Boy, there sure are a lot of RVs here on the campus of Bowling Green State University for the FMCA! The last official word I had was 2500 family coaches, plus a couple hundred vendors, staff, and volunteers’ RVs, not to mention several dozen new motorhomes on display by dealers and manufacturers.

The FMCA brought a crowd to this little college town, and the merchants are sure happy about that! Everywhere you go the restaurants and stores are full of RVers.

We have a booth in the indoor vendor area, where we’ll be introducing people to the Gypsy Journal and the various books and booklets we have to offer. The indoor market area is open today through Thursday, and this grand soiree winds up Friday and we’ll all head for every point on the compass.

That is if it doesn’t rain. We are parked on a very rutted grass field that could well turn into a real problem if we get a lot of rain and it gets soft. And since the weather reports are for scattered thunderstorms all week, we’re hoping for the best. Obviously a lot of heavy vehicles have been here before us, because the grass is so rutted it shakes the fillings out of your teeth just driving across it at a snail’s pace.

The vendor area has a ton of offerings; everything from sewer hoses to campground memberships, to RV furniture and awnings, and whatever else your little heart could desire and your pocketbook can afford. We have had the opportunity to visit with many of our vendor friends, and we’re hoping to entice a few more of them into coming to our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally in late September.

We’ve only done one of the huge FMCA International rallies before, many years ago, though we have vended at many of their smaller regional rallies with limited success. So we’re hoping for the best.

Once we had our vendor booth ready to go and spent some time visiting with other vendors yesterday, we drove back to Toledo to look up one of my best friends from high school, Dan Connell. It’s been about nine years since I had seen Dan, and it was great to see my old pal. I know Miss Terry and Dan’s pretty lady Patty must have gotten tired of us reliving every single teenage prank and bit of mischief we ever got into together, especially since I’m sure we had the same conversation the last time we got together, but some of those stories just needed retelling.

I also get to meet Dan’s son Steve. The one and only time I saw him, Steve was less than a week old, and he is a grown man now. He sure grew up to be a fine young man, and it was heartwarming to see the bond he shares with his Dad. We hope to get back up to Toledo to see Dan and Patty before we leave the area.

By the time we got back to Bowling Green and grabbed a bite to eat, there was just time to write the blog post and answer a few e-mails before bedtime. We are not morning people, so being bright eyed and bushy tailed to start meeting and greeting the public at 8 a.m. is a real chore.

Thought For The Day – I gave up jogging for health reasons. My thighs kept rubbing together and setting my shorts on fire.

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Sometimes the RV lifestyle allows us to not only go to new places, but to return to where we came from. We’re in Bowling Green, Ohio for the FMCA rally, and yesterday afternoon we drove 20 miles up to Toledo, a place with a lot of memories for me.

My father’s work kept us on the move for much of my earliest years, but when I was 13 we returned to our hometown of Toledo, and I lived there until I graduated from high school and went into the Army. I’ve only been back a couple of times since then, the last time almost ten years ago. So it was interesting to wander through the old neighborhood reliving memories from my youth.

South Toledo was a poor part of town, blue collar at best, but I never felt like we did without or were deprived. I had a loving family, good friends, and lots of good times. I would not have traded my teenage years for anything.

Yet, I knew I was not going to live there forever. When I was a teenager, everybody wanted to land a job on the Jeep assembly line or with Libby Owens Glass, or else get on the police force or fire department. A job that would “take care of you.” I didn’t want to be taken care of, thank you very much. I knew I could take care of myself, but it had to be someplace else. The first chance I got to leave, I never looked back. So why now, a lifetime later, do I feel drawn back to those narrow city streets of my youth?

The area certainly hasn’t improved. There are plenty of boarded up storefronts, yet many of the same little corner grocery stores and neighborhood taverns I remember are still open and doing business.   

Here is a picture of me at the duplex house I lived in during high school. When we moved in, we had the upstairs and my buddy Ray Pitzen’s family lived below us. His sister Rachel was my first love and my friends were all jealous because she was the prettiest girl in the neighborhood. Today the old house is vacant and there was an eviction notice taped to the door for the last tenants.

After Ray’s family moved away, a series of neighbors rented the bottom half of the house. One New Year’s Eve my parents and I were standing on our upstairs porch when the neighbor below, who had had a lot too much to drink, came out onto his porch and decided to celebrate by popping off a few rounds with his .38 revolver. The bullets tore through the wood at our feet, narrowly missing us, but a chunk of wood embedded itself in my mother’s leg.

My Dad was a cop at the time, and when he grabbed his gun and handcuffs and ran downstairs, I wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot the man, or arrest him. Dad administered some street justice and then a black and white came and hauled the fool away.

