Birds chirping filled the air with the music of nature. Dexter paused to watch a sparrow flit from one branch to the next. It appeared and disappeared from view within the foliage of the tree, in pursuit of whatever was keeping it moving. Landing upon a branch, it would pause, look around, and then take off again for another branch three or four beats of its wings away.
Dexter understood. It was anxiously seeking something, without knowing what it was. He understood, because he felt the same way. He was seeking something, hoping that he would know what it was when he found it.
He turned from the tree and headed along the road that circled through the campground. He had never realized that there were so many different types of tents, campers, and RVs. It seemed to him, that times had really changed since he was a kid.
Families relaxed in their campsites in chairs of a variety of flavors. Kids were riding bikes. There were a few places where the smell of food cooking filled the air ... others had finished eating, and were cleaning dishes.
Dexter paused to study a silver camper. It was large, and had a slide that extended out, so that a third of the trailer was basically a double wide. He hadn't seen one with a feature like that. There were a couple of antennas on the top. One of them looked like a satellite television receiver.
An elderly couple was seated by a silver camper. They waved to him. The man looked to be nearly seventy, and the woman just a little younger. Dexter greeted them with a simple 'hello'.
The man said, "Howdy, beautiful day isn't it?"
"Sure is."
"Where you campin'?" the older man asked.
Dexter answered, "I'm not. I've been thinking about making a trip with an RV or a camper. I figured I'd stop by a campground and see what I would be getting into."
The woman said, "So you're just checking things out."
"Yes. I'm basically retired with nothing to do. I thought it would be nice to see a little of the country. However, I'm not all that enthused about staying at a bunch of motels," Dexter said.
"So you thought you see America in an RV," the old man said.
"Yes."
The old woman said, "We chose to do the same thing when Ed retired. We've been traveling around during camping season for five years now."
"So, how has it been?" Dexter asked.
"Well, pull up a chair, and we'll tell you all about it," Ed said.
Dexter took a seat at one of the many lawn chairs scattered around their campsite. It looked like they entertained a lot of visitors.
"By the way, my name is Dexter."
"Told you, didn't I?" the woman said while shaking a finger at the man.
"Gale said that you were that Dexter guy, on the television," Ed said. "I told her that she was full of hot air."
"She's right," Dexter said.
"I knew it!"
"All right, I'll do the dishes, tonight," Ed said while patting his wife on her arm.
Dexter laughed. Ed sounded grumpy, but it was obvious that it was a common bet between the two. They exchanged the kinds of looks that couples who were in tune with each other, often gave. He noticed that they sat close together, and touched frequently. They belonged to a different generation. They didn't see anything unusual with causal physical contact.
Dexter said, "So you've been living out of this camper for five years?"
"No. We had an RV, but it was kind of a hassle and ended up being a financial drain. Maybe we had bought a lemon, but it was like something was always breaking on it. After two summers, we sold it and bought this camper," Ed said.
"So you recommend a camper?" Dexter asked.
"Mechanically it is a whole lot simpler," Ed said. "Getting something fixed on a pick-up truck is a whole lot cheaper than getting something fixed on an RV. You can get an oil change on a truck, anywhere. You can't say the same for an RV."
Gale said, "To me, it is just a matter of whether the car is in front of the camper or towed behind the RV. It seemed like every time I drove the RV we nearly had an accident. I kept forgetting the car was behind it. You can't forget the trailer is behind the truck."
"I didn't think about that," Dexter said.
Ed said, "That's just our personal preferences. There are folks who love their RV. I prefer the camper."
"We prefer the camper," Gale said.
"I'll keep that in mind," Dexter said.
Ed said, "We got the deluxe model with everything on it. It has the extended side that gives us a nice dining area. It has auto-levelers, emergency generator, and satellite television. We've got plenty of room and all of the modern conveniences."
"Except a dishwasher," Gale said.
"Except for that," Ed said.
