The Wake
I went to Shartlesville PA for an Airstream Rally. It was the first time I’ve left the pine grove, and it felt really good to get some wind under my tail, and see new things. It was even better to see my old friends from the Washington DC unit, who are a group of originals, devoted to their Airstreams, mostly vintage, and also devoted to “just camping”.
It was the installation rally, where new officers are sworn in. This is supposed to be a fairly solemn ceremony, but with this group, it involved pink feather boas and a good dosage of hilarity. The principle entertainment is Happy Hour. Most RV get-togethers have an hour of snacks and socializing over adult beverages. For the WDCU, it goes on all night, with folks leaving to find dinner sometimes, or just living on the extensive spread of finger food. We talk and talk, about our trailers and life in general, catching up with each others lives. These folks are definitely family, so it looks more like a reunion, and a reunion where you like nearly all of the people!
We went to Cabelas for something to do, and wandered around looking at mystifying products. It is hunting season soon, so the place was a camouflaged world of everything you need to hit the woods. One person chairs with a tent of camo, and two person ones, clothing of every description in patterns to match the kind of setting you need to be invisible in. There were some products to mask your scent, which is what most of our prey really use to see us coming. I wonder if they work or if the creatures laugh behind their paws at what they smell like. I don’t get the camo stuff. In the woods, if you sit absolutely still for say 20 minutes, pretty soon the creatures ignore you.
Cabelas also has a slightly weird collection of stuffed animals. These are arranged in life-like tableaux, frozen in moments, three lions chasing impala at full gallop, or two bears arguing over a fallen moose (old age probably), two lynx after a rabbit on the side of a cliff. The strangest is the deer room. I expected a lot of heads with antlers, some is good more is better, but here they have trophy heads of “non-typical” deer. These are all very strange mutations of the usual antlers, with many extra points, some pointing down, some thickened almost like moose or elk antlers. Not enough just to shoot down a big rack, but big and weird is trophy too. I was a little dismayed by the sheer number of the non typical mutants, with their little plaques and stories. It had a sort of side show element that was a little tawdry. I am happy to eat venison, might even shoot a deer if I got hungry enough, but the trophy part, I don’t get, except as a possible decorating element in an enormous castle.
On Saturday, after the installation ceremony, and a huge spread for dinner (pot luck heaven), we came back to the campfire to continue to visit and tell stories. I brought and gave away all the wine and beer from the 5th wheel, but saved Don’s big bottle of Johnny Walker Black for this moment. I quietly poured a sip for everyone, told them it was to remember him and wish him good travels. We didn’t break up the party with a toast, everyone just quietly sipped away while the campfire visiting went on its happy, aimless way. Don loved get-togethers like this, the social heart of RVing. He would not want a fuss of stopping the fun. He has never actually met any of these folks, except for John and Harley who came for a visit one day, but we are all campers, part of a grand community of folks all over this country. So it was a fitting wake for him, and a fitting end to his scotch. Well, not quite the end, I have saved about an inch for certain people I have to go see.
The complications of his estate continue to be discouraging. Not greedy family squabbles, but financial and legal oddities. The Power of Attorney his daughter had, a standard one from the law office where she works, does not cover changing beneficiaries according to the folks who hold a life insurance annuity. Don wanted it to come to me, to pay off the loan on the 5th wheel, so I could sell it. As it stands now, it goes to one daughter, not three ways as he intended before he met me. We are lawyering up on this. In addition, the bulk of his funds were in an IRA, which goes directly to his daughters, and is not considered part of his estate. This means the truck, trailer and contents, my piece of the pie, are the entire “estate” and out of this must come any outstanding bills. So I must sell it all quickly, in the Fall, in a down economy, and hope that the medical bills are covered by Medicare and his supplemental. I won’t be out of pocket, but my little fantasy of having some extra to make just traveling more possible may not come true. And the bank demands either full payment or refinancing by November 28 or they will repossess the trailer. Fortunately, the will is registered in SD, and since the estate is worth less than $50,000, no probate is necessary. Advice: you might want to be sure your estate is headed where you intend it to go. Now, today.
Going through his belongings and disposing of them is hard, discouraging work. Most of it was good and useful and treasured by him, but little of it is of monetary value. My Airstream is stuffed to the gills with things I can’t leave go of, especially all the food we bought to survive at the remote North Rim. I have never gone hungry in my life, so I have no idea why hoarding food is so hard to stop. Obviously, my primitive brain knows winter is coming.
I have no idea when I will leave here, or where I will go. Much depends on some luck with the estate, and also I have to switch from what “we” are going to do, to what “I” am going to do, what I want to do, and where.
Funny little things get to me: seeing his phone number on the dog’s ID tag. Clearing out his emergency box in the truck, relics of his 4wheeling days. Going through all his tools, which he loved to have just in case he could save the day. And suddenly, driving down the road, I realize no matter how far I go, I won’t find him.
