Nobody's Nomad

Nobody’s Nomad

by

W. G. Warren

© 2015

Published by Ex-L-Ence Publishing at Smashwords.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance between the characters in this work and any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Nothing is intended or should be interpreted as representing or expressing the views and policies of any department or agency of any government, Church, or other body.

All trademarks used are the property of their respective owners. All trademarks are recognised. Links to external websites are outside of the author and publisher’s control and thus we cannot accept responsibility for their content or any changes thereto.

The right of W. G. Warren to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

TEN

FUN

WATER

STORIES

ADRENALINE

CRITTERS

PAIN

PROVIDENCE

GREED

BEHAVIOR

HOME

BEGINNING

SHARE

SURVIVE

ROGUES

SPIRITUAL

EPILOGUE

And Now

I am strong because I’ve been weak. I am fearless because I’ve been afraid. I am wise because I’ve been foolish.

PREFACE

We all have a story. Humanity is defined by their stories. When we exit Planet Earth, our legacy, written or narrated, are our stories. Whether you sat in an audience of open-minded citizens 2000 years ago or participated in the discovery of fire 20,000 years prior, your story survived. A campfire, a dinner table, a sandy beach or even battlefields are venues for a tale or two. Men, women, children, we all hunger for an awesome yarn. Be it fable, fib or fairy-tale, we could care less. Pay heed to the child, Mommy, read me a story.

This is our story. A delightful, humorous, yet occasionally dispirited comparative of then and now that explores life after a devastating loss of income – and our home.

How many like me are out there? According to news reports and the Internet, tens of thousands of hapless ex-homeowners, including their families, billet in quarters orchestrated from necessity rather than choice. According to the statistics compiled by Realty Trac, nearly twenty million home foreclosures have been reported from 2005 to 2012.

Where are these inauspicious casualties of greed and self-indulgence? Where and how do they exist? Does anyone care? Did anyone care? When Cynthia and I were foreclosed upon, no one asked the where or the how. But we asked, Where do we live? How do we pay? How will we survive this foreclosure? Perhaps more importantly, we also asked Who and where are those perpetrators that executed their sinful crimes upon us? America needs to know as well as our principled leaders, in order to prevent an additional twenty million foreclosures.

Surviving a foreclosure is a mere subplot to the true-life adventure that had to be written. With the expectation of tranquilizing my anger / ‘F’ attacks, Cynthia said, Your feelings – write them down – It’s therapeutic. I did – and could not stop.

Nobody’s Nomad describes a narrative of camp and camper woes and wows written and disclosed by those of us that experienced the adventures. Presented in the first person with no presumption of reward or recognition other than to share a great story or two, the kindred souls of campground humor conjure up their best.

Laugh your butt off, or ‘til the tears flow at the funniest RV tale ever told – a true ten on the ten-scale. Commiserate with this bamboozled author and his torment over a broken home, crippled at a truck stop with twenty or more eighteen-wheelers blessing themselves in sympathy. Shed real heartfelt tears when you meet a true American hero. Witness ‘Providence in Action’ as Cynthia and I traverse the roads to acceptance and peace . . . and unravel the significance contained in the nine profound words to weather a foreclosure.

My sole intention in this missive was to present a humorous and therapeutic release to my woeful ‘moment in time’. Yet, as I scribbled my thoughts on the computer, a little voice came from the only other room, and she said, "The whole story must be told. There are tens of thousands, and most likely millions, who have suffered a similar fate. Your story could help heal their emotional wounds. They need to know the rogues. They are still out there."

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever been in a war zone? A rhetorical question. Well, think about a movie depicting Germany’s blitz on London. That's what our camper felt like as the storm passed – violent wind, rain and wooden bombshells. It was as if the whole forest queued up and waited impatiently to regurgitate their spiny and not so spiny branches. They must have had night-vision goggles because not one sacrificial limb missed its target. Not only did we have the full stereo surround sound, but also the compatible, in sync moving and shaking.

As you might have guessed, we live in a camper. Our home. Thirty feet of highly polished birch and oak wrapped in aluminum. A birch wood beauty. Professionally restored and nearly sixty-five years old. Yes, an old timer, but it sure beats the alternative – a cardboard box. We had the Spartanette restored to the original specs years ago as our toy of choice and updated with all of the amenities of a new fiberglass travel trailer. We were thrilled with the results and enjoyed our adventures with the old gal, one week at a time. Never in a million years did we imagine two hundred and ten square feet would be the totality of our living space – forever.

Learn the proven secret to surviving a foreclosure as we lived and live it. To absolve you, the reader, of the tens of thousands of gloomy and sorrowful narratives that you have doubtlessly heard over and again, I’ll fast forward to the bottom line. My wife and I lost our income with the collapse of the real estate market. The bank foreclosed on our home, a mini horse farm in western North Carolina. Hence the camper. Hence the adventures. The bombardment of bark and branch is merely a footnote in the annals of, shall we say, excitement and uncertainty? Whether you are speeding along at sixty-five miles per or nestled in a quiet campground, camping, as we shall interpret its twenty-first century parlance, is definitely fraught with stimulation.

