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Trailer Tales 2009: Oh Yes... There Will Be Blood.Aug 27 '09 (Updated Oct 07 '09) Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line for anyone who follows the Great Shmoo Adventure be forwarned... we're looking at almost 5000 words here. Once again I’d like to say “Howdy” from the great outdoors and regale you with the annual tale from “Our Week-end Place” (as I like to call it) or “The Trailer” (which is how everyone else refers to it). Want a beer? I’ll take that as a yes… it’s sort of tradition. This year it’s tall boys of Tuborg Gold. More beer per can and more alcohol per beer… and best of all, you look like a classy dude when you hold it ‘cuz it’s imported. I’ll just go get one out of the fridge for you. I have 20 cooling off that I put in there Friday night. They take up most of the bottom rack and I had to pull out some of the more perishable food but I should be most of the way through them before anything starts to rot. Sit back and sip away. Revel in your new found Danish coolness. When you tilt your head just the right way you might be able hear the “ooohs” and “aaahhhs” as the local folks walk by and notice your beer of choice. “Did you see that guy Shirlene? He’s drinkin’ that fancy im..por..ded stuff.” “Must be someone famous. You pay him no never mind Cooter T. Hill. You is a good man and don’t think no different just because Mr. “High Fallutin’” is tryin’ to look better than us. Hey… he’s gots one of them new fangled dishy things for the TV... would ya look at that. Life must be grand when you is rich.” “Let’s move on Shirlene. We don’t need to see this. I’ll gut the Pike we caught earlier today and you can fry them up fer supper.” “That would be fer special Coot. I loves you” If you see Coco wander on to the road, staggering like a drunken zombie and chattering away to himself in the language of the Xhosa tribesmen, or if Hailee casts her clothes to the wind and runs off into the forest like some Woodstock throwback, just let me know. I’ll send Ben out to retrieve them. He barely leaves a mark and the dog slobber helps clean some of the dirt off the back of their necks. I hope you like this year’s tale. It seems summer just ain’t summer unless I have one… one that involves pain anyway. You’ve heard much of this place from me since I joined up. I have sung the praises of sheds and beers and hours upon hours of joke-r-rummy. We threw a virtual booze up out there involving mind altering drugs, hungry Llamas and lost clothing and we joked about the Shleps sleeping, stacked like cord wood where I keep the lawn mower. I told you about the dog bite of 2005 and the broken arm of 2006. In 2007 there was the story of how my father-in-law almost ripped his bag in half and how I got to golf off his membership for free for the rest of the year. Last year, 2008, I told you about my “Ax vs. Leg Bone” experiment… which, by the way, prompted me to go out and buy an electric chainsaw. I mean honestly, there’s only so much damage one can do with an ax. Four years in a row of some form of pain or another. Four years worth mentioning anyway. Why should this year be any different? We’ve had our fair share of bumps, bruises, scratches, scrapes, road rash, infected mosquito bites, cuts and head wounds from falling on to the stone (and that was just Coco) but the big pain this year (so far… fingers crossed) involved no-one close to me, no one I had ever met before actually. It was one of the freakiest things I’ve ever seen. And I saw my dad toss a chainsaw in to his knee when I was a kid. We begin on Sunday August 16th… the first actual week-end of summer. I’m not sure where most of you live but if you are anywhere in the northeast (or even the Great Lakes region) you may have just noticed that this summer has ABSOLUTELY SUCKED DONKEY BALLS!!!! (whew…any one have an aspirin?). Pretty much every week-end through June, July and the 1st week of August has been cool or rainy or cool and rainy or cloudy, or cool and cloudy… or cool, cloudy and rainy. I think you will see a distinct trend here. For a day or two in the middle of the week the sun pops out but then right around Friday morning it finds a hiding spot and takes the next 3 days off. The few times the temperature has gone up, it’s been accompanied by storms so severe they could arguably be called monsoons. Sheets of water have buffeted the house at a fifty or sixty degree angle. Thunder has rumbled constantly as the clouds roughly elbow each other out of the way, arguing like New Yorkers and constant bolts of lightening have cracked the ground around us. I was in the car at about 9:30 one warm stormy night and my headlights were completely unnecessary. One morning I was outside cooking breakfast off the barbecue and almost jumped through the awning when lightening hit a few hundred yards from where I stood. Kind of hard to teach the three year old daughter that lightening is nothing to be afraid of when she see's her dad bouncing from foot to foot, like a toddler with a pea-sized