My first job was working at Mr. Tsakos’ corner gas station. I begged my Dad to intercede on my behalf when the old Greek businessman didn’t want to hire a kid, because kids were unreliable. Then a week or two later all of my friends were having fun on summer vacation and I decided I wanted to play too, so I told my Dad I was quitting the job. He told me that I could either go to work every day, as I had promised Mr. Tsakos, or I could spend those eight hours a day in my room (way before a kid’s room had computers and TVs), but I wasn’t going to goof off after he had given his word I’d be on the job. I earned quite a bit of money that summer, and came away with a little bit of work ethic too.

And here’s my old school, Libbey High School. Boy, I couldn’t wait to leave that place! A few years ago there was talk of tearing the old school down, and I was sure glad to see that so far, it has survived budget cuts and consolidation. Now, please don’t tell my daughter this, because I have always told her that I walked eleven miles to school in knee deep snow, barefoot, and that it was uphill both coming and going. But we checked it on our van’s odometer, and it turns out it was just 1.2 miles from my front door to the front door of the school. (And I think I remember a pair of shoes or two, to be honest.)

One of our favorite hangouts was Walbridge Park, on the banks of the wide Maumee River, and across the street from the excellent Toledo Zoo. This was where we came to smoke cigarettes, away from parent’s prying eyes, where we came to “duke it out” to settle teenaged arguments, and where we brought our girlfriends when we had our first cars, to watch the submarine races. (Yes, some of them really did fall for that!) It was also here that my family had a going away picnic for me the day before I boarded an airplane for a ride that eventually ended in a jungle halfway around the world.

Terry and I sat on a bench overlooking the old river and I told her about some of my good times at the park, and the goofy things my pals and I did there. I sure am glad I have her with me to share those memories with, instead of some of the young ladies I steamed up the windows of my old Ford with!

I know I could never live in Toledo again, and I know I made the right decision to leave so long ago to pursue my own path in life. But it was interesting to go back to see the old neighborhood once again.

It was nice to take this trip down memory lane. Thanks for indulging me and coming along for the ride. 

Thought For The Day – It was all so different before everything changed.

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I’ve received a couple of requests from blog readers to share some information about banking while traveling around the country in an RV. Hopefully I can offer some useful insight into the topic.

In my seminars for new RVers, I always suggest that while they may have a good relationship with their hometown bank, if it does not have nationwide branches, it may not be able to serve their needs as fulltime RVers. I have always suggested getting an account with one of the big nationwide banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America, which have branches in many different states.

For Terry and myself, operating a business on the road, getting access to our money is never a problem – there are ATM machines in every grocery and discount store in America, and we can get cash back at Wal-Mart, most grocery stores, and even at the post office. Our problem is sometimes getting money into the bank! If we are not in a location where our bank has a branch office, sometimes we have to mail in a deposit, which can be problematic.

Things have gotten easier over the years as technology has improved, but I remember once years ago when we had a successful vending experience at an RV rally and mailed a batch of checks to our bank in Arizona for deposit. The bank officer we worked with was on vacation, so the Priority Mail envelope with our deposit sat unopened on her desk for two weeks until she returned. We actually mailed the deposit from Biloxi, Mississippi and traveled all the way to Phoenix before the deposit was entered into our account! These days our bank has a central mail deposit address we can use, which has simplified things greatly.

A great option for RVers is to join a credit union which belongs to the nationwide Shared Network. This is a network of independent credit unions that work together to serve customers who belong to any member credit union. So if your home credit union is in San Diego, California, for example, you can still transact business at a Shared Network member credit union in Elkhart, Indiana, just as if you were at your own branch back home. With over 3,000 locations nationwide in the Shared Network program, it’s pretty easy to find a member branch anywhere you are traveling.

Membership requirements for credit unions have eased over the years, and it’s not hard to qualify. In fact, if you are a member of the Escapees RV Club, you qualify to join the Community Resource Credit Union in Texas, and can join online. Another benefit of credit union membership is that they are often easier to work with than traditional banks, and because they are there to serve their members, not make a profit, their auto and RV loan rates are usually lower.

These days, with direct deposit, online bill paying, and online banking options to check your balances and transfer money around, and other new technology, many people find that they seldom actually have to go into a bank to transact their financial business. For RVers, that makes like much easier.  

Thought For The Day – We could learn a lot from crayons: Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and they’re all different colors…. But they all have to learn to live in the same box.

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The world has lost a legend. Yesterday, broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite died at age 92.

Long before cable television, CNN, and the internet, the world tuned in to CBS News every evening to hear the venerable Cronkite tell us what was going on in the world, and he gave us the news of some of the most important moments in American history, from the Apollo 11 moon landing, to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first time I ever heard about the Vietnam War was from Walter Cronkite. I remember asking my parents where Vietnam was and if I would have to go there and fight. My mother assured me that the war would be over long before I was old enough to have to go, but my father, a World War II veteran, just looked worried and didn’t say anything. In the next few years I watched my older cousins go off to fight in Vietnam, and then my turn came. By then Walter Cronkite had already told America that we were mired in a stalemate in Vietnam, and public opinion had turned against the war. If “Uncle Walter” said so, we knew it was true. Because as he told us every night, “And that’s the way it is.”

