Park Rangers Trump Dogs Without Leashes and Owners Without Brains

A pop-up RV pulled in on a weekday, when the park was relatively empty, and the campers, a father,  mother, and 3 kids, lost no time in getting set up before heading out to the beach.  The pop-up was small, and I wondered how 5 people could comfortably sleep in it; I’d owned one like it several years ago, and I knew that sleeping 4 in it was a challenge.  Several sites needed cleaning, so I went on with my work and didn’t give the new campers a second thought.  Later that evening, I noticed 3 or 4 a dogs running loose throughout the park. Seeing one dog unleashed is the usual situation, but seeing multiple dogs without leashes was something out of the ordinary.  I managed to grab two of the loose dogs and put ropes that we kept on hand for such situations through their collars; the other two dogs were skittish and ran whenever I got too close.  I followed them around the park for a bit before they made a beeline to the pop-up camper that had come in earlier.

As I approached that camp site with two dogs in tow, the barking of what sounded like a full chorus of dogs could be heard.  The door of the pop-up opened, and out spilled 5 other dogs, barking wildly, none on a leash.  The father yelled at the dogs to “Be Quiet!” which caused them to bark and howl even more furiously.  Three kids spilled out of the RV at that point and helped round up the loose dogs along with the two I’d roped and stuffed them inside of the pop-up.   The mother came out at that point and said she was so sorry that the dogs were making such a fuss, but that they were probably glad to get some exercise after riding for 6 hours in the car that morning.  I know my mouth was hanging open as I did the math:  2 adults, 3 children, and 9 dogs were staying in that one small camper.  The same number of people and animals had arrived in one mid-size sedan, too.  I warned the campers that dogs had to be on leashes when outside of the RV, no exceptions, just as stated in the blue park information sheet the father was holding.  The man told me that the dogs had NEVER been on leashes, and that he had no leashes.  He also said he didn’t want anyone my ropes on the collars of two of the dogs.  His wife assured me that the dogs wouldn’t leave the pop-up again while they were in the park.  (Oh, really?  Do you have a doggie toilet hidden in that rig somewhere?)  I could do nothing at that point because the dogs were in the pop-up, so I left after telling the campers that the park provided thin ropes at no charge for people who arrived without leashes.  You could have heard a pin drop.  I left.

Right at dark, I heard the growling, yipping beginnings of a dog fight not far from my RV.  I went outside to see if the dogs were in sight, and they were . . . about 6 of them.  They were circling one another in the grassy play area of the park that runs through the center of the back-in sites that form a large oval.  Every dog was from the pop-up camper that I’d been to earlier in the day.  I immediately walked to that RV to get someone to round up the dogs and give the campers a second warning about letting their dogs run loose in the park. 

No one was home.  The car was gone.  All nine dogs were surrounding me and barking furiously, throwing in an occasional growl that made me wish I were anywhere but in the middle of that mess.  I could do nothing about the loose dogs at that point because I was, at that time, the sole park representative on site.  I backed away cautiously and then hot-footed it to my RV to call the park rangers, who were about 2 hours away, as usual.  I knew that by the time the rangers arrived, the campers would be back and the dogs would be in the pop-up with them, and an on-site visit from the rangers would be the only result of my call to them.  How wrong I was!  The rangers arrived in an hour and 45 minutes; the campers were still gone.  The rangers went through the park for half an hour or so, trying to catch the dogs to take them to an animal shelter.  During the roundup, the campers finally arrived back at their site.  The rangers went over to talk to them. 

Do not pass GO.  Do not collect $200.  You were warned earlier today.  Pack up and leave the park. 

Two uniformed rangers trump 5 people and 9 loose dogs.  The campers were gone by 10:00 PM.  

Life Isn't Always Fair! Deal With It!

A Massachusetts principal has been criticized for canceling his school's Honors Night, saying it could be 'devastating' to the students who worked hard, but fell short of the grades.

MyFoxBoston.com reports that David Fabrizio, principal of Ipswich Middle School, notified parents last week of his plan to eliminate the event.

"The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients' families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade-point average," Fabrizio penned in his first letter to parents, the station reported.

Fabrizio also said he decided to make the change because academic success can be influenced by the amount of support a student receives at home and not all students receive the same level of emotional and academic support at home.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/20/massachusetts-principal-calls-off-honor-night-because-it-could-be-devastating/?test=latestnews#ixzz2OCBUTsyI

 

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Let me see if I have this right.  Students who worked hard, made good grades, and maybe had support at home will NOT be honored because not all students who worked hard made good grades.  OH, I get it.  Everyone gets a trophy or no one gets a trophy.  I'm boiling inside.  I'm so mad that I'm sure my blood pressure went up 20 points or more.

