Category Archives: Work Camping

Nov15

What Do People Do?

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It was my last day as a camp host, and I’d been busting my ass. I spent the morning checking in campers and making sure all the restrooms had toilet paper. I spent several hours in the afternoon working at the parking lot, which was busy for so late in the season. I was tired when I got back to the campground, and I still had to drive back to the parking lot right before dark to empty the iron ranger. I was trying to complete as much of my paperwork as I could so I’d have less to do after collecting the last of the self-pay envelopes.

I was sitting at the desk in the office/garage when a tall young man with curly hair approached me. He told me (in an accent I couldn’t identify but which marked him as a non-native speaker of English) that his party (“we,” he said, which turned out to be him and his wife) had a reservation for site #4 but were concerned because there was no bear box on the site. He wondered if they could have site #6 instead. Site #6 wasn’t reserved and I really didn’t give a damn where they pitched their tent, so I told him sure, no problem. I said they should go ahead and set up on site #6, and I’d come around when I finished what I was working on and get them to sign their permit.

The young man seemed happy with my willingness to let them camp on the site they wanted. As he was leaving, he said, We’ll have to bother you later for some firewood.

Oh no! They didn’t know about the fire ban. They thought they’d be buying wood from the camp host (me!) and spending the evening in front of a toasty fire. Apparently it was going to be my job to burst their bubble.

I shook my head and told him no fires were allowed anywhere in the National Forest. I told him I had no wood to sell because campfires were prohibited.

He stood there and looked at me as if in shock. He wanted to know how they would cook. He wanted to know how they would stay warm. I told him campfires were not allowed. I told him campfires were prohibited. No campfires. No campfires. No campfires.

He said he was going to get his wife. I don’t know if he thought he and I had a language barrier and his wife (with her presumably superior English language skills) would understand my words as something other than no campfires. I don’t know if he thought his wife and I would have some female bonding, and I’d give her permission to have a fire. I don’t know what he thought, and while I didn’t mind talking to his wife, I knew whatever his wife had to say wouldn’t change anything.

The two of them were soon standing right inside the garage/office. The woman was short, with curly hair pulled back. Both were wearing shorts and tank tops and sandals. Both seemed, if not athletic, outdoorsy. The woman spoke with no discernible accent.

She said “the website” said they couldn’t bring firewood into the National Forest and should buy it from the camp host. (Campers often referred to “the website” when I gave them information they didn’t like. “The website” said the campground had water. “The website” said the nightly camping fee was $12. Apparently people don’t realize that not every website with some information about a campsite is the official website with official, accurate information. Apparently some people do believe everything they read on the internet and forget that much information on websites is old, and while perhaps correct when posted, is currently wildly inaccurate.)

The wife said the woman on the phone who’d made their reservation hadn’t mentioned a fire ban. I agreed that the woman should have mentioned the fire ban, but I couldn’t allow them to have a fire just because they hadn’t been told about the ban in advance.

I mentioned the signs throughout the National Forest which boldly proclaimed No Campfires. They claimed to have not seen a single one of them.

The couple started to grow a bit frantic.

They’d been in the car for many hours, the wife told me. They were hungry. How were they going to eat? I suggested they cook on their camp stove. Of course, they didn’t have a camp stove. (I wonder what they’d planned to do if it had been raining or snowing and they couldn’t get a fire started or keep it going.) I suggested they might want to go to the restaurant two miles down the road. They ignored that suggestion. It was getting cold, she told me. How would they stay warm, he asked, without a campfire? (I didn’t mention socks, long pants, long sleeves, jackets, and hats might be a good start for staying warm…in the mountains…in October.)

They kept talking in circles. They hadn’t been told. They didn’t know. How would they cook? It was cold. What would they eat? No one had told them. How would they stay warm? They didn’t know. The website didn’t say. They were hungry. They’d been in the car. They’d be cold. The lady hadn’t said. They couldn’t cook without a fire. They were hungry. No one had told them. It was cold.

Finally, I told them they could have a fire if they were on private land, since the fire ban only applied to National Forest–public–land. Then (of course) they wanted to know where to find a private campground where they could stay.

Honestly, the only private campground I knew of was at least twenty miles away, and I didn’t know if their season ended after Labor Day weekend of if they were still open. I suggested they go to the little community nine miles north and ask around about a private campground in the area where they could have a fire. (I also let them know there was at least one restaurant in the community, but I think they were hellbent on cooking over a fire.)

I was trying to be compassionate and helpful, but I got really annoyed when I realized they expected me to solve problems which were caused by them being totally unprepared. The bottom line was that no matter how (or how often) they explained their problems and no matter how compassionate and helpful I was, I was not going to allow them to have a campfire. And a campfire was all they really wanted.

As they were finally about to leave, the young man looked at me sadly and asked, What do people do at night if they can’t have a campfire?

