Mississippi River Trip: Dwight

I was up early today to catch up on my blog posts, sitting at the picnic table and typing away when an Iowa Department of Natural Resources golf cart came up.  It was manned by an elderly fellow wearing a dirty DNR shirt under well-worn overalls.  The noise brought Larisa crawling out of the tent.

"Good morning!" I called out.

"Marn.  How yuh doo?"

I took a moment to process this and said "Very well, thank you.  And yourself?"

"Eh. Goo.  I'z jus doo muh runds.  Us ta hav tree fellers, work fuh forry cent un urr, but nah jus me"

"Forty cents an hour?"

"Ayuh.  Prizners fro der state prison up dere."

Larisa said, "They helped you?"  Her voice held the question solidly, as if she were trying to understand his words.

The man looked at her, and give the guy credit, he took a deep breath and turned of his country accent as best he could.

"Ayuh.  Work release.  But they shut down the program cause of no money.  No money for nothing now.  I think next year we'll have to let the campground grow up and just keep the electric sites.  This old park ain't what she used to be."  His voice held a little bit of pain when he said these words.  "Used to be people in here all summer long.  We'd have a couple hundred people up at the horse stables and it's take me all day to clean then out.  Now there's only four or five a month."

"Well," I replied.  "I can tell you that you've got a lovely little park here.  We've very much enjoyed being here.

And that was true.  Elk Rock is a pretty park, if laid out badly.  The tent sites are what we like - well away from everything else.  But the park needs a trail from the tents over to the lake - otherwise it's a two mile walk to see the water.  A sixty yard trail through the brush would put you at the shore, but the brush is too thick for casual observation.  The rest of the campground consists of about twenty sites with electric and water, and a large RV area for campers and horse trailers.  There is a corral and lots of equestrian trails, and obvious attempt to attract riding enthusiasts and to give then a place to camp inexpensively.  But the feature we found most wonderful was a well pump in the middle of the campground that delivered cool, clear drinking water.   WE filled every water container we owned before we left. 

"Y'all ain't the only ones.  Like I said, used to be hundreds.  Gas is too much for 'em now.  I talked to a feller, told him it took a hundred to fill my tank.  A hundred dollars!  He offered to fill mine if I filled his, said his camper took four hundred."  Dwight laughed, a big belly laugh from deep inside.  "I told him that'd be okay, I'll pay my hundred."

"The economy can't have helped much," I said.

He looked around the park, his eyes seeing distant days.  "Nope.  Money is drying up.  I've learned to play their game, ask for more than I need, and get less than I need, but with a little hard work I keep the place up." 

He said this with the pride of a hard worker, and I wasn't surprised.  He had the look of a man who knows that you get up every day so that you can put in a good days work.  His face was lined with years, and his hands looked strong and competent.  The back of the cart had a deep bed filled with ashes from the fire rings, a shovel sticking from it like an afterthought. 

"How long have you been working here?"

"Thirty year.  Used to have three fella to help me, but now it's just me.  Which don't make no difference anyhow - it takes me half the time to their jobs.  Ya'll get any fishing in?"

We hadn't, but I told him about Shirley and Don and their huge catfish.

"Ayuh.  Fishing's good in the lake still.  Guess it'll get better if this place closes.  Yuh can get big old crappies out of there too."  He held his hands about a foot apart. "Big ones.  And yuh could filler your boat, too.  But they put a limit on 'em a few years ago."

The conversation went on like that, Larisa and I peppering the old man with questions that he answered and expanded on endlessly.  Larisa had been making breakfast - oatmeal with fruit and nuts and when Dwight saw it was done he took his leave of us.  We sat there eating breakfast and thinking on the old man who worked the state park.  It occurred to us that he was lonely, and that he was watching something he loved slowly suffocate from lack of funds and lack of campers.  Give the man credit though, he keeps up a hell of a park, and he does it all by himself.

Early morning blog entry

Wild Black Raseberry