Michigan

Cousin Eddie Visits His Cousins

One more thing about Stoughton, Wisconsin. It's a beautiful town. The shops are charming and the people are friendly. I'm looking forward to returning next year. We also had our best cat show ever, for the first time over $500. I assured each shopkeeper who spoke to us that we'd return next year.

    The next plan is to visit my cousin, Joe. We can't wait to drive up his driveway in Orchard Park, Michigan, announcing, "Merry Christmas. Shitter was full!"
    Joe lives about 450 miles east of Stoughton. We took the town historical walking tour on Monday morning, then headed east. Tomorrow, we'll spend the day in a campsite in Augusta, Michigan, where Freddy can fish all day and Diane can do the laundry and I can do whatever odds and ends need doing on the camper. We'll get our money's worth by staying until noon Wednesday, then get to Joe's house Wednesday evening.
    But first, we had to get through Chicago. Oh, Chicago. Driving through Chicago makes driving through New York sound like a treat. We tried to bypass downtown by taking a toll road. Every couple of miles, we had to pay another fifty cents. I didn't mind the money as much as the traffic--after every toll booth, six or eight lanes had to merge into three--and half the vehicles were sixteen wheelers. By the time we had done all our merging and the traffic started to move again, we had to spread out for another toll. This went on, over and over, taking hours, until we finally reached Gary, Indiana, and the traffic eased up.
    We couldn't find any Super WalMarts, and worse, no rest areas that would allow us to dump our holding tanks. Diane found a small, inexpensive campground near Lake Michigan called, I kid you not, "The Star of David Campground." Looks like we went from a Norwegian town that was 90% Lutheran to a Jewish campground. I never heard of any campground having a religious preference, before. A Jewish campground? But they don't have room service in campgrounds. Okay, I'm sorry. That one just slid out, like a Kosher pickle in wax paper from a New York Deli.
    Actually, we decided to tough it out and stop at a regular WalMart instead, hoping to save water by flushing every second time, and bathing with handiwipes. I just didn't want to pay for a campgound just to spend the night, especially when we were spending all day Tuesday at a more expensive campground, anyway.
    So here we sit, hoping we won't be attacked by marauders in the middle of the night, as we sit watching "Once Upon a Time in the West," and sipping our souvenir Amana Colonies raspberry wine.

    Next morning, as I sat in the handicapped bathroom at Walmart, I remembered something I had neglected to record. It was at some forgotten Walmart someplace. I always use the handicapped stall in the lavatory because there's much more room there for my fat, albeit thinner than usual, ass. Also, a lot of handicapped bathrooms have their own sinks, so one can easily lave there as well.
    Anyway, like Elvis, I took care of business, then I reached to the wall for the toilet tissue. There wasn't any dispenser on my right, where they always are. I looked around. Where is the toilet tissue? Suddenly, I found it, on my left, way on my left, far away out of reach on my left. I couldn't reach the tissue from my position on the commode. I had to stand up, feeling squishy and yuuchy, and hop over to the tissue dispenser, fearing that walking a few steps might make things squishier and yuuchier.
    As I did that, happy to learn there was a sink inside the stall where I could wash, I began to think of the handicapped people for whom this lavatory stall was actually intended. I'm a little over 6'1" tall, and couldn't reach the wall. How did they reach the tissue? How many handicapped visitors to this WalMart had to hop or roll, or perhaps even crawl over to Mecca, where the toilet paper had been fastened, tantalizingly out of reach? And how squishy and yuucky did they get?
    WARNING TO ALL: If you ever use a handicapped bathroom, be sure to check the position of the tissue dispenser BEFORE you sit down!

    We had three minor disasters Friday morning. First, as we left WalMart, we realized the exhaust pipe on the generator had broken loose. I had some bolts I had bought for another problem, so I was able to fix it, although I wish it hadn't been raining when I had to crawl under the car, and I wish I had a couple of washers. It will probably break again.
    Second, my directionals capacitor burned out. It took awhile to find an auto parts place. I was a little nervous about it, afraid that it was something other than the capacitor, so I asked the guy about it. He said, "Unless there's a problem in the wiring, this should do it." Thanks, Buddy. Fortunately, the problem was fixed for $1.95.
    Later, when we stopped at a campground and turned off the engine, it didn't want to start up. I turned the key--nothing happened. We had a moment of pure panic. I tried several times--nothing. Then, I took out the key and put it back. The car started up fine. Thank Goodness for that one. It seems the repairs lately have cost about five bucks. Now, let's hope it stays that way.

We spent Tuesday, as planned, at a really nice campsite in Augusta, Michigan, called Shady Bend Campground, to relax for a day and catch up on some needed showers and a shave for me. You can only go so many days washing in the style of--well, the cowboys used to call it a whore's bath--I guess you can figure it out. In addition to getting us clean again, the campground is probably one of the nicest spots we've ever stayed. It has two ponds and is surrounded by a stream, the Kalamazoo River, Diane said. Campers are all parked facing the pond, or on the other side of a narrow dirt street, facing the river. It's really beautiful. Freddy fished all day, but didn't catch anything worth talking about. Still, he had fun.

At night, Freddy made a nice fire and we gathered around it with some of that wine from Amana--straight for Diane, a spritzer for me--and listened to music from my mp3 player. I've got just about all my favorite songs on it--with the Broadway stuff separated from the Pop because I'm the only one in my family that goes for Broadway songs. As we sat by the fire, we were attacked by mosquitoes--first one or two, then five or six at a time. We gathered closer by the fire, but it didn't help much. Diane was worried that a spark might ignite her hair. We toughed it out for a few hours, trying to be good parents while Freddy fished, but eventually had to run inside and cover our bloated legs with Benedryl. Sleeping tonight may be a bitch.
We're about a hundred miles from Joe's house. We'll sleep late tomorrow and be there in the afternoon.

Orchard Lake:
The poor relatives pulled into Joe's driveway about 2:00. The trip was without incident. We had a delightful time catching up with Ann, hearing about her trip to Las Vegas, and swapping stories. Ann told Freddy about the horrible time they had with gophers, who keep digging huge holes in her lawn and destroying her flowers. It's against Michigan state law to relocate the gophers to another yard, so all Joe can do is humanely destroy them in an electrocution cage designed by a thoughtful relative on Ann's side of the family.
We named the gopher John Coffey, because we had heard the audio book version of THE GREEN MILE on our way east from Denver. This is John Coffey:

    After dinner, as the sun began to set, having completed a last meal of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and ochra, John Coffey was carried over the green mile (Joe's lawn) in a wheelbarrow, to his final cage, the one Joe calls "Old Sparky." We weren't able to shave his head, for the sponge, so Joe wet him down with the garden hose, as Freddy (or should we call him Percy?) gleefully waited to pull the switch.
    "Pull it," cried Joe, as he tried to hose Coffey over to the metal plate.
    Suddenly, Coffey hit the steel plate. His whole body went rigid, the hairs of his pelt standing on end making him look like a porcupine with his back arched liked a Halloween Cat. He tried to move off the plate at the first shock, but the electricity drew him back and held him as his body deflated, and his soul flew to its rest in the arms of his gopher God, forever to dig holes and destroy flowers in Beastatory.

After a respectful service, during which Joe pitchforked Coffey into the tall grass where his body would serve as fodder for hungry animals who treat Joe's lawn kindly, we went back inside and had a delightful dessert of delicious brownies topped with ice cream and hot chocolate sauce, served with very tastey coffee, and continued to tell stories of other adventures we've had in our travels.
And I told Freddy he better not dig any holes in Ann's lawn, no matter how many night crawlers he finds.

CHAPTER TEN