I kept my mouth shut, but I thought, Buddy, you and your wife must not have a very happy relationship if you have to ask me what you should do at night to pass the time if there’s no campfire to sit next to.

When I mentioned the situation to another camping couple, the man looked lovingly at his lady partner and while snickering, said, I know what we do to stay warm.

To read more stories of campers and fire restrictions, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/09/18/where-theres-smoke/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/13/but-were-cold/, and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/07/27/fire-restrictions/.

Nov13

We Were Cold

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My last days as a camp host were some of the hardest.

After Labor Day, the company I was working for had me move to the large campground where I’d started as a camp host. Even with a golf cart, thirty-two family campsites and seven group campsites made for a lot of ground to cover. I had sixteen vault toilets to keep clean, and I was still working at the parking lot, which involved a twenty-four mile daily commute.

The temperature dropped, and I was cold, especially at night. I could barely get myself out of bed and dressed in the morning without firing up my Mr. Buddy heater. (To read more about my Mr. Buddy Heater, go here: https://throwingstoriesintotheether.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/staying-warm/.)

The campers were cold too. People were not happy when I told them the fire ban was still in effect and campfires were strictly prohibited. Folks were begging me to allow campfires, and some of them were probably considering offering me a bribe (which wouldn’t have worked.) I stood firm. I was not going to let a campfire slip by and be responsible for a wildfire.

One weekend I checked in three groups, two on group campsites and the third on two side-by-side single campsites. They all claimed ignorance of the fire ban, and none or them were the least but happy when I told them about it. However, someone in each party signed a permit on which I had written “no fire–wood or charcoal.”

On Saturday evening, I left the campground and drove to the parking lot to empty the self-pay envelopes from the iron ranger. It was dark when I returned to the campground.

As soon as I turned off of the highway and pulled into the entrance to the  campground, I smelled something. Sniff! Sniff! What was that smell? Sniff! Sniff! Someone had a fire burning!

I turned the truck into the group campground area. I had two sites occupied by parties of young men–and I do mean parties. I’d seen the alcohol being unloaded. I’d seen the ladder golf setup in the middle of the parking lot. I’d seen the one guy in the giraffe suit. (Please do not ask me to explain this cosplay because I simply cannot.) I suspected I’d find the fire in that area.

I stopped the truck near the first occupied campsite and peered through the darkness. I saw a flickering light, but determined it was from a propane lantern (which was allowed) and not a prohibited campfire. I slowly drove the truck around the curve to the next campsite and saw the fire.

The young men were on an unfortunate campsite for having an illicit campfire. There was no hiding what they were doing, as the fire ring was in full sight of the road.

I got out of the truck and walked over to the group of young men.

Is that a campfire? I asked. (Not my finest opening line, I do admit.)

Well, said the very short man I soon realized was the ringleader, it’s hard to tell.

I told the group that campfires were not allowed.

We were cold, the short man said.

I told the group that Mr. Lee (not his real name) had signed the permit and knew campfires were not permitted. Hadn’t Mr. Lee told them that campfires were not permitted? They admitted that Mr. Lee had told them campfires were prohibited, but they were cold.

Where is Mr. Lee? I asked the group.

Uhhh…They thought he was sleeping. I thought he was standing over there, in the shadows, by the tree. Luckily for Mr. Lee, I didn’t have a clear memory of his face, and it was dark out there, so I wasn’t sure if he were standing close by.

I gave the young men a stern lecture on forest fires and responsibility and monetary cost and the loss of animal and human life. I told them they’d probably face a stiff fine if I had to get the Forest Service involved.

One guy was kind of dancing around and apologizing and assuring me they’d put the fire out.

I knew the fire was going out. I knew I was going to put the fire out before I left the campsite. I knew they’d have to put on more clothes or get into their sleeping bags because we’re cold did not override a complete fire ban covering the entire National Forest.

I knew I had a five gallon bucket in the truck, so I walked over to fill it from the water tank in the truck’s bed. The short guy said he’d help, and he followed me.

The whole time we were waiting for water to fill the bucket, he told me he understood if people couldn’t have fires in the summer, but now it was cold people should be allowed to have fires. I tried to explain that the forest was till in danger because it was dry, that the danger hadn’t gone away just because it was no longer hot. All he cared about was not being cold, and I had little sympathy because all I cared about was not burning down the forest. I don’t think we reached any kind of mutual understanding.

He offered to carry the bucket of water back to the campsite, and I let him. I figured since he started the fire, the least he could do was carry the water to put it out.

I poured the water over the fire, pretty much putting it out, then filled a second bucket with water and dumped that on the remains of the fire. I wanted to make sure not an ember, not a spark, was left to blow away and cause trouble.

