the dog days of summer

[franksolich]

“Well, you have a weekend free of strangers,” the caretaker told me; “I’d given a family from Lincoln the okay to camp here this weekend--they were going to be headed to the Black Hills--but they had to cancel.”

“That’s fine, I said; “I can do with some peace and quiet this weekend anyway.”

He and I were walking along the river, about five football-field lengths away from the back porch, a big unused meadow in between.  He wanted to point out some things, saying he had a couple of suggestions to make.

“What I could do, is take one of those 55-gallon drums, and put it over there,” he first offered.

“Why would I want such a thing on the river?” I asked.

“Well, people who camp here, they have no way of getting rid of their trash.  You’ve always made them bring plastic trash bags to cart their garbage away.

“This would make it more handy for them.”

I arched my eyebrows.

“Now, why would I want to make it ‘more handy’ for them; they come out here to ‘enjoy nature,’ and they’re damned well going to enjoy nature without any of these modern conveniences.

“And a metal drum permanently placed here, would ruin the pristine panorama of the place.

“This isn’t meant to be Yellowstone National Park, with carefully manicured lawns, trimmed hedges, and carefully-spaced trees.

“And besides, in seven and a half summers, this has never been a problem.  I think three times, I or somebody else, had to pick up trash around here, and the total of all that wouldn’t fill one of those grocery-store shopping bags.

“[the now-retired caretaker] used to select guests with care and caution; even that caravan of sorry losers from northeastern Oklahoma two years ago, left everything in its natural condition.”

Well, he lost that one, so he went on to his second suggestion.

“You know, I could put together an outhouse from some of the old lumber up there by the house, and tuck it in a place where it can’t be seen.”

Uh, no, I said.

“I realize the lack of sanitary facilities here causes campers some, uh, problems, but even before they show up, they’ve already been made well aware there’s no such things out here, and so they have to bring their own sanitary facilities, and when leaving, haul all of their own shit out of here.

“I dunno why they don’t do what those old weak-bladdered beatniks did a while back, bringing those things that look like backless camp-stools that fold up; aluminum legs and canvas seat, but which were really commodes with a plastic bag underneath. 

“To me, that always seemed the ideal solution, but most people who camp here, since they have to go to town every few hours or so anyway, stop off and use the restrooms in the convenience store there.  That’s what I’d do myself; it’s not like six miles is all the way to Baltimore or something.

“And besides, if I’m around, and because I’m a nice guy, in case of emergency, they can always come and use the bathroom in the house, no problem.”

We quit pacing around, stopping to smoke. 

“Now,” I explained, “the next thing that might be suggested is a pipeline with running water, picnic tables, and a permanent barbeque grill down here. 

“That’s not going to happen; people before they come to camp here understand they have to bring their own water.  And in case of emergency, they can always come up to the house for some; there’s lawn-faucets on all four sides, and hoses all over near there.

“If they want to have picnic tables, they’re aware they can borrow some of those from the front yard of the house.  They’re a hundred years old and weigh a ton, but they can be taken down here.

“Ditto for that army-sized barbeque grill in the front yard.

“These are temporary eyesores on nature, removed when the fun’s all over.

“Remember, this isn’t a real campground--nobody’s charged to camp here, for example--it’s just a good place on the river to set up tents and all that other stuff.

“I have no intention of turning it into the Waldorf-Astoria, especially for primitives.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Hey, boss, this is pretty funny,” the retired caretaker said as I walked into the dining room tonight.

I’d been gone, and he’d come out then, and waited for me. 

It’s good to see him, because I haven’t seen much of him since he was in that automobile accident some months ago, and given his age (67 years) it’s been taking a long time for him to recover.  The way he’s going, I figure though that by the time pheasant-hunting season opens in autumn, he’ll be out here as much as he used to be, even if he is retired.

He’s always called me “young man” when he’s sober, and “boss” when he’s had a few.

While waiting for me, he’d been preoccupied going through the stack of photograph albums on the dining room table.

“You know, boss, you were one of those damned hippies back then…..and you still are.”

Yeah, I said.  He wasn’t putting me down; he was just jealous because I still have the same hair while his own began thinning and evaporating, like Atman’s, back in his younger days.

He was impressed, however, by four big albums entitled FAMILY GROUPS.

