Corked?

We were tired when we pulled into our no-frills motel--it had been long day of travel and we had had a late lunch instead of dinner. Plus, after sitting in the car for many hours, I wanted to walk. We "discussed" our current needs with each other, and I approached the desk clerk to asked if she could (ha ha) recommend a place within walking distance for both ice cream and wine, She barely paused before pointing us to a Perkin's Restaurant with a full bar. I was stunned.

Although there was indeed a bar, it was smokey, so we opted for the restaurant tables. We sat waiting for service for so long that I was able to eventually master the solitaire game left on each table. (The solitaire game should have been a clue to the average wait for anything on the premises, but it had been a long day.) Pretty soon, after awhile, after time had lost all meaning, the hostess came up and apologized for the waitress who was apparently overwhelmed by the duties of socializing with two other tables of local folks (how did we know? by their police uniforms).

Anyway, the hostess offered to get us our drinks and we ordered. This was not difficult as there was only one option in white wines. After a very, very, very long time (okay, time had not completely lost meaning) she returned with a soda and a glass of cold Chardonnay. She apologized for the time it had taken and told us that she had really had some problems opening a new bottle (where was the bartender? I wondered). She went so far as to remark that it seemed as if the bottle was mocking her--we all laughed. The wine was no worse than I would have expected at Perkins and I was comforted by the fact that the bottle had had a cork.

Some five or ten minutes after I toasted my Solitaire triumph with my cold Chardonnay, the hostess approached and asked for my glass of wine back. It seemed "there was something wrong with the bottle." Corked? Tom snatched up the glass and wafted it under his nose. While I tried to explain to both of them that the wine seemed fine, the hostess insisted that she needed to remove my glass and would bring me another. I sent it off, still a bit bewildered, but sure enough, back came another Chardonnay.

Some time later, when the waitress came to take our order we asked her what the problem had been. She airily informed us that the hostess had broken the neck off the bottle of wine when trying to open it. She looked at me. "I knew what had happened, but didn't realize that she had served you out of the broken bottle," she explained.

Wow. There we stood at the exact intersection of honesty and stupidity.

I feel fine so far, though my attorney says I am not out of the woods yet. I'll keep you posted.

Camping

Camping can be a wonderful thing. For me it is about preparing and eating food in the open air, the smell of the campfire, the wind in the pines, an interface with the natural world that is a little closer than the one I experience from from desk at work, or my urban backyard. It is also about adventure, since nature is always a bit unpredicatable. The last time I went camping we had a tornado evacuation from our tents in the middle of the night, and two visits from bears. When you are in a tent, a visit from a bear can be pretty terrifying, even if said bear is more interested in bacon grease left on a grill than in the contents of said tent. You just never know.

This year, three couples and an extended family headed north into the depths of the Hiawatha National Forest in the upper Penninsula of Michigan. Experienced campers all, we were ready for anything—or so we thought.

We arrived on Saturday on a gorgeous, sunny day and set up our tent and screened picnic table shelter. We were a little nonplussed by the small village next to us, populated by a dozen people and a dog, and anchored by a huge RV and a large pickup truck, but they kept to themselves. We had a plan for locking our food in the car each night, but bears and other wild creatures were no problem at all, for reasons that slowly became clear. The campground faced a small blue sparkling lake marred only by the motorboat that pulled tubers (not potatoes, the other kind) in a tight circle for several hours. Nevertheless, we found our friends in scattered sites and, over the constant whining from the motorboat engine, we had fun sharing beers on the small beach on the lakeshore.

The next morning we were surprised to find that the entire neighboring village had decamped without even waking us in our tent. By the end of the day, we would miss them, desperately.

Around noon, a new group arrived—an RV and several trucks in the adjoining site, other groups scattered around the campground, with all of their teenagers clustered together in a site adjacent to ours on one corner. Within minutes of their arrival, Megadeath and their ilk boomed at top volume from the teenagers’ powerful car speakers, and continued until we asked the parents to intervene at 11:30 pm.

The next day was spent away from the campground in an exploration of the beautiful National Lakeshore. Shortly after our return at 7pm, Megadeath started up again with an effect not unlike having teeth drilled without novacaine. At 10pm, the hour when all audible electronic music was supposed to stop, we asked the parents to quell Megadeath, and requested that the camphost make an appearance to enforce the rules at site 28, equally loud, though in a different genre. The camphost made one slow circuit in his Pinto, the music dying on his front bumper and swelling at his back. Shortly after his ineffectual patrol, I wandered over to site 28 and asked them to turn off their music. The volume level of the music pouring from the open doors of the pick-up would have resulted in a police call in any more urban area. They irritably turned it down a notch but would not turn it off. Our friends who abutted their campsite reported that it played all night—again. Sleep-deprived, they planned to pack up and leave a day early.

We enjoyed a relatively quiet evening, turned in, and planned to leave a day early with the last of our friends. When we woke up on Tuesday morning, it was to find that we had ignited a campground war of sorts. Campsite 28 made his displeasure known by means of a two-fingered salute and slow rotation in view of our friends, We did not have a direct view, so had invectives hurled at us as we broke camp. Site 29 had not spoken to us since apologizing for the attack of their three dogs as Tom walked the path to the latrine. They were clearly trying to stay out of the line of fire.

