March 29, 2024

From boom boxes to Yahtzee

The other day, while bird watching from the back deck, I posed a question to Mick ... are we going to live in this house for the rest of our days?

I throw this one out there every now and again.

It’s not that I don’t like where I live. I certainly do. It’s just after spending the day mowing the lawn, tending to the vegetable garden, weed-eating, deadheading and watering the flowers and cleaning the house, I have to wonder how long we can go on with the upkeep of our place.

We don’t have acres and acres to mow, but we have more than enough. We really don’t need a four to five bedroom house anymore with just two of us living there.

I keep thinking this whole downsizing thing — to a one-story, two or three bedroom home — is an idea we should really begin to take more seriously.

The kids would prefer we just stay put. I think they understand my reasoning in theory, but to them there’s something about always being able to walk into your childhood home and everything is suddenly just a little bit better with the world.

Not to mention, Josh has plans to get my grandson involved in 4-H and guess who has a pasture and barn for those livestock projects.

So anyway ...

A few weeks ago, we traded campers and discovered just how difficult downsizing can be.

Our newer travel trailer is larger than our 5th-wheel was, but we quickly discovered what pack rats we are.

Mick was actually the one to unload and clean out our old RV in preparation for its departure. He filled an entire stall in our garage with items we have been traveling around with the past 35 years — from boom boxes to Mickey Mouse Yahtzee. It was almost like a trip down memory lane seeing everything piled up in the garage.

There were two tents — our very first pup tent which we used even when there were five of us, and a four-room tent that we had considered an ‘up grade,’ an old orange Tupperware drink pitcher with a cracked lid, a kid’s inflatable wading pool (keep in mind our youngest kid is a month shy of 23 years old), sweatshirts from Minnesota and South Dakota, a rusted out table-top grill, corroded batteries, a beach towel with Slimer from the original “Ghostbusters” movie, etc. A lot of it went to the trash.

Seeing the South Dakota sweatshirts made us reminisce about the time we went camping when Carson was just a toddler. We went to Deadwood, S.D., camping at a resort with plenty of amenities for families. But with all that to offer, Avery, about 5 years old at the time, decided she wanted to attempt climbing a hill right in front of our campsite as we sat at our camper watching. Being the good parents we are, we told Josh, who would have been about 13 years old, to go with her.

We knew their adventure wouldn’t last too long since it was a rather rocky, steep incline, but that didn’t dissuade them. Bless their little hearts, they were determined and Josh had helped his little sister the entire way. I guess they must have figured they had conquered as much of the hill as they needed to claim it a victory and they decided to descend.

There was just one problem. The kids weren’t wearing proper footwear for ‘mountain climbing’ ... they were both donning flip flops. I guess going up a hill in sandals is easier than getting back down.

Needless to say, the kids had garnered more than just us as an audience by then. We looked to see a number of people sitting in their lawn chairs at their campsites, getting a giggle from the antics of the kids — which is exactly what Mick and I were doing.

Eventually, Mick went to their rescue and brought them both back down to cheers and applause from not just me, but the onlookers that appreciated the entertainment value provided by my children’s capers — and their safe return to earth.

Such fun memories.

Which is just one of the reasons we still have the South Dakota sweatshirts, now in our newer camper.

Geesh. It’s becoming more and more obvious to me we’ll probably never move. Maybe one of my grandson’s 4-H projects will be a flock of sheep and a few goats. At least they can take care of our lawn.

Contact Dana King at dking@shawmedia.com

Dana King

Dana King

Multitasking duties between the Newton News, PCM Explorer and the Jasper County Tribune.