 

How have we reached this point?  Heck, I worked hard in school and had good support at home, but I occasionally made C's and D's.  I even failed Algebra I and had to repeat it.  Did I or my parents go screaming up to school to demand that I be included in an awards ceremony?  Did I get into the National Honor Society?  Was I devastated over my less than stellar grades?  No, no, and yes.  But did those things mean I should have been on the stage with my peers who had made the mark and were being honored?  No, it didn't. 

 

In the work world, I know I was a better teacher than some of my colleagues.  I took work home every night and on the weekends.  I came early and stayed late to work with students who needed extra help, unlike some teachers who flew into their rooms as the first bell was ringing and then ran over the kids to get out the room when the dismissal bell rang.  Did I get recognized for my efforts?  No.  Did some of the slackers get recognized instead?  Yes, because they were buddies with the administrators. 

 

Life isn't fair.  Sometimes we hit the mark and sometimes we don't.  Unlike in  my day, however, when not meeting the mark meant we worked harder so that we would be successful the next time around, today's parents and students want the awards and rewards without doing the work.  Usually, those people scream the loudest.  Unfortunately, usually they win and get their way, too.  Life isn't fair to the rest of us when that happens.

 

The principal of Ipswich Middle School should have to sit in the corner with a dunce cap on, because that's what he is, a dunce.  He's a pawn of the parents and whiners.  He's perpetuating the problems of non-achievers.

 

I'm sorry that not all children get the emotional and academic support they need at home.  But isn't that frequently because they're being reared by parents who also did little or nothing at school?  Are we going to continue to pay the price for what those parents and now their children are doing or not doing?  Give me a break.

 

You can be a victim or you can be a can be a winner.  And you need to remember than even winners are occasionally bitten by the system.  But you learn to deal with it, and you mature when that happens.  If you're constantly a victim, maybe you better look into a mirror and see who's the reason for your lack of success. 

 

Shame  on you Principal Fabraizio.  You've just given the losers another reason for giving up on success.  Why work harder?  You didn't get an award?  Well, the awards should be done away with, right? 

 

Life isn't fair, and this time it's not fair to the students who achieved success.  Is everyone happy now?  I didn't think so.

Why I Read Like I Do

I'm a reader.  To read 4 or 5 books a week is not out of the ordinary for me.  My taste in books is wide-ranging, and there's no rhyme nor reason, no pattern to what I read.  I love this quote from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society because it explains why I read like I do:

 

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive--all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment." That explains perfectly why I've read books on the following subjects during the last few weeks: Churchill, the Battle of Britain, advertising techniques, Italian cooking, the Titanic, the Lusitania, Ireland, Highclere Castle, Bernie Madoff, journal writing, how to get published, pioneer women . . .

 

Reading.  I believe in it.

The Loss of Neiman-Marcus

Neiman-Marcus (Texas)

• Designer clothes
• Fabulous shoes in every width imaginable
• Knock 'em dead purses
• Fabulous china, silver, and decorative items

Wal-Mart (Montana)

• Cute clothes, if you're willing to dig through those that aren't
• Cute clothes, if you're willing to hit more than one Wal-Mart to find your size
• Shoes that don't fit skinny feet
• Canvas and plastic totes, occasionally a good design or two
• So-so decorative items

Target (Montana)

• Trendy, cute clothes, again, if you're willing to dig or search other stores, too
• Shoes that don't fit skinny feet
• Great purses and totes
• Great housewares and decorative items

Texas

• Great food
• Plethora of stores in which to spend your money
• Moderate temperatures
• Beautiful scenery
• Litter is a BIG problem
• Family

Montana

• Generally terrible food
• Limited shopping (thank heavens for Walmart and Target)
• Extremely cold weather 9 months of the year
• Beautiful scenery
• Very little litter
• Family

To be continued . . .

Priorities, Jeans, and Flannel Shirts

Someone died, and I needed to attend the funeral.  Panic set in.  Except for several pairs of jeans, flannel shirts, thermal underwear, insulated boots, gloves, and a no-nonsense winter coat, my clothes were still packed in boxes in an unheated storeroom.  We'd just moved from Austin, Texas, to Dillon, Montana, and the 10 - 15 degree January temperatures didn't provide much of an incentive for working in those miserable conditions to unearth suitable "dress clothes"  taped up in one of those boxes.  I told two friends that unless I could find something suitable to wear at the local feed store, the only place in town that sold clothing (western and work clothing) I couldn't go to the service.

