A chirpy "Good morning!"

I awoke in an unusually good mood today. I'm really happy.

There's no particular reason for it and it's not that I ever wake up grumpy, because I don't. I just awoke super smiley today, that's all.

I went to the grocery store at about 9:30 a.m. In the parking lot I approached a woman leaving the store, pushing a basket and apparently in deep concentration. She seemed oblivious to my existence.

"Good morning!" I chirped. This is not like me. This is something new. I don't talk to strangers, especially strangers who seem to be busy, even if only in their private little worlds. Maybe especially then.

That's what it is, really. I'm not an unfriendly person. I just don't want to intrude on your privacy. But, for some reason and for the first time in my life that I can recall I smiled broadly at the concentrating stranger and chirped -- yes, I'll use that verb again because it's perfect -- I chirped "Good morning!"

The woman blinked and look momentarily confused and maybe just a tad defensive. Who are you? What do you want? (I'm sure those were her first thoughts.) Why are you bothering me?

But she forced herself to smile weakly and nod slightly. I think she also picked up her pace just a bit.

Inside the store I decided to experiment. I chirped "Good morning" to almost everybody just to see their reactions.

The people who work in the store responded in kind but they have to. It's their jobs, so they don't really count. But, I give them a lot of credit for taking pride in their small, personal part-ownership of Albertsons. How can you not love people who love their jobs?

A man slightly older than me, wearing shorts and a Mexican tourist fishing hat, smiled broadly and returned my greeting as I scooped up baby red potatoes. I think he and I could have sat down at Starbucks, had a cup of coffee and solved all the problems of the world together.

I guess it stands to reason that men about my age or slightly older would be the most likely to find genuine cheer in my greeting than younger men or women of any age.

In the cold and pain relief aisle I met a guy I would guess to be in his late 30s or early 40s. He smiled, nodded and said "Hi!" brightly but rather professionally. For a brief moment I felt like a prospective client but his smile whipped right past me to his watch. I'm sure he didn't mean to do that. This is the best place I've ever written for me to use the word, "perfunctory."

I encountered a young woman in the pasta sauce section. She had a small girl by the hand and a baby in the basket. (In a baby carrier in the shopping cart, I mean.) She looked pleasantly surprised by my greeting, returned my smile, gave me a little finger wave and cheerfully said, "Hello!" I think I amused her. It struck me that without noticing I have apparently slipped into the age where young women no longer think I'm trying to hit on them. They probably think I'm just a cute, harmless old man now.

Darn.

But, I continued.

A woman about my age glanced at my chirpy intrusion and said nothing. She quickly transformed her glance into one of those panning gazes beyond me as if to appear that was she was looking wistfully for her long-departed love to return from war. Or maybe she was looking for the saltine crackers aisle.

I was careful to not chirp "Good morning!" to any children. Especially not little girls. I didn't want anybody to become suspicious that I might be a dangerous, dirty old man. That's sad, isn't it? It is to me.

By the time I reached the checkstand I felt like Santa Claus.

I had smiled and chirped my way through a supermarket full of people who might mention to their spouses or best friends, in passing, about the weird, strangely happy guy they had met in Albertsons this morning. It might be a revelation to them. They, themselves, might become happier and more outgoing in public.

Or, not.

More likely none of them gave it a second thought once I was at a safe and non-communicative distance.

On the other hand, I learned something vitally important for myself:

Being happy makes me happy.

What you do with it is up to you.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

"Liar at checkstand four!"

I went grocery shopping yesterday and saved $29.75.

I know I did because it says so right on the bottom of the receipt just above the place where the receipt urges me to take a customer survey online and become eligible to win $100.

When did grocery stores become so damned chummy? A little small talk with the checker is nice but I don't need to have an ongoing personal relationship with corporate Albertsons, Vons and Ralphs.

It really irks me to have to carry a special card identifying me as a Preferred Customer. In fact, I would be quite happy to be an Undesirable Customer and remain totally anonymous if I wouldn't get hosed at the checkstand for refusing to become a subject of their marketing database.

Once I went shopping at a foreign grocery store in a different city.

"Do you have our rewards card?" the checker asked sweetly.

"No. Just go ahead and give me the 'screw-you' price," I replied. I really did. I said it with a smile but I think it unnerved her a bit. Felt kinda bad about it. Kinda.

When I signed up for the coerced honor of being a Preferred Customer of our neighborhood Albertsons I lied.

