Snowbirds Guarding the Gold

"Meo r-r-r-ow!" screeched Fiesty, a pedigreed Siamese, as she buried her head under my armpit. Little did I realize then what a future mystery would be unfolding around this precious little cat.

Thunder crashed again, and Fiesty shivered deeper.

One of the wayward tree branches hit the roof of the rig with a thump, enough to make us all jump. Visions of 100 foot tall fir trees were crashing through the flimsy tin and fibreglass roof.

"It’s okay, kitty," I said, stroking her quivering fur, "I won’t let anything get you." Not quite sure if I could believe my claim.

Wife, Del who was also my lifelong best friend was saying a whispered prayer.

"Mighty severe storm," I ventured, "I’ll sure be glad to get out of here."

She continued her silent prayer, as two more fir boughs crashed onto the roof--

..oOo.. Campground Hosting

The Forest Service had outfitted me with a Smokey Bear vest and campaign hat to enhance my trash picking-up device. The "reacher" was so fine tuned that I could pick up small bits of trash and cigarette butts with little effort. I got really proficient with the device, which often accounted for an hour or more of my time on every workday.

Trying to be friendly and helpful to hundreds of dumb tourists can wear down one’s self esteem, and one day I blew it.

"What d’ya do with all those cigarette butts you’re picking up?" asked one obnoxious tourist.

"Oh, we recycle them back to the tobacco companies," I replied with a straight face.

The poor guy must have believed me, because he headed for the nearest trash can, and dumped his remaining smokes.

On another busy day I was feeling somewhat authoritative when I observed a slob pitch his finished cigarette butt into the creek.

"Go get it", I demanded, as a crowd began to gather.

"But, I’ll get my feet wet," the man complained.

"Tough", says I, "You should have known better than to litter in this stream."

To my surprise (and relief), he complied, like a puppy dog with his tail between his legs and stumbled and sloshed his way over slippery rocks to retrieve the wayward cigarette butt.

I wasn’t aware of the large crowd that had gathered on the terrace overlooking this exchange, until the loud applause began.

Looking up, I was startled to see my audience; a whole busload of Japanese tourists, who had taken in the whole event with glee. They say that Japan has never had litter-bugs.

Enough, already! This was too embarrasing--

..oOo.. Housesitting:

Everyday was an adventure in the discovery of something new, something interesting, and something not understood.

The Lewis’s had no pets; live ones, that is. But the Colonel did have one peculiar fetish; he collected Teddy Bears! Not just a few, but thousands!

In the downstairs family room there were many war momentos hidden amongst the bears. Bears covered three walls, floor to ceiling, jammed into bookshelves, sometimes three deep.

On the wall nearby were a couple of photos of the command vehicle of the Colonel’s armored unit, somewhere in the desert near the Iraq-Kuwait border. An excellent cartoon caricature near the photos showed the Colonel, a Staff officer, a Communications Sergeant, and TWENTY some-odd Teddys! In the background of the picture there’s a column of tanks following their Commander. I never did figure out how an Air Force Colonel ended up in the field, commanding a tank battalion, or what kind of a nick-name his troops must have had for him. But, we won Desert Storm!

..oOo..

The hole was covered with a small plywood door about 2 feet square, certainly not big enough to admit a fat person.

"There’s a light switch on the right side, just inside the hatch," she continued, "Then about twenty feet down the passageway, you’ll find the [bleep]--ing valve just over your head."

"Will you stay here, while I look for it?" I cautiously asked.

"What’r’ya, a [bleep] ..ing chicken?" she replied, "Okay, but just this once."

Creeping through the small opening, the crotch of my pants got caught on an unseen nail.

Rosy snickered. Working myself loose, I stood up on the other side.

"What’s all this white powder on the ground?" I asked.

"That’s lime," she answered, "Fritz spreads it around down here to discourage the [bleep] rattlesnakes."

Whoa!

The passageway was damp and narrow. I could hear water dripping somewhere. The wall on my right was the backside of the basement foundation. The floor was busted up rock of varying sizes, littered with occasional construction debris. The opposite left-hand wall was hewn out of solid rock, making the passage barely wide enough to walk through without scraping arms and shoulders on each side.

True enough, I found the valve right where she said and as I reached up over my head, Rosy shouted further instructions.

"Only turn the valve about 70 degrees, or you’ll flood out the garden, she said, "And don’t let it run for more than an hour."

Then she was gone, and I wasn’t sure whether or not she had locked me in this dungeon. And dungeon it was; I’d have to crawl in here four times each week to turn the water on, and four more times to shut it off.

Later, I told Del about the "dungeon" and offered to show it to her, but because she was still on crutches, she couldn’t yet get down the stairs. During the summer, we had several guests, including Del’s mom, who all refused to even look.

"No snake-pits for me," they’d say.

..oOo..

Out in these hills, skunks were frequent visitors. One of the reasons for this was obvious. Fritz didn’t believe in garbage service, instead, he kept digging trenches where household garbage was burned and buried. And this was a natural attraction to scavengers.

Being outside at night, it wasn’t long before the dogs got hit by a skunk. We’d hear them howling in the night and smell the results. That settled to dog poop problem for awhile, at least until Fritz returned.

One morning, Rosy, the housekeeper woke me with a knock on the door.

"They’ve killed a [bleep]--ing skunk and dragged the remains up onto the balcony," she complained, "And I don’t do skunks! Take care of it, Al!"