched toward the crater – the big hole in the ground that the Union Army made by exploding 8,000 pounds of explosives under the rebel lines in front of Petersburg, Virginia. None of the men or officers in Tom’s outfit, the 1^st Michigan Sharpshooters, knew why they were attacking. The first troops sent in some 30 minutes earlier had not been heard from, so now, the Sharpshooters were marching forward, just behind the 30^th United States Colored Troops.

The line of march was ominous for Tom and his men in Company K, the celebrated all-Indian company. As Sharpshooters, his unit normally fought as skirmishers or snipers in support of other Union regiments. Both skirmishing and sniping required the Sharpshooters to be dispersed along the battle lines, often creeping close to the enemy using whatever cover the men could find. This time is different, Tom thought, as his regiment marched toward the enemy in parade ground formation. We must be headed to the front lines as reinforcements for the regular troops, Tom decided.

As they approached the crater, Tom gaped at the devastation he saw. The early morning explosion had obliterated the rebel fort that formed a salient in the rebel lines. What used to be a fort was now a widely scattered mélange of broken logs, twisted lumber and chunks of foundation materials thrown about as if a tornado had found a target. It was strangely quiet; Tom heard only the occasional sound of canteens striking ammunition boxes and the sucking sound of boots being pulled from the muck as the men marched forward, making a long thin line of Union blue. As they reached the crater, they could see grey and black smoke rising above the large mound ahead of them.

The men climbed the rise and Colonel De Land sent them over the sides. The lip of the crater was too steep, the men slid down its sides toward the milling mass of troops that were below. As soon as Tom slid down the steep bank, he knew they were in trouble, even the closest Union troops were being hit by rebel fire. Tom saw dead and dying men scattered about like cordwood. Just as the men were assembling into ranks, a shell landed nearby creating a flash of light and a shower of mud. The kaboom of the exploding shell proved that it was close. As Tom gained his feet and his equilibrium, four of his fellow Sharpshooters pushed him aside, carrying a wounded man. It was the Colonel, injured by the bomb. The four men carrying De Land began struggling up the side of the crater; it was the last Tom saw of them.

Pizzzz. A bullet whistled by Tom’s ear. He looked up, hoping to see a flash of light and smoke from a rebel rifle that would become a target for him. It was no use - there was smoke everywhere. The Lieutenant signaled Tom and the Indian company to follow him. The men ran forward in a crouch along the bottom of a ravine, past a company of colored troops who were trying to form themselves into a battle line a dozen yards to their right.

As they ran past, a shell landed almost in the middle of the line the colored regiment was trying to form. Some of the Sharpshooters stopped to attend to the wounded men, but the Lieutenant waved them on. Tom saw other Union troops to his right trying to find cover from the artillery shells and the bullets that were raining on them. He kept moving forward. They were traveling at a diagonal across the bottom of the crater until they reached its opposite side on the left. Here, the troopers began clawing their way up the steep sides until a rebel rifleman appeared above and fired into their ranks. Tom hit the ground and rolled away from the rifleman’s downward trajectory. Just above him was a broken log sticking out of the ground. Tom crawled toward it, hoping for a small measure of protection. He peeked around the log to see not one, but three rifles over the lip of the crater each with a head just above. Tom got his rifle in position and fired a shot at the head closest to him then jerked himself and his rifle back behind the log.

He tried to calm his labored breathing and listen for any sounds indicating the presence of the riflemen above. Instead, he heard a series of shots from men all around him – apparently, other Sharpshooters had found a way to fire their rifles also. He waited another moment. Hearing nothing, Tom peeked again. Neither heads nor rifles were showing. Tom decided that being at the top of the crater could be no more hazardous than his current position, so he crept around the log and resumed clawing his way up. Other Company K men followed. Tom and the Lieutenant reached the top about the same time. The Lieutenant pointed to the left, indicating a long trench down and away from them that must have led to the fort before the explosion. Tom started in that direction as another bullet found its mark. The Lieutenant fell back clutching his upper arm. Tom headed toward the trench as another man helped the Lieutenant back over the lip of the crater the group had just left.

Tom reached the trench and jumped in, hoping to be protected from the whiz of bullets that he continued to hear as he made his way to the trench along with a dozen other Sharpshooters. As soon as he dropped into the trench, Tom stopped and reloaded his rifle and snapped the bayonet in place on the end of the muzzle. He looked at the other men behind him and saw that all had followed his lead in checking their weapons. With Tom in front, they started moving along the trench to the left, walking warily in expectation of finding a line of rebels facing the front. The walk was short. After creeping forward a few minutes, Tom saw a rebel soldier with his rifle resting on the forward edge of the trench. He fired his rifle instinctively and the body in front of him twitched. Tom stepped backward two paces and pushed his back hard against the rearmost earthen wall, hoping he was out of the line of fire.