They laughed at me and insisted that I wear what I had, and that if I felt too out of place, I could stand in the back of the church.  They laughed again.  So, because I did feel obligated to attend the service, I put on the cleanest jeans and shirt that I had and went to the church, feeling as though I were being disrespectful to the departed, to the church, and to the other people who would be there that day.

After entering the church, I quickly understood why my friends laughed at me.  Nearly everyone was dressed just as I was, in jeans, boots, insulated coats, and gloves.   Oh, a few women, a very few, were wearing dresses, but they also had on puffy down coats, and their insulated ski pants were showing between the bottoms of the dresses and the tops of their insulated boots.  One or two men were in suits, but they kept their heavy jackets on, too, and boots, rather than shoes, peeked out at the bottoms of their trousers. 

Then I understood why my friends laughed.  The people attending the funeral were there because they wanted to show respect for the deceased, not because they had the "right" clothes to wear.  And in Montana, community and weather are the ties that bind, and no one cares what you have on anyway. 

Lesson learned.     

Trick or Treat, and Make that a Bud

Halloween had arrived, and my grandchildren were anxious for evening to approach so that they could go trick or treating.  I'd just moved to small-town Montana from big-city Texas, so I did the worry-wart thing and warned the kids about the dangers of talking to strangers, going into strange houses, and walking in dark areas of the neighborhoods.  Their parents were going with them, of course, so the talk was for the parents as well as the grandkids (because as a parent, you need to protect your own kids, too, right?).     Everyone assured me that trick or treating in a small, rural town didn't carry the dangers that it did in a large city, and that they were going only to safe areas anyway.  And then I heard the words "Longhorn," "Pete's," and "Sportsman's," all normal, ordinary words.  But they were also the names of three local bars.  Surely the adults weren't taking the kids into a bar after trick or treating?  Right, the adults weren't going to have a cold one as the evening drew to a close.  No, they were taking the kids INTO a bar . . . several bars . . . to trick or treat. 

Trick or treating in a bar?  You've got to be kidding me!  Child Protective Services would take those beautiful children away from their parents in a heartbeat if those little darlings went into a BAR to trick or treat.  But no, I was a stranger in a strange land, and I didn't know that nearly EVERYONE took their kids into the local bars to trick or treat.  My jaw was on the floor.  I couldn't believe it.  So, I tagged along to see how trick or treating in a bar could produce anything other than jeers and catcalls from the bar patrons.  I'd forgotten that in a very small town, everyone knows everyone else, and a local bar in a small town is quite different from a bar in a big city.

The bars were full of Batmen, princesses, Darth Vaders, Snow Whites, ghosts, pirates, monsters, butterflies, bees, and other Halloween characters going up to bar patrons and saying "Trick or treat," while holding out a sack or plastic pumpkin.  And what happened when a drinker was approached by a green frog or zombie and parent and heard those words?  The customer would take a careful, interested look at the costume being worn, ask some questions about the character represented, and then dump change and/or bills into the child's sack or plastic pumpkin.  Everything was very orderly, and the children were charmed that the adults were asking questions about the costumes.  They were more charmed, no doubt, by the jingling of coins or the rustling of paper as the money rolled in.

As the evening ended and we headed back to the house, I had to admit that trick or treating Montana-style did appear to be a common practice for a lot of people.  What else could explain the sea of costumes we saw in each bar?  The customers seemed to be prepared for the kids, and no drunken or otherwise inappropriate behavior was encountered.  The kids were polite and said thank you to everyone.

The town where I used to live had a newspaper column written by a local grande dame who reported on every social occasion that occurred.  Whether she was writing about a wedding or a community club luncheon, the recounting always ended with the words "Chips and dips were served, and a good time was had by all." 

Chips and dips weren't served in the bars, but a good time was indeed had by all.



      

Orville is Dead, but the Hills are Alive

Orville Ferguson died last week. He was 87 and had been a bachelor all of his life. That didn't stop him from loving the ladies, though. Tall, short, skinny, fat--they were all beautiful to him. He was a good-looking guy, too, and because of that and the way he loved the ladies, he seldom had to cook a meal for himself. Those ladies brought desserts, bread, casseroles, stews, soups, vegetables, and other edibles to him on a daily basis, each current member of his harem trying to outdo the others with her "special" recipe that she secretly hoped would win his heart.