That's what these annoying, albeit minor, intrusions do. They force us to lie. I didn't want the store to have my phone number so I made one up. It gave me a great feeling of smug satisfaction until the day I arrived at the checkstand without the card and was told, "That's okay. I'll look it up. What's your phone number?" I told her I didn't know it. Then, I broke down and admitted my rebellious perjury. I looked at my shoes as I did it. I half expected to hear an announcement a moment later on the p.a. system, "Manager to checkstand four...we have a liar at checkstand four!"

Not long after that I was back at the same store. When I told the checker (a different one, thank God,) I didn't have my card she asked for my phone number and for some reason I don't quite understand I told her my actual home phone number. I knew it wouldn't work in the system but I just felt ashamed and wanted to purge myself of my well-deserved reputation as a known charlatan in Albertsons. Guess what? It worked!

My actual phone number was accepted and I was back in the good graces of the Albertsons Corporation! I was, again, a Preferred Customer, praise the Lord!

A moment later I realized why my phone number worked. Somebody else had fabricated a phone number and it just happened to be mine!

Now the checkstand clerks have taken to thanking us by name as a result of their marketing scheme database and as I turned to leave the store that sunny afternoon, awash in the warm renewal of smug satisfaction for having beaten the system the nice lady at the checkstand said, "Thank you and have a nice day, Mr. Martinez!"

Life is good.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

RV lifestyles of the rich and fru-fru

Have you ever walked through one of those million dollar motorhomes?

I dig the on-board washer and dryer. The spectacular sound system and the 52-inch HDTV screen that magically slides up out of the furniture are very cool. For the life of me I can't understand why you would want marble counter tops and gold and crystal chandeliers on a mirrored ceiling in a recreational vehicle but that's just a matter of personal taste. To each his own.

They're impressive as heck but what I really don't get is where you find the nerve to drive a million dollar RV on public highways. The fear of having a wreck would make me apoplectic. Bugs smashing themselves into the afterlife on my million dollar windshield would drive me out of my mind. The very idea of attaching a million dollar water and sewage system to public faucets and crapper dump lines would make me a snob on the order of Thurston B. Howell III.

Do these things have bidets? I'm just curious.

I do understand that if you can afford one of these rolling mansions you're not likely to be terribly concerned about the cost of maintenance and insurance. I get that.

But, where do you go in a million dollar motorhome? Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park RV Camp? A KOA littered with kids? A patch of desert in Quartzsite?

Don't you feel just a little ostentatious parking next to a pop-up tent trailer containing a giggling, family of five, ignorantly joyous within their RV peasantry?

A couple of years ago Carolann and I took our brand-new $100,000 motorhome to a swanky RV resort in Vegas, one of those places where you can buy your own lot for a mere quarter-to-a-half-million dollars and dress it up with fancy landscaping and magnificent outdoor patio bars and barbecue islands.

(This picture, taken at the Vegas resort, is not a public group area. It is a single privately owned RV pad. Every feature, including walls and all hardscape are custom-built at the owner's expense. Click on it for a closer view. Click the BACK arrow to return here.)

We were just renting a space for an extravagant weekend celebrating our 20th anniversary. Next to the other motorhomes in that place we felt like the Beverly Hillbillies in our spanking new Sea Breeze.

(Important! If you ever find yourself making a reservation at such a place don't tell them you want "full hookups". They will laugh themselves sick. Instead, ask if the price they quoted includes the butler. Now you've got them on defense.)

I accidentally spent one night at an "eco adventure resort" along the California coast that even I, a native Californian, found hard to believe.

It had a lodge, cabins, RV hookups and tent spaces. It had a spa, complete with hot-tub and massage facilities. Each tent space featured a large wooden deck on which to pitch your tent so it wouldn't have to actually come into contact with dirt. I'm not kidding.

Oh, and no dogs allowed. In a campground!

This place had daily yoga classes. The cutely, quaintly named "General Store" sold breakfast croissants freshly baked on the premises and brewed-while-you-wait, five-dollar Starbucks lattes; it offered fresh fruit, wine and cheese with an assortment of fancy crackers, and the "bar and grille" (the "e" gives a grill respectability, I guess) offered catering services.

Catering.

In a campground.

You know what it didn't have? Recreational vehicles. Not one until I fell from the sky like a bad penny, alone in my truck camper with my scruffy beard, wearing a sweat-stained cowboy hat and tie-dyed t-shirt.