Those young men must have been really cold early the next morning when the temperature dropped and the precipitation started. Last I saw them, they were runny through the icy rain, hurriedly packing their cars so they could return to their (presumably) warm homes.

To read more stories of campers and fire restrictions, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/09/18/where-theres-smoke/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/15/what-do-people-do/, and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/07/27/fire-restrictions/.

Nov11

Three Bears (Part 2)

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I’d recently seen my first California bear, and more bear activity was reported in the campground in the next few weeks.

Some young Forest Service employees staying in the campground while investigating predator (weasel) populations in the area left their ice chest outside their truck overnight, even after we (casually) discussed how bears have learned that ice chests harbor good eating. (I’ve been told that if an ice chest musts be left in a vehicle, it should be covered so bears can’t identify it. Bears have broken into cars to get to ice chests inside. The safest way to store food in bear country is probably in a bear canister.)

The Forest Service employees reported they’d heard bear-type noises in the night, so the woman left her tent to investigate. By the time she’d exited the tent, the bear had run away , and everything in the campsite looked fine. However, when they got to the area where they were performing their investigation and opened the ice chest to pull out the raw chicken used to entice the weasels, they found the cooler empty! The bear in the campground had eaten six chicken halves, then quietly closed the lid of the cooler and scurried off before the woman made it out of her tent.

One morning right before I was laid off, a couple reported a bear had been in the area near their tent the night before. They heard the bear trying to get into the (bear-proof) garbage cans, then rolling logs around. By that time, summer had moved into fall, and the bear must have been hungry in preparation for its long winter nap.

I guess I went to bed too early or slept too deeply or maybe just didn’t leave enticing food lying around, because I never heard any bear activity in the night.

I saw bears #2 and #3 on the same evening. I was driving the company truck to the parking lot to retrieve the self-pay envelopes from the iron ranger. I left before dark, but the sunlight was quickly fading as I twisted and turned through the mountain road curves.

Suddenly an animal was crossing the road not too far ahead of me. What was it? It was too large to be a coyote or a wolf. Was it a mountain lion? Then it was fully out in the road, and I realized it was a bear. A bear!

I’d stopped the truck in the middle of my lane (traffic wasn’t really a concern at that time of night at that time of year) and watched it amble across the road. A bear! I was hooting and hollering and pounding the steering wheel. A bear!

This bear was much better looking than the Tom Waits song bear. This bear was black, with shiny, smooth fur. It was smaller than the other bear and seemed to have more energy. I watched it cross to the other side of the highway and disappear into the trees.

I saw the last bear on my way back to the campground. It was almost dark by that time, and the bear was little more than two glowing eyes and the shadow of ears in the trees next to the highway.

I got my wish. I saw bears, from a distance and in relative safety. All of them, even the one with the shabby coat, were awesome to behold.

To read more of my stories about bears, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/04/15/my-first-bear/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/05/28/bearanoia/, and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/05/11/kids-and-bears/.

Image courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/black-bear-portrait-head-face-1019046/.
Nov10

Three Bears (Part 1)

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I spent part of the spring and the whole summer in the National Forest, but I didn’t see a bear until it was almost time to leave.

I don’t know why bears didn’t come into my campground. I don’t know where they were hiding, but I didn’t see any until September, after I moved back to the larger campground.

I didn’t see (or hear) the bear who scratched on the back of a toy hauler, but the campers told me all about it the next morning. They’d awoken around midnight to the sound of scratching on the their RV. At first the woman thought their dog was making the noise, but that proved to not be the case. When the man when out to investigate, he found a bear trying to open the back ramp door. The couple had cooked in the kitchen inside the RV, and the bear was probably enticed by the lingering food odors. The bear was smart enough to figure out which part of the trailer opened, but was not (yet) smart enough to figure out how to open the latches keeping the door closed. The man chased the bear away by shouting at it, which worked because the bears in the area are very timid and afraid of people.

The attempted bear invasion happened on Thursday night. I scared several campers over the weekend when I told them about the bear in the campground. As I told a group of (so very) young women, I wasn’t trying to scare them. I just wanted them to have as much information as possible to stay safe.

Here are my bear safety tips:

#1 Keep all food in bear-proof boxes or in a vehicle with locked doors and closed windows. No food in tents!

(If you’re back country camping in bear territory, you really need to keep you food in a bear canister.)

#2 If a bear is in your campsite, chase it away. Make yourself as big as possible. Yell at it. Make a lot of noise. Throw rocks at the bear if you have to. Let it know it’s in your territory.

#3 If the bear already has your food, don’t try to take the food back.

#4 Don’t run from a bear! The bear might chase you, and the bear is faster than you are.

Bears can run more than 60 kilometers [37 miles] an hour…more than twice as fast as we can run, and they can do it up hills, down hills or along a slope.

#5 Don’t think climbing a tree is going to save you.