bladder, with his hands clapped over his mouth so that he won't yell out "HOLY F@CK!!!". Every head on my street either poked out the front door or appeared at the window. Last night, lightening cascaded like snowflakes, crackling and making the house shake. Tornados sauntered our neighborhood decked out in gang colors, causing sporadic devastation. Hailee begged to go stand outside so she could watch better and Bennie tried very hard to go strollin’ through my colon (my own personal way of saying he crawled up my butt). We’ve had more rain here this summer than I can ever remember. It makes me feel like we’re living in the tropics. Streets have been flooding, sump pumps have been working over time and mushrooms have sprung up wildly all over everyone’s lawn. The last time I let Ben out, he came back encrusted in barnacles with his fleas singing rousing sea shanties and drinking tiny little casks of rum. I belabor the point but that week-end was the first real one that consistently had sunny, hot weather around one hundred degrees (Fahrenheit… not Celsius. I do not live inside an active volcano). I like the heat. I dig it. If I could live on the Equator I probably would. Add in to the temperature the humidity factor and you definitely have some warm weather. Thank God… it’s about time. It looks like we may only have 4 weeks of summer this year. So, the Shmoo Crew enjoyed our first week-end of sunshine the best we could. Once breakfast, clean up, playtime and naps (ahhhh, the hammock) were out of the way we spent it at the beach, watching the boats go by, letting the kids build sand castles, pulling them around the swimming area in unsafe inflatable toys the color of Walt Disney’s puke and drinking things we weren’t allowed to drink at the beach, inside special bottles that hid the fact that we were drinking them. The rule-makers turn a blind eye when you don’t flaunt the fact that you are breaking the rules… sort of like Washington but without the crack smoking mayor. The wife and I aren’t jealous people and we spent much of the time checking out the incredibly attractive folks spilling out of their bathing suits (and pointing them out to each other so that each could ogle in kind) as well as the incredibly unattractive folks spilling out of their bathing suits (and pointing them out to each other to test our mate’s gag reflexes). There’s not much middle ground. I think that her and I (and the two that we call Papa and Dude) are it as far as middle ground goes. By three in the afternoon it was time to freshen up our beverages, so I made the five minute trip back, telling the guy on site 211 who was chopping wood that he was insane to be doing that in this heat. I debated telling him my leg story, but that is normally reserved for the second date. Once back I refilled our large metal cups, quickly downing the left over beer that wouldn’t fit in. I checked to make sure Ben had a massive amount of water, I looked at my reflection in the mirror (sucking my blobby white belly in so that it didn’t sink over the waistband of my orange floral jams) and then slowly I strolled back to the beach checking out the new landscaping on the way. One of the things that we really like about the place is that everyone has a sense of pride in ownership and are constantly tweaking their sites so that they are always slightly more attractive looking. New patios, gardens and walkways seem to spring up over night. After I had walked down the steepest part of the road to the water I stopped outside 211 and took a really good long look at what he had done. The place was awesome. The railed deck had a fresh coat of stain, there were new walkway stones countersunk in the ground under a natural tree archway entrance and cedar chips had been scattered up the path where the grass had been. Given the weather I had no idea when he had been able to get all this done. Possibly he went to sleep at night and the Landscaping Fairies took over. It would be nice if they turned a quick eye over to my place but then again they might be holding some ancient forgotten grudge against all the Shmoo descendants due to some totally innocent (but fatal) misunderstanding. Odder things have happened in my life. I stopped and shouted through the trees at the figure behind them. “You still chopping wood? C’mon man… I’m hot just watching you and you’re making the rest of us look bad in front of the wives. It’s beer time.” 211 came out from his chopping block, ax still in hand and sweat pouring down his smiling face. “I think it’s cooling off a bit but yea, I’m just quitting. I was about to pour myself one.” “I gotta tell you, the place looks great. I love what you’ve done with the entrance.” “Hey thanks, it wasn’t a huge job but I thought it would make…” That’s when the kids came flying down the hill. There are a fair amount of rules where we spend our week-ends. Some of them, like everyone MUST use the same sized stones for their patio, or no walking around with an open beer, seem pretty frivolous and are largely ignored. Others, like say… don’t