“You have some real antiquities here, you come from some really fine people, but on the newer ones, I don’t see any of your family.”

I was confused.  “They’re there, in the fourth book.”

I had to show him; he hadn’t recognized them because I wasn’t in them, and of course he’d never met any other members of my family.

“Isn’t there any of the whole family?” he asked; “in those days, everybody was taking pictures of the whole family.

No, I said, after he’d looked at the groups of children; the oldest three, the second three, and the last two.

“That’s the way it always worked out, the oldest three, the second three, and the last two.

“There were those gaps, a small one between the oldest three and the second three, and a really big one between them, and my younger brother and myself, and that’s the way the parents arranged it.

“There’s one single snapshot of both parents and all eight children, but I don’t have it here; it’s down in Omaha, in professional storage.  It’s the only one, and it’s a poorly-shot one, taken on the front porch of our house alongside the Platte River.

“I was only three and a half years old, but I in fact remember when it was snapped, as I was very hostile about being in it.  I remember raising a ruckus and trying to run away, but an aunt grabbed me and forcibly planted me next to my mother.  If you saw the picture, you could see I was desperately trying to get out of it, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”

“You haven’t changed a bit, boss,” he said, "always trying to get out of being sociable."

to be continued

[Skul]

“To me, that always seemed the ideal solution, but most people who camp here, since they have to go to town every few hours or so anyway, stop off and use the restrooms in the convenience store there.  That’s what I’d do myself; it’s not like six miles is all the way to Baltimore or something.

It's almost funny as to how true that is.   

[franksolich]

It's almost funny as to how true that is.   

Yeah, even though I mentioned those folding camp-seat things with a plastic bag underneath as an option, I myself wouldn’t use one; I’d just drive to the convenience store.

This particular place on the river is not accessible by those great big hulking recreational vehicles (RVs), unless one drives here, and then across the meadow.  I’m not going to put up with that.  About the largest vehicles that can go the route I mandate (from the highway north along the river to here) are pick-up trucks with campers on the back.

I know RVs have sanitary facilities inside (but really, I’ve never been in one, never paid attention to them), but I don’t know whether or not a camper mounted in the bed of a truck ever has such things.

Most of the vehicles that show up at the side of the river here, as you can guess, are beat-up old Volkswagen vans, vans of other makes from the 1980s, vehicles looking like Jeep Cherokees from the 1990s, banged-up station wagons dating clear back to the “woodies,” sedans as big as aircraft carriers and with considerable rust, and little tiny jerky things such as 1970s Honda Civics and Chevrolet Chevettes, again more rust than metal.

The largest vehicle that’s been down there was an ancient Snap-On Tools van, converted into a funeral hearse by hippyhubby Wild Bill, hippywife Mrs. Afred Packer’s husband.  It had three platforms inside of it, and on the outside was painted WILD BILL & BROS. WHOLESALE UNDERTAKERS DISCOUNT FOR QUANTITY.

- - - - - - - - - -

I remember being shocked--and I was already an adult at the time--when I first learned that sometimes civilized people resort to primitive means when having to empty their bowels.

A college roommate of mine once mentioned that as a kid, when the family was vacationing in Mexico, he got the “runs” and had to be sent out into the bushes.

Of course, such sights were ubiquitous to me years later, when I was wandering around the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants, but I scarcely considered the former Soviet Union part of the civilized world, and so it hardly shocked me.

Now, I will admit I was born with a robust and healthy digestive system, and so rarely have I ever had the unanticipated suddenly arise.

But I suspect most such problems arise simply because people don’t think.

What goes in, must come out.

I grasped that as early as the age of 4 or 5 years, and as I wasn’t a particularly bright kid, it flummoxes me that there’s many fully-grown adults who still don’t get it.  What goes in, must come out.

When on alien terrain, and uncertain about the availability of sanitary facilities, one should dine accordingly.  I suspect my distrust of eastern European cooking--there were days when I lived on just weak tea and mahorka--spared me a lot of “accidents,” spared me from ever having to use one of those abominations the natives use for elimination.

What goes in, must come out; I dunno why that’s so hard to understand.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“The river sure looks pretty this morning,” the business partner said.  I was driving; he was looking out the window of the passenger side, contemplating something, as the word “pretty” isn’t usually any part of our vocabulary.