Our next door neighbor at site 31 amused himself by standing at the edge of his site with a pugnacious stance, radiatating anger and staring at us for almost three hours—from the time we woke up to the time we drove away. When Megadeath started up again at 10am or so, we asked the teenagers to turn it down. He screamed at them to turn it up—because we might leave faster—and then screamed that we were unwanted, should leave, and never return. Damn—I was all set to book another Hiawatha camping vacation! Then, in a classic Bre’r Rabbit move, Mr. Site 31 decided that the teenagers were not annoying enough and he cranked his own music to everything his truck could produce. His taste in music was much more bearable to us, and once Megadeath was drowned out, we were able to continue breaking camp without screaming, though we did have to lipread as we coordinated our efforts. Tom noted that he played “Now You’re Messing With a Son of a Bitch” no fewer that four times—a subtle move that was lost on me.

The fantasy ending to this story: Shortly after we pulled out, a forty foot RV rumbled in to take our place. A bunch of burly retired law enforcement types spilled out of the huge pick up and unloaded a couple of cords of wood before firing up the generator on the RV. Popping the tabs on their beers, they opened the doors of their pick up, cranked up their sound and started in on 8 hours of the best of international opera, until precisely 10pm.

The real ending: We drove away with one more stop—the campground dumpster. We drove slowly down the road and hadn’t spotted it yet, when we saw a woman walking towards us. We stopped to ask for directions to the dumpster, but before I could open my mouth, she introduced herself as one of the women camped in Site 31, and tearfully apologized at length that her husband and his immature friends had ruined our vacation, not to mention serving as horrible role models to all of the teenagers camped with them. I thanked her for her words, but as we drove away I felt nothing but sadness for the fact that we could drive away, but she could not, or had not.

Fantasy ending number 2: For Ms. Site 31, this is the last straw. She has had it with Mr. 31’s anger at her, at their kids, at the world. She can’t stand his friends and she secretly longs to camp in a tent instead of an RV. She leaves him, takes the kids, and ends up with a really nice guy who owns the Ace Hardware store in Munising.

Now that really is a fantasy.

Crambe Cordifolia, Chapter II, June

Consumer Credit

Two "C" words--how could I resist? Although this is a serious problem for many, and never more so than when the economic bubble bursts, leaving soap on all of our faces. Credit is how we give up our free will and indenture ourselves to the companies that provide convenience at a terrible cost. Credit comes in many forms--there are the loans that make big dollar purchases like cars and houses possible. There are the unexpected catastrophes like your house being ripped in half by torrential rains with no flood insurance, or a medical emergency with inadequate coverage. And then there are the small luxuries that add up and up and up.

After a recent conversation regarding the family credit card bill (I would like to pretend it was a conversation I was having with myself, but that would be a lie) I decided I would pay more attention to what went on the credit card. I left the house for a round of errands with the following items on my list: 2 yards of silk ribbon for baby booties, a present and card for a couple having a joint surprise birthday party, the book for my book group, a half gallon of milk, and a loaf of bread. Here is how it actually went:

First stop for silk ribbon--I bought one yard instead of two. (Disclosure: there was only one color available that I liked).

Second stop: kitchen supply store where I did not buy anything, but arranged to bring all my knives in for sharpening next Saturday.

Third stop; Penzey's Spices for the birthday present and a jar of "Barbeque of the Americas" (jar was empty in Arcadia--must be good).

Fourth stop: Borders for multiple birthday cards (we all know what the price of gas is these days--better stock up), my book club book and a book for my Aunt who is celebrating a major milestone birthday. I resisted the current issue of "Selvedge." but made note of the next issue which is all about Indian fabrics--a must have and due out any day.

Fifth stop: Whole Foods, always a knee-weakening experience at check out. Here I bought artichoke spinach dip because I like it and my party guests last weekend snarfed it all before I got any, two loaves of bread (couldn't decide) some Roman tuna salad ( I was feeling really hungry by then) and the very necessary gallon of milk. I did not get a pound of the grilled chicken Cobb salad. (Disclosure: they were out of it, even after I made the deli guy check in back.)

So, this is how it happens on a small scale, in my house, every weekend. It all adds up. How can I fault the consumers out there who were lured by the granite kitchen counters as opposed to the formica, the in-ground pool and 2 acres instead of the urban apartment rental? Well I can't really--I know it feels, I know what they are thinking. I know how easy it is to talk yourself into whatever it is you desire. But there is one important difference--what I want is not outside my purchasing power. These tugs of war are between savings and earnings, not earnings and debt.

It is easy to take the moral high ground when you have means, and I am not saying anything new if I point out that our culture is skewed towards the material, but I would like to say that these internal battles can be fought on a more modest scale than where they are fought by many. We need to keep joy in our lives, which is difficult when there is also debt, but joy can be cheap if we can free ourselves of cultural expectations.

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