drive your boat through the swimming area, don’t practice your golf swing in the middle of a lightening storm and don’t play with fireworks near the septic tanks, are usually there for a fairly good reason. The park is built in 2 phases. For those who love nature, who want to commune and listen to what the trees have to say (whoa… dude… this cigarette smells funny) there is Phase One, our phase. We have the lake. We have the trees and most of the wildlife… woodchucks and feral cats and chipmunks and pinecones. We have small cabins, sitting quietly back in the hills with a scenic view of the water that folks can rent for only several hundred dollars a week. We have the boat launch and the canoe beach and the swimmin’ area. In my opinion we have the beauty. This is what a cottage-like existence is supposed to be. True, we also have most of the bugs, but it’s a fair trade. Once you pass though the entrance gate by the office you have a slopping incline that weaves through the forest and past all the sites that seem to grow out of the trees and hills as naturally as Hobbit holes from the ground. The road differs between steeply descending to the lake and a grade so faint that it’s almost imperceptible. The only consistence is that it is all down hill, all winding and only ends when the beach begins. Phase 2 is “the other side”… the side that bakes in the sun (when there is one) due to a lack of any foliage. Sure, there are a couple trees around, but they are those young upstart, know-it all, nouveau trees that have been planted recently and have no respect for there forested ancestors. Their side is about as sloped and scenic as a farmer’s field in Kansas. On phase two they have all the “modern” conveniences that take away the luster of being in the woods. They have the Olympic sized swimming pool (with kiddie pool), they have the dance hall, they have the Baseball Diamond and Basketball Court and tournament Horseshoe Pitch. We may have the arcade on our side but it’s never used. That side is in the process of putting in a small laundry-mat, a laundry-mat. Can you imagine? The barbaric cretins. Our feeling of superiority over the other phase will probably only be matched when they finally complete Phase 3. Those guys are putting in a splash pad. Pphphphphphphts…. newbies. The two good things that can be said about Phase 2 are: 1) The people there can stay up all year round and get service (where as we have to shut down around the end of October) and 2) They rent out these really cool two-seater pedal carts that are sort of a hybrid between a bicycle and a go cart. Think of a “Big Wheels” but for grown ups. There’s a seat low in the front, one higher just behind it and a set of handle bars that steer it like a jet ski. There are no brakes, no seatbelts and no helmets. This would be where our story picks up pace a bit and sort of gets to the point. Remember when I talked about the rules. There are two for the pedal carts that are pretty high up on the “Do Not Ignore” list. Children Under The Age Of 13 Must Be Supervised By An Adult. Under NO Circumstances Are The Pedal Carts To Be Taken To Phase 1. The reason for the latter rule has already been mentioned. Phase two is flat, Phase one; one continuous hill that can only end in tragedy. What follows has none of my regular amusing exaggerations. “I gotta tell you, the place looks great. I love what you’ve done with the entrance.” “Hey thanks, it wasn’t a huge job but I thought it would make…” That’s when the kids came flying down the hill. 211’s head and mine snapped in the same direction. Things immediately went in to that weird slow motion speed that allows you to take in every detail. The four kids were blond and somewhere between the ages of ten and thirteen. I’d say err on the side of older. Two boys were in the front of each cart and two girls were riding behind them. Their feet were up off the pedals, allowing gravity its full effect and all four kids were screaming with laughter. To say that they were traveling between fifty to sixty kilometers an hour (between thirty to forty miles for our “late adopter” American friends who still use imperial measurements despite the fact that they fought a huge bloody war and wasted a crap-load of tea to separate from England and still make fun of us because we label the Queen as our head of government even though she has zero say in what we do) would be fairly accurate. A younger couple, maybe in their mid twenties who were visiting my next door neighbor, stood at the side of the road and watched. The kids flew past where 211 and I were standing, gape-mouthed, our heads on a swivel like we were watching an IndieCar Race, and very quickly had to make a decision. The fork in the road that was about 20 yards south of me gave you two possible choices. Left meant the kids would be going to the boat launch and around three hairpin turns that were incredibly steep. Right meant a bit of an easier route to the beach. A bit easier… not much. They chose right. The first car made the turn wide and with surprising