I looked like a homeless man with gas money.

So, where are these million dollar motorhomes in the real world? Outside of Vegas resorts and RV shows, where are they? Seriously.

I really don't like to sound like a poor snob. As I explained in an earlier post I graduated from dirt camping to motorhome semi-luxury.

But, sheesh!

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

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PS. Last week I asked for pictures of your hometown tourist attractions. I received a few but would like more for the Readers' Scrapbook I plan to add to this blog. If you don't have pictures of local tourist attractions, please take some. Otherwise, just send me your favorite family photos of your adventures out Thataway! You retain all rights and I won't divulge any personal information. I swear.

Send them to: dave.thatawayroad@gmail.com

To kill a mockingbird

3:12. Must sleep. Can't.

Must.

It's hot. Throw off the bedspread. Can't feel the fan.

Such a pretty sound. But it's so loud.

How can it go on like that all night? And so loud? Most birds don't make any noise at night. None. Sun goes down, they shut up. This one's different.

Don't think about it. Don't think about anything. Think about something else.

I forgot to clean the porch, the front door. And the light globe, too. And the pine cones in the basket. Need to hose them off. Need to get the truck into the shop. Hope it's not expensive. Can't afford it. Don't think about money problems in bed, don't ever do that. Think of something else. Anything.

Damn, that bird is loud!

"Dammit!"

"I know, Honey. Try to go to sleep."

That was lame. Try to go to sleep?

3:14. Relax. Let your mind relax. Stop looking at the clock. Don't think at all. Wait for the weird thoughts, the weird semi-dreams that morph into REM sleep. Don't clench. Relax.

I wonder how many different types of birds that one is mocking? How many different songs is it singing? Fascinating, actually. But so loud! Louder than the party and the fight on the street the other night when we called the cops. The bird is actually louder than a bunch of fighting drunks!

Still, it's such a pretty sound.

Wish I could call the cops on the bird. Wish I had a pellet gun. No, I don't. Of course I don't. Wouldn't shoot it. Couldn't find it anyway. It's in a tree outside, hidden by moonshadows. It's everywhere. Sounds like it's right here in the bedroom. It's out there.

3:46. What? Must have dozed off. But I don't remember, so it doesn't count. The bird is still singing. Carolann is thrashing and moaning.

It's cold. The fan is cold. Pull up the bedspread.

Relax.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

"...and it does the rest!"

I swear to you, this is a true story. I'm telling it with no embellishment, exactly as it happened not five minutes ago.

You think advertising isn't effective?

It's 6:13 on a Saturday morning. I know that precisely because I was starting my coffee maker and it has a clock on it.

Seven-year-old Isaiah appears, rubbing his eyes and telling me he sprained his groin while sleeping.

I don't know. I didn't ask.

A moment later he's in our TV room as usual for a Saturday morning but instead of cartoons I hear something that sounds like an infomercial. I expect that to change to Spongebob Squarepants momentarily but it doesn't. It's too loud. I go into the TV room and ask him to turn it down. He does, but he still doesn't change the channel and he is transfixed on whatever he's watching.

"Isaiah," I say, "why are you watching a commercial for a floor sweeper?"

"It's a very good floor sweeper!" he explains, with a great deal of animation. "It's very lightweight and with the Haan© steam cleaner you just add water and it does the rest!"

As the dogs are my witness.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

Kids just don't get it.

Life is difficult. It's complicated. Kids don't understand that.

Well, why would they? We handle all the complicated stuff for them. They just play. That's their job and most of them do it exceedingly well. You can even say they're experts at it. The sad thing is that we were all kids once but for some reason as we get older and the world gets more complex we think we need to find more complex ways of having fun. It usually involves a lot of money and frequently a lot of time and planning.

Now you're thinking, "Oh, fiddle-faddle! I don't need a fancy vacation or dinner at an expensive restaurant to have fun." Maybe not but I'll bet I can't get you to giggle your way through an afternoon by playing in a cardboard box.

Forgive me for saying so but I can't imagine you and your closest friend squealing with delight for hours while running through a sprinkler.

And I'll bet most of us would consider planting flowers a job rather than a pleasure. Maybe both if gardening is a hobby or one of your particular adult pleasures but it is still definitely a chore.

My grandsons just don't know how boring life is.

Please don't tell them. They'll figure it out in their own time.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

RV versus Tent Camping

(Reposted from my RV travel blog: Thataway Road.)

I don't make the distinction.