“Yeah,” I said; “the North Loup, the best of the three Loup Rivers.

“Everybody in my family used to have fond memories of the Platte River, but we’d moved away from there when I was 10 years old, and so to me, the Platte’s just another river, nothing special.

“The Loup Rivers rock, though.

“The South Loup River was furthest away, and was ruined by the presence of a state park, and was too deep and too fast-flowing to comfortably swim, so I didn’t go there often, but still, it was pretty good.

- - - - - - - - - -

“From the time I was about 13 years old, in the summer I worked at the local drive-in movie theatre during the afternoons, picking up trash.  This was at the very tail-end of the drive-in movie phenomenon; the fad was already visibly fading away by then.

“The drive-in was on the side of a high hill, and my parents didn’t like me being there, because during the hottest part of the summer, rattlesnakes would crawl down to lower, cooler regions.  When he started working there, they didn’t mind my younger brother doing it, because he could hear.

“I worked there until I was out of high school.  During those years, one of my friends killed three of them, another two of them, a third a whooping four of them, and my younger brother two of them--but as he kept working there a couple of years after I left, he might’ve netted more.

“But me, I never once saw one.

“While the others mowed the grass and weeds, upkept the fences, repaired the busted radio-boxes one hung onto the window of one’s car, I just picked up trash.

“There were lots and lots of legends about what went on at the drive-in, but I know first hand nothing much really ever happened.  It was kind of rare that I had to spear a used condom laying on the ground; yeah, it happened, but not nearly as much as it was said to happen.

“Every time, though, that I found one, I’d holler and everybody’d come over.  We’d all worked there the previous night, and tried to remember who it was, who’d parked there.

- - - - - - - - - - -

“Well, summers in the heart of the Sandhills were hot, and so after we got done circa early afternoon, we’d all pile into somebody’s car and head north, to the Middle Loup River. 

“We’d still be doing this on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, as late as after school started, going clear into October.

“Sometimes though, I’d go with just my best friend.  He lived on a farm, and needed at times to get away from his younger brothers and sisters, and as he didn’t care much for these other friends, we’d go over to the Dismal River to swim.”

In case one’s not aware, the sodbusters in Nebraska had a great sense of irony, and used it, including when they named places.

“There was a big huge modern swimming pool in town alongside the main highway--it’s been since moved, expanded, and modernized more, northeast of town--but only nerds and little kids went there.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Are you really going to have hippies here?” the neighbor’s oldest son asked me this afternoon.

The neighbor’s son, eight years old, is the third of their five children, twin daughters ahead of him, and a younger brother and infant sister behind him.  He’s kind of a loner in his own family, given that out of seven people, he’s the only one with brown hair…..which he wears in the manner of franksolich, long enough to cover his ears.

“Probably,” I told him, but not until the Labor Day weekend.

“Are you going to let people come and look at them?” he further inquired.

He was of course referring to Labor Day two years ago, when hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer and her family were here.  Three boys, rafting down the river, spotted the hippyencampment, and floated up to the highway two miles north, where they erected a booth and a big sign, SEE THE HIPPYS REAL HIPPYS $1 FOR DIRECTIONS AND RULES.

They did a land-office business, clouds of dust from the traffic reaching as far as the William Rivers Pitt here, as people rumbled by to gawk, and snap photographs.

The county sheriff put a stop to it, though, after the television station in Sioux City sent over a pick-up truck with a camera mounted in the bed.  The truck circled the hippyencampment over and over again, the camera capturing an enraged hippyhubby Wild Bill’s pony-tailed face in it, cursing and trying to swat it away.

“I dunno,” I told the young lad; “why do you ask?”

“I was wondering if I could make any money this time,” he said.

- - - - - - - - - -

The three boys, who were from town, might be expecting to do the same this year--they’d been disappointed when the occasion hadn’t happened last year--but they’d made a good haul two years ago, and so perhaps it was time for a new entrepreneur to get in on it.

“I tell you what,” I said.  “I’m going to do two things.

“I’d told the caretaker to just take the first primitives who asked for the place for Labor Day.

“Now, I’m going to tell him to be selective, to spend some time mulling the requests over, and pick what he suspects’ll be the best of the lot, the prime primitives, the best primitives, world-class primitives, so that there’ll be a good show.

