Guest blog: John Glionna

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while may remember how upset I was about a year ago when a reporter from Harpers classified Workampers as senior citizens who have to work to survive and get taken advantage of by their employers.  Another reporter compared Workampers to the Joad family from Grapes of Wrath or to Woody Guthrie.  A rash of reporters began contacting Workamper News asking for people to interview so I offered to be one of those people.  Several months ago I was contacted by John Glionna of the LA Times who, at the time, was looking for a modern migrant worker-type story and I told him if he wanted to interview me he had to tell the story like it is.  He agreed to interview Mark and I and two other Workampers and do our stories justice, so this weekend he and a photographer from the LA Times, Francine Orr, are here following us around and asking us all sorts of questions about our lifestyle.  I believe he’ll write a good story. I’ve asked him to do a guest blog: telling a little about himself, explaining his story idea and what he’s hoping to get out of this.  I’ll let you know when his story is published so that you can find a copy of the LA Times and read it if you so desire. And now, without further ado, here’s John… Continue reading

Hannibal, MO

I haven’t written for several days because we’ve been working on an inspection of our RV, but this afternoon we took some time off to drive into Hannibal, Missouri from our campground in Monroe City.  There is so much more we would have liked to see, such as the home of the “Unsinkable Molly Brown”, but we only had an hour to look around after having lunch at the Mark Twain Dinette, famous for their Mark Twain fried chicken and homemade root beer.  We went to the historic area where Mark Twain’s home and those of his friends are located. Continue reading

A Dickens Christmas

It was Christmas Eve and Bob Cratchett sat huddled over a candle flame trying to warm his hands.  Scrooge heard his lack of work, counting money and writing figures, and told him to get back to work.  Bob said, “Please, Sir, may I take off a little early tonight?  It is Christmas Eve, after all.” Continue reading

From Bartlesville, OK

Last night we slept with the windows open all night, and this morning we kept hearing an occasional Thwok! sound.  We figured out it was a bird trying to get in our window, but we couldn’t actually see him till we sat down for breakfast.  He came right up and sat on our window ledge for probably half a minute or so, having a good look at us as though we were animals in the zoo.  We said hello to him and he flew into the tree next to our window. Continue reading

Grapes of Wrath

Several weeks ago Mark and I woke up to an NPR interview with a reporter from Harper’s.  The reporter had written an article about Workampers where she described us as elderly people who couldn’t afford to retire.  She told about a woman she interviewed who sounded suicidal because she was so depressed about having to live in her RV and travel around looking for work.  I commented on NPR’s web site asking where the reporter’s sense of adventure was. Continue reading

New book news!

Imagine watching your spouse go from perfect health to total dependence on you for everything.  That’s what happened to Delores Warner.  Her husband, who had always been in control, was diagnosed with ALS, and he made her promise she wouldn’t put him in a nursing home.  She not only took care of him, but also of their small farm with Continue reading

The dictionary arrived!

I’ve been talking about Banana Scrabble a few times now.  If you look for it in the stores, it’s actually called Bananagrams.  However, I looked for it in every store I went to and could never find it, so I finally ordered it from Amazon.  At the same time, I ordered the Official Scrabble Dictionary, and it arrived today.  We’re in business! Continue reading