Hand Signals
Mom, Dad, Kid, Grandpa and dogs Scout and Sparky arrived at Deadwood Reservoir around noon. They had the bare essentials: Ford pickup with camper shell trailering a motorboat, Isuzu Rodeo pulling a pop-up tent camper, fishing poles, and at least three coolers full of ice, food, pop, beer and worms.
The day they arrived I was doing my chore, which was to swim a little and sit to watch the day pass on the reservoir. I was riding my bicycle from Challis to Boise on backroads. Bart, my dog, ran alongside the bike and he was having a rest day after a 20-mile run from Bear Valley. This was the first place we’d been in over a week where we could sit without being swarmed by mosquitoes and horseflies. We were hanging out in a clearing between two established campgrounds. I didn’t need a picnic table or fire pit since there was just me, my dog, a bicycle and whatever gear panniers could hold.
Mom and Dad walked through to find a suitable site. Dad wanted a campsite farther south, but Mom insisted on this one. She told him to stay there while she got the Rodeo.
“I’m driving,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” she said.
“This is a hard place to park with the tent trailer.”
“I know. That’s why I should do it.”
They bickered a bit more. I guess tossing a coin was out of the question.
Mom finally caved, so Dad pulled in with the Rodeo and tent trailer while Grandpa followed pulling the motorboat. Scout and Sparky barked nonstop inside the Ford’s camper shell.
Kid, about eight years old, popped out from Rodeo and Mom yelled, “You put your hat on right now!”
She pulled out one of those sun-is-lethal kind of hats, with not only brims front and back but flaps shading the ears and back of the neck from ever seeing a ray of sun.
As Dad brought the Rodeo and trailer in, Mom took charge of navigation. “Turn left, no, now go right.”
“I did turn left.”
“I said right. Watch it, don’t go so fast. For Christ sake, you’re going to hit it. STOP! I said to keep that hat on and get it out of the dirt!”
“What hat?”
“Oh no, look, oh no, this is awful.”
From the south arrived another driver wishing to trailer a boat coming off the lake. Grandpa was blocking the ramp as he waited for the Rodeo to get situated. Judging from the string of profanities launched from Mom’s and Dad’s mouths, this was cause for hysteria.
Grandpa didn’t understand the new guy wanted to back into the ramp, so Grandpa pulled forward, still blocking the ramp, thinking the other rig wanted to pass. This sent Dad into new levels of profanity, punctuated with the repeated line, “What the fuck is your dad doin’?”
Mom’s answer to Dad’s rhetorical question was to run straight in front of Grandpa’s moving Ford, wave her arms and shriek, “No Daddy!”
Dad jumped out of Rodeo and yelled at Grandpa. “No fucking way. Back up. Back the fucking truck up.”
“HAND SIGNALS, honey! I told you to use hand signals. He can’t hear you!”
Not being an expert, I wondered if there was a sign for all those cuss words or if they had to be finger spelled.
Eventually they got the vehicles where they wanted them. After the other rig had trailered its boat, Grandpa put the family’s boat in the water without too many hand signals.
Mom announced, “No one’s going anywhere until camp is struck!” and set to bombing the area with bug dope out of a pressurized can. The mist carried all the way to Bart and me.
Dad ran to Kid and said, “Honey close your eyes when Mommy’s spraying the poison.”
Once the alleged bugs were bombed, they let the dogs out. Scout was a Golden Retriever and Sparky a Dalmation. They barked a lot. Mom answered each of their barks with, “Stop that! No barking, I told you! Do you want mommy to put on the muzzle?”
Scout wouldn’t listen to Mommy so got the muzzle.
Tired of laying around, Bart and I took an afternoon run and ride to check out the scenery. We came back to an empty camp (the family was out on the reservoir) save for muzzled Scout and Sparky. Their apparatus didn’t keep them from barking, but it did change the tone to one of a squeaky mmph, mmph. Bart entertained himself by walking by a few feet short of their chain lengths as they frantically mmph, mmphed and lunged to get him.
After the boat docked for the evening, Mom set to spraying more bug dope. Dad told her to stop, said it was carcinogenic. Mom put the can away and brought out a fly swatter. She spent several minutes whacking rocks and dirt and exclaiming each time, “Ooh, did you see that one?”
Later, once she was done hunting bugs, she turned to cooking. Whatever they were having for dinner took hours to prepare, possibly because she kept stopping to wield the swatter, remarking each time how big that one was… almost got her that time.
Dad yelled every two minutes “Shut up Sparky” or “Shut up Scout” About every tenth time Dad yelled, Mom would stop stirring up dinner and muzzle one of them.
Grandpa took a nap and Kid stayed inside the pop-up tent.
Just before dinner was done it was time to feed the dogs. Mom walked out with dishes, took the muzzle off Sparky and spoke lovingly to the excited animals, “Here’s Mommy with your yummy food. Mmm, mmm. Can you speak? No yummies until you speak for Mommy.”
I squeaked as if muzzled.
After dinner Dad wanted to build a campfire in one of those industrial half-buried metal cans surrounded by three yards of concrete to prevent any sparks shooting out onto the barren trampled dirt.
Kid, who was excited about the prospect, ran to the tent and announced, “Mommy, we’re having a campfire tonight.”
“You tell Dad to move the Rodeo first.”
Dad overheard and yelled back “It’s fine where it’s parked.”
“Oh no. Sparks might peel the paint.”
“I’m sure it’s OK.”
Dad took off with Kid to gather wood.
This gave Mom an opportunity to speak with Grandpa about the impropriety of lighting a fire within a quarter mile of the Rodeo.
“I’m wondering if the Rodeo is too close to the fire. Don’t you think it should move?”
“What’s on fire?”
“IT’S TOO CLOSE TO THE FIRE.”
“What fire?”
“DON’T YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE MOVED?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
I’m not sure if Grandpa was purposefully indifferent or couldn’t catch the gist of things without hand signals.
Dad built a fire after dinner with Mom keeping a close eye on the Rodeo. She complained every few minutes about the sparks or the size of that last bug she whacked, but Dad ignored her, only saying “Shut up Sparky... Shut up Scout” every now and again. Kid and Grandpa roasted marshmallows.
They finally went to bed, and I relaxed in my bedroll and was dozing off until the young neighbors (mid-twenties) on the other side of me turned on the boombox. While not irritating, it did make me wonder why they were playing ‘70s music instead of what was popular in the 1990s. Shouldn’t they be eschewing my generation’s music?
I got up early and Grandpa was already sitting in a camp chair drinking coffee. I caught his eye and we shared a friendly wave.
I took off before nine, hoping to escape the heat while grinding up Scott Mountain. Before my trusty dog and I were two hours on the road, the Rodeo and Ford roared past. By my estimation, the family spent 21.5 whole hours in camp. Probably took longer to pack all that gear.
Bart and I made it over the mountain and down to the Payette River where I found a quiet little spot overlooking the river near an abandoned gravel pile. There were no amenities, which guaranteed we’d have no neighbors for the night. The bugs weren’t bad and the silence was welcome.