Twilight Zone

I'm beginning to see beneath the sun and the glittering manicured lawns. There is something wrong in this Stepford-like RV park: I was joshing with a man about his washing his big RV, then we met while walking our dogs. The sun was shinning. The sky blue. He was a friendly man, the kind you meet along the way, a fellow traveler. "Cute dog," he said looking at Annie B. "Thanks, yours too," I said. "These bastards in Washington," he said suddenly. "The Pelosis, the Obamas, the bastards."

I was sitting outside reading a book, kicked back, Annie B lying in the shade of the picnic table when an RV pulled up next to us, parked and an exuberant couple got out. "Howdy!" the man said. They came over, plunked themselves down, made themselves at home. "Where you from?" and all that. The very moment they heard my traveling companion was a woman, they asked to be moved several 'streets' away.

I was taking a walk, came upon a man and woman and their two dogs. They are work-campers, travel the country working at RV parks in exchange for free rent. Nice people, interesting, 'dog-people'. Want to build for Habitat for Humanity. Their little dog, wearing a bandanna nipped at Annie, the way dogs do to arrange their pecking order. Suddenly the nice man took off his hat and began beating the dog. Beating and beating.

I'm telling you, it must be the air, or the water. I'm scared. (we're also out of here, right after tomorrow night's book reading in Portland.)