Norm: I must admit that Selles shocked me both with her feelings and her
decisions. I love her and I'll go along with most anything she wants. Secretly I think I also knew the worst was
yet to come.
Selles: As it turned out, the people who bought the house on Friday wanted to
move in on Sunday !! (They had paid cash so here we went on that Saturday morning with a bread box full of money in the
car). By lunch we drove off in a Chevy Silverado Pickup Truck. By 6pm we hooked the truck up to the 29' RV we had
just bought and hurried off to pack the little we could take into our new home.
Norm: Yep the excitement and arguments were building and it looked like
the "honeymoon" was ending. Even though we had known for months this day was coming, we had
absolutely no idea on where to go first and HOW to work our way across America. So we stayed in an Rv park on Sunday
night and went job hunting on Monday.
Selles: Boy were we ever naive! I put on my black business suit, panty hose,
and heels completed by my briefcase with our resumes. We drove around and noticed that the Houston Fatstock Show and Rodeo
and Carnival was going on. We asked to see the person who was hiring and were told to wait on the "bench". Finally a man came
up and I introduced us. He apologized for being late and I said that we didn't really have an appointment. He said "aren't
you my tax lady??" I told him I could certainly take care of that for him but that we were looking for a job with
the carnival to get us to California.
Norm: I think he was so relieved that he hired us on the spot. Together
we would be paid $900/wk plus bonuses to make FUNNEL CAKES !!! It turned out to be hard work, very long hours,
BUT we loved it !! We met so many interesting people...both the "carnies" and the people who came. We made one
more stop with him...to Austin and the next to last night there was a death on one of the rides a couple of spots down from
us. That began to show us just some of the inner problems of carnie life.
Selles: We separated from the funnel cake stand at Austin and joined up
with the real carnies...the ones who do the games. Most of the workers stayed in bunkhouses in tiny cubicles which they paid
around $75/wk; plus had to pay for uniforms, food etc. Many slept outdoors under the rides. We worked in snow
and blowing rain and mud many days and nights; other times the temperature would reach over 110 degrees! They had
no medical care and illnesses ran rampant. Showers for those without them were few and far between. We were set apart
with management to protect and guide us because we owned the truck and RV and it was a very valuable commodity...especially
our shower. We traveled with them to California and remained until Halloween closing one spot on Sunday night, traveling
sometimes all day Monday, and being ready to open up on Wednesday. We worked about 80-90 hrs/week. The rest of our time
was taken up with seeing LA, Santa Barbara, the coastal road highway and other beautiful places. Sleep was something
people did when they were ready to die...and niether of us were ready to do that !
Norm: We saved money during the season but the "winter quarters" where
the help stayed in the winter turned to be nothing more than a bunch of crackheads in cubicles !! so we wanted to keep
working. We had Web-TV at the time and satellite and Selles discovered a site called "Workkamper News". It gave job
listings for couples with RV's to work for a month or a season in beautiful locations.
Selles: From winter quarters we traveled to Lompoc CA to sell Christmas
trees. Cold, wet, and in a dirt field !! UGGGG !! We looked on the web again and found an assistant managers job
in an nice RV park in Everett, We left Lompac and drove there with only a phone call interview. (We later learned we
only got the positions because we could come before Christmas !!) We traveled all over the great northwest during
that time even going to Canada and down though Oregon on our days off. It was a great 7 months and we left there in July
1996.
Norm: While job hunting this time, an owner flew down from Idaho to interview
us. He said his RV park had a store, gas station and deli and we would be in charge of it all from 6am - 10pm but we
could hire our own help. Sounded promising but we also were offered a position as Assistant Managers in Grand Junction,
CO. We saw the one in Idaho on our way to Colorado and just kept on driving. Colorado was WONDERFUL but
this is where my wife realized how much she loved the mountains !! We picked up work with Dish Network with Selles running
a new office and me running the warehouse and installing the dishes. The owners were from Salt Lake City so of course, through
the mountains again to see the Great Salt Lake and the Mormon Temple. We drove through the Eisenhower Tunnel to small
villages there.....next we took a little "vacation" to New York to visit my children on our "way" to a very upscale RV resort
on Cape Hatteras N.C. with me during security duty and Selles working in the office making reservations and checking
in "guests".