He waited a moment, heard nothing, and then crept forward to the reb he had shot. The body had not moved. Tom walked up to him, grabbed his arm and twisted the body around to see his face. He was shocked to see a young man, barely old enough to shave. Blood had streaked across his face and an empty eye socket showed where one bullet entered with another in his neck. Tom’s bullet was in his chest. He had shot a dead man. He turned back to the troops behind him and signaled them forward, then continued his cautious pace forward. The trench soon opened up into a room with six rebel gunners lining a front wall. Some were headless; others had equally gruesome injuries, all fatal, victims of a Union bomb blast. Behind them were stacks of guns and ammunition in disarray from the blast.

The Sharpshooters behind Tom were just filling the room when a shell landed close by, in front of the trench. A rebel artilleryman must have seen them through the smoke and fire. The men returned to the narrow trench they had just left. They gathered there, waiting for someone to decide what to do. Tom took a quick look at the men; all he could see were Indians and he was their Sergeant. He looked over the back ledge of the trench where he believed the rebel lines were. A bullet whizzed by, the rebs must have a bead on them. Tom considered their position for a moment and looked at the men, waiting for someone to say something. There was silence.

“Let’s go back to the crater and join up with the rest of the regiment,” Tom said. The troops were willing to follow Tom’s lead. They retraced their steps until they came to the open area next to the crater. Two hundred yards off to their left, they could see a line of rebel infantry coming forward with puffs of smoke issuing from their rifles. Several of the troopers took shots at the advancing line, but it seemed to have no effect. Several men turned to Tom, awaiting his orders.

“Let’s spread out. Head for the crater. Two men at a time,” he said in the Ojibwa language. “Go!”

Tom waved his arm and two men from the company sprinted forward. He waited for another moment and then repeated his command, “Go!”

He decided to watch the fate of those he sent forward before sending others. The first two made it almost halfway when one of the men seemed to jump backward. He had been hit. His companion grabbed him and the pair continued forward with the wounded man dragging one leg. Tom watched as they disappeared over the lip of the crater. As soon as they topped the ridge, Tom signaled the next two who were in line awaiting his signal.

“You two, go that way first before turning toward the crater.” He pointed toward the Union lines to the right. “Go!” When he saw those men make it halfway, he sent four men forward in the same direction. There was just one other man and Tom left. Tom looked at him. He was an Indian from Saginaw, Amos Chamberlain. They started together and finished together, both running as hard as they could. When they reached the lip of the crater, Tom yelled for Amos to jump.

They nearly landed on top of several Company K Indians who had made it to the crater ahead of them. These men were lying just below the edge of the crater and firing at the line of rebel soldiers who had been pursuing them. The Indians were calmly rising above the edge, firing their rifles and then falling back to reload. They were having the effect of slowing the advance, but there were too many oncoming soldiers and Tom knew that in a few more moments the rebels would be on top of them. He called out for the men to go down the sides of the crater and search for cover. It was an act of desperation because the crater below them seemed a hell-hole of crying, falling men taking rebel fire.The Indians began running, sliding and falling downward. Before they reached bottom, the whine of bullets indicated live fire everywhere around them. Tom saw a man in front of him fall down as he clutched at his back. There was a slight rise in the ground that Tom fell behind. It offered the barest hope of shelter from the rain of bullets that dug holes in the earth all around. Tom lay panting behind it, unable to see any Indians around him or rebel soldiers above him.

He believed he was taking his last breaths. When the advancing rebel soldiers reached him, he expected to be killed or captured. Maybe they would take his scalp – certainly his rifle. Whites craved Indian rifles with their ornately carved stocks that Indians worked on in camp, hour after hour. He should have told the Lieutenant where he wanted to be buried. Perhaps he would be lucky and his bones would be carried back to Saginaw to lie with his father’s bones as all his ancestors would want. Once again, he wondered why he was fighting this White man’s war as he waited for the sound of the coming rebels.

 

 

 

RV' ing

I

Old-timers with RV

I own a travel trailer. I have owned several over the years, beginning with a pull-behind I purchased when my children were young. After my retirement, I gravitated to a 5^th wheel version of an RV and continued camping. I have learned a lot about trailers over the years. The most important thing I have learned is that they eat money for both regular maintenance and unexpected repairs as they age.
 

The worst thing you can do if you own a trailer is to hook it to a vehicle and pull it on the road. Trailers don’t seem to like the bouncing, twisting and jarring ride that is inevitable on all the roads I travel. They rebel at this treatment, mostly by fracture of some esoteric part that causes the dealer to remark something like, “I’ve never seen one of these break before,” as he hands you the bill.
 

The second worst thing you can do to a trailer is to leave it outdoors. Trailers don’t want to be outdoors. Despite all the advertising that shows an RV parked on the shores of a secluded lake with a forest surrounding it and a mountain in the background, RV’s prefer being parked in a heated barn, with low ambient light surrounded by other RV’s, all of them near a camping dealership. The truth is that sunlight causes vinyl seals to crack and colors to fade, rain causes joints to leak, and cold, well, that’s another matter.
 