Stimulation indeed! Humor. A plethora of hilarious, if not shocking, tales of camp and campground satire as told by the greatest storytellers ever, we who lived and experienced them. No, we are not stand-up comics and no we do not delight in recognition or acclaim. We simply and wholeheartedly enjoy a good yuck . . . and not at the expense of others, but with the acceptance of others.

TEN

I was angry. Not because I was sitting in my skivvies viewing a zero balance checkbook. Not because I was waiting impatiently for the mailman to deliver a much desired money order. And certainly not because I have an unnatural fondness for mailmen, but because I lived in my home for more than two years and never met my mail lady.

Legs. Wow! The first indication of the mail lady was the distinctive click of the metal gate closing behind her. I turned instinctively to the window and to a most glorious sight. Legs. I saw nothing but legs. Beautiful. Curvaceous. Long, purposeful strides. She wore culottes. Short enough to encourage yet long enough to discourage. The gardenias that lined the walkway to the mailbox rudely obstructed my vision of skin and sinew that operated her comely appendages. In the nano-second that it took me to cover my tighty-whities, she had vanished. Gone in sixty seconds.

A sultry California sun filtered through the surrounding trees, as if a giant spider weaved an immense lattice of light, empowering one to lie in wait. I waited – nervously. I knew her delivery schedule. What would I say to her? What would she say to me? Maybe she has a boyfriend, or worse, married? I sat hypnotized in a fantasy world of elation peering through my living room window with the mailbox as the intended target. I daydreamed and incorporated the delusion of whisking the lovely legs, and whatever other beautiful body parts that were attached to them, far, far away. Maybe I could purchase an old travel trailer and experience a great adventure on wheels. We could explore the globe without a care in the world, I fantasized. However, despite my fanciful pipe dream and for all that I knew or didn’t know, my mail lady could have been an old, haggle-toothed witch, peppered with moles. Hey, it’s my daydream, isn’t it? Oh well, only one-way to find out.

Click. The gate.

A ten. Yes, a true ten with all the correct angles and curves in all the correct places and with all the correct dimensions and proportions. This stunning, drop-dead gorgeous lady standing before me was not a fantasy. She was real. I could reach out and touch her. Wow! We, bachelors of the twenty-first century, did not tender the ten willy-nilly. We, the Knights of nightfall, proffered the ten quite parsimoniously. It’s a before and after thing. Before the grand event they’re awarded the ten. After the honored experience, they’re usually reduced in rank. I finally corralled my green-eyed blonde mail lady and embarrassed myself with a lame excuse like, I was waiting for a money order and blah, blah, blah. Of course, I had already received it. When she said no to the money order’s arrival and no to a date, the usual reaction contracted an automatic reduction in grade.

There comes a time in every young man’s life when he deposits his narcissistic ego in a rear pocket, sucks up his self-adulation and gives it another go. Perhaps two or three more goes, even four.

Our first date provided the necessary motivation for me to maintain the current rating of ten. She suggested that we should see an artistic film. Cultural. Artsy-fartsy, as I termed it. Caligula was Hollywood’s effort to showcase naked body parts. Simply put: porn. I sat transfixed with a wide opened eye. She shuddered, paralyzed with a fixed closed eye. I believed that the current rating system should have had an added symbol: the plus (+) sign. Any woman, on their first date of course, who has the moral fiber or the strength of character to sit through a viewing of Caligula, shall be accorded the plus sign next to her assigned number on the ten scale. We could tag it the Caligula Bonus Reward.

To be fair with the male self-proclaimed scale rating system of our opposite, they also have a rating system. Although not a numbered system per se, it’s more of a lettered arrangement. Her grant to me, the letters spelled: Jerk. I matched her ten on the jerk scale. What was she thinking – my future wife.

As an impartial and unbiased judge, one cannot rely on the ten-scale even with the Caligula Bonus Reward. To find the all-inclusive standard to evaluate true love, one shall be compelled to further testing.

I purchased an old 1963 Buick Riviera, red with tan leather. To show her off, I asked Cynthia for a second date – a righteous, principled movie. She agreed.

Motoring happily along on our merry way and stressing the self-importance a wee bit, I ran out of gas, a thousand miles from the nearest service station. Okay, a thousand feet. A few curse words, nothing serious, I walked to the station while Cynthia twiddled her thumbs in the Buick. I borrowed a gasoline can from the station and filled the container. The deposit was so outrageously high I should have bought the bloody thing. I trudged back to the Buick and was about to remove the gas cap. Guess what? It’s a locking gas cap. Guess what again? Yep. I had no key. A few curse words, really serious and newly invented this time. I believed I saw a certain green-eyed blonde sink deeply into the seat as if she became a percentage of the leather.

A little known fact about old cars: When they break, their tire iron will serve as a handy multi-tasked tool.

Thankfully, I thought, we made the later movie. Cynthia gave me the wary eye. She didn’t talk much on the way. When we