After Orville died, a lady-like fight broke out over who would plan the funeral, because he had no living relatives left on the face of the earth. Flora wanted a "high church" funeral for him, complete with lilies and organ music. Merle Ann said a low-key, private burial (with her the only attendant?) funeral would be what Orville would have wanted. Pearl said she'd settle for nothing less than the finest coffin in old man Wheeler's funeral home and some of that fancy "hi-fi music" the funeral home provided at no cost. Myrtle said no, it wouldn't do to have recorded music when everybody knew that Delia, the piano teacher, would play AND sing at no charge for Orville's service. (Delia, a widow woman, had once been a harem member, but her living children convinced her that following Orville around like a child following the Pied Piper was an unsuitable activity for someone who’d been born a Weatherspoon.) Old man Wheeler just wanted the harem to get out of his funeral parlor so that he could sort out who might have the legal right to take care of the burial. As it turned out, no one did, and the ladies, under the umbrella of "doing the right thing," did take over the planning and payment for putting Orville away. Even the only minister in town couldn't stop that train wreck from happening.

 So, the ladies stopped their cat-fighting long enough to take up a collection to help pay for Orville's funeral. He'd left no will, and the only money he had was apparently what was discovered in an empty lard tin sitting in his cellar. Not much was there, not nearly enough to meet the expenses of what the ladies had planned; donations from the harem were needed to bridge the gap between the dream and the reality. And so, the ladies began the planning.

Because the cost of providing Orville with the best casket, the #304 All Oak and Brass, Satin-Lined, Hermetically-Sealing Gasket, Waterproof model, was out of the question, the #132 White Pine and Aluminum, Polyester-Lined, Rust-Proof Hinges model was selected instead. The ladies agreed that the polyester lining was of the best quality and looked for all the world like silk. Imagine that! But what about the flowers? A spirited discussion revealed two schools of thought about floral arrangements. Two of the ladies wanted the whitest of lilies with just a bit of greenery to set off the whiteness. The other two ladies said nothing but red roses, and lots of them, would do. After all, hadn't they all received roses from Orville at one time or another, which proved beyond a doubt that he liked roses? And the music . . . ahhhhh, the music. It turned out that Delia was so broken-up over Orville's death that she said she couldn't manage to get a note out of the piano or a song out of her throat. She'd "break up," that's what she'd do, so don't even ask her to provide music or song.

The funeral home had an old Casio keyboard that could be programmed to provide everything from reggae to organ music, but ever since lightning knocked out the power to the whole town months ago, that keyboard wouldn't produce so much as a squeak. So, techno-music was out, too.  In desperation, the harem produced stacks of 8-track tapes (and wonder-of-wonders, old man Wheeler still had an 8-track player for use in the funeral home!). For hours on end, the ladies sipped tea, nibbled on cookies, and listened to various music to find something suitable for Orville's funeral. Old man Wheeler tried to hurry the process along, because the tea and cookie supply came out of his pocket, not the funeral home money, and the ladies didn't appear to have lost their appetites even though they'd lost Orville.

Finally, the funeral day arrived. The ladies were dressed in various shades of black. Yes, various shades of it, from the rusty black of old, old funeral-suitable dresses to the bright, new black of specially-purchased-for-the-occasion dresses. Old man Wheeler had vacuumed the red indoor-outdoor carpet (so practical) in the entry and down the main aisle of the funeral parlor. The pall-bearers, Orville's old play-dominoes-and-gossip group members, had moved the #132, covered with a bizarre arrangement of roses and lilies, down the aisle and onto the guerney provided for it at the front of the room. Old man Wheeler asked the mourners to stand for an opening prayer. Then the featured music began playing through the crackling speakers on either side of the room.  The sound of music began.  Literally . Yes, the soundtrack from The Sound of Music blasted forth, beginning with "The Hills are Alive," and playing through 3 or 4 more songs, including the well-known "Doe, a Deer, a Female Deer," until the tape apparently broke (in the middle of a song, too).   I guess the gatherers would have heard the whole musical if that hadn't happened.

