The View From Up There

Got a few questions for you city-dwellers. Has the inertia of urban life ever gotten to you? Have you ever secretly watched “The Wilderness Family” with just a touch of envy? Has your naiveté eventually led you to act upon these suppressed desires? Come on now, admit it…you know who you are! Well you can take comfort in knowing that you’re not the only ones. When my husband was transferred to Oregon several years ago, I specifically requested that he look for something in the country. I’m afraid I should have been more specific. His idea of country was light-years away from mine. As he had a six week head start on the rest of us, he had plenty of time to find the “perfect spot.”

That spot, he assured us, was nestled in the middle of a beautiful forest surrounded by deer and wildflowers. And the view! Well you had to be there. After a horrendous 24-hour drive, we finally were…there. The antiquated double-wide was indeed surrounded by beautiful forest with a view that was breathtaking. However, the wildflowers happened to be Scotchbroom which at least 3 of us were highly allergic to. The only heat was provided by a woodburning stove which had an eight-inch hole in the back and couldn’t heat a birdcage. The house came equipped with a family of rats that lived in the ceiling and a larger family of wasps that lived in the wall. But hey! We had finally left the city behind and were in the “country.” Our neighbor down the road had boasted to my husband that the biggest elk he ever got, he shot from his bathroom window and we began to have visions of venison stew with garden-fresh vegetables.

The joy of isolation began to fade as soon as we discovered that the school bus didn’t travel up the mountain on “snow days.” This of course overjoyed our children and they rushed outside to play in the now-2-feet-deep snow. This lasted approximately 30 minutes. One hour later, cabin-fever set in and the only form of entertainment for the remainder of the winter was watching at the front window for drivers who were gullible enough to think their cars could make it up the hill that ran in front of our house.

Spring finally came and we planted fruit trees which were immediately eaten by the deer. Scratch the garden-fresh vegetables. One night we woke up choking and discovered our cat had gotten into a fight with a skunk under our trailer. The rest of the night was spent washing clothes and taking tomato juice spitbaths. Didn’t work. In desperation our kids were holding burning incense under their armpits and got on the school bus smelling like they lived in a brothel. My husband left for work smelling like Pepe le Pew.

Our neighbor casually mentioned one day that it was getting close to the annual carpenter ant migration…just FYI. Have you ever seen a carpenter ant? They’re about an inch long and when they “migrate” they don’t let a pesky doublewide get in their way…they just move through it. For 2 weeks they crawled up our pant legs and dropped from the ceiling into our venison stew. If you had to get up in the middle of the night and crunch your way into the bathroom, you ran the risk of tripping over all the bodies in the morning.

I look back now on the three years we spent in “paradise” with a bit of nostalgia and a great deal of appreciation for the finer things in life…like running water, indoor plumbing, and pest control.