What Do You Do In Benson?

Congratulations, Mr. President-Elect Barack Obama! Congratulations, United States of America! Congratulations to all of you who voted in this awe-inspiring, most historic of elections, whichever candidate you voted for!

We were able to vote by mail in Oregon (everyone in Oregon votes by mail); the ballots came just in time for us to complete our choices and mail them back. We worried about that because our primary ballots didn’t get to us until the day we they were due to be returned, and we were halfway across the country.

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We’re not doing any sightseeing right now; in fact we passed up a hot air balloon festival in Sierra Vista this past weekend.

This first period back in Benson is very much like the semi-annual visits we made to the Portland area for four years: catching up with all our medical visits, lab tests, X-rays, anything needed to try to pull us back into shape. In fact, we’re both waiting to hear back from our doctor on X-rays taken last week. Suzy has a shoulder that’s giving her fits, and I’ve had a stiff neck recurring for too many weeks. That’s just our bodies getting older, while our spirits refuse to. Maintenance time.

We’re also spending some time on maintenance of the facility. We have a technician repairing our toilet; he has to get replacement parts from the manufacturer. One of our ceiling lights is acting up and may need replacement, and our porch light (on the motorhome) is also on the fritz. The casita is going to get some fresh paint here and there, and we’re doing a little yard work.

At the same time, we are working to get involved in the community, not just in the SKP RV Park but also in the town of Benson. After Sunday Mass we went to a pancake breakfast at the Lions Club. Sunday night was Knights of Columbus meeting. We have volunteered our services as Lectors in our parish church.

Next weekend the Benedictine Monastery down the road from here is having its annual Arts and Crafts Festival. As our pastor said at Mass, “I’m not a crafts person but I am a food person, so I plan to be there.” In addition, the Knights of Columbus are helping with parking and traffic control, and I've pulled a four-hour stint.

In the RV Park we’ve volunteered for the Propane Committee. Twice a week from November through April, the committee pumps propane into RVs or propane tanks brought down to the station. I’ll be trained to fill tanks, and Suzy will be learning the cashier desk.

The park will be having its annual Thanksgiving dinner this month. The park provides the room and the tables, plus coffee and tea. We sign up to be at a table of 18; each table group gets together ahead of time to set their own menu and what each couple or individual will provide for food and table decorations. A collection is taken to cover the cost of the turkey, ham or whatever, which the table’s chair couple will buy and prepare. We’ve chaired a Christmas dinner one time.

For last year’s Christmas dinner, we volunteered to make attractive table number cards on the Christmas theme, and this year we have already made table cards for Thanksgiving.
There are lots of little jobs around the park, and we’ll see what we can do to help out. Several key volunteers are “retiring” this year, and replacements are being sought. We’re keeping a low profile in those areas, as we still want to be able to spend considerable time away from the park in the near future. I had briefly considered taking over the job of editing the park’s newsletter (after years of doing the same thing for the Knights of Columbus in San Lorenzo), but I’ll pass on that for now. Maybe in the future.

We’ll come back at you from time to time to let you know about further progress in … Our Life in Wheels.