Nilda’s Nook: Ideas and Subjects

As I mentioned in my last post, today we will be dicussing with you, what I will be writing about in Nilda’s Nook. I.M. has taken pains to point out to me that because he writes about our day to day life, I should concentrate on more general subjects, particularly ones that would appeal to women. I think, dear readers, that we both know that I.M. hardly ever writes about our day to day life, so I will try to write about those experiences from my perspective from time to time as well, but for now it is enough just to be writing.

Before I get into the subjects that I think you might find interesting, let me say that any ideas you may have regarding what you would like me to cover in my writings would be most appreciated. It is understandable that you would be curious as to how people so different as I.M. and I are could come to share a life with one another. I know I.M. has mentioned the possibility that he may cover that subject, but even if he does, you would no doubt appreciate hearing about it from my point of view.

I.M. has also never written about what transpired during the time we were preparing to leave the Gulch after making the decision to live our new life. Neither has he detailed just how he converted Ol’ 5th into our home on wheels. While it may not be my place to write about what transpired during those times, I certainly think you would find them most interesting. I know that I certainly did as I lived them.

Perhaps you would like to know what was going through my mind when I.M. first proposed leaving the Gulch and our life there, behind. I will certainly confess to being one of those ifnsheels that I.M. just wrote about. Perhaps I could write about the fears and frustrations that seem to go hand in hand with life on the road, which is really learning to expect the unexpected and to accept it.

I.M. says I should just put my ideas in a jar, reach in, pull one out, and write about whatever it may be. Perhaps for my first post I shall write about living with someone whose idea of planning is doing whatever he just thought of, which is something that I will never get used to, but also wouldn’t have any other way. Or maybe I will just follow I.M.’s suggestion, so until next time, take care.

Lem: Time to Eat

As it were told, Lem and Clara Belle both had a most amazin’ time that weekend, Lem amazed that they had arrived in one piece, and Clara Bell amazed at the number of stores there was to shop in, meanin’ Lem spent his time with all the fellers at the camperground while Clara Belle were spendin’ money at all them stores.

It were while Lem were a chewin’ the fat with the fellers in the afternoon that he learned of the gosh darnedest thing, which to him sounded like it were just like what him, Clara Belle and the horde had gottened into some weeks past, but all over again. Them fellers was a sayin’ there was some kind of school goin’ on where folks that didn’t know nothin’ about the RV life, as they put it, was bein’ trained up on a bunch of information, most of which was somethin’ they’d either never use or not remember when the time come to use it.

Lem were still smilin’ about them tales when Clara Belle come back all exhausted from her shopping extravaganza. It didn’t take Lem long to total up all them receipts and realize two things. The first being that there had been so much shoppin’ on Clara Belle’s agenda that she weren’t in no condition to cook Lem’s dinner. That would have been okay except that those fountains the kids was playin’ in that had sprung up the night Lem arrived, had also flooded out the camperground gatherin’ area, so this weeks pot luck were canceled.

That were how they ended up at the local pizza place where they not only had a good time, but Lem were able to mooch them a meal, which he needed to do on account of Clara Belle spendin’ all their money at shoppin’. It had turned out that a bunch of folks from that school was there and as soon as Lem learned it, he used that knowledge he had learned at that earlier rally to start wowin’ folks. Them not knowin’ he were not a teacher, but thinkin’ he were, one of them folks offered to buy Lem and Clara Belle’s meal fer them, which just about burst Lem’s buttons.

As they was standin’ in line, Lem was hearin’ the conversin’ goin’ on ahind him, and he heard a feller askin’ another feller if’n he learned much at the school. Then that feller were a mentionin’ bout how little the teachers was paid, an afore Lem knowed it, the other feller were a offern’ to buy the teacher feller and his wife their meal. Lem thought that were pretty slick, but it were even more surprisin’ when Lem turned around and found hisownself staring at that feller that were the king of meal moochers from that earlier rally. All of which made Lem feel real good, knowin' that he had mooched his meal afore the king of the meal moochers did.

Ifnsheels, The RV Series 005

In this series of posts, I.M. bringin’ y’all the basics of the RV mobile, mobile home life. and pursuiting that goal, here is the otheside ofthe ifnheel, the ifnseel. I.M. has read that life are supposed to be much like a bell curve, and on account of him not knowing exactly what that are, but asumin’ it has somethin’ to do with the shape a woman seems to take on as she gets older, I.M. gonna use it to illustrious this concept of the ifnsheel.

As before, I.M. wants y’all to know that just like ifnheels, ifnsheels can come in lots of different variations, so don’t be all that surprised if’n y’all see someonebody yer a knowin’ in these writin’s, even if thy don’t exactly match up to the way I.M. are puttin’ it. Realize that when yer faced with an ifnsheel y’all gots a problem, but to understands what yer reelly a lookin’ at, it are better to look at the originations of a ifnsheel first.

There were a time when y’all were a lookin’ at each of the other of you, all moonie eyed and pie faced. It were a time when y’all couldn’t git enough closedness of each other and separation were painful in more ways than one. Then ya’all probably gots that piece of paper that made it official that ya both were one and you plunged right into that there life a tryin’ to make the two of ya, three or more. Fer most of y’all it weren’t long afore young’uns was a squirtin’ out like seeds from a mouthful of watermelon.

Now much as you would like to thing life were nothin' but a bed of roses, just like with roses, there were a thorn or two that sprung up. Maybe it were the mashe taters. She were brung up that them taters weren't not no good unless the skins was left on, while he were brung up to think that the devil incarnate and all the bad he had would be descendin' on yer home if there were on fleck of skin in them taters. In other words, there was some slight misunderstandin's that were happenin' twixt the two of ya which would manifest itself in the form of the ifnsheel in a few years.

Lem: Camping Experiences

The unfortunate part are that Lem never did write anything about that drive down to that camperground, though I.M. figuring that at the next family reunion there will be somethin’ told that one cousin or another will be lettin’ me and Nilda know about. What were wrote was that when they arrived at the camperground Clara Belle headed directly to the ladies room, where she stayed fer quite some time while Lem took care of the registerin’ and tryin’ to get set up.

I.M. thinkin’ even though Lem left out so many particulars of what happened, that between the mention of Clara Belle and the ladies room and Lem usin’ the word “tryin’” to describe getting’ set up, it don’t take no genius to fill in a blank or two. Lem did let slip that them two fellers helpin’ him back into the camper sight knowed even less than Lem did about it. Not oly that, but it appears the registration lady were getting’ concerned about the mob of folks that were gatherin’ around Lem, and what with him havin’ knocked over every utility post in sight, she were concerned that all them folks were next on Lem’s list of things to hit.

Then just as Clara Belle come out of the ladys room, the registration lady reassigns them to a long pull through site screechin’ at Clara Belle to tell Lem to just drive down the middle of the road, and whatever he does, don’t back up no more. Clara Belle not knowin’ what Lem had been a doin’ to the camperground, weren’t sure why that lady were so upset, but still, she told Lem just what the lady said.

It weren’t too long afore they was set up, and watchin’ all the family fun at the camperground. Clara Belle were a little disappointed that the nightly camperfire had to be cancelled on account of wet grounds, but she said it were just as much fun watchin’ all the kids playin’ in the water fountains that was sprayin’ up into the air around where Clara Belle thought the lady had told her that they would be stayin’ when she made the reservation. Still Clara Belle weren’t unhappy since them kids had such a big area to play in even if it where uneven, havin’ tire ruts runnin’ every which way in it.

Lem: First RV Trip

So it were with much happiness that Lem and Clara Belle set out on their inaugural expedition in that mobile, mobile home, a windin’ their way down towards the big city and a weekend of wedded bliss, or at least that were what Lem were thinkin’. One thing that Clara Belle did were to book them into a camperground fer the weekend so they wouldn’ be a gittin’ there and havin’ no place to stay.

She had first looked at the local Kind Of Awful camperground, but upon hearin’ so many folks havin’ had the exact experience it were a promotin’ by the way it were named, she decided to loook elsewhere. Plus she were already feelin’ lonesome fer the horde even though her and Lem weren’t leavin’ on this trip fer a couple of weeks, so she found a camperground to stay at with the word Family in its name.

Fer someonebody who had never afore even stayed so much as one night in a mobile, mobile home, Lem said the expereince of stayin’ in one that actually had the wheels on it were right up there with the time Clara Belle had Jimmy Jack, him makin’ the horde an even dozen and all. Now Lem’s pickup truck didn't have much pickup to it, but he weren’t a worried cause it were mostly all down hill from where they was to where they was a goin’. And Lem bein’ one of the smarter fellers in the family, knowed that getting’ it slowed down weren’t no problem either.

Seems like Clara Belle were concerned with runnin’ out of things durin’ this extensive two day trip and consequentially had loaded it with enough fer a month or more. It were so overloaded that when Lem hitched it up, its tongue were lookin’ more like that of a hound that had been runnin’ round in circles fer most of the day. The backend of that truck were so far down, meanin’ the front end were so far up, Lem was a worried he’d have to put on a set of helper wheels on it just to steer it. Can’t y’all just imagine them two headin’ down off the Gulch with not much in the way of brakes and even less in the steerin’ department.