The funeral had begun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turning a Blind Eye

Staying in the park as guests rather than as park hosts hasn't been easy.  While we're no longer obligated to clean sites and toilets and try to maintain some law and order among the campers, we still are witness to acts and situations that cause an involuntary reflex to get out there and DO something!  For the past 4 days, we had campers across from us who should have been burned at the stake for their lack of camp manners.  The entire time they were here, they ignored the One Way Only park road signs, repeatedly driving the wrong way through the park.  Not only that, they had to drive across the grass on the site next to them and through the front of my site to get their big dually truck aimed (the wrong way) on the road.  The first time they did that, the tires and the weight of the truck crushed the grass, leaving clear tracks for us to see where they'd been (within 10" of our crushed granite patio with the picnic table and benches).  By the time they left yesterday, ruts had been dug in the site next to them as well as in our site which was across from them.  Do we have a new park host who replaced us?  Yes.  Is he helping enforce the rules?  No.  The new park host, a  middle-aged gentleman, prefers to sit in his RV and watch TV rather than mix with the public for any reason.  He also isn't taking care of park host duties, because in the 3 weeks that he's been here, we've yet to see him stock ice, pick up trash, or clean sites.  That's a story for another day, though.

The bad behavior that really fired us up, however, was the way those people treated their dog, a German shepherd.  They tied him out in the heat without water, for hours at a time, while they left the campground.  The dog didn't bark or howl.  The dog didn't whine.  But the dog dug and dug and dug, until he had big holes all over the crushed granite patio where the picnic table and benches are as well as in the nice grassy area surrounding the patio.  He was also tied with a rope so long that it allowed him to reach the road on the front side of the site and cross over the crushed granite walking path on the back side of the site.  He dug holes in the path and left big piles of poop on the path.  He intimidated the people who headed down that path (but decided to abandon it when they saw a large dog policing it). 

When those campers left, their site looked as though bombs had gone off in it.  Did the campers make any attempt to move the dirt and granite back into the holes where it belonged?  Did they pick up their dog's droppings?  No.  They just left.  

How hard was it for us to sit there and watch all of this take place?  Yep, that hard.

Rule #5.

Wayne and I just finished our 9-month park hosting contract at a public park on the Texas Gulf Coast. During that time, I've gathered enough material to get a good start on a book, and even though we're not longer hosting, we are still in the park through the end of the month. The "you can't fix stupid" things continue, of course, so I'm still gathering photos and stories for my work.

Rule #5. No parking on the grass. Parking is allowed in paved and marked areas only:

 

And, last night around 11:00 PM, two rigs arrived, drove the wrong way through the park, and then pulled truck-first into back-in spots along the fence. Their electrical and sewer connections were on the "wrong" side, as were their entry doors. Didn't bother the drivers, though. They set up lights on tripods and worked noisily for about half an hour until they got their hoses and cables dragged under their rigs so that they could hook up on the other side. This morning they were told by the park supervisor to rig down, get out of the sites, and then re-enter them the right way (by backing into them). They said they didn't know you had to back into those sites. That should have been obvious by the location of the power pedestals and sewer connections, not to mention that pulling in like they did, without unhooking, left a good foot of their RVs sticking out into the one-way drive through the park. (If I'd still been working, I'd have stopped them last night, but the new park host seems to be a bit timid about enforcing the rules. He'll learn.)

Be Prepared

Something about learning that a large group of young boys would be camping in the park on a weekend that we were to work sends chills down my spine.  Normally, each of the available campsites hold only 2 adults, and maybe 1 or 2 children.  Cleaning the park and bathrooms after a busy weekend when the park is full takes some time.  Now imagine that 8 of those campsites average 8 boys each for a weekend.  Imagine cleaning those 8 sites and the bathrooms if those 64 boys were unsupervised most of the time.

You and I would drive into this RV park and see an attractive, elevated building with a combination of steps and ramps leading up to the office.  We’d also see a large observation deck upstairs that overlooks the river, a deck where we could look out and see dolphins playing, boats of all kinds passing by, and pelicans dive-bombing into the water in search of food.  We’d see and be thankful for the sparkling clean bathrooms and shower areas.

What does a group of 64 unsupervised boys see as they look at that same building?  Two-story high ramps for footraces.  A deck to hang from before dropping to the ground 15 feet below.  A deck that also serves as a launching pad for rocks, wet and wadded-up balls of toilet paper, and gobs of spit that rain down onto the heads of unsuspecting passers-by.

Imagine 64 unsupervised boys in the bathrooms and shower area.  Water to squirt all over the mirrors, walls, and sinks.  Toilet paper to turn into wet globs and hurl up to the high cathedral ceiling, where they stick.  Paper towels to stuff into the toilets so that they overflow with the first flush.  Shower curtains to rip down.  Corners!  (Why use the urinals and toilets?)