Like most people I started camping as a kid in a tent in dirt campgrounds with my dad, mom and younger sister. Sometimes my dad and I would go, just the two of us. We'd hike and fish and sleep on the ground under a gazillion stars without the tent or even the campground. Those times are cherished memories. But, now that I'm older I love not having to get my fat, creaky body off the hard ground in the middle of the night to walk 100 yards in the cold to a fly-infested outhouse.

To me it's all "camping" whenever I spend more time outside than inside and don't have things I should be doing.

I think that's the key to it, right there. When you're camping you have things you must do but nothing you should do. You leave your guilt bag at home.

As kids we pitched a tent in the backyard and watched the sky for UFOs all night while chowing down on RC Colas, Hostess Snowballs, Look bars and Chicken Bones candy. We always woke up the next morning with the sun in our faces; the tent was getting hot and we had kids Sunday morning hangovers from too much sugar and not enough sleep.

Now I awaken refreshed, in a quiet RV park around 5AM, in a soft bed next to my sweet wife. I tiptoe across the carpeted bedroom to use the proper bathroom and from there I close two sets of pocket doors behind me to give Carolann her privacy in Slumberland. I press "START" on the preset coffeemaker, feed and walk the dogs, boot up my computer or pick up my book and begin the day on the sofa, swaddled in creature comforts, blinking cobwebs out of my brain.

At a sensible hour, say six or seven, I might go outside and take my leisure in a folding chair, perhaps making a campfire if it's still chilly. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I just sip coffee and greet the neighbors as they walk their dogs.

Here's an embarrassing revelation: as much as I enjoy having coffee and reading a book outside I also enjoy watching a movie first thing in the morning on our motorhome TV. Just sometimes. How decadent is that?

Who made the rule that "camping" must imply "roughing it"?

When you get right down to it camping has nothing to do with where you sleep and change your clothes. It doesn't matter if you get your milk out of a fridge or an ice chest or whether you cook over a campfire, a Coleman stove or in a microwave/convection oven in your Mini Winnie. Camping is just being away from home free to do what you like because you left your guilt bag behind. It's the people you're with, the deeply gratifying thoughtful and funny conversations with family and good friends you never seem to have enough time for. It's eyes that sparkle just because you're all together and the stress is gone.

Camping is unleashing your spirit and letting it run joyously free like a dog chasing gulls on a beach.

And when you go home, as you must, your heart is happy knowing you'll do it again.

And that guilt bag isn't nearly so heavy.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

My dad, the inventor

Nearly sixty years ago my dad did something that seems pretty goofy now, but at the time we were all amazed and impressed. He was very proud of himself.

This was back in the fifties when TV was black-and-white, we only had two or three channels and a huge number of American households didn't even have a TV yet. Nobody had more than one. That would have been as silly and pointless as having two cars!

TV commercials in those days seem quaintly funny in retrospect. Some seem flat-out unbelievable. Click here and check this out:

"More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!"

The commercials annoyed my dad. Not the messages themselves, just the fact that there were any. He thought all TV programs should be absolutely free. I don't know if he ever considered why anybody would bother to create them if they were.

I don't think it bothered him much that his favorite program, The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports was presented by the Gillette Safety Razor company. Boxing was purely formatted and made sense: three minutes of two guys trying to kill each other followed by a one minute commercial and then back to the fight.

I think Dad felt that having us watch a commercial in that situation was more a matter of respecting the fighters' private dignity than commercialism. I think he also figured -- as an afterthought -- it was better that his six-year-old son watch an Old Spice commercial rather than be subjected to the between-rounds visuals of two guys sweating, bleeding and spitting teeth into a bucket while receiving one minute of facial reconstructive surgery as fat men yelled at them before they go back out to resume the effort to kill or be killed.

Dad was sensitive like that.

Incongruous as it seems now, any of these commercials might have popped up between fight rounds. I remember them all:

"Bosco gives me iron, and sunshine vitamin D!"

But Dad seemed to think that TV commercials were essentially the same thing as somebody intruding on our private home life. It was almost as if John Cameron Swayze or George Fenneman were making a habit of walking right into our living room every few minutes and interrupting our evening's family entertainment.

So, what did he do?

My dad invented the MUTE switch!

I kid you, not.

Decades before the invention of TiVo and the insufferable mysteries of universal remote control units, my dad attached a long cord to one end of our TV's speaker through the rear of the console. The other end was attached to a simple two-position plastic switch that allowed him to click the sound on and off at will!