Something from Lem

Y’all might recall I.M’s cousin Lem, he of Clara Belle and the horde that I.M. wrote about some weeks distant, and it are okay if’n y’all don’t cause yer gonna learn more about Lem today. The last time Lem were on these pages he were a sendin’ dispatches from the front where sneakin' into an RV rally where he were perfectin' the art of meal moochin’ while honing his skills at the foot of the world’s foremost meal moochin’ expert. Now it happens that just the other day Lem were good enuff to send I.M. an update on what he were a doin’ in hisownselfs life, and I.M. thinkin’ all y’all mite be interested in what it were.

After Lem, Clara Belle, and the horde left that rally and returned to Kentucky to pursuit their unusual way livin’, Lem gots to talkin’ to his down creek neighbor about a immobile, mobile home that were a sittin’ unused out back behind that fellers outhouse. Seems Lem had set in on a class at that rally that were called, near as Lem could remember, Pickin’ the right mobile, mobile home fer yer fulltime life. What Len tooked away from that were that fact that when y’all sees it, y’all will know it, and this were it.

It took Lem some time to get it hauled over to his place and fixed up the way Clara Belle wanted it, Lem keepin' in mind these words from that class: If mamma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. All this are quite a story and with the voluminous material Lem has sent to I.M., it will make fer some interestin’ blog posts some day. But that ain’t what this are all about so we is fast forwarning you, to what Lem learned on his first outing in what was at that time, his brand new to him, mobile, mobile home.

Clara Belle, always wantin’ to spend a weekend in the big city, had connived Lem into doin’ just that fer their first trip, even though Lem were not exactly enthusiastically receiving what Clara Belle were a tellin’ him. That howsoever changed right quick when Clara Belle let Lem know that her sister was gonna be taken care of the horde so Lem and her could have the entire weekend all to they themownselves. As Lem put it in his email, he were beginnin’ to see what so many folks was seein’ in this mobile, mobile home kind of life.

Questionable Questions for I.M.

Sometimes I.M. gets questions that don't fall into what could be called the normal course on human events or something like that. Howsoever, the fact that someonebody actually asked a question like this helps the reeders of this blog understand just what they might be meetin' in the camperground when they starts talkin' to their neighbor.

Should I buy a motorhome or a 5th wheel?

Fer the life of hisownself, I.M. can not believe that folks actually ask questions such as this. The best answer I.M. can think of is, no. Now if’n you had said, driving a big vehicle like a motorhome frightens me and it scares me silly to pull a trailer, do you think I should buy a motorhome or a 5th wheel? The answer would be easier, and would be, no. If you said, my wife likes to sleep when we are traveling, but when we arrive she is always complaining about my driving being too wild. Would it be better to buy a 5th wheel or a motorhome, the answer would be no. If you said, we have looked into both 5th wheels and motorhomes, but while I like motorhomes, my wife doesn’t. However she really likes the room in 5th wheels but we have always liked to stay in walk-in back country campgrounds. Meaning I appreciate the maneuverability of a motorhome. Do you think we should buy a motorhome or a 5th wheel, the answer would be no. I.M. writin’ all this in this here answer just to point out that there ain’t no such thing as a dumb question, but there sure are some incapably dumb folks a askin’ them questions, just as there are some intelligent folks with the patients of Job a tryin’ to answer them, like yers truly.

Living in our stix and brix we have often bought things online. Is there anything special I need to do to make online purchases once we begin living the full time mobile, mobile life?

I.M. thinkin’ this are one of them trick questions that folks that gots nothin’ better to do will post. In the first place they has used the term stix and brix which are a major clue, that being the name of that mix with them Checks Serials in it that some folks serve to their guests when they don’t want to fix no real appetizers like possum points or squirrel snicker-doddles. Then to make it even more suspicious, they used them mobile, mobile home words, somethin’ that only myownselfs cousin’ was likely to do and them cousins wouldn’t have a clue as to what stix and brix was, so it has got to be one of them there troll type posts. I.M. sure y’all probably got took on that one, but that are why you got I.M. a doin’ this as nothin’ like this gets by him.

We are new fulltimers and someone said we should be using the 2-2-2 method of travel, but we do not have a clue as to what it is, can you enlighten us?

With a brain the size that you got, if’n it were to get any lighter y’all would most likely float away. The 2-2-2 plan? Are you sure someonebody wasn’t a pullin’ yer leg, y’all be newlies and all? If’n I.M. were a guessin’ which I.M. are not, I.M. would say that it means that on the days you drive, y’all leave at 2 in the morning, drive 2 someplace, and try to arrive afore 2 the followin’ mornin’. That are assumptioning that y’all got a mobile, mobile home as easy to fix as old 5th wheel. If’n y’all don’t, it could mean 2 AM, 2 days, 2 AM. Hopefully this ain’t typical of the brains of them folks that are now becoming newlies.