What adults in their right minds would bring a group of 64 boys to an RV park for a weekend and not have any activities planned for them?  Who, in good conscience, could let 64 boys play unsupvised and out of sight along a deep river right at the dangerous mouth of the Gulf of Mexico and on the beach where riptides and pounding surf can claim a wader or swimmer in seconds?  I can answer that:  It’s the 3 adults sitting under a canopy, visiting with one another and turning a blind eye to what the boys are doing.  Who's counting heads?  No one.

Be prepared?  That’s an impossible task because there is no way we can prepare for 64 unsupervised boys who are turned loose for 48 hours in the RV park.

 

Be prepared?  Yeah, I'd like to be prepared . . . by hanging out a CLOSED sign at the entrance to the park.

 

 

What the Rules Don't Say

You can't make this stuff up! Park rules state "Pets are not allowed in the offices, laundry room, or showers." What the rules should also say is that pets can't be shampooed on the picnic tables in the park. Duh, common sense, right? Today we saw--and stopped--the shampooing of two large dogs on a picnic table. Don't worry, future campers. Wayne and I scrub and disinfect every table and bench in each site when it's vacated. But YUK! And then this: "Pets must be on leashes while in the park." What else do we have to deal with today? Two large dogs running loose, dragging their leashes. (Do you see where this is going?) When we returned the dogs to their owner, he pointed out that the rule does NOT say someone has to be holding the free end of the leash. He was serious, and he was not happy when we told him one end of the leash goes on the dog and the other end goes in the owner's hand. Who was the owner? The guy who had tried to shampoo his dogs on the picnic table. I swear, I am going to write a book about our experiences as park hosts.

Friday Night Park Host Duties . . . Redux

10:25 PM Friday night.  The book I'm working on is writing itself for me.  Where have I been on this windy night?  I've had to go tell a group of campers that open fires are not allowed in the park.  What?  Where does it say that?  Well, Rule #11 is where it says that, in bold print.  We have winds blowing at 10 - 15 MPH, with occasional gusts of 21 MPH.  And you thought an open fire was a good idea?  Really?

American Idol and the Entitled Generation

American Idol, a chance to earn fame and fortune!  The key words in that sentence, if you didn't get them, are CHANCE and EARN.  No guarantees come with the auditions, just a chance to stand out in the crowd and earn a trip to the big time.  You have to have talent and earn your way through the rounds of judging; without talent, you won't get beyond the first round of judging.  (Frequently the judges have to remind contestants that American Idol is a singing competition.).   Somewhere along the line, we have created a generation of young adults who didn't read the fine print in the American Idol information packets.  Chance?  Earn?  Foreign terms to far too many of the contestants.  

When some contestants fail to make the cut and are sent home, they pay attention to the criticism from the judges, all of whom are experts in the field of vocal music, and then leave graciously.  But far too many contestants react to being cut by flipping off everyone in sight, letting a string of expletives fly, announcing to everyone waiting to audition that the judges "don't know nothing," and then storming from the audition facility, still letting the bird and curse words fly.  Some stop outside and let themselves be filmed while they criticize everything from the judges to the quality of contestants who were chosen to go on in the competition, all the time screaming that the audience will see them again, as big stars, because they are absolutely the best singers on the planet.  

The most alarming thing to me when witnessing the drama from a contestant after he or she has been eliminated is hearing, "They're making a mistake.  They call themselves experts?  I am the best singer this competition has ever seen."  (Be sure to add plenty of expletives and waving of the middle finger throughout those sentences.)  Hey, kids, I watched your auditions and the singing was off-the-charts awful.  I'm not a music expert, but I'm pretty sure that when you are off key, sing through your nose, forget the words, have no rhythm, wail and warble at the top of your lungs, and add screeching runs to the end of every phrase, you are NOT a singer, much less the next American Idol.  And some of you didn't get the memo about wearing appropriate attire to the auditions, right?  What else could explain your decision to cross-dress, wear a clown costume, display inappropriate amounts of body flesh, don a lime green wig, or appear in a bikini?

I think I know how we've reached the point where a young adult decides he or she wants to be the next American Idol and immediately transfers that thought into the "I deserve to be the next American Idol just because that's what I want" belief.  Remember when schools started putting happy face stickers on every paper a student did, no matter how awful the work actually was?  Remember the "no one loses, everyone wins" movement that's ruined all kinds of competitions for kids?  Remember the lowering of standards in education so that no one fails and everyone could be the best and pass every class?  Remember how we were told that the most important thing anyone could give a child was a healthy, never-questioned dose of unearned self-esteem?  Now we have a whole generation of young adults who believe they're entitled to anything and everything they want, unearned, even when they're unqualified for whatever it is they desire.