Despite all their timidness on the ground, black bears seem to feel more courageous in trees. Bears sometimes kill each other by throwing their opponents out of trees. The bear below has the advantage because the bear above cannot easily hang on and face downward to fight back.

On my next day off, I planned to go to the post office/WiFi spot nine miles away to pick up my mail and catch up on my internet work. I planned to leave as soon as the sun was up so I could get an early start.

When I tried to start the van–disaster! The battery was dead.

I saw some campers had arrived during the night, but no one was stirring on the campsite. I decided to make the two minute walk to the highway and flag down a driver and ask for a jump start.

The highway was slow around 7am on that Tuesday. (By “slow” I mean no vehicles whatsoever.) I paced as I waited to hear an engine coming around the curve.

I glanced over to the north and saw movement, something headed in my direction.

My brain fills in the blanks of the world around it in strange ways. I swear, my  first fleeting thought was to wonder whay that man was wearing that crappy bear suit and walking on the side of the road.

Then I said out loud, Oh shit! That’s a bear!

The bear was brown in color (although in California, all wild bears are technically black bears, no matter the color of their fur). The bear looked like it was having a rough morning, a rough life. I know I’m anthropomorphizing here, but the bear looked tired and possibly hung over. The bear looked like a bear in a Tom Waits song (if Tom Waits sang about bears).

The bear’s coat looked shabby and dull, as if it had been worn too long or retrieved from a dusty attic, or maybe picked out of a free box on the outskirts of skid row. The bear was lumbering along slowly, on all fours, on the dege of the road, as if it just didn’t have the energy to climb the hill into the forest and pick its way through the trees.

Bears don’t like crashing through bushes any more than people do, and are often found on trails, especially early in the morning, near dusk and at night. – Linda Masterson in Living with Bears (pg 177)

The bear was about as big as a medium-size man, which added to my snap conclusion that I was seeing a worker from a down-and-out carnival too tired to remove his shoddy costume at the end of a long night.

But then I realized I was actually seeing a bear, a bear that was walking toward me, and I felt a little panicked.

The bear was maybe 100 yards from me. (I’m really bad at estimating distances, so I’m not sure.) It was moving toward me, albeit quite slowly.

I decided I did not want the bear to think I was trying to invade its territory, so I scurried across the road and into the large driveway leading into the campground. Once i crossed the street, I could no longer see the bear, but after only a few moments, I heard crashing through the trees. I walked back to the edge of the driveway and peered down the road. The bear was gone.

That was my first California bear sighting, but it wasn’t my last bear experience.


Images courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/black-bear-walking-wildlife-nature-1901957/and https://pixabay.com/en/bear-cubs-animal-black-tree-branch-50137/.
Nov9

Toilet Paper Hero of Hoover Dam

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IMG_3567I first learned  of the Toilet Paper Hero of Hoover Damn while reading a back issue of Sunset magazine.

I was delighted to learn the statue won the Reader’s Choice Award for the West’s Most Outrageous Roadside Attraction, beating out The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, CA; the 22 foot-in-diameter donut atop the Randy’s Donuts building in Inglewood, CA; Spuds Drive-In Theater (complete with a “two-ton tater sitting in the bed of a candy-apple 1946 Chevy truck”) in Driggs, ID; the International UFO Museum in Roswell, NM; and the Hole n’ the Rock in Moab, UT.

At the time I read the the short blurb about the Toilet Paper Hero, I had toilet paper on my mind.

I was a camp host in a National Forest, and one of my duties was the upkeep of restrooms.

If, when you think of restrooms, your brain conjures images of flush toilets and sinks with running water and soap and paper towels nearby, you are not thinking of my campground restroom experience. The campground I was hosting had pit (also called “vault”) toilets. Nowhere in my campground nor in any other public campground on the mountain was there running water. The toilets I maintained didn’t flush, and there were no sinks, no soap, no paper towels.

In my five months as a camp host, I cleaned human feces off restroom floors and walls, chased a family of mice from a restroom, and dealt with a lot of toilet paper. I immediately knew that the Toilet Paper Hero was my kind of working class champion.

I was excited to see the Toilet Paper Hero was associated with the Hoover Dam. I’d been to the Hoover Dam, and I knew it was close to Las Vegas, NV. Since I was planning to visit friends in Vegas when I left California, I decided I’d make a pilgrimage to the home of the Toilet Paper Hero in Boulder City, NV.

I left Vegas by 7am on Saturday morning. I’d planned my route in advance, but had not been able to find an exact street address for the statue, nothing that was easily plugged into Google Maps. All I knew was that I had to take US 93, then turn onto Nevada Way and drive into downtown, looking for the corner of Nevada Way and Ash/Wyoming Streets. (Directions courtesy of http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/23150.)

