When Winnebago’s give way to stories

Ninety percent of the ten people I polled in my doctors waiting room believed that the price of gas will exceed $4.00 a gallon after the presidential election and dashed my hopes that oil prices would return to something normal—which we all know is about 30 cents a gallon. I could buy a Winnebago and drive around the country this summer and do Yellowstone National Park with air conditioning and lawn chairs under a roll out awning.

However Winnebago and RV stocks are wilting. When you sell big metal McMansions on truck chasses for as much as a quarter of a million dollars your clientele is rather select and may opt to buy a home in Cancun rather than face five o’clock traffic on an interstate.

When I was a kayaker I hated RV’s. You paddled to shore after a long day on the water only to see the campground filled with motor homes and hear the hum of air conditioners and see the flicker of TV’s sets through the windows. You would camp as far away from them as possible so as to keep yourself pure. You also learned that if you picked a good angle you could watch “ The Red Skelton” show through their windows while you ate your supper of cold Beanie Weenies.

The dream of easy travel lies deep within most Americans and once when I was 12 years old a friend invited me to go camping with his family in their Winnebago. It was wonderful to have your comic books on shelves and clothes in a drawer and you could use the bathroom all while hurtling down the highway at 60 miles per hour. I drank a lot of water for the fun of it.

Eisenhower transformed our society with the interstate highway system which was based on the assumption of cheap fuel, so we built houses with big back yards which made for long drives to the grocery store. We’ve forgotten how life looks on foot and now whenever I walk across the parking lot of a giant Wal-Mart I feel as though I’m approaching an enemy fortress
.
We shall have to entertain ourselves in other ways. I predict harmonica sales will pick up. Screened porches will come back and so will fly strips. Story telling will return as a source of amusement for people on foot. I have never told a story to a clerk at the drive-thru window but you can walk up to the check out lady at Food Lion and make small talk and learn that her grandson is in a school play and suddenly you experience fellowship and humanity. She becomes a real person to you. People who are not real to each other are dangerous. They sometimes wear bombs in their clothes or go on shooting sprees in high schools. Stories and conversation gives us feelings for each other which allows the practice of the Golden Rule and that is the foundation for a civilized society and the freedom to carry three ounces of shampoo onto an airplane.

So when gas passes five dollars and goes on to six and eight we’ll learn to sit still and tell each other stories about our lives. I’ll tell one about me and a mountain camping trip when we sat by the light of a Coleman lantern and ate fresh caught trout and the night stars listened in to our stories and we rekindle the joy of talking to each other.



And so something is lost and something is gained and we know that is the real story of our lives.