When kids grow up being told that everything they say and do is wonderful, they are pretty quick to believe what they're told (because that's easier than having to actually work to be wonderful or successful).  One day one of those wonderful kids wakes up, decides he or she is the next American Idol, hotfoots it to a nearby audition, and then has a meltdown when confronted with a reality check from the judges.

The "don't give up your day job" admonishment from the judges to many contestants no longer applies.  If you watch the info blurbs (name, age, occupation) that appear when a contestant steps up to audition, you'll notice that the last piece of information this year frequently reads "unemployed."  Not student, not waiter, not receptionist, etc.  Just unemployed.  How can you be 19 or 22 or 27 and be unemployed?  Maybe you wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief, and that didn't work out for you?  And other jobs are too menial, even though you have no education?  So now you'll just be a recording artist like Carrie Underwood or Keith Urban and make millions, never mind that you have no talent?  Well, hey, if that's what you want, then you certainly are entitled to be just that. 

If it just weren't for that pesky reality check offered at the auditions . . .  

   

Hospital Waiting Room Nightmare

I'm in a nightmare. Truly. I'm sitting in the only surgical waiting room at the Matagorda Regional Medical Center, waiting to be called for some pre-op work, and a group of 13 people, including 2 screaming infants, has taken over all but 3 of the chairs in here, spread food and drinks over the magazine tables and floor, and are whooping it up loudly. You can hear them from one end of the hall to the other. How rude! They have a relative in surgery, but apparently their waiting room party is their concern, not their patient or the other people on the waiting room (2 of whom are awaiting post-surgery reports on their loved ones) are having to stand because there are no chairs available for them). RUDE!!!!!! 

I reported the group party when I was called for my tests.  When I returned, the party was over and the party-goers were gone.  Coincidence?  Asked to leave?  Whatever happened, it was a good thing. 

Tent City and the Hot Checks (No, not the name of a band!)

In the RV park where we are volunteer park hosts, campsite occupancy is limited to 8 campers, including children. If a group has nine or more campers in it, an additional site must be rented to accommodate the overflow. Eighteen campers in a group? Three campsites must be rented. Twenty-four campers in a group? Again, three campsites must be rented. Unfortunately, and more often than not, people aren't truthful when they are checking in and telling us how many people are in their group.

Late one Friday night, I stopped a car that was creeping around the campground, obviously looking for a place to camp. I asked the driver if she had reservations, and no, she didn't. Not a problem--we had many open sites that evening. She said she would be tent camping, just her and her mother, who was in the passenger seat of the car. I led her to an available site and wished her a pleasant evening and a good camping trip.

The next morning I was startled to see tents spread all over that woman's campsite as well as throughout the adjacent site. When I went to see why so many tents were there, the woman (party of 2, who rented one site from us) said, "Oh, well, my family is here, too." They had come in and set up between midnight and when I looked out at 6:45 AM. At that point, I counted sixteen people and 5 tents in the sites. I told the woman she needed to pay for an additional site, because only 8 campers per site were allowed, and also because her group had already spread out into the adjacent site, meaning it was not available to other campers. She said she'd come settle up with a check "in a bit . . . if she HAD to . . ."

As soon as I left, several people in her group headed across the parking lot and up into the laundry room, where we have 3 very nice commercial high-efficiency washers and 3 commercial dryers for campers to use. Each person was carrying two large black garbage bags, apparently full of dirty clothes. Several signs in the laundry room instruct campers to pay for laundry, $4.00 per wash/dry load, at the office or at the park hosts' RV. (The laundry fee is a bit high, but we provide users with a name-brand high-efficiency detergent at no charge in an attempt to protect the washers from being subjected to damage from an over-abundance of soap and soapsuds.) Throughout the day, I watched a steady stream of people from the "tent city" go back and forth, hauling one load of laundry after another in and out of the laundry room. When I made my late-night inspection of the laundry and shower areas, all six machines were still hard at work, and the laundry room floor was covered with feathers. Feathers! I asked the man sitting by the door where the feathers had come from; he said he had no idea: "I'm just here waiting for our clothes to finish." I told him I needed to check the dryers because they seemed to be extremely hot to the touch (of course they were--they'd been hard at work for over 10 hours by that time). When I opened the 3 dryer doors, a storm of feathers swirled out and onto me, the floor, and the folding counter. In each dryer were what appeared to be pillows and comforters. The lint filters were so filled with feathers that it's a miracle a fire hadn't occurred by the time I checked them. I looked at the guy who "had no idea" about the origin of the feathers, and he admitted he was washing feather bedding.