“And then you’re going to get the exclusive rights to everything--the admission, the concessions.

“But it’s a lot of work; probably you’d better get some of your friends in on it, too.

“And I’ll even let people park on the meadow, in between here and the river, so that if they want to stay and watch a while, instead of just having to drive by like last time, they can.

“And you can even charge a parking fee, if you want.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

My, my, what a busy afternoon‘s it‘s been.

The neighbor’s wife came by, sort of--please notice the “sort of”--upset because I’d given her son the exclusive rights to the Labor Day weekend.

“You know, really, I don’t think he’s old enough to see what he’s likely to see,” she said. 

“But [the neighbor; her husband] said as long as you’re superintending it, it’s okay.

“Well, I guess, but--”

Hold on, I said.  “What’s he going to see, other than a bunch of old hippies?”

“They run around and stuff without any--”

Ha, I laughed, interrupting.  “If you’d seen Ugly, the defrocked warped primitive, she with the face like Hindenberg’s, two years ago, you’d know there ain’t no way Ugly was going to run around in the buff.

‘She’d be shot on sight, for being a threat to good taste.

“Or Mrs. Alfred Packer herself, the hippywife primitive, with all her drab grey-haired barrel-like stoutness.

“Or so help me God, hippyhubby Wild Bill himself, his belly flipping-and-flopping in the wind.

“About the most one could’ve seen was Grandma Judy, the addled pie-and-jam primitive, modestly applying ice to her jugs, so as to keep cool in the hot weather, but no one even came close to seeing that.

“And besides, the carnies’ll be here with their freaks three weeks before then, and so he’ll get accustomed to strange sights.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Then the caretaker came by, to drop off some of his things he’d used on other properties earlier in the day.

“Hey, how am I supposed to tell the difference between an ordinary old hippie and a primitive?” he asked; “remember, I haven’t been around here long, and don’t know yet what the primitives are like, when compared with run-of-the-mill old washed-up hippies.”

“You’ll have to learn it by instinct,” I said, “from just talking to them over the telephone.

“I’m gambling that you’ll pick the right ones, but even if you don’t, well, I was the one who asked you to select, and so it’s my fault, not yours. 

“But broadly, generally, on the whole, old hippies are just spaced out and stupid. 

“But if you sense malice and evil in their voice, well, you’ve got a primitive.

“You hearing people can pick up on things like that; I can’t.”

- - - - - - - - - -

About this time, the neighbor showed up with their five children, as we were going to have a cook-out this evening.

“How many cars can be parked in the meadow?” their oldest son asked me.

- - - - - - - - - - -

But then, without warning, a storm arose.

Just as the femme showed up, obviously, uh, bent out of shape.

franksolich was in trouble.  Like, really big trouble.

“What is this, what is this,” she almost--almost, but not quite--shrieked.

“How come you never tell me anything?”

I looked at her, startled.

“How come you didn’t tell me you’re going into the hospital tomorrow?  How come I had to find it out from somebody else?  Why don’t you ever tell me anything?”

Oh that, I said.  “Because it’s not important enough to bother you about yet.”

She glared at me with those penetrating eyes.  Ouch.

“Look,” I said, “there’s nothing to tell you until it’s all over with, and we know what happened.

“If I told you before it happened, you’d be on pins-and-needles, all worried and concerned.

“I’m a nice guy; the last thing I want you to be is all worried and concerned…..and besides, maybe it’s nothing, in which case you would’ve been drained by all that worry and concern for nothing.

“It’s all taken care of--” and then in an act of folly, I lost my senses and continued.

“--[the business partner] knows all about it; he’s taking me in tomorrow--”

Oooopsy-dooopsy.

I have lots and lots of friends, and they all get along famously with each other excepting two, the femme and the business partner, who heartily loathe each other.

I’m really tired of it.

I looked over to the neighbor’s wife, my eyes pleading for mercy.

The neighbor’s wife is a good friend of the femme, and so they went off for some girl-talk, until the femme was reasonable again.

- - - - - - - - - - -

After which the rain pummeled down, but it hardly put a damper on the cook-out, we having moved the army-sized charcoal grill up to the front porch, and everybody dining on the back porch, it being an easy matter to go from one part to another, through the dining-room and kitchen.

to be continued

[debk]

Ah Frank...as I've told you before, even without the real pictures, your words "paint" pictures in the reader's mind.