I almost chickened out. I came to a fork in the road where I had to decide if I was going to go into the unknown (AKA downtown Boulder City) or just bypass the town and head toward the Hoover Dam and onward to Arizona. Since I wasn’t 100% sure of my directions, I was a little nervous. What if I got lost? What if I made a fool of myself?

Oh, come on! I chastised myself. You can do this! It’s the Toilet Paper Hero, for goodness sake. You’ve been looking forward to this for months.

So I did it. I found the Hero and made his acquaintance and took some photos.

IMG_3551

This is the informational plaque which stands next to the Hero.

The statue was created by artist Steven Liguori. According to http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/23150,

In 2007, Boulder City commissioned local artist Steven Liguori to immortalize “Alabam,” one of the unsung workers who helped to build nearby Hoover Dam.

Steven had earlier sculpted a heroic-size statue of a high scaler, one of the Dam’s most glamorous and exciting workers. But he felt that the unseen people of Hoover Dam deserved to be honored, too. When Boulder City launched a project for public art, Steven submitted his proposal for a statue of Alabam. The city, to its credit, accepted it.

Steven sculpted Alabam as he looked in old photos from the 1930s. The eight-foot-tall bronze statue — mixed with copper salvaged from the Dam’s electrical grid — shows Alabam wearing a fedora, overalls, and thick gloves, with a broom slung over his shoulder like a combat rifle, and a large bandolier of toilet paper rolls strapped across his chest. The man definitely had a sense of style.

IMG_3554Alabam was unveiled on a Boulder City street corner on June 29, 2007.

The same website says,

Alabam was a specialist. His job was to clean the outhouses of the vast construction site: sweeping refuse, tossing lime into holes, and restocking the always-diminishing supply of toilet paper.

Not much is known about Alabam. He was among the older workers. “Maybe his name was John or Bill, but there were lots of Johns and Bills at the Dam,” said Steven. “He was probably from Alabama, so they called him ‘Alabam’.”

IMG_3553In a job site filled with draftsmen and construction designers, Alabam referred to himself as “the sanitary engineer.”

“Alabam’s role might not seem important, but it was,” said Steven. Workers would start the day with a big breakfast at the mess hall, then pack a big lunch to take to the construction site. “But once you got to the Dam, you were stuck there all day.” The outhouses got used — a lot.

“Can you imagine cleaning latrines for 7,000 men in 120 degree heat?” Steven asked. “Can you imagine the smell? Oh my god!”

I really love that this statue is a based on a real person with a real personality, a man who had the sense of humor and the sense of his own worth to call himself “the sanitary engineer.” It would be a cool piece of art if it were a fictional representation of all the men who cleaned outhouses at the building site of the Hoover Dam. However I like it so much more knowing it is based on an individual, a real person who, like me and my co-workers, lived and breathed and sweated and was dirty at the end of the work day.

IMG_3557

I’m glad I overcame my silly little fear of the unknown and stopped by to visit with Alabam.

IMG_3572All photos in this post were taken by me.

Oct13

Dispatch from the Road

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It happened just about the way I thought it would.

On Friday morning (as I was eating breakfast), my boss showed up at the campground and told me that I could leave on Sunday. Basically, I had to work the rest of Friday, then on Saturday, and then I was done. Originally, I was supposed to leave the next Thursday, but I was so ready to go and happy to leave earlier than planned.

The maintenance guys had gotten the yurts completely down and hauled away the day before. My main job in the campground was to ensure the yurts weren’t stolen, so with them gone, the highers-up decided that I could go too.

Also, the gates to the parking lot were to be closed and locked on Sunday. On Monday the Forest Service was to close the trail in order to cut 149 hazard trees. With the trail closed, there was no need to have the parking lot open and no need for a parking lot attendant.

I had the van packed with all of my belongings except my bike by early Sunday afternoon.

On Monday morning, I got up around 5:30, after a restless night of little sleep; I typically don’t sleep well the night before a trip. I loaded the bike into the van and drove off into the dark.

I left the mountain as the night was dying* and met the daylight as I drove along the river.

I saw a fox in the middle of the road, its canine eyes shining in the brightness of my high beams. It didn’t run from the van, but walked briskly down the yellow line. I followed it slowly for several yards, excited to watch it. It was the first fox I’d seen all summer. I didn’t even know foxes live on that mountain, but now I can say confidently that they are there.

Later, once the sun was up, I moved into the desert and passed through a forest of Joshua trees. I wasn’t sure those crazy plants were Joshua trees until hours later when I did a Google image search. It was also hours later when I realized I should have stopped the van and taken photos of them. I was so hellbent on getting out of the desert while it was still somewhat cool, I didn’t even think about stopping.

