Teaming up with a Bear in the Laundromat

It has been a long time since I've come out of a store with a big smile on my face. The Western Drug and General store in Springerville AZ was really too big to call a general store. It was really a home-grown department store of a type you probably thought extinct. Now I know what you're thinkin': that I'm about to use the cliche, eclectic, to describe it. But 'eclectic' usually implies gifts, souvenirs, or cyootsie-wootsie junk that appeals to women. Instead, the store had an excellent selection of practical goods.

The store reflected the local character of Springerville, the capital of Arizona's White Mountains, by having an excellent collection of camping supplies, hunting and fishing equipment, etc. I've had a running argument (a joke actually) with a fellow camper about how easy it is to buy 3/4" wide Arno straps and Benchmark or DeLorme atlases. She contends that these items are so exotic that they can't be gotten in a small western town, but of course I saw both in this wonderful store.

Off to the laundromat I went. If an RVer had to choose his favorite errand, what would he choose: 1) dumping his tanks with a leaky hose and cuts on his hands, or 2) doing laundry at the average laundromat? Answer: #1. Why? Because it's cleaner and all the signage is in English. So when I slid my quarters into the first washer and nothing happened, I rolled my eyes and then sighed. What else is new?

But in fact something was. A big burly bear of a man was putting the finishing touches on six loads of laundry. His baritone voice boomed over the squeaks and rattles of dilapidated laundromat machines. Few people would have been able to resist the energy and charm of this man. He works much of the year in the oil fields of North Dakota.

We seemed to connect on the subject of outdoor "fashions", if you can believe that. I told him how much time I had spent in the photo-camera (speed-trap) capital of northern Arizona, Show Low, trying to buy a long-sleeved, pocket T shirt in order to keep the deer flies and broiling sun off my arms. He agreed that long sleeve shirts were best for an outdoor worker. Then we moved on to outdoor fabrics in general. (This wasn't the stereotypical example of male-bonding, taking place over a brewski while arguing about the upcoming football season, but it worked.)

We talked about his industry, the pay scale, and how cold it got in mid-winter. We both got laughing when he talked of former computer-oriented, office workers trying to make it in the oil fields of North Dakota. Clearly he was hitting his stride now. He even mentioned that he good-naturedly and helpfully warned them that they probably wouldn't last three days.

There is no federal judge in Eugene OR who has offered an ever-expanding interpretation of the Endangered Species Act to "protect" a specimen like this man. I didn't think that such men still existed in a unisex culture of metropolitan and suburban cubicle drones. During the westering of a younger and more energetic America, there must have been many such men 'of the big shoulders,' building canals and railroads, felling white pines in Michigan and floating 'em down the Manistee, or working in the steel mills and stockyards.

Off I went, back to camp in the high country. Perhaps I was still under the charisma of that big ol' bear when I got back to my "community". There's something about that word that makes me feel uneasy. What is it exactly? Is it redolent of Hillary Rodham's "It Takes a Village?" What if we held hands in a circle while singing "If I had a hammer, I'd...", hugged trees, or had drum circle on a full moon?

But earlier in the morning, before the trip into Springerville, I'd offered to take trash in for other people, and fill up water jugs. The blue jugs of one fellow slid easily into a storage area in my cargo van, since I have it set up for the same blue jugs. Laugh if you will but this was so satisfying! It evoked an image from the semi-classic movie, "True Lies," when Tom Arnold reminded Arnold Schwarzenegger of something, and Arnold said, "What a TEEEAAAM!"

Team. It's a guy word. And that changes a lot.