It was the installation rally, where new officers are sworn in. This is supposed to be a fairly solemn ceremony, but with this group, it involved pink feather boas and a good dosage of hilarity. The principle entertainment is Happy Hour. Most RV get-togethers have an hour of snacks and socializing over adult beverages. For the WDCU, it goes on all night, with folks leaving to find dinner sometimes, or just living on the extensive spread of finger food. We talk and talk, about our trailers and life in general, catching up with each others lives. These folks are definitely family, so it looks more like a reunion, and a reunion where you like nearly all of the people!
We went to Cabelas for something to do, and wandered around looking at mystifying products. It is hunting season soon, so the place was a camouflaged world of everything you need to hit the woods. One person chairs with a tent of camo, and two person ones, clothing of every description in patterns to match the kind of setting you need to be invisible in. There were some products to mask your scent, which is what most of our prey really use to see us coming. I wonder if they work or if the creatures laugh behind their paws at what they smell like. I don’t get the camo stuff. In the woods, if you sit absolutely still for say 20 minutes, pretty soon the creatures ignore you.
Cabelas also has a slightly weird collection of stuffed animals. These are arranged in life-like tableaux, frozen in moments, three lions chasing impala at full gallop, or two bears arguing over a fallen moose (old age probably), two lynx after a rabbit on the side of a cliff. The strangest is the deer room. I expected a lot of heads with antlers, some is good more is better, but here they have trophy heads of “non-typical” deer. These are all very strange mutations of the usual antlers, with many extra points, some pointing down, some thickened almost like moose or elk antlers. Not enough just to shoot down a big rack, but big and weird is trophy too. I was a little dismayed by the sheer number of the non typical mutants, with their little plaques and stories. It had a sort of side show element that was a little tawdry. I am happy to eat venison, might even shoot a deer if I got hungry enough, but the trophy part, I don’t get, except as a possible decorating element in an enormous castle.
On Saturday, after the installation ceremony, and a huge spread for dinner (pot luck heaven), we came back to the campfire to continue to visit and tell stories. I brought and gave away all the wine and beer from the 5th wheel, but saved Don’s big bottle of Johnny Walker Black for this moment. I quietly poured a sip for everyone, told them it was to remember him and wish him good travels. We didn’t break up the party with a toast, everyone just quietly sipped away while the campfire visiting went on its happy, aimless way. Don loved get-togethers like this, the social heart of RVing. He would not want a fuss of stopping the fun. He has never actually met any of these folks, except for John and Harley who came for a visit one day, but we are all campers, part of a grand community of folks all over this country. So it was a fitting wake for him, and a fitting end to his scotch. Well, not quite the end, I have saved about an inch for certain people I have to go see.
The complications of his estate continue to be discouraging. Not greedy family squabbles, but financial and legal oddities. The Power of Attorney his daughter had, a standard one from the law office where she works, does not cover changing beneficiaries according to the folks who hold a life insurance annuity. Don wanted it to come to me, to pay off the loan on the 5th wheel, so I could sell it. As it stands now, it goes to one daughter, not three ways as he intended before he met me. We are lawyering up on this. In addition, the bulk of his funds were in an IRA, which goes directly to his daughters, and is not considered part of his estate. This means the truck, trailer and contents, my piece of the pie, are the entire “estate” and out of this must come any outstanding bills. So I must sell it all quickly, in the Fall, in a down economy, and hope that the medical bills are covered by Medicare and his supplemental. I won’t be out of pocket, but my little fantasy of having some extra to make just traveling more possible may not come true. And the bank demands either full payment or refinancing by November 28 or they will repossess the trailer. Fortunately, the will is registered in SD, and since the estate is worth less than $50,000, no probate is necessary. Advice: you might want to be sure your estate is headed where you intend it to go. Now, today.
Going through his belongings and disposing of them is hard, discouraging work. Most of it was good and useful and treasured by him, but little of it is of monetary value. My Airstream is stuffed to the gills with things I can’t leave go of, especially all the food we bought to survive at the remote North Rim. I have never gone hungry in my life, so I have no idea why hoarding food is so hard to stop. Obviously, my primitive brain knows winter is coming.
I have no idea when I will leave here, or where I will go. Much depends on some luck with the estate, and also I have to switch from what “we” are going to do, to what “I” am going to do, what I want to do, and where.
Funny little things get to me: seeing his phone number on the dog’s ID tag. Clearing out his emergency box in the truck, relics of his 4wheeling days. Going through all his tools, which he loved to have just in case he could save the day. And suddenly, driving down the road, I realize no matter how far I go, I won’t find him.
posted by Thistledown24 at 6:27 PM
1 Comments:
Daisy,
Thanks for your recent entries. I know that they were difficult to write and post, thanks for them.
Bill Kerfoot
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