I made it to the highway exit travel mecca ( with a Pilot truck stop, a Love’s truck stop, a Flying J truck stop, AND a TA truck stop, as well as about twenty-five food and drink options) around noon. I did my laundry at Pilot, then caught up on my email at McDonald’s. I slept in the parking lot of the Flying J, which was fine except for too much light and too much noise. It’s going to take some readjustment to sleep in civilization.

I’m at McDonald’s again, using the free WiFi and electrical outlet to write this dispatch. I was going to try to do without coffee today, but when I realized I was falling asleep while writing, I decided to get some. When the young woman behind the counter asked for 75 cents for my small coffee, I realized she’d given me the senior citizen price. My vanity clashed with my frugality, and I had to decide if I should  tell her I won’t qualify as a senior citizen for at least another 15 years (60 is the senior citizen milestone, right?) or take the discount. Frugality won, and I took the discount with silent dignity.

Shortly, I will get back on the interstate and head to MegaBabylon to visit friends. As I walk through the parking lot, I will probably notice once again how big and wide and open the sky seems here, then remember it’s because there are no trees to frame it.

* I stole the image of dawn as the night dying from Robert Hunter’s lyrics for “Sugar Magnolia.” I was listening to the song as I went down the mountain, and this time when I heard that line, I was hit by Hunter’s brilliance.

Sep20

Just a Homeless Person

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I know tourists are just trying to be affable. I know they’re not trying to offend. But sometimes the things they say really chap my ass.

Several times while working at the parking lot, people have made the “joke” that I probably don’t actually work for a company authorized by the Forest Service to collect parking fees. They “joke” that I’m probably just a homeless person who’s standing out there, scamming drivers out of $5. Of course, I’m standing there in brown polyester-blend pants and both a shirt and a hat with the company logo on them. I’m handing out glossy, color trail guides and cardboard day passes printed with a number and the instructions Hang on Rear View Mirror This Side Out. If I were scamming people, I’d have had to make a large initial investment in props.

I find the you’re just a homeless person “joke” offensive for several reasons.

First of all, it assumes homeless people are dishonest. The “joke” isn’t that I’m a homeless person working for a company. The “joke” is that I’m a homeless person unauthorized to collect a $5 parking fee, a homeless person scamming the driver and pocketing the money. The “joke” is never about me being a recently laid off person or a single mother trying to make ends meet. The “joke” always includes the part about being homeless and perpetuating a scam.

Secondly, the “joke” implies homeless people are lazy. The “joke” is “funny” because everybody know homeless people don’t actually work. These tourists don’t really think I”m homeless because they “know” that if I were homeless, I wouldn’t have a job, I’d just be sitting at an off-ramp flying a sign.

(Note: I’ve stood at off-ramps flying signs. I personally am not negatively judging  anyone who flies a sign. I see flying a sign as less harmful than a lot of other things people do to make money and get by in this world.)

I guess the main reason I find the “joke” so offensive is because I essentially am homeless. I live in my van. I don’t have a house somewhere. I’m not living in my van on a lark. I’m not working a summer job for fun or to supplement my pension or trust fund. I’m working my job because I need to eat, and I’m trying to take care of my teeth, and I like to have gas in the tank, and maybe I want to give Christmas presents to my friends and family.

For all intents and purposes (and some other time I can write about the ways living in my van is my choice), I am a homeless person. I am a homeless person with a job. I am a homeless person who was hired by a company to stand in a parking lot in a National Forest and collect $5 for each car that’s parked there. I’m a homeless person who puts on her uniform every morning and gets to work on time. I am a homeless person who is not scamming the hardworking good citizens of the United States and the world. (Although I’ll admit one of the reasons I took this job is because I’m too lazy to work in an office or a factory.)

Of course, the first ten times I heard this “joke,” I didn’t know what to say. I tried to joke back about my uniform or polyester blend pants. (Who’d wear these clothes just to make some money? I said, until I realized, oh, yeah, I am wearing these clothes just to make money. I sure wouldn’t wear these clothes if my paycheck didn’t require it.)

The day I heard the you’re just a homeless person “joke” twice in one afternoon, I decided the next time someone said that to me, I was going to say, I am homeless. I got tired of hearing people yell “Get a job!” while I was flying a sign, so now I’m pulling myself up by my bootstraps!”

Is that too long for a comeback?

(No one’s made the “joke” since I decided on my comeback.)

Sep18

Where There’s Smoke…

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The camping season may be coming to an end, but my first weekend back in the big campground was a busy one. On Friday night, I only had three regular campsites rented (and six of twenty-eight rented on Saturday night), but I had four group campsites (with 14, 16, 17, and 31 people on them) occupied.

The golf cart had a leaky tire, which by Thursday evening was too flat to roll, so on Friday afternoon after I worked my four hour shift in the parking lot, I walked all over the big campground to check-in everyone. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that in this bigger campground, it’s a farther walk from my van to the nearest restroom than it was to walk from one side to the other of the smaller campground where I lived and worked. So by dark on Friday night, I was tired.