I just found this and read from the beginning this evening... and it's been wonderful.

[franksolich]

Okay, the business partner just arrived; we're going to the big city for the night because he thinks it's best.

to be continued when I get back

[obumazombie]

franksolich, you and your Sandhills country are real American treasures !

[franksolich]

The business partner and I spent the night in the big city, in two adjoining rooms at the five-star hotel there.  It’s a rather impressive place, more modern and with more things than one might find in New Haven or Baltimore, but of course all I did was sleep until he came in and woke me up circa 4:30 a.m.

(I can’t hear alarm clocks and wake-up telephone calls, remember.)

All my life, I’ve associated “going to the hospital” with the very early morning and going out for breakfast beforehand if it’s not anything involving surgery.  It was still pretty dark, and all I had was orange juice anyway.

Because I can’t hear, and medical examinations are too important for one to miss things, I always have either the neighbor’s wife or the business partner come along with me so as to talk-and-listen for me.  If I had to, of course I could do such things on my own, but at times I’m lazy.  It saves me a great deal of time and energy, having someone else give and get the information for me.

The cardiological examination was done, and showed the predicted results.

It's hard to believe that one week ago, there was no indication, no clue at all, that something was wrong; it was all strawberries-and-cream.  And then oooooops.....

I’m pretty fragile, but stable.  I’ll deal with it next week.

On the drive back home, I mentioned to him, “You know, when I say I’m the luckiest person I know, it’s not hyperbole.  It’s true. 

“I’ve never overcome anything, but I’ve outlasted a great many things that’ve felled people much better and stronger than me.  For whatever reasons, I’m still standing; maybe battered and beaten up, but still standing.”

to be continued when something happens

[franksolich]

“You know, I just temporarily forgot I was my father’s son,” I told the femme when we went out for supper tonight.

We went to the bar in town.  Swede, the husband of the owner, and of Norwegian derivation even though his specialty’s Italianate cuisine, greeted me as if someone he hadn‘t expected to see again.

The femme ordered parma prosciutto, pork tortellini, spiced chicken under a brick [sic] [!], peperonata, and honey panna cotta; I ordered my usual, a hamburger well-done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, after which Swede was less nice to me.

“Of course,” I explained, “I always knew I was half my father, but over the years, I seemed to trend towards those ailments and afflictions of my mother’s side, and nothing of my father’s side.

“And so this totally blindsided me, out of thin air suddenly struck down with what’d killed my father--but of course my reaction was different, minimizing the effects.

“It’s very odd; I’d also omitted to remember that out of our whole family, only my father and I were chain-smokers; nobody else smoked cigarettes, wouldn’t touch them.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

The neighbor’s older brother stopped here late at night.  While driving home from the big city, he was having some trouble with his 2013 Ford pick-up truck, and as he and his family live way over on the other side (i.e., the populated side) of the county, this place was both close, and convenient, for taking care of the problem.

He’s the same age as I am--well, three months older--but thinks I’m odd, and so treats me as if I’m much younger.  This has always gotten my goat, because we are after all peers, other than that he’s slightly better-educated than I am (B.S. in agriculture, University of Nebraska, M.S. in mathematics, University of Minnesota).

Also, he considers me a “city boy,” unused to the vicissitudes of rural life.

But other than that, we get along okay.

- - - - - - - - - -

While we were working on his truck (he needed my help), for about the dozenth time today, I got The Lecture.

I long ago gave up explaining why deaf people smoke (or more commonly, chew tobacco), because hearing people have no concept of what “emptiness” or “void” or “mind-numbing vacancy” really is, and one can’t bridge that which is unbridgeable.

This time, I described instead the usefulness of smoking.

“Of course, as you know, smoking pastes a not-pleasant aroma on smokers, which turns people off.

“It’s better than a lot of other body odors, but still, it’s not pleasant.

“One of the greatest plagues the Age of Aquarius inflicted on us was this notion that everybody has to be intimate with each other, all touchy-feely, huggy, and cuddly, bodies mashed together so tightly that would’ve scandalized even the most libertine of past societies and cultures.

