This is our last day vending at the FMCA rally, and though sales have not been what we had hoped for, they are about what we expected them to be. We have covered our expenses, and we have introduced a lot of people to the Gypsy Journal. Hopefully when they get back home or wherever they’re headed from here, they will have a chance to read it and then we’ll see a few more subscriptions come in.
As I said before, the FMCA crowd just isn’t our customer base. It seems like a lot of them spend their time in fancy RV resorts and would never think of boondocking or spending a night in a free campground in a city park, so they have no interest in the guidebooks we sell listing places like that.
I was really disappointed that last night’s scheduled entertainment, a concert by country music singer Lorrie Morgan, was cancelled due to rain. I’ve always been a big fan of that beautiful lady’s music and would have loved to see her in person.
Even if we don’t make any money at this rally, it has been worth it to see so many of our vendor friends, meet some of our readers, and make some new friends too. And I have enjoyed the opportunity to visit my old hometown.
Tuesday evening we looked up another of my childhood buddies, Gary Chandler, and his wife Karen. I had not seen them in 32 years. I managed to find their address with a Google search, but no telephone number, so we took a chance that it was the same people and drove back up to Toledo.
I would never have recognized my old friend, and he didn’t recognize me either, but once I told him who I was it was like old home week, with lots of hugs and laughter all around.
I don’t have any siblings left, so it was good to touch base with some of the people I knew way back in the day. Miss Terry never got to meet my parents, so it was nice for her to get the opportunity to see them through the eyes of my old friends. It made my heart feel good to hear them tell how much they still loved my Mom and Dad, and how they loved listening to Dad play his guitar and tell his stories from his days down on the border. My Mom wasn’t just a mother to her own children; she was Mom to all of our friends as we were growing up, too.
One person whom I would still like to find is the man who was the editor of the Toledo Blade newspaper back when I got out of the Army. I applied for a reporter’s position with the paper, and I can still see his sneer as he told me “Boy, neither you nor I will ever live long enough to see your name in print.” I don’t even know his name, but I’d love to see him someday just to say “Oh yeah? How do you like me now?”
Just as we did at the Escapade in Sedalia, Missouri, we are experiencing very poor cell phone and air card service here in Bowling Green, even though we have full bars of high speed EVDO signal. There are just too many people overloading the circuits, and it doesn’t matter if you have Verizon, AT&T or Sprint, everybody is having problems. Such is life at an RV rally.
Thought For The Day – I get enough exercise just pushing my luck.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick, I really wanted to hear you sing (like John Denver) , “Saturday Night in Toledo,Ohio…is like being no place at all…”. Glad you had the great hometown visits.
The snobby FMCA types would never see what I saw in Devils’ Tower NM, in the campground the other day when a skinny young, barefoot boy, maybe 12 yrs. old, drove the family SUV while his parents set up the tent trailer. He backed the car down the road and then into the campsite, as if it was the regular routine. Next day, the dad and boys were riding bikes downhill on the steep, narrow Tower road, no helmets of course. Just some adventurers from California, and definitely not FMCA material. Maybe Bad Nick prospects though. Enjoy the rest of your summer!