Garrison Keillor: The motor home fades into the sunset

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/06/18/winnebago/

The motor home fades into the sunset

There's nothing like having the freedom of the road and the comforts of home. But $5 gas is pushing the fantasy of comfortable vagabondage to the wall.

By Garrison Keillor

snip//

Five-dollar gasoline is pushing that fantasy to the wall, and it's also showing most of us that we live in communities whose design is based on the assumption of cheap gasoline -- big lots with backyard privacy make for a long drive to the grocery store. In the big old-fashioned city neighborhood, if you're bored in the evening you just stroll out the door and there, within five or 10 minutes, are a newsstand, a diner, a movie theater, a palm reader, a tavern with a bartender named Joe, whatever you're looking for.

But in the sort of neighborhood most Americans prefer, there are only a lot of houses like yours and residents who give evening pedestrians the hairy eyeball. The mall is a long hike away and it's an amalgam of chain outlets, with a vast parking lot around it. To a person approaching on foot, it feels like an enemy fortress.

So we will need to amuse ourselves in new ways. I predict that banjo sales will pick up. The screened porch will come back in style. And the art of storytelling will burgeon along with it. Stories are common currency in life but only to people on foot. Nobody ever told a story to a clerk at a drive-up window, but you can walk up to the lady at the check-out counter and make small talk and she might tell you, as a woman told me the other day as she rang up my groceries, that she had gotten a puppy that day to replace the old dog who had to be put down a month ago, and right there was a little exchange of humanity. Her willingness to tell me that made her real to me. People who aren't real to each other are dangerous to each other. Stories give us the simple empathy that is the basis of the Golden Rule, which is the basis of civilized society.

So when gas passes $5 and heads for $8 and $10, we will learn to sit in dim light with our loved ones and talk about hunting and fishing adventures, about war and romance and times of consummate foolishness when we threw caution to the wind and flung ourselves over the Cliffs of Desire and did not land on the Sharp Rocks of Regret.

I'll tell you about the motor home trip and how lovely it was, cruising the prairie at night and drinking beer, stopping by a little creek and grilling fish on a Coleman stove, listening to coyotes. The vanishing of the R.V. only makes your story more interesting. One thing lost, something else gained. Life is like that.

[midnight]

1. He is so right. On so many things.

Her willingness to tell me that made her real to me. People who aren't real to each other are dangerous to each other. Stories give us the simple empathy that is the basis of the Golden Rule, which is the basis of civilized society.

[raccoon]

2. I love Garrison Keillor's stuff. Thanks for posting. nt

[ewagner]

3. Great stuff !

It's true you know

We've physically structured our society on the automobile.....we have "sprawled" ourselves into a corner from which the only way out is a profound change in the way we do business....Cities will become much more important (and crowded) in the future.....

did I just say "future"????

How 'bout next week!

[liberal N proud]

4. Now that is straight talk, as always

Unlike the bull shit from McSame

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. Where he is probably wrong....

and I adore this man, is that it will probably mean more couch potatoes because folks wont have the money to drive to the mountains for a hike or the beach for a relaxing walk on the sand. It's meant fewer fishing trips for us....beach fishing, not boat...god forbid we could afford a boat or even gas to fill it up.

www.wearableartnow.com

[AnneD]

6. Au contraire......

I live in an RV resort. We have some tourists but as the manager says "Thank God for the residents". Many folks have downsized to RV's. It is fast becoming the vehicle of choice of the new Okies. There are Bushvilles all around. They haven't made the news much yet, but they are out there. It makes it easy to go where the jobs are and it is still cheaper than relocating the traditional way.

[DCKit]

7. I was thinking about going mobile a while back, but the lot fees were astronomical.

$40/day is nearly double my monthly expenses. How do you do it?

[AnneD]

9. When hubby and I put it to pencil and paper.......

it was the cheapest way we could live in Houston. We payed 3k cash for our RV so we own it outright. We rent the lot space monthly (includes water) and pay for electricity. It is cheaper that way. There are more amenities than I can shake a stick at AND this place is 16 mi round trip from my job and 4 mi round trip for hubby. We come in at under $550 a month (utilities and all). We can't even touch a cheap apt for that in this area that you could live in safely. Even putting the furniture and household stuff in storage for a while still puts us under in under local rent costs...a house in this area is beyond our reach. We are close to retirement so we are paying off debt and saving to pay cash outright for a house in an affordable area of the country. Because we already have an RV, we can go anywhere to find our homestead.

We are so happy with this arrangement. We can afford the gas price hikes (although we cut down and hubby rides the bus anyway) and we can afford the cost of living increases because we live under our means and made adjustments last year to move closer in. We started thinking of ourselves as a business and just reduced our overhead. As small and humble as it is, we are very happy and sleep well at night in our little RV.

[27inCali]

15. Some American's still have that sense of adventure

what's become of us?

[AnneD]

16. Sadly,

some folks have. I got that restless spirit naturally. Indian on one side and pioneer on the other-just come by it naturally I guess. My friends never got over the fact that I as a single mom, I took my daughter , pack my household and moved to a small rural town in the mountains of NM. If I hadn't remarried, I might still be there today. Best thing I ever did for us. That was a REAL adventure. Hubby is from India and is just as game for an adventure as I am. We we die, we will have used this life well.

[windoe]

8. Thanks for your post AnneD

I may very well live in an RV soon too, you have helped me out today. I am now checking into this option because I have to downsize, relocate and look for a job soon. I have little resources and this sounds good right now. The very first RV site I went to was from the state I want to go to!!
Boy do I have a lot to learn, Peace, "Windoe"

:)

[AnneD]

10. Good luck....

and research things well. We got a fifth wheel but if I had to do it over again I would get a class C trailer (a converted van)-we may do a trade in for that eventually. Now THAT is really thinking outside the box.

[windoe]

11. Class C's are what I am looking at

not sure what brands are better than others, will have to really research this. Plus there was a comment about $40/day lot fee? I am hoping to find better than that, or maybe I'm dreaming again.

[AnneD]

12. Look around......

you can find spots, but with a class C you have lots of options. Spots usually tend to be outside the city-we were lucky.

[windoe]

13. Even better,

I would prefer the outskirts anyway. I hope to have the $$$ to check it out in person before the actual move. Thanks for being there :)

[Cha]

14. That's right..motor homes might

go the way of the dinasaur unless you have a lot of money to keep it fed.

Maybe our neighborhoods will come around again like the old days. At least New York City dwellers don't have this worry about:)

[paparush]

17. America is learning that driving is a privilege..not a right.

United States of Denial

[yurbud]

18. motor homes will survive as the shelter of last resort (before you sleep under the bridge)