“We need to have personal boundaries, personal space; mine’s circa six feet; any closer than that, and I feel as if the other person’s about to crawl all over me, smother me, consume me.

- - - - - - - - - - -

“Now, I have to digress for a minute here; given my personal circumstances, it’s necessary for people to touch, grasp, and fondle me, in order to communicate with me.

“I don’t much care for it, but God has something against me.

“So certain people are allowed to violate my personal space, but only people whose family antecedents, credit record, medical history, and reputation among their fellow townspeople is known to me.

“There’s nothing that fills me more with dread and trepidation more so than some stranger who wants to get all lovey-lovey with me.

“For whatever reasons, God gave me the appearance and manners of an eminently approachable person, and so this happens a lot.  I found it most frequently happened to me when I lived in New Jersey; I was always getting hugged, and even slobbered on, in New Jersey.  I dunno why, but that’s what happened; maybe it‘s a cultural thing, where New Jerseyans have a compulsion, feel a “need,” to love everybody coming their way.

“If the other person’s decent and civilized, I tolerate it, but that means only that I put up with it, not that I care much for it.

- - - - - - - - - - -

“Now, there’s another reason for this keeping my distance; I’m a nice guy, and don’t like to discombobulate other people.

“From my mother’s side of the family, I inherited a really poor, really lousy, really crummy, blood circulatory system, that makes me as cold as ice.  If my heart doesn’t demise me first, this will.

“It’s a shock to people when touching me for the first time, I’m so cold.

“Well, I don’t like to shock people, and so best to gently discourage them.

“And so cigarette-smoking had its uses for me; the odor kept people out of my personal space, and it kept them from a rude surprise.

“I dunno what I’m going to do now.

- - - - - - - - - - -

“You know,” I wrapped it up; “:jugs:   over there on Skins’s island has it easy, being a woman.

“All   has to do is inflate them every morning, until they’re like pointed like cannons with four-feet-long barrels, and nobody can get too close to her.”

to be continued

[Skul]

I noticed the makings of another William Rivers Pitt, in the photo background. 

[franksolich]

I noticed the makings of another William Rivers Pitt, in the photo background. 

I should warn you though that that was taken in southeastern Nebraska, somewhat directly south of where the big guy in Bellevue lives, and pretty close to where the bitch the TwilightGardener primitive lives.

A wholly different sort of country from the Sandhills, that part of Nebraska.

Congested, not as aesthetic, one might as well be in Connecticut or Maryland, if one's down over there.

[GOBUCKS]

I refuse to believe franksolich was ever one of those annoying louts who wear ballcaps backward.

It must have been done temporarily, to allow better lighting for the snapshot.

[franksolich]

I refuse to believe franksolich was ever one of those annoying louts who wear ballcaps backward.

It must have been done temporarily, to allow better lighting for the snapshot.

That was a while, years, back.  I don't remember why I did that, but I assure you, a baseball cap, worn frontwards or backwards, is not part of the regular wardrobe.

It could've been I was wearing it as a gag.

[Skul]

That was a while, years, back.  I don't remember why I did that, but I assure you, a baseball cap, worn frontwards or backwards, is not part of the regular wardrobe.

It could've been I was wearing it as a gag.

Your neck, sunburns easily......stick to that.   
Now, I would think, a William Rivers Pitt in any part of the country, would reek as bad as any other.
I've had the unfortunate experience of sniffing a few Pitts in my time, and found no difference. 

[franksolich]

As it’s been one of those rare pleasant days in July--sunny, but temperatures only in the 60s and 70s--it was decided by someone--I dunno who--to have an afternoon cookout, including beer, here.

Such things are usually already half-planned by the time I catch wind of them, but I never mind, because I’m usually not doing anything anyway, and it negates this erroneous perception that franksolich is anti-social.  This is a great place for such gatherings--as it was circa 1880-1950--better than anybody else’s place, and easy to set up and clean up.

First arrived the neighbor, the neighbor’s wife, and their five children, and he and I were setting up the army-sized barbeque grill in the front yard when the neighbor’s older brother--I suspect he was the one who had the idea--and his family, wife and four children drove in.  There was also the femme and a friend of hers from the big city, the new property caretaker and his wife, and one of the younger brothers of the owner of this property and his family, four children.