Gale said, "It is just like having a one bedroom apartment. For us, there's no need for more than that."
"Sometimes the grand kids join us for a week. The couch and table turn into beds, so we have room for them. It can get a little tight at times, particularly when it rains" Ed said.
Gale said, "It still has more room than that first trailer we had when we used to go camping with the kids."
"That's true. I guess I'm turning into a grumpy old man," Ed said.
"Grumpy, yes; old, no," Gale said swatting him on the arm.
Dexter said, "I'll be traveling alone."
"Oh. That's a shame," Gale said.
"It's always better to share some of the beauty of this world with someone else," Ed said taking Gale's hand in his.
Gale said, "Do you remember that hike in the Shenandoah Valley where we came across all of those wild orchards in bloom next to that waterfall?"
"Never forget that sight," Ed said nodding his head. "Or how about that sunset in the Painted Desert?"
"I've never seen so many colors," Gale said.
Dexter was listening to the couple exchange reminiscences about sights they had seen. He could just imagine an exchange with Janet about their vacation to Hawaii. Do you remember the hotel telephone? Yes, it was a standard hotel telephone. That's right dear, if you've seen one, then you've seen them all. He shuddered at the pretend exchange.
Ed said, "The thing about camping is that it puts you right in the middle of everything. I'll admit that the parks are laid out so that you're basically trailer to trailer, but you're still surrounded by nature. You don't get that in a hotel. To get out and smell the trees in a hotel, you've got to go down an elevator and through a lobby. Here, we just step our front door."
"Since my heart problems, I've got to stay on low salt diet. You can't get that in a restaurant," Gale said.
Dexter said, "Well, I've been eating in restaurants a lot, lately."
"That's not good for you," Gale said.
Dexter asked, "So what's it like traveling around so much? Don't you get lonely?"
"You'd think we get lonely, but we don't. We run into the same folks over and over. There's some folks three campsites over that we see about five times a year at different parks. We get together and talk about what we've seen and where we're going next. We're expecting another couple to show up in a day or two," Gale said.
"It's almost like a small community," Ed said.
"That's amazing," Dexter said.
Gale said, "We meet folks and become friends. In the off season, we exchange emails to keep in contact. Sometimes we plan on meeting people at certain parks."
"You'll notice that we have a bunch of chairs here. Folks gather at night for a mixed drink before bedtime. We talk and tell stories," Ed said.
Dexter couldn't believe what he was hearing. It reminded him of his parents and the neighbors gathering in a backyard to talk and share news. It seemed to him that they always had neighbors dropping by. His mother used to go to the neighbor's house every morning to have coffee with the woman next door. Even as a kid, he knew that wasn't a good time to interrupt them.
Gale said, "Campers are friendly folks. You walk around the campground and say hello to folks. They say hello back and the next thing you know you're exchanging stories about your grandkids."
Ed nodded his head in agreement.
He said, "It used to be that way in the neighborhood where we live. A lot of folks moved away and younger folks moved in. They aren't quite as neighborly as our generation."
"That's because life has changed in the last fifteen or twenty years. Working conditions have really become horrid. It's hard to get away from work. When you do get away, you're so tired you just want to sit and vegetate. You don't want to deal with people, because you work all day with crabby and irritable people," Dexter said.
"It can't be that bad," Gale said.
Dexter said, "I was getting phone calls from work at six in the morning, and I was on conference calls until eleven at night. I couldn't take my wife to dinner on our anniversary, without getting three calls from my boss. It's not good."
"I thought your website was an exaggeration," Ed said with a frown.
"Nope. I've barely touched the surface," Dexter said.
Ed asked, "What kinds of things haven't you included?"
"I haven't even talked about coworkers. As competitive as keeping a job has become, people have taken on various strategies for making others look bad. You've got arsonist firefighters, pack rats, Dutch Boys, and snakes," Dexter said.