In the office I asked the cashier if the group doing the marathon laundry had paid for all the loads they'd done and were still doing. No, they hadn't. I went back to the laundry room and told the man that the group owed the park approximately $120 (3 loads per hour for what had been at the LEAST 10+ straight hours of washing and drying). That figure was just a guess--the machines have 58 minute wash cycles, and the laundry march had begun a little over 10 hours earlier. The man said he knew the group owed a lot for the laundry and that he'd pay by check when all the laundry was finished.

The woman who rented the site did pay the extra fees, by check. It bounced.

The man did pay the laundry fees, by check. It bounced.

The laundry room and both campsites were left trashed.

That's a Stupid Rule

Not long ago, a camper parked—and left— a van in the middle of the single-lane one-way drive that runs through the park. (Rule #2, No parking in the roadway, on the grass, on the concrete patio site, or in an adjacent site.) After getting no answer when I knocked on the camper door nearest to where the vehicle was, I headed out to the pier to see if the owner might be out there. Sure enough, she was sitting on a bench there, enjoying a beer and visiting with friends. I asked her to move her van, which by that time had blocked two large motor homes that were trying to get to their sites. She wasn’t happy with my request and replied,“Well, I have a load of I need to move into the camper. I can’t park in my site because our truck is there.” However, she did leave the pier and head for her vehicle, so I assumed (my mistake) that she was complying with my request. After I returned to my RV, I looked back to check that the van had been moved to the “extra vehicle” parking not far from her site. Well, she’d moved it all right, moved it onto the grass between the park drive and her site’s concrete patio area. I went back to the woman and asked her to please move the vehicle and reminded her that parking on the grass, like parking on the park drive, was not allowed. She said, “Where does it say that?” I pointed it out on the rule card, again, Rule #2. I also told her there was a sign posted in the grass, along the drive by her site, asking campers not to park on the grass. She said, “Where? I don’t see any sign around here.” I told her she didn’t see it because her van was now straddling that red and white No Parking on the Grass sign, which she’d knocked down and bent to the ground as she drove over it. The story should end with her apologizing and quickly moving her car, but no, that wasn’t the end of it. She walked off from me, opened the tailgate of the van, and started unloading things. Before she turned her back to walk away from me, she announced, “That’s a stupid rule and I have no intention of following it. I have things to unload and I’m not going to carry them from the parking area to my RV (a distance of about 30 steps).” Ahhhhh . . . the rewards of being a volunteer park host.

You Can't Fix Stupid

If I needed to be reminded that you can't fix stupid, a recent incident at the RV park illustrated that maxim all too clearly.  In the park and extending out into a river, we have a pier equipped with night-fishing lights that turn on at dusk and turn off at dawn.   Not long ago, on a wet, cool night we heard a quiet knocking on our RV door.  When I opened it, a very apologetic camper standing there told me that the lights on the pier had gone off while he and several other people and their children were fishing and asked if we could we come fix the problem.  We got dressed, putting on rain ponchos before we went out into because the heavy mist we'd had all day had turned into a light rain.  A quick examination of the box housing the timer for the lights showed nothing amiss.  We drove on to the breaker box, and sure enough, the breaker was thrown.  In no time, we had the lights back on at the pier.  The camper who had asked for help was waiting for us by the pier, which was wet from one end to the other and had puddles of water standing where the boards had warped a bit.  He thanked us for getting the lights back on, and then he said, "I don't know . . . . everything was working fine until I plugged in a heater, and then the lights went out.  Maybe that did it."  It was then that we looked down at the pier with flashlights and discovered that three extension cords had been connected so that one end would reach the power pedestal at the camper's RV site, and the other end could accommodate the plug on the space heater that was sitting out in the rain at the far end of the pier where everyone was fishing.  Part of one extension cord was gently moving where it dangled a bit in the waves lapping at the shoreline.  We quickly went back and turned the breaker off, ordered everyone off the pier, and asked the camper to retrieve his heater and extension cords.  When the danger of mass electrocution was past, we turned the lights back on and allowed the campers to return to fishing.  The camper who'd taken the heater out onto the pier and caused the problem wasn't the least bit abashed about the potential danger he'd created.  As we left, he told us, "Well, at least it was comfortable out there while it lasted."  No, you can't fix stupid.