Provided nobody gave The Lecture, there’d be no problem.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The oldest son of the neighbor, to whom I’ve given the exclusive rights to profit from the appearance of primitives the Labor Day weekend five weeks hence, asked the caretaker if he’d decided yet which primitives would be allowed to camp here.

The caretaker said no, but assured the young lad there was still plenty of time, with which I agreed.

“The carnies and their freaks are coming in three weeks, and you’ll get a better idea what you’ll have to do then,” I told him.

The young lad informed me that thus far he’d enlisted two of his cousins (near his own age; two sons of the neighbor’s older brother) and one of his older sisters (the other twin wasn’t interested), and he hoped that’d be enough, because he didn’t want to have to split the take too many ways.

“Just how much do you think you’ll bring in?” the neighbor’s older brother asked; “you may be disappointed, so don‘t get big ideas yet.”

“A gazillion bazillion dollars,” he chirped.

Yeah, enough to pay off the Big Zero’s opulent life-style for a week, the adults agreed.

- - - - - - - - - -

“The first thing you have to do,” I advised him, “is decide how many others you need involved here.  You’ve got four; that might, or might not, be enough.

“You have two points where you’ll have to charge admission, the two ways in which people can get down here to see the hippies romp and play.

“Where the boys did it two years ago, on the highway where one turns onto the dirt road and drives along the river, and the driveway to the front yard here, for those who want to park in the meadow and stay a while, watching, rather than just driving by.

“And you might wish to charge two admission fees; one for those just driving by to gape, and another for those who want to park, pull out some lawn chairs, have a few beers, and watch.

“I think you’re looking at maybe six or seven other partners in this,” I counseled, “but wait until after you’ve seen the carnies and their freaks, to see how it goes.”

The young lad informed me that his two cousins and the one sister were going to camp here the week the carnies and the freaks are here, to observe.  They’d bring some pup-tents, and of course use the facilities of the house.

“Oh no,” the neighbor’s wife started.

“It’ll be okay,” I assured her; “they can camp in the front yard, which is safer.”

She looked at me dubiously, but assented.

“And besides, I’ll be around at all times; I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“I wonder what sort of freaks there’ll be,” the new caretaker said.

“Probably the usual fat lady, elephant man, dwarf, giant, the run-of-the-mill freaks,” the neighbor’s older brother speculated.  “After all, this is just a small county fair, and a small carnival, so they can’t possibly have anything exceptional.”

Uh-huh, I agreed, making sure the neighbor’s wife had heard it so as to get solace from it.

“You know, it’s too bad it couldn’t be that group from northeastern Oklahoma that was here on Labor Day two years ago,” the neighbor said.  “They weren’t a freak show, but just primitives, but they were a freak show anyway--the world’s ugliest woman, the warped one, that sort of thing.

“Her, more of a horror show than a freak show.”

Yeah, I said; “and hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer and hippyhubby Wild Bill, sheer comedy.

“Don’t forget when that group from Oregon was here last year,” the younger brother of the owner of this property offered; “they weren’t really freaks, but they were odd.”

Yeah, the adherents of the fat greasy Great and Glorious One, the Bagwam Maharishi Rawalpindi Thiruvananthapura Yogi, a motley lot, I agreed.  “Out of the ordinary, but not really freaks though.”

We reminisced for a while about Rhinestone Santa, the leader of the group, who’d looked like Father Christmas dressed as the original rhinestone cowboy, and his wife, Mrs. Claus, who’d looked like an even stouter Mrs. Alfred Packer.

“But really, again, those weren’t bona fide freaks,” I pointed out.

“I hope one of them’s at least as good as hippyhubby Wild Bill’s younger brother, the guy with both eyes on the same size of his nose.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Now, I would think, a William Rivers Pitt in any part of the country, would reek as bad as any other.

But the William Rivers Pitt is antique swine excrement, though, dating from 1875-1950, when the barn burned down, after which the family then here switched to raising cattle.

It last "reeked" when Ike and Mamie were in the White House.

A non-Sandhillsian would see it as just another mound and suppose it natural; you having lived hereabouts might recognize it was man-made, dirt that's maybe been shifted around for one reason or another.

You've been away too long, dude; you forget how summers here bake, and winters freeze, always changing the appearance and nature of things.

[franksolich]

I've had the unfortunate experience of sniffing a few Pitts in my time, and found no difference.  