ease. The second car didn’t. It cut the corner tight. The two wheels on the left hand side rose off the ground and the cart stood up on its right. The young driver over corrected and the wheels touched back down but the cart immediately veered of to the right… and slammed dead on in to a large tree. At the same consistent speed because the kids never slowed down. The boy in the front became airborne. He flew about fifteen feet to the left of the tree, ripping the seat off the cart with the backs of his legs and scraping his entire right side against everything that was even remotely in his path. He landed in a heap on the grass beside the road. The girl behind him went right. She vaulted over the boy, her trajectory guaranteeing that she would sail a good five feet further and disappeared through an open gap in the cluster of trees. I gotta tell ya, you ain’t seen nothin’ until you’ve seen 2 kids sail through the air in opposite directions at one tenth speed. It’s almost balletic. 211 and I heard a sick thud. Everything that had been in our hands, drinks, axes, what ever, were thrown aside and we bolted to the cart. I remember panting “…ohmygodohmygodohmygod…” as I ran. The boy who went to the left bounced up off the ground, doing “like a perfect Keanu Reeves impression, y’know…”, and frantically looked down at all his limbs… taking stock I guess. He was bleeding down most of his side… rash on the face, shoulder gashed, arm scraped, right leg ripped up a bit but all in all he seemed to have it together. I dismissed him. His wounds would be fine with a bit of peroxide. The girl hadn’t come out of the forest yet but we heard some branches crackle and the beginning of a high pitched scream... “I want MY MOTHERRRRR!!! I can’t see right…” She emerged from the brush staggering a bit but with out a scratch or mark on her. That immediately made me nervous for some reason. Looking the way she came, I realized that she had gone through the trees, miraculously missing about four or five of them on her flight and on to some one else’s site. She had sailed over a cloth chair and had landed head first on concrete patio stones. No welt, no mark, no blood… just disorientation and a bit of an eye problem. I looked around frantically trying to figure out what to do. I thought of yelling “Call 911!!!” but that would have been stupid. There’s no phone reception for a cell and the nearest land line was back at the office. I took a deep breath and put my hands on the girl’s shoulders. She was shaking and crying uncontrollably. I told her to close her eyes and sit down for a moment… try to take a deep breath. When she opened them back up she focused on my face. “What color are my eyes?” Had it been me I would have answered “mostly white”… but then again Im one of "those" guys and figure there’s no bad time for a quick one-liner. “Brown” she cried. OK… her sight was fine. “What hurts?” I could see 211 going through the same routine with Keanu. He had also taken the time to talk with the Bobbsey Twins from the lead car (who had somehow managed to stop) and get names. “My leg…” she said pointing down to the left “… and my head” I started to plan on how I was going to carry her back up the hill, across the main road and over to Phase 2. It would be a long trek, it would be hot and my family would get worried about where I was… but there was no way I was going to leave her. I turned around, about to ask the young couple who had been near to run to the office and get someone down here, but they had already become bored and wandered away. Who does that? Just when the panic started to abate, one of the women (Karen) from my street showed up in her golf cart. She had watched the kids speed past and had jumped in (going about a third of their speed) trying to catch them so that she could give them “what for”. Their abrupt stop was sort of lucky for her because there’s no way in hell she would have caught up to them any other way. She recognized that the situation wasn’t the right place for a tongue lashing from a stranger and told the kids to jump in the back. She was going to drive them back to their folks. This brought forth a brand new flood of tears. The fear of what their parents were going to do to them outweighed any pain they might feel. They protested a bit, saying “Oh hey no… that’s OK… we’re fine.” until they realized that “no” just wasn’t going to be an option. I explained the entire accident to Karen and let her know that no matter what, the girl at least had to go to the hospital. She turned the cart around and drove (slowly) back up the hill, the kids riding the back, sniffling and shaking, until she was out of sight. I don’t think I even said “Bye” to 211; I just grabbed my half empty drinks and headed back down to Papa, Dude, Lee and the kids. They were not going to believe this. Aftermath The guys at the beach thought I was hugely exaggerating until the Park’s half ton drove up and stopped with the cart in the back. The solid metal frame was bent in to a delicate but pronounced curve and despite the fact that