"What's an arsonist firefighter?" Ed asked.
Dexter answered, "An arsonist firefighter is someone who creates a problem so that they can be a hero by fixing it. Since they already know what the problem is going to be, they will always be the first to fix it. They don't fix it, immediately. No, they run around talking about what a disaster is looming on the horizon. Bosses love firefighters, because when you have a problem, who do you go to? The firefighter, of course."
"That's unethical," Ed said.
"I agree. Then you've got the pack rats. They're the ones who've been around forever. They know something, but won't share it, until it is to their best advantage. It is always done to make the new guys look bad. The problem is, that nothing is written down. You can't know everything, and they won't tell you until it is too late. Then they jump out and shout, 'Surprise! You're an idiot, because... ' You can fill in the blank," Dexter said.
"Then there are the Dutch Boys. Like the kid in the fable, this is a person who's maintaining some old system, that is ready to break at any minute. He or she is the only one who knows anything about it. Dutch boys are indispensable, and they'll tell you that every day of the week. They'll let you know that if they leave, the whole place will fall down. Some of them put 'the fear of God', into their bosses.
"Snakes are the worst. They make deals, and work in the background, just waiting for a chance to strike. They'll spread rumors, and talk bad about people. One day you walk into work, and your boss is glaring at you. Someone has told him that you've been badmouthing him outside the organization. You've just been bitten by a snake. You get a couple of snakes in an organization, and you're doomed."
"Dear Lord! No wonder Jimmy is so unhappy. He keeps saying things like that, but I didn't quite believe him," Ed said.
Gale said, "That's horrible."
Ed said, "My old company wouldn't have run at all with those kinds of people in it."
"Ed used to run a plastics company. He's still a majority stockholder," Gale injected.
"Unless there's a real owner at the top, companies are being mismanaged," Dexter said.
Looking worried, Ed said, "I may need to visit my old company, and check out what is going on. The last few checks from them have been kind of small. They've said that the operating costs have gone up."
"You'll never spot it from the top down. It's 'cover your ass' all of the way to the top," Dexter said.
"What can I do?" Ed asked.
"Put a couple spies in at the bottom," Dexter answered. "They say that shit rolls down hill. The people at the bottom have a pretty good idea where the shit originates."
"Damn," Ed said.
"You're a depressing guy," Gale said.
"I know," Dexter said. "I'm Don Quixote."
Gale asked, "Why do you say that?"
"I believe in some old fashioned values. I'm out tilting at windmills, trying to get an unwilling world to return to those values," Dexter said.
Gale said, "I was an English teacher. You're right and you're wrong in your analogy. Don Quixote wasn't out to make the world return to chivalrous values. He was trying to live them. He was a heroic figure in a sad sense. You're a little different than that."
"I hope that's a good thing," Dexter said.
Gale said, "It is a very good thing."
"My name is still on that company. I'd hate to see my good name ruined because some jerks are playing games, there," Ed said.
"What company is that?" Dexter asked.
"Daimler Plastics."
Dexter said, "Oh, my."
Ed Daimler was one of the wealthiest men in the country. His company, Daimler Plastics, was one of the largest independent plastic injection molding companies in the country. It was also on Dexter's 'Page of Shame'.
Looking sharply at Dexter, Ed asked, "What's the matter?"
"Your company is on my webpage of corporate shame," Dexter answered uneasily.
"What!" Ed shouted.
"I've gotten complaints from your company about interfering with the relationship between employee and employer," Dexter answered.
"There goes our summer," Gale said.
"No," Dexter said. "I have a suggestion ... something that might help."
"What?" Ed asked.
"I know some engineers who could work in your company. I could send you their names. You'll need to put them in the IT department. I'm sure that by the end of summer, they could give you a complete report on what is going on, there," Dexter said.
Ed said, "You're hired."
"I wasn't looking for work, I want to find out more about camping," Dexter said.
Edited By TeNderLoin