Notes from a Moronic Hippie

Have I mentioned we live in a 29 foot RV? Have I mentioned my older son is now my height, can pick me up, wants to start his own country, has designed his own religion and is demanding his own space? His own space in the RV. I want my own space in the RV too!

I love this age. I love all the ages my kids have been. Just when I think, “I am done. He is launched.” Oops.

Yesterday we drove from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Winnipeg, Manitoba and today we are doing the bone crunching, butt numbing 450 mile drive up to Thompson along Route 6. This is the most rural of places I have been since I lived in the mud hut in Sobela, Mali in West Africa…but that is my next book. Thompson, Manitoba is where the road ends and we get on the train for the last 500 miles to get up to Churchill so we can see the polar bears!

It is 175 kilometers between towns. And the towns are so sad. Corrugated metal houses. Used cars and refrigerators in the front yards.

People drive in the middle of the road along Route 6 to avoid the particularly big pot holes. It isn’t an issue to drive in the middle of the road since your can see a good mile in front of you so you can get over when the other car headed the other way over the course of the hour is upon you.

Half way to Thompson and it is 1:30 in the afternoon. Boys have been plugged into Ipods watching movies (all educational of course) and listening to Weird Al since 10 AM. We stop in Grand Rapids to do a little bike ride along the one road through town along the Saskatchewan River and have a spot of lunch at the one restaurant run by a man from Shanghai, China. When I told him I was in Shanghai in 1982 he said that was the year he was born. I thought he looked familiar.

After lunch we pull the bikes off the back of the RV, take our helmets out from the basement of the RV (alright, it is just a storage space but it feels more spacious to call it a basement) and we take off ignoring the yells of protest from our almost teenager. “I don’t want to go on a bike ride in this moronic town. I am freezing. How can you do this to me? You and Dad are such morons. Where is my free will? You are such hippies! I hate this Jesus loving town!”

I go back to the RV with Josh to dig out gloves and a scarf and to take the blows from today’s outburst. Evan and Simon take off on their own separate bike race through town.

We discuss what a hippy is. Josh describes a hippie as, “Someone who brings their own snacks to public events.” I try not to laugh. He tries not to laugh. I suggest that bringing your own snacks is just good planning from an economic and health stand point. He calls me a hippie again with such disgust it is as if it is a swear word and when he spits it out of his mouth it leaves a bunch of dirt.

But he doesn’t ride off. He wants to talk. He wants to get me going. He wants a real discussion. He wants a reaction.

So I give him one.

So I says to the guy I says, “When I think of a hippie I think of someone who goes against the grain. A counter culture type. A person who marches or skips or hops to the tune of their own drummer. I will take this as a complement and will wear the sobriquet as a badge of honor.”

“When I grow up I am going to buy a ranch in California and declare it my own country and I won’t pay taxes to the insane American governement,” says Josh.

“And when you grow up and they take you off to the Federal Pen I will visit you every Sunday and make you hand made stripped shirts,” I retort.

I am reminded of the book The Runaway Bunny that we use to read when he was 3 and 4 about the renegade baby bunny who wanted to make his own way in the world and where ever he went, his mother followed.

Too bad I can’t just give Josh a carrot and everything will be better.

Yes, it is hard to be 12... And yes, it is hard to have embarrassing parents.

But Josh, if you are reading this, isn’t it better to be embarrassed by your parents in Grand Rapids Manitoba where you don’t know anyone than at a Middle School in Anytown, USA? Hmmm, next year I think we will park the RV outside of your new school and paint it with peace signs with a big banner reading, We are Josh’s parents and we are moronic hippies!

If we aren’t embarrassing our children, we aren’t doing our job!