Grugger’s Way

Someone commented that my post on Labor Day camping made me sound like a grumpy old man. Yup.

I am, in many ways, old-fashioned, with habits and dislikes fairly common to people in their sixties, particularly men, I think. We seem less tolerant of other people’s quirks and habits than do women.

Women seem more compassionate, compromising and cooperative.

Men seem more confrontational, combative, and other “C” words, like crass and crabby.

And WHY bring Off-road, four-wheeler ALL TERRAIN VEHICLES to a campground?

I hope these party people are all exhausted from their weekend of drinking, smoking, listening to loud music, rip-roaring around on the ATV’s and generally being a pain in the butt to those of us who were hoping for a little peace and quiet. Perhaps we should stay home on three-day weekends.

Now I understand why retirees enjoy the OFF-SEASON so much!

All I can say is how much I appreciate enforced Quiet Hours in a campground where the Host is actually On-Duty!

Another thing that made this past weekend endurable was the rain. Lots of rain tends to calm things down and confine the noisy kids to their own tents and campers.

My wife thinks I should just throw out stuff when it gets old, but if I like a shirt, I will keep it and wear it until the collar frays.

Cuffs can fray and I will just roll up the sleeves, but when the collar threads start to show, I will give it up.

Once I am finished with a shirt, it can’t really go to Goodwill, as you may have guessed. I use them for paint rags. I don’t usually have a lot of old shirts to use as paint rags.

My Mother says she is just like me. She keeps stuff FOREVER! I know it was really (REALLY!) hard for her to downsize from a big house to a little apartment. Frankly, I am surprised she doesn’t still have stuff in a storage rental somewhere. (Maybe she does; I know I would)

I think my oldest shirt is 39 years old. I wore it in college, back in 1970 and ‘71. There is a lot of sentimental attachment to some of my old shirts. I can remember (vaguely) getting extremely drunk in one of my oldest shirts. I’m fairly certain that I made a fool of myself in my oldest shirts; something that I did with fair regularity back in 1970 and ‘71. Those were great years.

Forward about 43 years. My wife and I decided to purchase a used motor home to see if we would enjoy the “RV lifestyle.” Crawling around inside a tent had become just a bit too confining for a 60-year-old with back and knee problems. We got a pretty good deal on a 1991 Fleetwood Flair 25Y.

The 17-year-old motor home proved to be pretty cramped and confining. Why would we not expect that? Two people can barely move past each other. There are all sorts of overhangs and sharp corners to bump my head. I hope I have found them all.

Cooking in the motor home makes the entire place smell like food. For hours. And it heats up the entire place too. Summer camping in 95 degree temperatures is unbearable without air conditioning. We ended up cooking outside on a campstove half the time. And we set up a tent so we could sit outside in the shade without BUGS! So here we are, a tent and a campstove, sitting alongside a big ol’ motorhome.

We tried dry camping, which means there is no electrical service, water service, sewer service, or cable tv hookups. What an eye-opener! Unless we run the generator we have no air conditioning. Batteries can run down and leave you stranded. When the vehicle is 17 years old, refrigerators don’t always work well, nor do generators. Holding tanks fill up WAY too fast, too.

I now understand why MOST motor homes and 5th wheel RV’s seem to be crowded into RV Parks WITH all the services. I don’t much care for that. Too confining, too crowded, too noisy, too many people. What’s the point of “getting away” if all you manage is to sit around in an air conditioned coach, watching tv and eating junk food and drinking beer? I can do that at home, with a whole lot more privacy.

So, the jury is still out on the “joys” of RV camping, but I DO know that cross-country traveling and/or being an RV “full-timer” will NOT come to pass. Ever.