the handle bars were pointing forward, the front wheels were at a ninety degree angle. The cart was a write-off. Everyone at the beach “oooohed” and “aaaahhhhed” and the supervisor took my statement of the accident. Karen showed up later in the afternoon and filled us in on the parent’s reaction. When she brought the kids home they were more upset than they had been during most of the accident. Even Keanu was crying. I guess they knew the reaction they would get and it “was going to suck worse than the most brutally dismal sucking thing imaginable dude… whoa”. The mother immediately wanted to drive the daughter to the hospital but her husband, livid at his children’s stupidity (or perhaps the thought that he had sperm in him somewhere that could produce such stupidity) and the fact that he was going to have to pay for the cart to be fixed, pronounced her fine and stormed off. He would have made any dismissive or “priority challenged” father proud. I can only imagine his anger when he was presented with a bill for a new cart. Those things run in to the high hundreds if not just over a grand. Writer's note: I have since been told (as of October 1st) that the bill for the cart was close to $2500.00... poor sap. I told Lee about the two people that wandered away and she was disgusted. We asked again “Who does that?” as we packed up the beach stuff at the end of the day and pushed the stroller back to our place. We would be forced to pass them on the way. “I wonder what they're going to say?” she pondered aloud. “No matter what, it’s going to be the wrong thing.” Hopefully they would be away; doing something fun that had the ability to retain their focus. I’m on very good terms with my neighbors and had no intention of causing a scene, but keeping quiet just wasn’t going to happen. As we strolled up the hill, I showed Lee the place where the cart hit and created a decent gash on the tree. I took another look along the girl’s path and saw a foot long wooden stake sticking out of the ground near where she had come down. She had missed impaling herself on it by inches. We let the owners, who were absent through all this, in on the excitement. As we passed our neighbors we saw everyone sitting out having a beer and a smoke. I tried to keep my head down… I swear I did. I could make it past if they just didn’t say anything. “Hey!” the girl screamed, “Are the kids OK?” I stopped, sighing and shaking my head at my own weakness. Game on. “Yup, although the girl should go to the hospital to get checked out. I can’t believe you guys just wandered off.” “We stopped. Those kids almost ran us down with the cart. If he hadn’t pushed me out of the way…” she flipped her head in the direction of her boyfriend, the gesture indicating that he was a hero and had saved her from serious damage. “They weren’t anywhere near you. You weren’t even on the road. You were walking up the grass. We could have used your help.” The girl (my neighbor’s cousin as it turned out) started to get defensive. “Yea… well I have no sympathy for a bunch of stupid kids that do stuff like that. They could have killed someone.” I remained very calm… quiet, which is not normal for me at all. “Yea… themselves. You left the site of a near fatal accident with out any idea of how the kids were. It was a miracle that neither one went head first in to the tree. They could be dead… should be dead by a dozen different ways, and you guys just left. How could you not help… or even stop and watch the whole thing? Who does that?” I asked for a third time. Without waiting for an answer Lee and I walked away. I caught the look in the young man’s eyes and no matter how huffy or defensive the girl was going to get, I could see shame on him. He knew that he’d made the wrong choice. They left soon after. I don’t see that relationship lasting. I think the guy just has too much guilt in him (or maybe it’s some buried good) to assume the apathy and detachment in his personality that she seems to have already mastered. It didn’t affect the relationship with the neighbors. We shared a beer later that day and talked a bit about it. They stumbled around, trying to figure out an apology for distant family but I told them they didn’t owe one. They’re good people, the kind of people who help and who you like to help in return. I’ve met their folks… also very good people, open and generous and caring. All in all, I should feel pretty good about the fact that most everybody jumped into action when a potential crises hit… but that one couple left a sour taste in my mouth. I have to ask one last time, not for any sense of symmetry or poetry but because I’m honestly dumbfounded by the concept of it. Who does that? Until next year (and next wounds, accidents, mishaps or dismemberments) we leave the trailer for the season. Feel free to come up when ever you want. I’ll give you a beer. Bring an extra supply of your own blood type just in case. I think we’ve only scratched the surface on how we can hurt ourselves out here.  |
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