Common Sense and the Camper

One of the great benefits of my parent’s cross-country camping trip was that they had the opportunity to share their cab-over camper for three weeks with two hormone-ridden teenage girls.  For some reason, they’d taken leave of their senses and forced my sixteen-year-old sister Marilyn to accompany them, though she could have stayed with either me or Phyllis, either of whom were as married and dull as Mother and Daddy ever thought of being.  They sweetened the pot by letting her friend Rhonda who became every bit as unpleasant as Marilyn after a few snug hours together.

In the way of teenagers everywhere, the girls snored snugly in their bunks all day as the camper passed the glorious sites of the Americas.  As a result, both were wide-awake and ready to go when they stopped to make camp every evening.  At an RV camp in Las…

Daddy had come into some money, so he immediately set to thinking what he had to spend it on.  That was the way he thought.  If you had money, you had to buy something.  He finally settled on three things:  a big Ford Truck, the biggest cab-over camper it could carry and a fine Ford tractor.  The total of these items was three times his windfall, but that was the way he did things. Angered at the amount he’d spent, Mother ordered six pair of slacks and matching blouses from Montgomery-Ward.  He raged at her extravagance.   That was also the way they did things.

Anyway, back to the truck and camper.  They set off on the typical American road trip.  Daddy quickly found the big camper, though rated for that truck, was really too big and made the truck hard to handle.  Even passing eighteen wheelers buffeted it about on…