Sure, we still had to watch and wait for the commercials to end but we didn't have to actually listen to stuff like this...

"That's a woman for ya! I ask her to get my shirts whiter... "

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

Saturday morning...

It's the pause in our week. It's the moment we put down our worries, responsibilities and busy thoughts.

Just for a moment.

-- My hummingbird is sipping nectar from the backyard feeder I filled last week. He goes away and comes back for seconds.

-- The barbecue smoker stands proud and manly on its pad, ready for the lovely babyback ribs it will soon receive and slowly perfect over the long, busy day.

-- Over breakfast as my wife is hurrying off to work she has this conversation with the seven-year-old:

"That's a nice outfit you're wearing, Nana!"

"Thank you, Sweetie!"

"It looks really old!"

-- I drive to the newspaper stand outside the donut shop on Route 66. The usual crowd is there, old men with their coffee and cigarettes enjoying the chilly morning air, the rising sun and each other's company. Some read newspapers. One has a racing form. They all sit alone at separate tables while talking to each other from the privacy of their individual space.

A similar scene is going on at the nearby Starbucks but it's an entirely different crowd. They have lattes and laptops. No smoke; less conversation.

The sun is fully up. Yard sales are underway.

I have things that need doing and it's time.

Saturday morning is fleetingly sweet and perfect. I pray for another one next week.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved

My Travelogue: An important memory!

Everywhere Carolann and I go in our motorhome or Lance truck camper I keep a travelogue. It's sort of a combination diary/travel guide. It reminds me of the places we've been, the experiences we've shared and the things I've learned but might forget if I don't write them down.

This entry, written eleven years ago, falls into that last category: lessons remembered.

* * * * * * * * * *

July 2, 1999: Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park RV Camp at Beaver Creek, Cobb Mountain, CA.

No kidding. That's what this place is called.

When I decided spontaneously to take this weekend trip alone to get some writing done it didn't occur to me that this is the July 4th weekend and that all the nice RV parks along the Mendocino Coast would be booked. So, I'm here instead.

This place is located ten miles west of Clear Lake as the crow flies, 21 miles from the town of Lakeport. I know a lot of people who love Clear Lake but it never did much for me. It's one of California's inland, low-altitude lakes that gets brutally hot in the summer and here I am in July. If it wasn't for the excellent air conditioner in my Lance camper I wouldn't be typing this, I'd be running like a crazed dog to the ocean where it is forty degrees cooler.

This doesn't look anything at all like the Jellystone Park I remember from the cartoons. No mountains, no pine trees; no green grass or cute bears wearing hats and ties. No pic-a-nic baskets.

Unlike the lovely pictures on the park's website it's mostly sparse, brown grass with a few scrub oaks; very dusty, dry and hot.

Did I mention this is July?

The park consists of five or six rows of graveled roads and hard pan RV pads. It does have a small, dark green man-made body of water they call a creek and people are paddling around in kayaks and peddle boats which are free to the paying public. I suppose that's nice but they're making a hell of a lot of noise and the water looks scummy to me.

As I drove into the park muttering to myself about all of this I thought Carolann would hate it here and then I immediately realized, no, she would not. This place would be a virtual theme park compared to the similar but humorless places she used to camp as a kid whereas I grew up in the campgrounds of the High Sierra, the Rockies and California's scenic North Coast.

Suddenly, I realized for the first time that I am a camping snob.

The many kids in this park are having a ball, splashing obliviously in the dark, creepy-green creek, laughing, riding bikes, running and kicking up a dust cloud folks can probably see in Glenhaven. The adults are clustered in small groups shaded by trailer awnings enjoying snacks and cold drinks, telling stories, sharing memories, laughing heartily and often.

I, on the other hand, was silently cursing the heat, the dust and the noise looking for a pristine spot to dock my Lance as far away from these lovely, happy people as possible.

I don't like admitting that but it's the truth. Suddenly, I am ashamed and a little bit lonely.

As a future grandpa (I hope,) I need to remember this day.

I want to never forget that when you're a kid heat is no big deal and a little water and a lot of dirt are pretty neat things to have together in one place.

These are the places and times that define families and construct future generations.

While writing this Travelogue entry I just saw a doe and two fawns grazing not a hundred yards from here... over there, by the three long-abandoned, rusted cars and the pickup truck with no wheels or doors.

I guess beauty is where you find it.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved