Overheard

We spent another day at the National Western Stock Show yesterday with the Young-ish Adults from church. We saw a lot of what you'd expect. Livestock, mostly. Also a lot of very large, shiny, belt buckles (Cowboy bling?). We even got to go to a lama show--which was actually less exciting than it sounds (if you can believe that). One of the more droll* events was a conversation I overheard near the RV/Trailer display. A man--clearly not from these parts if I'm allowed to say so--stood there gesturing at one of the dazzling new RVs. Apparently, he was in the midst of lecturing the wide eyed children who huddled around him. The topic? The strange ways of this foreign land. "In America" he said in his thickly accented English (Een Ah-marre-eak-ah), "when you are old, you leave your family, sell your house, and buy one of these."

I only wish I had stuck around to hear the rest of that conversation. And I can't help but chuckle(inside) at the thought of my parents spending their golden years rolling across the U.S. of A at 53 mph. Dad's hunched over the wheel and Mom's playing co-pilot--reminding him of the fast food places with the cleanest restrooms between naps in her captain's chair. When they need a break, they pull into the extra long parking spaces on the "Trucks/RVs Only" side of the rest area and spend some time chatting with the Billy-Bob and the other boys while they stretch their legs (Mom doesn't care for the smoke, but can't get enough of the conversation). They spend their winters sweating in Arizona and their summers swatting mosquitoes in a commercial camp ground in the Wisconsin Dells. To pass the time they tend their portable garden, watch satellite TV, and polish their gnome collection.

Ah, yes. Only een Ah-marre-eak-ah.**

*This word brought to you courtesy of Mr. Bill Elgersma and his sophomore English vocab lists.
**Disclaimer: No offense intended here. I do consider the RV comment a rather humerous example of the the trouble with sterotypes. I'm sure the comment was not intended maliciously or to offend, and do not mean to say anything offesnive myself...