Oh, but the worst is llama droppings.

When I was a young child alongside the pastoral Platte River of Nebraska--outside of the Sandhills--our front porch was a couple of miles north of it--there were some people who raised llamas.

I have no idea why.

<<<was never fond of llamas.

[franksolich]

"So.....who's going to be out here this next weekend?" I asked the caretaker.

"I don't care who it is, but keep in mind I got a rough week ahead for me."

"Well, this weekend should be easy for you," he answered; "because you didn't want anybody exciting until the carnies and freaks come, I gave the okay to a bunch of old folks, the kind that tow around those silver trailers and even have a club, the Wally Bryant or Byram or whatever Caravan Club.

"There'll only be three trailers, so it shouldn't be a problem."

to be continued

[franksolich]

“What was the attraction of those silver trailers old people used to drag around in groups, when I was a kid?” I asked the guy working on his truck here this afternoon.

I don’t know him real well; he’s a truck driver and a Seventh-Day Adventist, and has been around here before.  This place has certain automotive and agricultural-equipment repair tools and machines that the usual garage mechanic doesn’t have.

I thought I’d ask him because he’s older than I am.

“They used to go up-and-down U.S. Highway 30, and then later, Interstate 80, along the Platte River, and I’m sure people at various times explained them to me, but I didn’t pay attention.”

“Airstream trailers, and the groups were probably from the Wally Byam Caravan Club,” he told me.

I didn’t bother asking who Wally was; I just assumed he’d been one of these old guys wearing polyester plaid pants going halfway up his chest.

“You know,” I went on, “they always struck me as pretty affluent people, the owners of these trailers; why didn’t they just stay in motels and stuff?

“Some of them were pretty ancient, with aches and pains, too.  I think a motel would’ve been better for them, and even lengthened their life-spans, not subjecting them to the rigors of outdoor life.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Well, some people like the outdoor life,” the mild-mannered truck mechanic mentioned.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said; “the wonderful outdoor life, the glorious outdoors life the nephews are always preaching to me--the same people who won’t dare go to the city park without their Cabelas, REI, Land’s End, and Ben & Jerry’s gear.

“They’re just playing; I know the real outdoor life, having spent almost two years ‘outdooring’ it in the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants…..and in climes worse than any to be found in this country.

“There isn’t anything about real ‘outdoor life,’ or ‘roughing it,’ that anybody can tell me, that I don’t already know.  It sucks.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“Did you always feel this way, or only after that experience?” he asked.

“All my life,” I illuminated him; “ever since I was a squalling infant parked atop a blanket in the front yard, and a bottle jammed into my mouth.

“You see, it wasn’t that it was outside, or the weather, or what was going on around me. 

“It was simply that I have a body chemistry--and medical verification of that fact--that attracts insects, bugs of any sort, to me, as free marijuana attracts primitives.  And there’s not a damned thing that can be done about it.

“When I was a kid, I used to jump into the water, in a desperate attempt to wash away whatever it was on me, that attracted insects.  It never worked.

“The parents were sure I’d grow out of it, as the body chemistry changes over time, but I never did.

“It was always a trial for three weeks in summer, when I was growing up, and we took family vacations.

“They were always camping trips to New York and Pennsylvania.

“My parents, God rest their souls, were pretty old by then, and I figured they’d prefer staying in motels, but nooooooo, they wanted to be out in the great outdoors, enjoying nature.

“Screw that.”

to be continued

[Splashdown]

I'm really enjoying this!

Don't mean to interrupt, but some of those Airstream trailers were pretty luxurious. They were absolute top of the line. We were a travel-trailer camping family for most of my childhood, but the Aistreams were way out of our league. It was indeed for the older, childless set who liked the camping experience mixed with a touch of the "finer things."

[BlueStateSaint]

I'm really enjoying this!

Don't mean to interrupt, but some of those Airstream trailers were pretty luxurious. They were absolute top of the line. We were a travel-trailer camping family for most of my childhood, but the Aistreams were way out of our league. It was indeed for the older, childless set who liked the camping experience mixed with a touch of the "finer things."

I've got to agree with you on this, Splash.  Airstreams were the top of the trailer food chain.  Hell, even someone who did what little camping he did in tents (as I did, and may yet do) knew this.