Last Weeks of May, 2010

The Second Week of May, 2010

We had to work on Mother’s Day which wasn’t bad; in fact it was nice staying busy on this day. We only had to work until 5 pm thanks to Sheila the owner letting us close shop to attend a little get-together with the other workampers and John and Donna Beddie a couple residing in the park. We had snacks but most of all we had a great time just talking amongst ourselves.

We had set up a date to go out to dinner with the Beddie’s on Monday, May 10th. Late in the afternoon around 3:45 p.m. sirens started blaring warning of tornado sightings in our county. Residents staying in the park started showing up to enter the storm shelter. I took Rhonda and Sadie to the shelter for their safety. Frank, Mike and me escorted the residents that were showing up to the shelter. Our dinner date with the Beddie’s had to be canceled until a future date. Once it started raining pretty hard and the clouds turned a dark black we all went down inside the shelter. Approximately 25 to 30 people along with about a dozen dogs went down inside the bunker type shelter. Everyone handle themselves with courtesy and dignity. It was a first for Rhonda and me to be evacuated to a storm cellar. Okay I just have to say this – “I think we are in Kansas, Toto (Sadie).

Toward the end of the second week we had a little excitement with a customer who’s RV was put in the storage area because he owed Sheila a lot of money (rent, electricity). This customer was a young and arrogant man with a bad attitude. His appearance put him probably in his mid-twenties or late twenties. He brought along a buddy as back-up. Sheila didn’t take any guff from him. She told him how much he needed to pay – and he did. He rolled his eyes and gave a few disgusted looks to his buddy, but in the end he paid up. I stayed in the office with her the entire time because I didn’t trust the young man to be there alone with Sheila. Keith (Sheila’s husband) came in shortly afterwards. We took them back to his unit. The young man backed his pickup truck toward his 5th wheel and made a mess of it. Dropping the neck down onto the bed of the truck missing the hitch altogether. He then got out and went to his door on the RV with his buddy pointing and making comment about, “how they broke into his RV.”

Keith had had enough. Now I want you to picture in your mind the Incredible Hulk. Keith turned into one but instead of turning green he turned beet red. Stepping up directly in front of this arrogant kid, Keith stood a good foot taller than him. Keith went into a rage. Spewing out a mind-numbing amount of profanities at the young man. This young man was initially very arrogant in his attitude but lost it quickly with Keith. Finally I stepped between them and placed my hand on Keith’s left shoulder asking him to calm down. The young man was thankful for my action and the voice of reason and calmness settled everyone down. In fact the young man’s voice took a softer tone with me and he thanked me. I just told him the best thing to do was to hook-up and get out of here as soon as he could. They finally were hooked up and he came over to where Keith and I were sitting in the golf-cart. He stuck out his hand, I took it in mine and he thanked me. He just looked at Keith and said nothing to him.

I turned to Keith and told him, “I don’t think he wants to talk to you.”

Keith said, “I don’t have anything to say to that #”?*##.”

I just winked at him and said, “I’m just messing with you.”

He just had this little smile on his face.

It was another paradise day in the state of Kansas. I didn’t get home until close to 7:30 pm. We then took our trusty golf-cart out to do our nightly check.

Another exciting day happened the very next day. I was awakened by a knock on our door a little after seven in the morning by a gentleman a few sites down from us. In fact, I had taken him to his site a couple of nights ago. After the torrential downpour of rain last night he informed me his jack’s on his fifth wheel had sunk into two sinkholes. I told him, I would be right down to inspect the situation. What I found when I arrived was something I hadn’t seen before.
I immediately went to Frank since he owns a fifth-wheel to ask his opinion and help concerning this situation. We then had to call Sheila since we knew she would have to be involved too. No one had ever seen anything like this before. We all had seen jack’s on a fifth-wheel sink a little into gravel, dirt and even blacktop, but nothing like these jack’s being buried so deep. Even though it was the 5th wheel owner's own stupidity for not putting blocks under their jack’s Sheila was required to pay the wrecker service to winch them up and out according to her insurance company. Everyone is in agreement that if they had taken the necessary precautions it would never have happened to them. It’s a sad commentary that the campground was considered liable, when it had no part in setting up this disaster of stupidity by the owner’s.