As I prepared to de-winterize my 5^th wheel this spring I decided to look inside before tackling the job. The door wouldn’t open. After giving a mighty push, I learned that the vinyl floor covering (aka as linoleum for you old-timers) in front of the door had cracked open in the shape of a long, thin volcano . As I stuck my head in further, I discovered that the volcano extended across the entire entryway, under the cupboard, out the other side and then approximately in the middle of the entire length of the vinyl flooring. A helluva crack, in the vernacular.
 

“This won’t do,” I said, just as the Missus came up behind me. “I’ll need to find my roll of duct tape.”
 

After a lengthy discussion, it became apparent that the duct tape-fix wasn’t suitable for my better half and that I had better get myself to the travel trailer place for repairs. Since I am on a first-name basis with the service shop at the trailer place, I called Mike and described my problem.
 

“Oh yes, we’re seeing a lot ot that. You are caller number six so far. It was too cold this winter, wasn’t it? ha, ha, ha.”
 

“So, Mike, old pal, how much are we talking about for repair?”
 

It turns out that old Mike wasn’t such a pal, after all. He said the repair would cost in the neighborhood of two or three thousand dollars depending upon whether I wanted to replace the bathroom vinyl that had been miraculously unaffected by the cracking agent. Another trailer repairman said he would ‘work it in’ over the next three weeks or so while he worked on (presumably) more important and more profitable jobs. ‘This won’t do,’ I said to myself as I began the process of looking for another old friend in the flooring business. After several phone calls, I learned that trailer repairmen have extraordinary chutzpah in demanding extraordinary bills for routine repair work. My trailer is now being repaired at a flooring store after a one day wait at a cost of less than $400.00.
 

I should point out In defense of the RV industry, that this type behavior is not unique to them and those in other recreation-based businesses have equal amounts of chutzpah. Did you know, for example, that the worst thing you can do to a boat is to put it in water? And don’t even talk about airplanes. Ha, ha, ha.



 

Gettin' Silly

 

   I may not have told you that the Mrs. and I are in an exercise group that has the imaginative name of Silver Sneakers. This is a program for seniors who have more time than sense and are willing to exercise for an hour on two mornings a week trying to coax our bodies to move. I believe the overall goal of the Silver Sneakers program is to convince us that we are once again young enough to dance to fifties-era music, as we often try to do. It has only been partially successful for me as I hop around trying in vain to find a beat. My favorites dance tunes are The Twist and YMCA, although recently I have taken to spelling out A A R P instead of Y M C A just to be silly. And that brings me to the topic at hand: many of us in the class amuse ourselves between sets of stretches, dances, and exercises by acting silly.

            It turns out that individual acts of goofiness are contagious. After someone acts out or says something completely silly, it is passed from one Sneaker to another and ripples of laughter circulate around the room. After that, a funny thing happens: the exercising becomes a little more palatable.

Fortunately, we have a teacher who puts up with our foibles. (We call her Annie Archy or sometimes Annie Achey if she has been too tough on us). The class is slowly gravitating toward most members being silly on a periodic basis. Not only are individual acts of craziness being lauded, now the entire class has begun conspiring to blur the line between sanity and, well, you know. At our last class meeting, we turned our chairs backwards so that Annie was facing our behinds. We thought it was hilarious. To our group of proper ladies and a scattering of grandpas, Annie said, "What the hell . . .?" As the next step in our ongoing joke, one of our members said he is going to arrive early at a meeting and move all our chairs outdoors.

            Fortunately, Annie has a profound sense of humor or she would have quit by now. The Silver Sneakers national organization doesn't seem to share her attitude in dealing with seniors who have a silly streak. One summer the organization sent a twenty-something fitness expert to evaluate our class. The assessment was a might critical,". . . the teacher doesn't seem to have control of her class." The report didn't bother our teacher and it gave us another thing to laugh about.

            I have come to understand that being silly is a valuable adjunct to growing older. If you are willing to say goodbye to your dignity, you can make a stiff joint or a sore hip a little more bearable. As one of our octogenarian exercisers who has her share of aches explained, "If it doesn't hurt, it must not be working." Another of our exercisers came to class with a broken foot that must have been painful. Yet, she drug her walking boot around and gamely tried various exercises, albeit with an exaggerated grimace. After each movement, in a fit of simulated agony she bellowed louder than an angry cow. Then she smiled while our class erupted in laughter. She's a treat. I expect her to milk the use of the boot for some months beyond her recuperation.

So, if your age has reached a point where you can detect pressure changes sooner than the weatherman and some of your joints need more lubrication than a 30 year-old lawnmower, my advice is to behave as if someone just told an uproariously funny story. Then, have a glass of wine and act like a clown. Forget the stretches and exercises, have another glass of wine, stick out your tongue and put on a silly face. You are bound to feel better. I've been obtaining the benefits of this advice for some while, besides, it provides cover for my most egregious behavior --that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

I been with Millie stompin' grapes and gettin' silly
Drinkin' wine, wine, wine
Pass a little ripple and you take a little sipple
Make me fine, fine, fine
There ain't nothin' in the place'll put a smile on my face
And take the worry off of my mind
Like me and Millie stompin' grapes and gettin' silly
Drinking wine

“Me and Millie" -- an old country song, lyrics by Bobby Goldsboro