When I got into bed a bit after dark on Friday, the folks who’d reserved group site C had not arrived. I hoped maybe they wouldn’t show because I had plenty of work without them. However, when I got to that side of the campground on Saturday morning, site C was definitely occupied by an extended Latino family.

The man who’d made the reservation was still asleep, I was told by his wife, whom I’d happened upon in the parking area. I got the information for the permit from her and told her about the fire ban that was still very much in effect in the National Forest. When I told her no campfires were allowed, she seemed disappointed, but agreeable.

I walked over to another campsite to ask a question of the camper. The woman there asked, We’re allowed to have campfires?

When I said no, she pointed to the campsite I’d just left. From where we stood, we could see smoke streaming from that site. I said I’d investigate. I thought maybe we were seeing smoke from breakfast cooking on a portable gas appliance, but the woman who’d pointed out the smoke said the campfire had been going all night.

I walked back to the campsite with the alleged fire. I found the woman with whom I’d spoken only moments before, the woman I’d told explicitly no campfires. I told her I saw a lot of smoking coming from her campsite and asked if they’d had a campfire. By this point I was on the campsite and could see smoke drifting from the fire ring. Busted!

The woman admitted they’d burned a few acorns (I think she meant pine cones), but said they hadn’t brought any wood to burn. I told her I’d get a bucket of water to put out the remnants of the fire.

Thankfully, one of the other camp hosts was in the campground, driving the company truck to pick up trash. No way did I want to carry a five gallon bucket of water (that’s over 40 pounds, folks, awkwardly carried with one hand holding a flimsy handle) all the way from the water tank to campsite C. I filled the bucket, and the other host lifted it into the back of the pickup. He drove us over to site C and even offered to carry the water to the fire ring. I walked over with him.

When we walked right up to the fire ring, I saw it did not contain the remains of a few acorns (or pine cones). In the ring was a rather large charred piece of wood. No wonder there was so much smoke. (And we all know, where there’s smoke, well, if there’s no longer fire, you can bet there was fire earlier.)

As my co-worker dumped the water on the hot remains of the fire, several older women wrapped in blankets and sitting at a picnic table nearby began shouting No! No! No! in Spanish. I told them having the fire was illegal, but my co-worker started talking over me, telling them about the fire ban I was perfectly capable of explaining. (Thanks for the sexism, dude! I guess that’s what I get for not being able to carry my own 40+ pound bucket of water.)

Of course, the campers claimed they didn’t know about the fire ban, although

#1 There are “No Campfires” signs throughout the forest, including at the front of the campground they were staying in.

#2 The state has been suffering a drought for four years.

#3 Coverage of nearby wildfires is all over the news.

I can’t say I really believe they didn’t know they shouldn’t build a fire.

When I went back later in the morning to get the man who’d made the reservation to sign the permit, I said to his wife, No more campfires, right?

She said, Oh,no!

I decided if I found evidence of another campfire during their stay, I was turning the situation over to the Forest Service.

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I took this photo of my campground’s fire ban sign.

I found no evidence of fire on that campsite during the rest of that family’s stay. I guess they got the message.

To read more stories of campers and fire restrictions, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/15/what-do-people-do/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/13/but-were-cold/, and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/07/27/fire-restrictions/.

Sep15

Broken Box

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A pickup truck pulled into the parking lot entrance. I approached the driver’s side. The driver rolled down his window. I told him there was a $5 parking fee. He responded, Is your box not working?

He was talking fast, and I was sure I had misunderstood what he said to me. I said something like Pardon me? or maybe What was that? or perhaps Excuse me?

He said it again, a bit more slowly. Is your box not working?

At that point I was just standing there looking at him blankly. Finally I said, I’m sorry. I don’t understand the question.

Are people not putting money in the box (he pointed over my shoulder) to pay for parking? Is that why they had to get someone out here to collect money? Because your box isn’t working?

I looked over to where he was pointing and realized the “box” he was talking about was the iron ranger, the long metal tube where folks deposit their self-pay envelopes (with $5 in them) when there is no attendant on duty.

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This is the iron ranger.  The opening where the self-pay envelopes go is at the top. On the white strip below the opening are the words “Pay Here. (I took this photo.)

(The iron ranger looks absolutely nothing like any box I’ve ever seen.)

I explained to him that the iron ranger has been working fine, but attendants (like me!) collect payment during busy times.

(Actually, I’m not sure the iron ranger does work fine. I think it’s way easy for people to overlook the fee when there’s not a human person standing in front of them asking for payment.)

In any case, after he drove away, I realized I had missed an opportunity. The first time he said Is your box not working? I should have gasped How dare you! and slapped him across the face.