Selles: The middle of August we were laid off and our next job didn't start
until the end of September in Virginia. We moved to a less costly RV park on the beach and both got jobs in a fresh
fruit/fseafood stand. Again, hard work but the place was so charming and we ate all the fruit and seafood we wanted. Somewhere
akong the way I was bitten by a brown spider and became very ill. After telling the doctor that we had no insurance, he treated
me for cellulitis in my ankle and gave me antibiotics. If I could go anywhere in the US, I would travel there again.
From Cape Hatteras we went to Virginia, then back across the country to Bend
OR for a winter. I had never been on a Ski-Doo, and because we promoted the ski shop to our guests, they gave us a 4 hr free
ride in the mountins up to a frozen lake with a tiny little French resturant that could only be accessed via snow-shoeing
or ski doos. That was definatly a wonderful memory ! I had gone on "The Atkins diet" and I guess all the extra protein
hurt my liver even more. Nor only did I feel old tired, nauseated ,but much worse than before. We did have insurance
this time, so I went to an internist and he did bloodwork. He said to return on Wednesday. Late Friday night
the nurse called and said there was something "really wrong" with my blood tests and to come in first thing Monday morning.
What the doctor didn't know was that we were scheduled to leave Sunday night
for a 2nd carnival with a huge outfit in Sacremento, CA. I knew I was sick, but I was in such denial that we just kept
running. It was now spring of 1998.
Norm: We had already driven to Sacremento to interview with Sam Jackson's Midway
of Fun for managements positions. I was hired as parts manager and Selles managed to land a job as office manager. It was
bad luck getting because going over the Grapvine we lost our transmission. This time both of her sons came and tried
their hand at the games. For her birthday Shawn took her to San Francisco where they did all the tourist things....She says
one of her favorite memories was riding on the trolley hanging on to the side. We traveled thousands of miles that season...went
to every casino within a hundred miles of our carnival sites...Boy did she (and still does) love the nickel slots !!
One of our spots that season was in a tiny town where the lettuce laborers came into town on Saturday night on a bus.
No one spoke English and we all had fun trying to figure out how to "sell" our games.
Selles: I was really dragging and the sicker I got the more I ran. We crisscrossed
the US going back to New Jersey to work for a huge East Coast carnival that we got there (after another truck problem that
caused us to trade in our truck for a van), they had given our jobs to someone else. The high point of that adventure was
spending July 4th, 1999 stranded in a parking lot in a very bad part of Virgina, close enough to D.C. to practically see the
fireworks !!! We picked up and found yet another job in Yakima WA. We had enjoyed Everett, so we figured
that was as good as any. Coming back from the East Coast we went through all the mountains I could find. (Norm was so
tired of mountains by that point he bought a mountain pass book so I couldn't kid him anymore! .
Norm: We arrived in Yakima the first of October 1999 and worked 30 days in an
RV park where we had been promised a job as park managers. After 30 days I couldn't pass the extensive cash register
test, so here we were almost broke, surrounded on all sides by mountains and no where to go. We moved the first of November
into a cheaper park and I supported us by working temporary jobs at the local fruit plants. Selles had just started a much
needed job at the public library and we were hoping to get on our feet. My heart broke as I saw how tired she was,
but still she kept pushing herself trying to be my equal.
Selles: I had been spending every spare minute in bed. I was in such denial
that I thought everyone in America went to work, came home and slept until it was time to go back the next day. Weekends were
strictly for recuperating from the week !! Then the incident happened that not only possibly saved my life, but also ended
our lives as we had know them for the past 4 years. At the new park I slipped on black ice (what Texas girl has
ever seen black ice?) coming down the handicapped ramp at the park. After lying in the street for over 30 minutes in freezing
weather, a couple stopped and helped get me into my RV where I waited several hours for Norm to come home from his shift.
He took me to the hospital where x-rays revealed I had broken every bone in my right ankle. THEN..."Our Amazing
Journey" came to an abrupt end (or so we thought).