Rest in peace, Mr. Cronkite. The evening news has not been the same since you left.

On another note, we can’t figure out what happened, but a lot of people that were not due to renew their subscriptions yet received renewal notices with the new issue of the Gypsy Journal. The gremlins were apparently creating havoc with our mailing list and they sure have caused a lot of confusion.

You can check your renewal date by reading the top line of the address block on your envelope. It will have a two digit number, as well as possibly some initials. That two digit number is the issue your subscription expires with. For example, the current issue is Number 61, so if that two digit number on your address block is 66, you still have five issues left on your subscription.

If you received an unexpected renewal notice and your address block still shows you are current, please disregard the notice you received and please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

We received confirmation yesterday afternoon that we will be able to get a last minute vendor booth at the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally in Bowling Green, Ohio next week. So we’ll leave Elkhart Campground Sunday morning and make the 150 mile drive to Bowling Green State University, where the rally is being held, and get our booth set up and ready to do business.

That means today will be busy as Terry does the laundry, I print booklets to sell at the rally, and we do all of the last minute chores needed before we take off. FMCA rallies have never been very successful events for us in terms of sales, but we hope to be able to make a few sales and introduce some folks to the Gypsy Journal. Wish us luck!

Thought For The Day – I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

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Yesterday was one of those days where it didn’t seem to me that we were all that busy, but looking back, I guess we were!

In the morning I printed off several of our booklets to fill orders that came in with our last mail delivery, which was waiting for us when we returned here yesterday, and Terry got them all packaged. Then we ran to the post office to mail them out, and stopped at the bank to make a deposit.

With those chores behind us, we drove ten miles or so to the small town of Bristol, where we stopped at Fluid Fun, a canoe and kayak dealer that stocks the most impressive line of boats we’ve seen anywhere in the country. I want to replace my Ocean Kayak Angler model with a different boat. It’s a great kayak, and I’ve only had it in the water a few times, but it just doesn’t fit me well. I found a couple of models that are better suited to my needs, and will probably stick my boat out in front of the bus today and see if anybody here in the RV park is looking for a good fishing kayak.

While we were in the area, we stopped and checked out a couple of public launch sites on the St. Joseph River for our next paddling outing. One was at a small park right in Bristol, with a good parking area and not one, but two, boat ramps.

When we left Bristol, we stopped at Phoenix Commercial Paint to visit with owner Michelle Henry. She had a Class C motorhome in the shop that she was in the process of stripping down for a new paint job. Michelle gave us a tour of the place, and explained how paint is mixed to create custom colors for the beautiful full body paint jobs she produces.

It is amazing how a custom paint job can transform a dated looking RV into a rolling work of art, and even more amazing that Michelle can turn out such quality work for half of what some places charge.

What’s the secret? Hard work, being willing to do a lot of the work herself instead of hiring expensive help, and a love of what she is doing. You can bet when we find the right coach to replace our bus, we’ll be talking to Michelle about a paint job!

Back at the bus, I actually did some work! A company called Pineapple Publications contacted me a while back and wanted to use some of the material from my Publishing4Profit website for a new book on self-publishing they are bringing out this summer. That led to an interview with the author, Christy Pinheiro, which in turn led to an offer to be listed as co-author of the book.

Christy sent me a copy of the final manuscript and asked me to give it a final proofing before it goes to print. So I spent the rest of the day and most of the evening doing that. The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit! will be available in just a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to seeing the book when it is published.

Speaking of books and publishing, several readers have written to ask me what I think of my Amazon Kindle, now that I’ve had it a while. Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news. I love the concept of the Kindle. It’s a great product, especially for RVers who have to consider the weight of books if they do a lot of reading. You can store hundreds of books digitally and carry a complete library in your Kindle. And having seen the new model Kindles, I’m glad I have the first generation model. It just feels better to me. But to be honest, I hardly use it.

Part of that is because just about the time I got the Kindle, Terry’s cousin, Carolyn Henley, who is about to become a fulltime RVer, gave us several big boxes of once read books that we have been working our way through in the last few months. With that much reading material, there just wasn’t much reason to buy anything.

Also, as convenient as it is to order a book online and download it to the Kindle, we just love prowling around both new and used bookstores. Terry and I can spend hours in a bookstore. Sometimes we buy a lot of books, and just as many times, we don’t buy a thing. Either way, we still have a good time, and we look forward to finding new bookstores to explore wherever we travel.

Thought For The Day – I wish the buck stopped here. I could use a few.

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