When I got called into the boss’ office, this would have been my story:

That man said something lewd to me, and I reacted without thinking. I know I shouldn’t have slapped him, but he was talking about my vagina! He asked me if I’m not having sex because my vagina is broken! The nerve of him!

My co-worker and I had a good laugh about the whole situation, but it’s probably for the best that I’m slow on the update and didn’t make the connections box=vagina, is your box not working=why aren’t you having sex? until after the man drove away. Slapping visitors is probably not a good way to get myself rehired next summer.

Sep14

Mouse in the House

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It was Sunday. When I arrived at the parking lot at 11AM, I discovered my co-worker wasn’t there and hadn’t been there all morning. Since he hadn’t been there to clean the parking lot restrooms, I had to do it. Having to clean those restrooms does not make me happy. Being surprised by having to clean those restroom makes me really unhappy, grumpy even.

I was bustling around, just trying to be efficient and get everything done as quickly as possible. While I was cleaning the restroom on the left, a man entered the restroom on the right. He stayed in the restroom a normal amount of time, then exited. A boy, probably his son, went in after him, also stayed a normal amount of time, then came out.

I was out of the restroom I had been cleaning and was sweeping the sidewalk when the man spoke to me. He had an accent, maybe French. He asked me if I knew there was a mouse in the restroom he and the boy had used.

I expressed my displeasure mildly. I did not scream or curse. I was thinking Why? Why? Why? I should not have been required to deal with a mouse. That mouse should have been my co-worker’s Sunday morning problem, not mine.

I heard the boy say, She’s scared.

How does he know I’m afraid of mice? I wondered at the moment. Am I acting afraid?

(Now I wonder why he was speaking English.)

Then I realized he meant the mouse was afraid.

Before I went into the restroom, I heard the boy say something something feeding. I didn’t know what in the world he was talking about until I walked into the restroom and saw in the front corner not just a mouse, but a mamma mouse nursing three babies.

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I took this photo of the mouse family. Notice the mouse shit all over the place.

I don’t like mice (or rats or gerbils or hamsters), but what was once nearly a phobia is now an aversion. I don’t think those rodents are cute or sweet or precious. I think they are vile and disease-ridden. They shit everywhere and make people sick. I worry that one is going to run up the leg of my pants in a moment of panic. (The critter’s panic would quickly become my panic if it ran up the leg of my pants.)

So when I saw the nursing mouse, my thoughts were more Ewwwww than Awwwww. The babies were not tiny and transparent as I once read baby mice described. They were big, probably one-third the size of their mother. Their eyes were still closed. and they seemed to just hang limply from their mother’s side.

The boy was right; the mamma mouse did look scared. Her eyes were huge. She looked resigned to bad things happening, as if these big children suckling from her were not only getting milk from her body, but also stripping away all of her hope. I could almost feel sorry for her, almost admit she was kind of cute, in a sad sort of way, but then I saw the mouse shit all over the floor and the shredded toilet paper they’d probably slept in the night before. I knew I was the one who was going to have to clean it up. I wondered if I’d get workers comp if I caught plague  or hantavirus from the little mousy family.

As I swooped in to pick up the shredded toilet paper, a tourist lady came over with her cameraphone to photograph the mouse family. She couldn’t stop exclaiming over how cute they were.

Oh sure, they’re cute, I said, until they give you the plague.

That thought seemed to sober up the tourist lady pretty fast.

I decided I should get my camera out of the van and take a photo of the mice too. I knew I’d write about them, so why not post a photo as well?

My van was nearby, so I wasn’t gone long. As I was returning to the building housing the restrooms, an new guy was walking up.

Don’t go in the one on the right, I screeched at the young man. There’s a mouse in there!

(I don’t know why I didn’t let him go in there and run them off.)

He said he’d heard about the mice. He wanted to take a photo too.

(Is any animal exotic if it lives in the National Forest?)

He said, Oh, they’re so cute.

Oh, sure, I said, until they defecate all over the place.

I sounded as bitter as I felt. I should get hazard pay for dealing with rodents.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to remove the mice from the corner. I had a broom and a large, blue dustpan. Should I use the broom to sweep them into the dustpan? Should I try to push the edge of the dustpan under them and scoop them up? While I didn’t like them, I didn’t want to hurt them. I’m not keen on hurting living creatures, although I will defend myself. Removing mice from a building hardly seemed like self-defense.

Because the door to the restroom was propped open, there was a large gap near the floor between the door and the wall  When I moved toward the mice with the dustpan extended, the mamma mouse fled through the gap, babies still attached to her nipples. It looked unnatural and grotesque. I guess I’ve never seen a mother run with suckling infants hanging on to her with their mouths.

I was relieved to see them go.

(I know the title of this post is misleading because the post is actually about four mice in a restroom. I opted for poetic license, since “Mouse in the House” sounds better than “Mice in a Restroom.”)